Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-vision.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!banner 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