Doubling the navy: nice idea, never happen

J. L. Granatstein outlines the challenges facing the Canadian Forces at sea, and calls for a significant increase in navy shipping:

To get it right this time, the government needs to consider the future strategic environment. Trade has shifted massively from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans; already the volume in the Pacific is 3.5 times that of the Atlantic. There are rising naval powers on the Pacific — Russia, China, India, Japan — and there are rapidly growing numbers of submarines operated there by a number of nations, not all friendly.

To protect our national interests, Canada needs a bigger navy than its present 30-ship fleet and 8,000 sailors. Senators Hugh Segel and Colin Kenny, one a Conservative, the other a Liberal, have recently called for Canada to have a 60-ship navy. They are surely correct. The nation must have a strong presence in the Pacific (and an expanded base at Esquimalt, B. C.) and the Atlantic. Twelve to 15 of the planned Surface Combatant Ships on each coast would meet the need for 2025 and beyond. Then Canada needs a credible naval and Coast Guard presence in the melting Arctic where the international scramble for resources is likely to be fierce and where the Northwest Passage has the potential to alter traditional trade routes and pose huge environmental and security challenges. The Conservative government's Canada First policy is the right one, but it needs more ships and more sailors to adequately protect the homeland.

But Canada First also means protecting national interests abroad. Our sailors must be able to transport and support Canadian troops operating overseas, sometimes perhaps on a hostile shore. The presently planned three Joint Support Ships can't do this; four might be able to manage, but six would be better, along with what General Rick Hillier called "a big honking ship" that could transport four to six helicopters and a battalion-sized expeditionary force. Such ships can also do humanitarian work — in tsunami-hit Indonesia, for example — that we can scarcely tackle today.

While a strong case can be made (and, above, has), the government won't go there. Even if the current government was enjoying a majority in the house, they wouldn't spend their political capital on military equipment. For all that the Canadian Forces have much higher visibility and consequently much higher public respect, they're still considered a luxury, not a necessity. Canadians may talk about rebuilding the CF's equipment inventory, but they're not willing to forego social spending or bear higher taxes in order to do so. Nobody will cast their vote because they favour adding ships to the navy, but many might withhold their votes on the same issue.

Canadians still fondly imagine that they inhabit a world where "soft power" is capable of doing things without the implicit backing of "hard power". Where UN resolutions matter, and the bad guys back down before the concentrated glower of the UN General Assembly. It's not likely they'll willingly leave that pleasant dream world and come back to planet Earth.

Canadian military penury is exactly like the weather . . . people can talk about it all day, but nobody will (or can) do anything about it.