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From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Arming our Forces
Message-ID: <2185@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 13:19:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.2185
Posted: Mon Sep 16 13:19:37 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Sep-85 14:28:58 EDT
References: <1371@utcsri.UUCP> <2043@mnetor.UUCP> <1280@ubc-cs.UUCP> <2135@mnetor.UUCP> <1281@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Distribution: can
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 120
Summary: 

In article <1281@ubc-cs.UUCP> ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann) writes:
>In article <2135@mnetor.UUCP> clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
>>In article <1280@ubc-cs.UUCP> ludemann@ubc-cs.UUCP (Peter Ludemann) writes:
>>>In article <2101@mnetor.UUCP> clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
>>>>
>>>>You have entirely forgotten Korea.  Even though I've raised it several
>>>>times.  That was a full-scale war and we were in it in a big way.

>Sorry, it has everything to do with the original topic.  First,
>you don't seem to dispute my claim the the results of "winning"
>are unclear.  And you don't seem to even have a very clear view
>of why the war started.

I can't disagree with either point.  But I don't think that the 
details of Korea (beyond "involvement" itself) has much bearing
upon peace-keeping missions that we may get involved in in future.
Korea may be an example of where we shouldn't have gotten involved,
but what about when we should?  As I feel our involvement in WWII 
was.  In a way, our involvement in WWII was "peace-keeping" - we
weren't primary combatants.  And I hope you'll agree with me on
the appropriateness of our involvement there.

>That war ended some thirty years ago.  Already, the reasons are
>partly forgotten and the results seem unclear.  Every action has
>a result and that result is usually not what was expected.  If you
>don't know the results of your action, you should probably think
>very carefully before doing something.  

I would assume that the UN did.  If you always had to know exactly what 
the results were before you acted, then probably nothing would ever get 
done.  The peace-keeping forces tried - and the current situation
is probably better than what would have happened without intervention.

>If you have lots of muscles,
>there's a strong temptation to use them.  Politicians are not very
>good at thinking through the consequences of their actions, so
>let's give them the minimum amount of muscles.

I agree - I've never trusted politicians either.  However, no matter 
what Canada was able to do, we could probably not build-up enough to 
be a serious threat (as an "aggressor") to anybody.  Particularly with 
the super-powers peering over our shoulders.

>I am advocating the minimum military necessary to defend Canada
>or at least demonstrate its sovereignty.  

Generally I am advocating the same thing too - it's just that I think
we should be able to do somewhat more (though not necessarily a lot more) 
than just "demonstrate".  Most of our border defence (other than those
areas which we cannot afford, or that we don't want to do - eg: nuclear
retaliation) should be borne by us, rather than depending on someone else.
Without that sort of independence I think that "sovereignity" is a joke.

How can you have sovereignity if your major policy decisions w.r.t.
defence are being made by someone else?

>Other countries will
>get themselves into trouble with or without our help.  I'd rather
>be the citizen of a country which doesn't interfere in other countries
>affairs - the Americans are not well liked because they interfere
>in just about everyone's affairs.  

I agree completely.  But, a distinction should be made between 
"interference" and "assistance" - at least when that's possible.
I'd like to be a citizen of a country which doesn't interfere in
other countries affairs too - provided that we can help them when
they need it.

>Exporting capitalism is just as undesirable as exporting communist 
>revolution.  

Provided we make a distinction between "exporting capitalism" and
"exporting freedom of choice".

>And before we condemn South African apartheid, let's treat our 
>aboriginal people properly.

I agree again (this is getting monotonous).  But (this is also getting
monotonous), what is "properly"?  I personally believe "properly" is
treating everybody equally.  That appears to be what South African
aboriginals want.  However, that seems to be the opposite of what our 
aboriginal people want.  I don't mind saying that it results in me being
totally confused - that's why I try to remain neutral in both issues.

>(BTW, before you write me off as a pinko-commie pacifist, I should
>tell you that I have been a member of our "glorious" armed forces

(BTW: I didn't, and I was a member too - sorta

>and have seen how badly equipped they are.  We probably should
>improve them, but without a clear idea of what we want to do with
>them, we will not be able to decide how they should be built up.)

I'm just not sure that such a "clear idea" is possible, unless we 
enshrine some restrictions in the constitution (as Japan or Germany
has).  I believe that there are certain things that we can do now,
without such certainty though.  Without major revision of the country's
course, we can assume that our commitments to NATO will remain relatively
stable, and that our border defence requirements will too.  Then, we 
can build to that level.

And indeed, if we were, though some miracle, to come up with a "clear
idea", we'd probably find, via Murphy's law, that it would be wrong or
become outdated really quickly.  History is littered with such mistakes.
)

BTW: John Hogg and I had a chat over the weekend.  It was interesting.
We still sorta disagreed in some of the theory, but, interestingly 
enough, the levels of military effectiveness we considered desirable 
were very close (John's were sometimes a little higher than mine).  In 
fact, we agreed that the current policy was about what we both wanted.  
The major problem was the implementation - eg: Arctic surveillance is 
currently a joke.  I can't give any further details, because, you see,
it was during a stag (and the movie was starting etc. etc. etc.) ...

Ahem.  Never mind.
-- 
Chris Lewis,
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