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Originally Posted by peter12
Who Killed the Canadian Military by Jack Granatstein is a good in-depth explanation that pretty much follows what CC laid down.
I disagree with CC a bit on how much the military has changed since WW2. During that war, Canada fielded a full field army for the first and last time. The Canadians had to learn everything from scratch but by 1945, had an army capable of taking on elite, well-equipped German divisions through a well-honed combined arms doctrine. Artillery, for instance, was far more comprehensively integrated in infantry. We have fallen a very long ways.
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If people really want to get a military 101 course Granatstein has an outstanding handle on the Canadian Military and the issues with the Political Military relationship.
Who killed the Canadian Military, who's war is it anyways and best little army in the world are all great books.
I get what your argument, however the Canadian military reached its height in the years between WW2 and Korea, we had a outstanding Navy including naval aviation in terms of HMCS then the Magnificent and finally the Bonaventure.
By the end of the second World War we had the 5th largest Navy in the world and pretty much were a presence in the Northern Atlantic and a valued ally in the cold war. We were also one of the strongest navies in the world in terms of anti-submarine effectiveness.
But Lester Pearson fired the beginning shots in terms of the destruction of the Military because he didn't have an understanding of what a Military's role actually is. To a lesser extent Paul "Crazy" Hellyer had a major hand in the destruction of the Forces with his somewhat correct but taken way to far integration of the Canadian Navy, Army and Airforce under one umbrella to form the Canadian Forces. It destroyed moral, and training and removed the pride and heritage of the Military.
The army suffered in a similar manner in that the draw down after WW2 was expected but they kept a strong veteran leadership core that carried it through Korea. The Army was well trained and well equip but under successive governments who proved to be clueless we frittered away the strength of the army and pushed competent senior leadership out in the name of replacing them with bureaucrats and desk pilots. We also failed in terms of understanding that the strength of the military in the late 20th and early 21st century was competence backed heavily by technology. Frankly the name of the game for a small army is effective killing ratios or leverage your technology to allow your one soldier to kill a lot of enemies. Due to lowered moral and retention our training and kit suffered and turned the army into a shell of what could have been.
The Airforce in particular has been a failure mainly due to finding a cheap solution and a confusing strategy that lead to the horrible CF-5 and the CF-101 purchases and the doomed to fail Avro Arrow program, which in itself failed due to over promises and the reliant on a single role interceptor fighter when Canada should have focused on the concept of a capable plane that could multi-role.
At the end of the day, the fault lies with the government. But it also lies with the senior officers who threw up their hands and gave up instead of fighting to keep the military in a seat at the table.