I really don’t understand war these days. Or more specifically I don’t understand people’s attitude towards war. Or even more specifically I don’t understand the reactions of people (read “my fellow Canadians”) to the Ukrainian conflict and its economic reality.

A lot of it is the obvious euro-centrism that seems to privilege the death and destruction in the Ukraine over, let’s say, Bosnia or Palestine, but even more of it is the apparent complete cluelessness of observers and commentators to the economics of modern war in relation to the outcomes. This stuff is expensive. And its utility  is often limited by training—sometimes extremely so (just look at what is happening to the poorly trained Russian forces). And we just don’t have a lot of anything.

Take the airforce for example. In late WW II the Canadian Air force had multiple thousands of fighters and bombers in its inventory. By the mid 60s (and still in the height of the cold war) it had little more than a 1000 fighters and by the 80s it consisted of around a 100 CF-18 Hornets. And the new plan is to acquire something like the modern F-35… but only 88 of them. Why? It’s expensive. Very expensive. And in peacetime spending money on the military doesn’t play well anywhere except the U.S. Not to mention the investment in training and materiels—I met a soldier once who told me there weren’t even allowed to fire live rounds from their rifles for  a lot of their training…because it’s expensive.

The point

Which brings us to what I think is the “stupid human trick” of the week. Trudeau had stated that he would send artillery to help the Ukrainians. This quote from the original article:

Both Perry and Leslie said they suspect Canada’s likeliest option for Ukrainian military aid is the M777 howitzer, which fires a 155mm shell.

….

Canada currently has 37 M777s, though it’s not clear how many would be sent to Ukraine.

—https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-ukraine-artillery-1.6426132

A M777 is worth ~$830,000. The pundits in the article go on to speculate:

Leslie said Canada could focus on Ukraine’s request for armoured vehicles by sending 50 light armoured transports, known as LAVs.

“They have a remarkable gun on them and they do a lot of useful work,” Leslie said. “And right now, Ukraine needs them more than we do.”

This from our inventory of  around 650. “The original cost of an operational LAV III ranged from $ 1-4 Million depending upon the configuration. ” (—https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/national-inventory-canadian-memorials/details/10210) 

So what? you ask. Well here is an interesting infographic about Russian losses in the Ukraine (Note: it is from  Ukrainian sources so the numbers might be exaggerated, but you get the idea.)

 

—https://twitter.com/simongerman600/status/1517504759581790208

So ya. 5o LAVs (50-200 million dollars worth) or a maybe a dozen artillery pieces (at 4.1 million dollars) ain’t no drop in the bucket in a country that lets it’s servicemen fly around in decades-old planes and float on even older warships. And  in a conflict where the Russians have already lost more inventory than Canada owns, you gotta think it won’t last too long.

So anyone thinks we are “lending” our support they should probably think again. What we are doing (and btw, I in no way object to the plan) is giving a significant chunk of our own military materiel away, never to be seen again, and given the history of Canadian military spending over the last 40 years, very unlikely to be replaced.  I just wish people would clue in to the long-term realities of the modern military scene. We should either be in it to win it, equip our personnel with current, useful, safe equipment regardless of the cost; or just get out of the war game all together and rely on the Americans or go Swiss or something. Every friggin’ election we elect a government (it doesn’t matter which stripe, the Cons are just as bad as the Libs etc.) that are afraid to spend appropriately for fear of offending the voters. And then next thing you know we are giving away what little we have because, well, our euro brothers and sisters in spirit, the Ukrainians, need it and the voters are all full of the feels.

If you can’t tell it ticks me off me just a bit.

Update

It seems we are sending 4 artillery pieces along with:

One of three defence sources said the package included a number of precision-guided Excalibur rounds left over from the Afghan war. The GPS-guided shells are worth about $112,000 US per round.

—https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukraine-m777-howitzer-russia-heavy-artillery-1.6427762

“Retired lieutenant-general Andrew Leslie says the federal government should quickly replace any military equipment it gives to Ukraine.”

Right. Sure.