The Royal Netherlands Navy will not be taking delivery two new Holland-class ocean-going patrol vessels, due to cutbacks in military spending. It would be interesting to read an expert opinion on Broadsides about these state of the art 3000-tonne ships and speculate on their fit in the Canadian navy. OPVs have been […]
Monthly archives: April 2011
11 posts
Social commentary around the F-35 issue is in general acceptance that they are needed, based almost exclusively on the age of the F-18s. There is an interesting comment in the paper today about the CF-18s in Libya (The Globe and Mail, “NATO split threatens Libyan effort”). Seems that the CF-18s […]
The Australians purchased the surplus Bay-Class LSD(A) Largs Bay from the UK for $100M AUS dollars this month. News reports suggest the ship will be in service with the Royal Australian Navy in late 2011 or early 2012. In Canada, after almost 20 years of process, we have no amphibious […]
I am certainly not an expert on the joint strike fighter, so I can’t comment on the technical merits of the purchase. I would, however, like to comment on the purchase and the sales job that the government and DND are making on the plane. I went to a briefing […]
Brian Stewart, Senior Fellow with the Monk Centre at the University of Toronto, has raised the spectre of an internal struggle within DND over how to allocate the capital portion of the defence budget. In his article entitled “$30B fighter jets just the start of defence-spending boom” (CBC News, 06 […]
Unfortunately it’s like preaching to the choir, but I agree with Eric Lerhe that this dialogue need to be publicized, ‘blogged’ or whatever else works to get some debate going in this election about the greater defence picture; other than the $35B F-35s. I’ve been reminding our candidates, that in […]
I was squarely in Eric Lerhe’s court until his last paragraph. I am not as convinced as him that all the hoped for procurements outlined in the current government's policy - whether in the Canada First Defence Strategy or more recently emerging policy statements - is affordable within the current planned defence budget. Having […]
Once again, Canada is faced with another complicated military procurement decision. Like other examples before this one, the F-35 procurement involves the competing demands of professional military advice on the one hand, and political judgements about affordability, ‘guns-versus-butter’ trade-offs, transparency, regional equity, and a host of domestic considerations on the […]
I agree with much of Ken Hansen’s analysis. While we have indeed done badly at maintaining leading edge capabilities after purchase (note, however, exceptions of Halifax-class, CP-140, and CF-18 mid-life projects), I would not immediately accept your second point that the F-35 is entirely for conflict against a peer competitor. […]
The F-35 purchase and NSPS elicit the same question for me: "What is the government's concept for the employment of Canadian military force in a future conflict?" The F-35 contract suggests a front-line, high-risk combat role against a peer competitor. But, our history of procurement in peace and war suggests that we are […]