Re: [GZG] Grossly Off-topic ANZAC Whining

I have no particular bias but why does Canada need a large army?

The only country that can effectively invade it in a realistic timescale

is the US and even if Canada devoted 80% of its GNP for the next decade 
to the military, it would still be outmatched by several orders of 
magnitude.  It is much more realistic for it to fight a war as a 
"supporter" than a "fighter". 

Eire has a similar outlook since the only country that could invade it 
is the UK and the UK can barely guard its own shores let alone invade 
someone else.

It should be remembered that just because a "country" supports something

that another country is doing (for example the war in Iraq), that 
doesn't mean the population of said country support it.  While many 
governments want to be seen as "good allies", they are normally elected 
officials and have to keep an eye on their voters.

Ryan Gill wrote:
> Perhaps it should be noted, that I suspect that 
> John is railing, not against the quality and 
> fortitude of the Commonwealth soldiers he's 
> talking about, rather that the policies of those 
> governments have cut their spending and numbers 
> to the bare minimum. Canada got so bad that they 
> had 15 tanks spread among 3 bases across Canada 
> for a time. That's total in the entire "Canadian 
> Forces". One of my friends bitches up a storm 
> when that period's force 'design' comes up along 
> with the government responsible for the changes. 
> The same goes for the Australians I know.
>
> Frankly, I find the policies of those past 
> governments and their continued paltry 
> contributions to be far below what those two 
> countries provided in years past. Hod does it go? 
> "Canada fed the UK through it's darkest hours, 
> it's chromium armed and armoured the allies, it 
> had the second largest Airforce in WWII, the 
> third largest Navy. Canada used to have an 
> aircraft carrier, now they have the CBC, I think 
> we lost something somewhere."
>
>   

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