Re: David Pugliese’s article "Navy passes on shifting more ships to the Pacific" on 09 May, 2008. The balance of warships between East and West has been debated since the birth of the Royal Canadian Navy almost 100 years ago. Calls for changes in distribution are invariably political while the […]
David Pugliese
11 posts
David Pugliese’s comment about the navy not wanting to move more ships to the west coast in response to a shifting strategic balance in that direction focuses, as most commentators do, on the ships. This is a classic example of ‘land thinking’ that equates the ‘direction’ of a perceived threat […]
In today’s Defence Watch by David Pugliese an unnamed Canadian naval officer laments that the lack of progress on naval construction and refitting will result in the navy being short on “major warships,” which he categories at destroyers and frigates, in the foreseeable future. The officer says that delaying this […]
The cost factors Ken Hansen outlines demonstrate the ongoing need for sealift. Indeed, with sealift costs being between one-tenth and one-seventieth the cost of airlift, coupled with the fact that many of our shipments to Afghanistan are routine in nature given the four year plus length of our current mission, […]
This February, David Pugliese reported that a leaked copy of the Canada First Defence Strategy would retire our current AOR in 2010, two years before the JSS was delivered in 2012. Many critiqued this plan as it cut a critical capability without providing any savings. I called the plan "harebrained" […]
This plan (David Pugliese, "Forces to lease supply ship", Daily News 18 July 2007, p.12) to charter a cargo ship for a period of a year or more was described in a presentation at the Maritime Security Conference by Lieutenant-Colonel Martha Stouffer from Canadian Operational Support Command, which was entitled […]
The report of the arrival of France's F.N. Tonnerre in Halifax should raise some issues for Canada. Tonnerre is a four-in-one vessel - helicopter carrier, hospital ship, command ship, and amphibious ship - that might have been a potential contender for the "Big Honking Ship" once touted by no less […]
Amidst the hoopla surrounding the leaked Conservative Canada First Defence Strategy and the subsequent series of articles by David Pugliese, one overlooked item was the proposed creation of a 250 member Marine Commando Regiment (MCR) based in Comox, BC. As described by Pugliese, the MCR will be a dedicated maritime […]
According to the Ottawa Citizen, Cabinet recently approved the purchase of 6 Arctic Patrol Vessels, at a total estimated cost of $1.8 Billion. As Dr. Rob Huebert is quoted in this article, this purchase will be worthwhile when the Coast Guard has its icebreaking capability restored. So far, no word […]
On February 22, 2008, the Ottawa Citizen published an anonymous letter, entitled "Navy Capabilities Slide While Government Sits Idle", attributed to a serving Canadian Naval Officer in David Pugliese's Defence Watch column. Mr. Pugliese thought it would be controversial and judging from the number of comments posted to the web […]