[CaptainCrunch]

You've heard of Norad right the North American airspace defense treaty. Just because we would require America's help in case of an invasion doesn't mean that we don't have to pay a substantial share of the responsibility and that means having capable air craft to assist in the defense of our airspace. The other consideration is if we do get involved in another mission like Afghanistan, it would be prudent for Canada to be able to supply its own air support and cover instead of entirely depending on another nations.

We can't cheap out and show a lack of commitment to our defense. We can't cheap out and show a lack of commitment to our allies.

Beside, its unlikely that a Russian invasion is going to have a massive amount of air fighter support, they don't have the tanker capability to do that, and the range is too great.

the likely first strike would be using long range high speed bombers firing long range cruise missiles which is what fighters are designed to go after. This is something where the Russians for example have amped up their training now that the Russian Military is back on the rise.



It would probably be accompanied by an air mobile and amphibious assault along the west coast and through the North West.

So we would need fighter bombers to establish air to ground support to deny russians their beach heads. and to attrite their numbers.

On top of that, one of the considerations are Nato based missions like the one in Libya, where Canada played a fairly major role, however the CF-18's that came back from the mission had 5 years of airtime added onto their airframes.

As much as you don't like it, its necessary to contribute to the defense of your nation even if you are in a defense pact with your southern nation because beyond the fact that you have to contribute there is no guarantee that they would be available to help.

And when you are forced by population and by budget to have a smaller military then you make sure that its well trained and properly equipt so it can punch above its weight class and effectively grind up the enemy and slow them down until help can arrive from your allies. We saw what years of Liberal and Conservative neglect did to our Military in Afghanistan and in Bosnia.