and they've got a good quality military in all branches
I dont know if that would still apply today. Their combat infantry are certainly good and their Spec-Ops are some of the best in the world, as well as having good mechanized forces (the LAV III is the genetic basis for the Stryker after all, and the LAV 6 is a pretty nasty machine).
BUT
Running down the rest of the list:
Navy: They only have 4 submarines (older diesel-electric ones from the 1980's), and while their 12 frigates would be pretty nasty at close range they lack real stand off capability like the US Navy has. And from everything I have heard, they have been having so many issues with their new heavier frigate program that it makes US Naval procurement look streamlined.
Air Force: Their air force is in an infamous state of disrepair, with their mainline combat aircraft being the CF-18 Hornet, which are old first-gen F/A-18 Hornets they bought used from the Australians in 1982! They are in such a bad state of disrepair that they are having to cannibalize planes just to keep them flying, and even then less than half the fleet is capable of flying at any one time. On more than one occasion the US has had to send planes to intercept unknowns over their airspace because the Canadians literally didnt have anything capable of flying up and taking a look. They are in the lineup to get F-35's to replace them, but they are at the back of the list behind the likes of the Japanese, Polish, Australians, and about a dozen other countries. They would have gotten them first because they had been in the JSF program, but in 2015 Justin Trudeau (damnation be upon him!) pulled Canada out and tried to find another plane for their fleet because the F-35 was "too expensive". Then he started looking all over Europe for a new plane so he didnt have to use filthy American gear, found nothing, and went back to the F-35...at a markup now, because everyone and their dog wants one.
Army: Again, their mechanized infantry are absolutely a threat, since they have almost 700 of the LAV's I mentioned. But they are an extremely light army with only 74 tanks in service, with 2/3 of those being older model Leopard 2A4's, which while not necessarily outdated are very much long in the teeth at this point (they are contemporaries of the original model Abrams and Challenger 2). And at least from what I have heard, a lot of those tanks are also in a pretty bad state of disrepair and have difficulty staying in battle condition to actually fight. Plus, we get to the simple fact that even counting their reserves, the Canadian Army is only capable of raising 63,000 troops to actually fight. EDIT: upon further looking, they also only have 33 howitzers, which seems like a fairly significant gap in long range firepower.
With all of that said though, I do agree with your overall stance that the Canadian Military could very easily be swayed to team up with the US to fix Canada, as from what I have heard through my own sources (both family and reading) the Canadian military fucking despises Trudeau and anyone who believes like him, as they feel it is the Liberals who have left their military in such an embarrassing state.
I was mostly talking about the quality of their troops in all branches. Good technology in the hands of the Afghan National Army shows how badly that can go.
Navy: yeah that sounds more like a coast guard.
Air Force: That's a real problem. The Canadian Air Force used to be an excellent first line of defense against Russia. Disrepair is certainly something they could fix. I don't agree that they should be at the back of the list for F-35's. We need an Air Force facing Russian incursions, period. Obviously the Liberal party sought to destroy the military and bankrupt the country, what else would they do?
Army: um.... yeah they need howitzers, holy shit. Pretty sure the National Guard has more artillery. I know for a fact the Marine Corps does. I guess they just assumed that they would borrow American equipment.
I've also had friends in several foreign militaries in the Anglosphere and there's something really terrible about how badly they get treated. Genuine fucking stigma against my Tommys, Canuks, and Auzzies. The Bundeswehr also don't get no love (I mean, I get why, but still). Fuckin' sad state of affairs. They were always surprised how much Americans not only liked the US military, but also liked them, and how much the US troops liked and respected them too.
Now the French and Italians on the other hand... The Italians are still shit, and the French are just the biggestcunts.
I don't agree that they should be at the back of the list for F-35's. We need an Air Force facing Russian incursions, period. Obviously the Liberal party sought to destroy the military and bankrupt the country, what else would they do?
To be fair, they got back into the F-35 program when Biden was still president, so it is not like he had any real incentive to make the orders on a "in our national interest" basis instead of a "first come, first serve" basis that he actually did. Trump would probably be willing to rework that deal to make sure they can at least get a few of them so that they arent flying 40 year old death traps into the air. Not that Trudeau would renegotiate that deal, mind you, but maybe if someone else gets in charge of Canada.
I've also had friends in several foreign militaries in the Anglosphere and there's something really terrible about how badly they get treated.
For as much as some people say we dont care about NATO anymore, sometimes it really does seem like we Americans give more of a shit about Europe's military than the Europeans do. Whenever you look at those polls and studies done that show that Western Europe has some of the lowest approval ratings of the US of anywhere on Earth, I can almost guarantee if you only did their militaries it would start looking like Asia and their 70%+ approvals across the continent.
But then, I would bet a lot of the European leaders would sneer down their nose at their own militaries about how "of course you would like those dumb cowboys, because you are dumb cowboys too", because they have gotten fat and safe in the world they built that has allowed them to ignore Rules for Rulers Rule 0 ("Keep the Army Happy") for too long.
EDIT: And because I recently saw this and it always pisses me off when I see it, the European Elitism that many of them engage in where they look at American telling them that the way they are doing things is ass and maybe they should act more like real allies instead of fat slobs and say "You dumb cowboys! We will just create a Unified European Army and then we wont need you anymore!" drives me batty.
The only one on that entire godforsaken continent that actually makes all of their own gear is the French, almost all of Europe is currently in the process of buying F-35's because every attempt to make something better than it has utterly failed no matter how much money they threw at it, Eastern Europe would rather work than the American military than the French military (so there goes half of your "European Army" right off the rip), they have been struggling to meet recruitment for their militaries, and on and on. I saw one dumb motherfucker try to say that they should just kick the US out of AUKUS and get British made submarines instead of American ones because "Trump said we are bad allies, so lets show him what a real bad ally looks like."
Luckily it is mostly just Reddit being Reddit, but I do get very annoyed when the NAFO type Euro-Elitism gets into my subreddit I go to for military memes and waifu bait. It was funny a few days ago to watch them all going nuts over an artist that did some good S. Vietnamese waifu art, only to then turn on said artist because they had a lot of "Vietnamese-Americans for Trump" stuff on their Twitter.
I dont know if that would still apply today. Their combat infantry are certainly good and their Spec-Ops are some of the best in the world, as well as having good mechanized forces (the LAV III is the genetic basis for the Stryker after all, and the LAV 6 is a pretty nasty machine).
BUT
Running down the rest of the list:
Navy: They only have 4 submarines (older diesel-electric ones from the 1980's), and while their 12 frigates would be pretty nasty at close range they lack real stand off capability like the US Navy has. And from everything I have heard, they have been having so many issues with their new heavier frigate program that it makes US Naval procurement look streamlined.
Air Force: Their air force is in an infamous state of disrepair, with their mainline combat aircraft being the CF-18 Hornet, which are old first-gen F/A-18 Hornets they bought used from the Australians in 1982! They are in such a bad state of disrepair that they are having to cannibalize planes just to keep them flying, and even then less than half the fleet is capable of flying at any one time. On more than one occasion the US has had to send planes to intercept unknowns over their airspace because the Canadians literally didnt have anything capable of flying up and taking a look. They are in the lineup to get F-35's to replace them, but they are at the back of the list behind the likes of the Japanese, Polish, Australians, and about a dozen other countries. They would have gotten them first because they had been in the JSF program, but in 2015 Justin Trudeau (damnation be upon him!) pulled Canada out and tried to find another plane for their fleet because the F-35 was "too expensive". Then he started looking all over Europe for a new plane so he didnt have to use filthy American gear, found nothing, and went back to the F-35...at a markup now, because everyone and their dog wants one.
Army: Again, their mechanized infantry are absolutely a threat, since they have almost 700 of the LAV's I mentioned. But they are an extremely light army with only 74 tanks in service, with 2/3 of those being older model Leopard 2A4's, which while not necessarily outdated are very much long in the teeth at this point (they are contemporaries of the original model Abrams and Challenger 2). And at least from what I have heard, a lot of those tanks are also in a pretty bad state of disrepair and have difficulty staying in battle condition to actually fight. Plus, we get to the simple fact that even counting their reserves, the Canadian Army is only capable of raising 63,000 troops to actually fight. EDIT: upon further looking, they also only have 33 howitzers, which seems like a fairly significant gap in long range firepower.
With all of that said though, I do agree with your overall stance that the Canadian Military could very easily be swayed to team up with the US to fix Canada, as from what I have heard through my own sources (both family and reading) the Canadian military fucking despises Trudeau and anyone who believes like him, as they feel it is the Liberals who have left their military in such an embarrassing state.
I was mostly talking about the quality of their troops in all branches. Good technology in the hands of the Afghan National Army shows how badly that can go.
Navy: yeah that sounds more like a coast guard.
Air Force: That's a real problem. The Canadian Air Force used to be an excellent first line of defense against Russia. Disrepair is certainly something they could fix. I don't agree that they should be at the back of the list for F-35's. We need an Air Force facing Russian incursions, period. Obviously the Liberal party sought to destroy the military and bankrupt the country, what else would they do?
Army: um.... yeah they need howitzers, holy shit. Pretty sure the National Guard has more artillery. I know for a fact the Marine Corps does. I guess they just assumed that they would borrow American equipment.
I've also had friends in several foreign militaries in the Anglosphere and there's something really terrible about how badly they get treated. Genuine fucking stigma against my Tommys, Canuks, and Auzzies. The Bundeswehr also don't get no love (I mean, I get why, but still). Fuckin' sad state of affairs. They were always surprised how much Americans not only liked the US military, but also liked them, and how much the US troops liked and respected them too.
Now the French and Italians on the other hand... The Italians are still shit, and the French are just the biggest cunts.
To be fair, they got back into the F-35 program when Biden was still president, so it is not like he had any real incentive to make the orders on a "in our national interest" basis instead of a "first come, first serve" basis that he actually did. Trump would probably be willing to rework that deal to make sure they can at least get a few of them so that they arent flying 40 year old death traps into the air. Not that Trudeau would renegotiate that deal, mind you, but maybe if someone else gets in charge of Canada.
For as much as some people say we dont care about NATO anymore, sometimes it really does seem like we Americans give more of a shit about Europe's military than the Europeans do. Whenever you look at those polls and studies done that show that Western Europe has some of the lowest approval ratings of the US of anywhere on Earth, I can almost guarantee if you only did their militaries it would start looking like Asia and their 70%+ approvals across the continent.
But then, I would bet a lot of the European leaders would sneer down their nose at their own militaries about how "of course you would like those dumb cowboys, because you are dumb cowboys too", because they have gotten fat and safe in the world they built that has allowed them to ignore Rules for Rulers Rule 0 ("Keep the Army Happy") for too long.
EDIT: And because I recently saw this and it always pisses me off when I see it, the European Elitism that many of them engage in where they look at American telling them that the way they are doing things is ass and maybe they should act more like real allies instead of fat slobs and say "You dumb cowboys! We will just create a Unified European Army and then we wont need you anymore!" drives me batty.
The only one on that entire godforsaken continent that actually makes all of their own gear is the French, almost all of Europe is currently in the process of buying F-35's because every attempt to make something better than it has utterly failed no matter how much money they threw at it, Eastern Europe would rather work than the American military than the French military (so there goes half of your "European Army" right off the rip), they have been struggling to meet recruitment for their militaries, and on and on. I saw one dumb motherfucker try to say that they should just kick the US out of AUKUS and get British made submarines instead of American ones because "Trump said we are bad allies, so lets show him what a real bad ally looks like."
Luckily it is mostly just Reddit being Reddit, but I do get very annoyed when the NAFO type Euro-Elitism gets into my subreddit I go to for military memes and waifu bait. It was funny a few days ago to watch them all going nuts over an artist that did some good S. Vietnamese waifu art, only to then turn on said artist because they had a lot of "Vietnamese-Americans for Trump" stuff on their Twitter.