Canadian Foreign Policy & Affairs II

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

... was DART de-funded or disbanded after the 2015 liberal win?

No. And why would you think that?

Deployment of DART is at the discretion of the government. The core unit is small (part of 1 Canadian Division Headquarters). They have a long list of augmentees with various specialties that they can draw on as needed. However, given the pressures on the CAF, and the fact that a number of DART's augmentees have to respond to higher domestic ops tempo, it's likely that the government has chosen to be much more judicious with deploying the Team.

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Dartguard

So DART on a DeWolfe then? Apparently we sent extra Medical staff to RIMPAC aboard MAX.

I had something a bit more... robust in mind.

The latest American amphibious transport dock is an extremely versatile ship, with a large flight deck and a well deck for amphibious transport craft to bring vehicles, equipment and supplies ashore in situations where the normal air or sea port facilities may be disabled. The ship also has extensive medical facilities, making it an ideal fast response asset for hurricanes, tsunamis or other climate events in coastal areas.

Adding four of these to the RCN would bring a whole new set of capabilities to the table, and ones that should be easy to sell to the Canadian public.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_An...transport_dock

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

No. And why would you think that?

Deployment of DART is at the discretion of the government. The core unit is small (part of 1 Canadian Division Headquarters). They have a long list of augmentees with various specialties that they can draw on as needed. However, given the pressures on the CAF, and the fact that a number of DART's augmentees have to respond to higher domestic ops tempo, it's likely that the government has chosen to be much more judicious with deploying the Team.

As I said in my prior post, the government's own website lists no deployments past 2015.
If you have more accurate and current info you can share, I'd love to see a source!

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by casper

She lived in Montreal as a teen and understands Canada far better than any past American president would have.

Yes because the new kid in a high school in a foreign land understands the minutia of a nation of 5 time zones. Get a grip, she doesn't know Canada, at all. She might know the small area of Montreal where she went to school and a bit of the area where her and her friends hung out, but that's it.

Canadians are soooo tedious.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

I had something a bit more... robust in mind.

The latest American amphibious transport dock is an extremely versatile ship, with a large flight deck and a well deck for amphibious transport craft to bring vehicles, equipment and supplies ashore in situations where the normal air or sea port facilities may be disabled. The ship also has extensive medical facilities, making it an ideal fast response asset for hurricanes, tsunamis or other climate events in coastal areas.

Adding four of these to the RCN would bring a whole new set of capabilities to the table, and ones that should be easy to sell to the Canadian public.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_An...transport_dock

To get any sort of credible amphib capability for the RCN there needs to be buy in from the other services and the government. As of yet there is zero interests from anyone.
Also "we ain't got the bodies" to quote every Buffer in the fleet.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

If you have more accurate and current info you can share, I'd love to see a source!

Sign up and after you've finished BMQ and have a DWAN account you can visit 1 Can Div's SharePoint and see the readiness status for DART. Beyond that, you won't get anybody giving you operational info. Feel free to ATIP the government if you don't believe what I have provided here. A poor webpage is not the end all be all.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

To get any sort of credible amphib capability for the RCN there needs to be buy in from the other services and the government. As of yet there is zero interests from anyone.
Also "we ain't got the bodies" to quote every Buffer in the fleet.

Yeah. It's funny how people propose all kinds of capabilities when nobody has addressed our current issues. We need capabilities that reduce manpower requirements, not increase them. The RCN has to first worry about staffing all the new warships it's going to get. Beyond that there's supposedly a dozen submarines. Which if true would be a manning nightmare. If all that goes according to plan, maybe in the mid 2040s, we can talk about multiple amphibs.

I'm a believer in expeditionary ops. And it's a vision I believe the CAF should work towards. But it requires the government to provide a defence strategy that explicitly makes the case for it and lays out what can be divested. We can't do it all. Having Marine Regiments may mean less heavy armour and more attack and assault helos. That in turn changes procurement plans and manpower requirements for both the other services.

And as always in this discussion, most people are clueless about other growth areas: EW, Space, Cyber and Information Warfare. I'm nearly running around with my hair on fire half the time. 7 Wing and 3 CSD are only 2 years old and most of their practices come from a time when space was less contested and mostly used by the CAF for communications. Getting used to the idea of Space as a littoral environment, while bringing other government departments along, is a challenge and one we need to get around yesterday. And of course, there's no real fan clubs for satellites or broadband jammers, like there are for ships and airplanes because public information is sparse and the average person will struggle to understand this stuff. So lots of fans of expeditionary ships. Not many fans of alternate PNT strategy. But when a jammer the size of a coke can has the ability to shut down GPS coverage for any major city or deny coverage to a carrier group, these domains become very important to both our way of life and warfare.

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Sign up and after you've finished BMQ and have a DWAN account you can visit 1 Can Div's SharePoint and see the readiness status for DART. Beyond that, you won't get anybody giving you operational info. Feel free to ATIP the government if you don't believe what I have provided here. A poor webpage is not the end all be all.

haha, easy there junior. I did my time and retired from DND 15 years ago.
in any case, if you have time to post here on the clock, I'm sure someone in Ottawa has some cycles that they could put into updating a web-page every few years?

no one needs to go around live-blogging the activities of JTF, but if the DART folks have been out there doing good work for the last 10 years, it would be good for the institutional image to maybe tell the taxpayers about it!

[Armchair Admiral]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I'm a believer in expeditionary ops. And it's a vision I believe the CAF should work towards. But it requires the government to provide a defence strategy that explicitly makes the case for it and lays out what can be divested. We can't do it all. Having Marine Regiments may mean less heavy armour and more attack and assault helos. That in turn changes procurement plans and manpower requirements for both the other services.

well it would certainly help to have a plan, and it's truly unfortunate that neither of the major parties have the creative juices to find a way to meet the 2% NATO commitment.
and given the time involved in planning and procurement for defense projects, especially ships, it would be extremely helpful if defence procurement could somehow be isolated from parliamentary tug-of-war

to borrow some terms and concepts from down south, if the 2% GDP defence spend is a treaty requirement, why is not considered mandatory spending in the budget? carve it right off the top and let discretionary non-treaty items fight for the rest. let parliament have an approve or deny vote on the plan for how it gets spent, but not how much.

as for a larger scale defence strategy? well, I'm done handing out freebies. if there are any political operatives lurking, feel free to PM me. my consulting rates are reasonable so long as I don't have to stray too far from my armchair!

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

well it would certainly help to have a plan, and it's truly unfortunate that neither of the major parties have the creative juices to find a way to meet the 2% NATO commitment.
and given the time involved in planning and procurement for defense projects, especially ships, it would be extremely helpful if defence procurement could somehow be isolated from parliamentary tug-of-war

to borrow some terms and concepts from down south, if the 2% GDP defence spend is a treaty requirement, why is not considered mandatory spending in the budget? carve it right off the top and let discretionary non-treaty items fight for the rest. let parliament have an approve or deny vote on the plan for how it gets spent, but not how much.

Well it's not a treaty obligation. It's one of many timelineless international committments that are not binding. Other committments include Net Zero so we should be making actual progress to reduce carbon emissions to zero and on foreign aid we have agreed to give .7% of GDP in ODA.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

haha, easy there junior. I did my time and retired from DND 15 years ago.

Wore the uniform or worked as a public servant? There's a difference between DND and the CAF. Much as DND Public Servants like to think otherwise.

Also, I'll say this as respectfully as possible. But 15 years ago is a lifetime given the organizational, doctrinal and technological changes that have happened since.

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

in any case, if you have time to post here on the clock, I'm sure someone in Ottawa has some cycles that they could put into updating a web-page every few years?

no one needs to go around live-blogging the activities of JTF, but if the DART folks have been out there doing good work for the last 10 years, it would be good for the institutional image to maybe tell the taxpayers about it!

For some with so much experience you should know that it's not random people that maintain public webpages. You should also know how little priority is given to public unit pages since PAFFOs tend to brief the media directly.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

to borrow some terms and concepts from down south, if the 2% GDP defence spend is a treaty requirement, why is not considered mandatory spending in the budget? carve it right off the top and let discretionary non-treaty items fight for the rest. let parliament have an approve or deny vote on the plan for how it gets spent, but not how much.

All that time in government and you don't understand how the budgeting cycle works? Also there's no "treaty requirement" to spend 2%. It's an obligation. And as pointed out, we have a long and sad record of not meeting any obligations we sign up to.

Originally Posted by Armchair Admiral

as for a larger scale defence strategy? well, I'm done handing out freebies. if there are any political operatives lurking, feel free to PM me. my consulting rates are reasonable so long as I don't have to stray too far from my armchair!

Have you ever read a Defence Strategy document? Cause you would know they aren't overtly political documents or extremely detailed on procurement. It's the CAF that decides Force Development based on tasks assigned to the CAF in the Defence Strategy. We don't randomly go out and buy billion dollar assets because somebody thinks its cool. Surely, you've been involved in drafting SOCDs in your long career.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

All that time in government and you don't understand how the budgeting cycle works? Also there's no "treaty requirement" to spend 2%. It's an obligation. And as pointed out, we have a long and sad record of not meeting any obligations we sign up to.



Have you ever read a Defence Strategy document? Cause you would know they aren't overtly political documents or extremely detailed on procurement. It's the CAF that decides Force Development based on tasks assigned to the CAF in the Defence Strategy. We don't randomly go out and buy billion dollar assets because somebody thinks its cool. Surely, you've been involved in drafting SOCDs in your long career.

An obligation is binding. The 2% is more of a political commitment.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

An obligation is binding. The 2% is more of a political commitment.

We have obligations on reducing GHG emissions to some 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. What's the substantive difference between that obligation and a political commitment? Is there any real penalty if we don't meet that obligation?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

We have obligations on reducing GHG emissions to some 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. What's the substantive difference between that obligation and a political commitment? Is there any real penalty if we don't meet that obligation?

The legally binding part of the Paris accord requires us to have a plan and update on progress but not the actual number 30% etc. Now if there was a legally binding target and we didn't meet it you're right it's still basically political. Though if we were completely on our own we would be in trouble most likely. The same fudge exists on Article 5 for NATO. It is not like the old imperial treaty where we are automatically at war with whoever attacked. We can assist how we see fit. Could be stern words.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Yes because the new kid in a high school in a foreign land understands the minutia of a nation of 5 time zones. Get a grip, she doesn't know Canada, at all. She might know the small area of Montreal where she went to school and a bit of the area where her and her friends hung out, but that's it.

Canadians are soooo tedious.

She lived in Canada from 12-18. Those are pretty critical years. From 1976- 82. That's a lot of our key history. Especially in Quebec. Now neither parent was from there and she severed all ties so it's very much long ago but the general rule is you are from where you graduated high school so it's not like Mitt Romney had a cottage there or something it is a real connection.

[casper]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

She lived in Canada from 12-18. Those are pretty critical years. From 1976- 82. That's a lot of our key history. Especially in Quebec. Now neither parent was from there and she severed all ties so it's very much long ago but the general rule is you are from where you graduated high school so it's not like Mitt Romney had a cottage there or something it is a real connection.

I would tend to agree. She spent a number of years going to a Canadian high school. She would have learned about Canadian history. She would have learned some degree of French growing up in Montreal. Much better understanding of Canadian culture and dynamics.

While it is a distant past, it bring a different perspective than someone who was raised and spent most of their time in the US.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

We have obligations on reducing GHG emissions to some 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. What's the substantive difference between that obligation and a political commitment? Is there any real penalty if we don't meet that obligation?

The obligations you refer to are part of a multilateral treaty - i.e. obligations that are binding in international law. Penalties - yes if provided for in the treaty, or if other parties can act to enforce the obligations, but otherwise no, although Canada makes every effort to fulfil international obligations. A political obligation is more a statement of intention - it is not binding in international law. Penalties, if any, would be political in nature.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

We have obligations on reducing GHG emissions to some 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. What's the substantive difference between that obligation and a political commitment? Is there any real penalty if we don't meet that obligation?

The only obligation in the Paris Agreement is to “communicate ambitions” and to report on progress on those ambitions every 5 years.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The only obligation in the Paris Agreement is to “communicate ambitions” and to report on progress on those ambitions every 5 years.

So in effect, there's no obligation to cut emissions?

This is kinda my point. Sans penalties, the line between "obligation" and "political commitment" is unclear. One could argue there's greater implied penalties for not meeting NATO defence obligations than failing to meet climate targets.