Canada orders replacement for its Leopard tanks

It's simple. The only country capable in attacking Canada is US. There is very rare case in the world. So unless other countries that may have problem with their neighbors that cause militarry conflicts, Canada don't need to worry about it.

tphuang said:

We've helped a lot on this GWOT and Nato missions. If our government + generals decide a certain amount is enough to do the tasks they need to do, then it is enough.

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Yes, Canada has done a good job - I did say that.

However, you completely ignored by point about the UN's reliance on the US for large-scale conflicts. If all the richer countries spent a mere 1% of GDP on defence and the US decided it wasn't going to help when it was most needed, what would we do? Answer is we probably couldn't do anything.

If we don't want the US to be the world's policeman, we need to stump up the resources to take on that role ourselves. If we don't want to then I'm not sure we can easily criticise it for taking on that role without being hypocritical.

Canada is ranked 14th in the world in GDP-PPP (by the CIA factbook) and ranked 14th in terms of military expenditures. Recently the government has pledged to increase military spending to improve the size and quality of the forces, including $15 billion over 5 years to purchase new equipment. Canada has recently bought new submarines and plans to buy new helicopters, transport planes, ships, trucks, and tanks; it is also a member of the JSF program.

Canada will fund its military in accordance with Canadian requirements and the realities of Canadian politics.

Spike said:

Canada is ranked 14th in the world in GDP-PPP (by the CIA factbook) and ranked 14th in terms of military expenditures. Recently the government has pledged to increase military spending to improve the size and quality of the forces, including $15 billion over 5 years to purchase new equipment. Canada has recently bought new submarines and plans to buy new helicopters, transport planes, ships, trucks, and tanks; it is also a member of the JSF program.

Canada will fund its military in accordance with Canadian requirements and the realities of Canadian politics.

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i heard that helicopters were a priority because the shape of the current fleet are in. We bought submarines?? Don't tell me those are the one that UK gave us.

ahho said:

i heard that helicopters were a priority because the shape of the current fleet are in. We bought submarines?? Don't tell me those are the one that UK gave us.

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Lol they still count as military spending, we just didn't know the Brits would sell us some leaky boats.

FuManChu said:

Yes, Canada has done a good job - I did say that.

However, you completely ignored by point about the UN's reliance on the US for large-scale conflicts. If all the richer countries spent a mere 1% of GDP on defence and the US decided it wasn't going to help when it was most needed, what would we do? Answer is we probably couldn't do anything.

If we don't want the US to be the world's policeman, we need to stump up the resources to take on that role ourselves. If we don't want to then I'm not sure we can easily criticise it for taking on that role without being hypocritical.

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We've done more than our share. If you look at the amount of troops we've committed to UN and NATO missions, it's far greater per capita than US. We just don't have the desire to be a superpower, so we don't have to maintain 300 fleet navy with 12 carriers. If we can do our job with 1% of our GDP, why do we want to spend more? I don't want to get this into a whether US should spend as much as they do, so I won't go there.

Even through Canada does not spend that much on their military I would rather fight with the Canadians any other military in the world... Plus people say their are really professional now. Except back in the 1990's the Canadian Navy had a bunch of crazies with nothing to do (I remember this crazy initiation issue).

Well,I have to say that this is a great decision for replace the current Leo C2 with some Leopard 2. It's been a big upgrade over our Leo 1 which served for years...

I've been told that it's not 40 Leo 2A6 but 20 Leo 2A6NL we bought and 80 2A4NL (but they were all upgraded by the Dutch to 2A5 level few years ago). And 40 of those tanks will be possibly upgraded to 2A6 Peace Support Operation Standard or just to 2A6M level (for operational purpose ) 40 of them will only be "canadianized" (since the 2A5 and the 2A6 are the same internally) or also upgraded to 2A6M or PSO standards for training purpose and 20 of them which will be converted in support and engineering vehicles.

I think that we do need to spend a little more on the defense's budget but mainly to upgrade older equipment. We don't really need a larger force, but more new equipments. Yes indeed, there's lot's of flaw on for the CF, the Army have airlifting et outdated equipement problem, the Navy and the Air Force are small and cannot support very large scale operation, but our foreign policies leans toward peaceful relation and diplomatic talks. And you have to know that at least 1/5 of our population are against war and military action (the Province of Quebec, which has 7 millions people, tends to isolate themself and react negatively against military action.)