Maybe the Air Force will get both strategic and tactical airlift
Jim Travers thinks the Conservative budget will accomodate both National Defence Minister O'Connor and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Hillier. That would be nice, if true. And nice also that Navy icebreakers will be abandoned.
...
Hillier will get the tactical aircraft required by an operations-oriented military and O'Connor will get the heavy-lift transporters needed to wave the flag.
It's not yet clear that either will get everything they want. Purchase orders for Hillier's 16 short-haul Lockheed-Martin Hercules and O'Connor's six Boeing Globemasters would effortlessly exceed the additional $5.3 billion that Harper promised during the winter election to make the military more muscular.
Something has to fall off the shopping list and that's almost certain to be another O'Connor priority. Fading fast is the slow-witted proposal to build and deploy armed icebreakers in the Arctic to defend Canada's suspect sovereignty...
Like Liberals before them, Conservatives will continue to loudly bang the sovereignty drum while the icebreaker project begins to slide quietly below the waves.
That's not a bad thing — there are better, less expensive ways to stake Canada's claim — and the icebreakers are certainly not the most important consideration in the Hillier vs. O'Connor power struggle.
What's far more significant is that the soldier and his civilian boss are finding ways to make procurement draw them together instead of driving them apart...
There's no doubt Hillier's tactical aircraft replacements are overdue.
And the compelling argument that Canada would be better — if less glamorously — served by renting aircraft is being effectively muted by interest groups and those willing to pay about $250 million each to paint the Maple Leaf on C-17 tails...
Moreover, the Canadian Forces now will have a fair degree of access to Antonov strategic airlifters via NATO. Hmm.
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
...
Hillier will get the tactical aircraft required by an operations-oriented military and O'Connor will get the heavy-lift transporters needed to wave the flag.
It's not yet clear that either will get everything they want. Purchase orders for Hillier's 16 short-haul Lockheed-Martin Hercules and O'Connor's six Boeing Globemasters would effortlessly exceed the additional $5.3 billion that Harper promised during the winter election to make the military more muscular.
Something has to fall off the shopping list and that's almost certain to be another O'Connor priority. Fading fast is the slow-witted proposal to build and deploy armed icebreakers in the Arctic to defend Canada's suspect sovereignty...
Like Liberals before them, Conservatives will continue to loudly bang the sovereignty drum while the icebreaker project begins to slide quietly below the waves.
That's not a bad thing — there are better, less expensive ways to stake Canada's claim — and the icebreakers are certainly not the most important consideration in the Hillier vs. O'Connor power struggle.
What's far more significant is that the soldier and his civilian boss are finding ways to make procurement draw them together instead of driving them apart...
There's no doubt Hillier's tactical aircraft replacements are overdue.
And the compelling argument that Canada would be better — if less glamorously — served by renting aircraft is being effectively muted by interest groups and those willing to pay about $250 million each to paint the Maple Leaf on C-17 tails...
Moreover, the Canadian Forces now will have a fair degree of access to Antonov strategic airlifters via NATO. Hmm.
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:09 a.m.
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