The PLAN. If not now, then 2-3 years from now. Royal Navy heading into the toilet. Hard to believe it was the world’s strongest navy for hundreds of years. Also, do you realize how large & well-equipped the Canadian forces (Army, Air Force and Navy) were in World War II?
What’s hard to believe? When we had the world’s largest navy we also had an empire funding it that included a full quarter of the world’s land surface and a full third of the world’s population. During WW2 our American Allies did everything they could to ensure that when the war ended, as much of our remaining empire as possible was gone and so now we are back to being a small island with 60m people.
Howabout you try funding the US navy only using the eastern seaboard and see if you still get to buy everything you want?
There is no logical reason for Canada to have a large powerful army.
The US won’t let anyone else attack Canada, for obvious reasons.
For even more obvious reasons, if the US ever decided to attack Canada, no conceivable Canadian force could do much to even slow it down.
So what would be the point of having a powerful Canadian military?
I wouldn’t put the PLAN up there just yet. I think SSNs are the key to a powerful navy, because they are the vessels that will kill the other side’s ships. The Astute class coming into service now is the most advanced in the world, and most importantly, the most stealthy. The Chinese SSNs are by many accounts very noisy in comparison and would not survive as long in a real shooting war...
Canada was fighting Hitler for TWO YEARS before the US was sneak-attacked into WWII.
I’m not so sure. The PLAN is not very good in the feilds of logistic support, technology and training. It has 1 aircraft carrier, 15 destroyers, 50 figates, 50 SSKs, 9 SSNs and no SSBNs. The DOD estimates that 5 Type 094 are under construction.
I think Taiwan and Japan have stronger navies than China.
A few summers ago I was on a small day cruise heading from Seattle to Victoria.
As we pulled into the harbor it was announced that on the starboard side, a “GU-11 was about to land on a Canadian carrier”.
Heading to the other side I remember thinking: Canada doesn’t have any carriers!
I got there just in time to see a seaGULL join the rest of the flock on a piece of driftwood floating in the water.