[just east of the creek]

I think 5% as a steady state is unrealistic. Even the US is only about 3.5%.

As a steady state, quite possibly. But I believe that depends a lot on the ‘outside’ world - that being Russia and China.

To begin with, I think we are in a ‘catch up’ phase to start. Not just planes, ships and what not, but infrastructure (at home, in the Arctic, in Europe) and retention resources (better pay, facilities, services, education and training) There are other big ticket items on the list - subs, ships, planes, helos, armour, missles and artillery, awacs systems, the Coast Guard, future plane programs…..to begin with.

 

[DirectionNorth]

As a steady state, quite possibly. But I believe that depends a lot on the ‘outside’ world - that being Russia and China.

To begin with, I think we are in a ‘catch up’ phase to start. Not just planes, ships and what not, but infrastructure (at home, in the Arctic, in Europe) and retention resources (better pay, facilities, services, education and training) There are other big ticket items on the list - subs, ships, planes, helos, armour, missles and artillery, awacs systems, the Coast Guard, future plane programs…..to begin with.

It’s easy to draw up a wish list for this or spending area and say we should spend X on it. But there’s a lot of areas competing for money - energy infrastructure, Alto, other infrastructure, the military, social welfare, this or that need, tax cuts, handouts to political blocs, etc.

To go to 5% of GDP on military spending is a level no politician will risk. There’s always a lot of places asking for money, and never enough to go around. Unless we start fighting an actual hot war, don’t expect to see 5% or 3.5% military spending.

 

[just east of the creek]

It’s easy to draw up a wish list for this or spending area and say we should spend X on it. But there’s a lot of areas competing for money - energy infrastructure, Alto, other infrastructure, the military, social welfare, this or that need, tax cuts, handouts to political blocs, etc.

To go to 5% of GDP on military spending is a level no politician will risk. There’s always a lot of places asking for money, and never enough to go around. Unless we start fighting an actual hot war, don’t expect to see 5% or 3.5% military spending.

Well,I would suggest you are involved in a war, and the Ukraine is the proxy western candidate seeking to keep Putin at bay. If that fails, then Putins next move will be one of the former occupied countries.

I was just in Finland and they are projecting a defence budget of 5% by 2030 or 2032, with an increase to 3.5% in half that time.NATO as a whole is raising targets to 3.5% and looking at 5%. They recognize a very real threat.

I, we used to do considerable business in Russia, no more. And the same for the Ukraine, but that too has greatly changed. However the contacts remain, and occasionally I still see some Russian customers who hold Canadian passports. There attitude is interesting. Most are vocally Putin supporters. There is no respect for Trump. There is not much respect for the USA, or perhaps just much lessened respect. They feel the powers will be Russia and China. They feel Russia will call the shots in Europe and if Putin wants Estonia back, then he’ll go and get it and no one will do much about it, certainly not TACO.

Canada has ridden the coattails of greater powers for years, probably since the late 1960’s in terms of defence. Federal Government’s of all stripes were happy to talk the big talk but do the minimal amount necessary, with a certainty that big brother to the south would take care of things.

Fighting a hot war will most likely be a shorter war and consist of what you have and can bring to the table. You are not going to be building ‘Victory Airplane Plants’ in Malton and rolling out Lancaster's by the thousands. If you do not have the forces and the military hardware, you will most likely never have them.

5% is not really that large a number when you start thinking of the list of hardware Canada needs to add. And it won’t come overnight. But as the bills come in for subs, icebreakers, frigates, fighter jets, patrol aircraft, ground forces radar, anti-missle defence….the % of GDP will creep higher.

We better hope that Canada figures out how to become more productive as a nation.

 

[afransen]

Well,I would suggest you are involved in a war, and the Ukraine is the proxy western candidate seeking to keep Putin at bay. If that fails, then Putins next move will be one of the former occupied countries.

I was just in Finland and they are projecting a defence budget of 5% by 2030 or 2032, with an increase to 3.5% in half that time.NATO as a whole is raising targets to 3.5% and looking at 5%. They recognize a very real threat.

I, we used to do considerable business in Russia, no more. And the same for the Ukraine, but that too has greatly changed. However the contacts remain, and occasionally I still see some Russian customers who hold Canadian passports. There attitude is interesting. Most are vocally Putin supporters. There is no respect for Trump. There is not much respect for the USA, or perhaps just much lessened respect. They feel the powers will be Russia and China. They feel Russia will call the shots in Europe and if Putin wants Estonia back, then he’ll go and get it and no one will do much about it, certainly not TACO.

Canada has ridden the coattails of greater powers for years, probably since the late 1960’s in terms of defence. Federal Government’s of all stripes were happy to talk the big talk but do the minimal amount necessary, with a certainty that big brother to the south would take care of things.

Fighting a hot war will most likely be a shorter war and consist of what you have and can bring to the table. You are not going to be building ‘Victory Airplane Plants’ in Malton and rolling out Lancaster's by the thousands. If you do not have the forces and the military hardware, you will most likely never have them.

5% is not really that large a number when you start thinking of the list of hardware Canada needs to add. And it won’t come overnight. But as the bills come in for subs, icebreakers, frigates, fighter jets, patrol aircraft, ground forces radar, anti-missle defence….the % of GDP will creep higher.

We better hope that Canada figures out how to become more productive as a nation.

Increasing Canada's defense spending by 3.5% of GDP over 10 years is about a trillion Canadian dollars in incremental spending. Just saying.

 

[DirectionNorth]

Well,I would suggest you are involved in a war, and the Ukraine is the proxy western candidate seeking to keep Putin at bay. If that fails, then Putins next move will be one of the former occupied countries.

I was just in Finland and they are projecting a defence budget of 5% by 2030 or 2032, with an increase to 3.5% in half that time.NATO as a whole is raising targets to 3.5% and looking at 5%. They recognize a very real threat.

I, we used to do considerable business in Russia, no more. And the same for the Ukraine, but that too has greatly changed. However the contacts remain, and occasionally I still see some Russian customers who hold Canadian passports. There attitude is interesting. Most are vocally Putin supporters. There is no respect for Trump. There is not much respect for the USA, or perhaps just much lessened respect. They feel the powers will be Russia and China. They feel Russia will call the shots in Europe and if Putin wants Estonia back, then he’ll go and get it and no one will do much about it, certainly not TACO.

Canada has ridden the coattails of greater powers for years, probably since the late 1960’s in terms of defence. Federal Government’s of all stripes were happy to talk the big talk but do the minimal amount necessary, with a certainty that big brother to the south would take care of things.

Fighting a hot war will most likely be a shorter war and consist of what you have and can bring to the table. You are not going to be building ‘Victory Airplane Plants’ in Malton and rolling out Lancaster's by the thousands. If you do not have the forces and the military hardware, you will most likely never have them.

5% is not really that large a number when you start thinking of the list of hardware Canada needs to add. And it won’t come overnight. But as the bills come in for subs, icebreakers, frigates, fighter jets, patrol aircraft, ground forces radar, anti-missle defence….the % of GDP will creep higher.

We better hope that Canada figures out how to become more productive as a nation.

That’s a lot of shoulds, and I myself can think of a few spending asks that aren’t equipment as well (pay, housing, recruiting taking less than two years, benefits, etc). But Parliament has a solid track record of not funding needed replacements and equipment and not meeting NATO targets during governments of both parties and including after Russia invaded Ukraine. Not to mention that we don’t have the capability to spend 3.5%. I suspect much of it would go to procurement waste; that needs to be figured out first.

Getting from 2% to 3.5% would be $27 billion/year that can’t fund our gerontocracy, social supports, or pet infrastructure projects, and for the military which is (unlike the US) not a “pillar institution” in Canadian culture. That sounds a hard sell to voters and politicians who approve the funding plans.

 

[lenaitch]

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time": Donald Rumsfeld.

Never mor true now. In WWII, we went to war with corvettes based on a fishing trawler that could be cranked out by the dozens of shipyards that we no longer have.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time": Donald Rumsfeld.

But, "There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." - Also Donald Rumsfeld. >.<

 

[just east of the creek]

It’s an immense, immense waste of money (sure the tech is awesome but…?) but the choices to less potentially confrontational standoffs seem to be closing. We appear to be entering a new and much more dangerous chapter in the war that started soon after Germany surrendered on May 7,1945. And now with China replacing Japan, Trump playing Herbert Hoover, the Middle East in a much more dangerous place, and other unstable outliers such as Kim Jong Un, our safety net is no longer in place.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Getting from 2% to 3.5% would be $27 billion/year that can’t fund our gerontocracy, social supports, or pet infrastructure projects, and for the military which is (unlike the US) not a “pillar institution” in Canadian culture. That sounds a hard sell to voters and politicians who approve the funding plans.

Let's get to and sustain the 2% first. We'll have no problem in the immediate term getting to that with one-time procurement costs.

$100 billion for fifteen River-class destroyers (frigates to everyone else)
$80 billion for twelve new submarines
$30 billion for eighty-odd F-35s (or alternatives)
$15 billion for about seventy new tactical helicopters
$10 billion for sixteen P-8As maritime patrol aircraft

 

[kEiThZ]

Let's get to and sustain the 2% first. We'll have no problem in the immediate term getting to that with one-time procurement costs.

$100 billion for fifteen River-class destroyers (frigates to everyone else)
$80 billion for twelve new submarines
$30 billion for eighty-odd F-35s (or alternatives)
$15 billion for about seventy new tactical helicopters
$10 billion for sixteen P-8As maritime patrol aircraft

That spending is over 30-40 years. So spending is basically $6-9B per year over that time. Not nearly as much as a lot of people imagine. If we used the same accounting for healthcare, we'd be talking about how many trillions were being spent of healthcare.

 

[afransen]

Canada GDP is about 2.2T USD/$3T CAD. Going from ~1.4% of GDP to 5% of GDP, or a 3.5% increase is approximately $100B per year in new spending.

Let's get to and sustain the 2% first. We'll have no problem in the immediate term getting to that with one-time procurement costs.

$100 billion for fifteen River-class destroyers (frigates to everyone else)
$80 billion for twelve new submarines
$30 billion for eighty-odd F-35s (or alternatives)
$15 billion for about seventy new tactical helicopters
$10 billion for sixteen P-8As maritime patrol aircraft

If Canada bought 12 subs of any of the classes listed, we would be a majority of the fleet for each, since most are planning at most 9 units, from what I could gather. Not sure how we get to $80B either, as $7.5B/unit seems awfully high. Could it include a long term operating and maintenance cost?

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't think the 5% target by 2035 is all that sincere. Any obligation that is outside a current politician's term or next term isn't sincere. See all those climate change targets that politicians sign on to, do nothing and then lecture their successors about from the Opposition benches.

That said, the real provision is 3.5% on defence spending and 1.5% on strategic infrastructure. This would include things like seaports and airports. Maybe even pipelines.

We probably aren't getting to 3.5% by 2035. Somewhere between 2-2.5% is possible. And that's enough to largely just recapiralize and improve what we have now. If we get beyond 2.5%, we're talking about speeding up recapitalization like shipbuilding and maybe adding expeditionary capabilities.

 

[Admiral Beez]

We probably aren't getting to 3.5% by 2035. Somewhere between 2-2.5% is possible. And that's enough to largely just recapiralize and improve what we have now. If we get beyond 2.5%, we're talking about speeding up recapitalization like shipbuilding and maybe adding expeditionary capabilities.

The recently announced decommissioning of nine of the twelve Kingston class OPV without any replacement would present an opportunity to renew shipbuilding. That said, one of the reasons for deleting the class is the lack of manpower. There’s no point building ships if there’s no one to sail them.

 

[EBT]

I have been looking into this issue of defense spending levels as a percentage of GDP, and I don't understand why Canada or other NATO nations agreed to a 5% of GDP level of spending considering that as of 2024 U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP is 2.9%

Key Figures:

• Total Defense Budget: $895 billion
• Defense as % of GDP: 2.9%
• Projected Decline: Expected to fall to 2.4% by 2035, reflecting budgetary constraints and shifting priorities

source: https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/military-spending-in-the-united-states/

Key Takeaway:

Based on the figures above, why would Canada and fellow NATO nations agree to even a 3% GDP target for military spending let alone 5%? The United States spends just under 3%, largely because it still considers itself the world’s hegemonic power. It maintains around 700 military bases globally—few of which are directly related to the defense of the U.S. homeland or the NATO alliance. The same goes for the U.S. Navy and its aircraft carriers, which exist primarily to project American offensive power across the globe.

Canada and the rest of NATO should have told the United States that if it’s dissatisfied with our levels of military spending, it is free to exit the alliance. At one point in recent history, Vladimir Putin proposed to George W. Bush that Russia join NATO—an offer that, in retrospect, should have been accepted (Bush reportedly gave it some consideration). Had that happened, we would not be seeing over a million dead Ukrainian soldiers today. If the Americans are unhappy with NATO members’ spending, they should leave, and perhaps Russia could take their place.

Whatever the appropriate spending level is for Canada, the KEY QUESTION is: what should we buy? This requires a deep understanding of the actual threats facing Canada. The current threat is not intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or ground invasions from Russia or China. In fact, it’s doubtful these countries ever posed a direct threat to Canada, despite our heavy investment in NORAD over the past almost 70 years—covering roughly 40% of its costs. It’s unlikely the former Soviet Union ever had ICBMs aimed at Ottawa or Toronto. NORAD has always existed primarily to protect the United States.

In addition to contributing billions to U.S. defense over the decades, Canada’s greatest strategic asset has been its geography. Our vast territory provides a ~2,500-mile buffer between Russia and the U.S. homeland. How would Americans feel if they had to relocate their early warning systems to the lower 48 states? Would they feel more secure—or less secure—from Russian ICBMs? Remember this the next time you hear Trump say, "we pay to protect Canada" "Canada wants to be under our Golden Dome! It will cost Canada $71 billion unless they agree to become the 51st state in which case we will give them Golden Dome for free".

Clearly, the number one military threat to Canada is the United States. Donald Trump has made no secret of his interest in Canada’s vast wealth and his intent on annexing us. In terms of natural resources, Canada ranks second only to Russia. In terms of proven oil reserves alone Canada is #4 in the world versus the United States which is #9 (~171 billion vs. ~69 billion barrels of oil). With all of this in mind, what should Canada be spending its defense budget on? I would argue for a focus on air-defense systems, a large stockpile of missiles—preferably hypersonic—and a MASSIVE drone fleet. We don’t need stealth fighters, especially not American-made F-35s. Why hasn’t Mark Carney canceled that program already? Spain cancelled its program this week.

Ultimately, Canada needs nuclear weapons. We are one-tenth the size of the United States and have no realistic chance of defending our territory with conventional arms alone. Perhaps the UK or France could sell us some until we develop our own. We have the technology and capability. If we acquire nuclear weapons, the final item on my wish list would be a minimum of three nuclear-powered submarines to form the backbone of a Canadian nuclear triad.

 

[lenaitch]

But, the important point is; how many emails have you sent to politicians and military leaders sharing your vision. Then we can hear about how insulted you are that they haven't written back.