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From: banner@ubc-vision.UUCP (Allen Banner)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canada's defence : Doesn't anyone care?
Message-ID: <1029@ubc-vision.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 23:44:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.1029
Posted: Wed Aug 21 23:44:21 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Aug-85 21:30:55 EDT
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 40


> I don't think we can trust other nations
> to respect our territorial claims if we don't have a big stick to wail on
> them with if they don't believe us. To this end we need to acquire a lot 
> more CF-18s, fighting ships and patrol aircraft in addition to providing 
> our army with new equipment.

Don, do you really mean this?

The notion that having "a big stick" is the only way to get other nations
to respect us is part of what is keeping the arms race going.  Now that we
have reached the point that the "big stick" approach can lead to our 
extermination (in the case of the superpowers at least), perhaps we should 
be looking for another approach...the U.N.?  Sure, its a toothless wonder 
but its also a joke for us to even think that we can (or even should try to) 
use the threat of force to get either of the superpowers to "respect" us.

We should have the ability to monitor our territory effectively and
completely (which we don't have right now) and we should have the
capability to show our colours (enough to say "...caught you" but not 
to say "get the **** out or we'll blast you out".  Perhaps we should be
working towards strengthening the U.N. (or some other *international* 
mechanism) to settle these disputes.  There is no effective mechanism in
place...should we try to lead the way to establish something workable?  
Unless there is an effective alternative to the "big stick", I can't see
much hope for bringing the arms race under control and if everyone arms
themselves to the teeth because such a mechanism is not in place, then there
never will be any hope for one.

In short, we should concentrate our efforts on monitoring capability.  Like
it or not, we *do* rely on the Americans for our defence and like it or not
if we have to defend ourselves (militarily) against the States we don't 
have a hope.  So it seems to me we have the opportunity to focus resources,
instead, on developing an alternative to the "big stick"...I don't know 
about you but I think our long-term survival as a species depends on it.

-- 


Al Banner -- UBC Laboratory for Computational Vision