The Canadian military leadership is close to their U.S. counterparts and is reluctant to shift its focus from America. Some retired Canadian Forces senior officers, such as former chief of the defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier, have voiced support for a Canada that is integrated more closely with the U.S. On Feb. 15, Hillier went on the social media website X to express his support for Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary’s proposal for a common dollar, integrated border and immigration requirements with the U.S.
But retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman has warned that Canada is under attack from the Americans.
Norman argued in a Feb. 14 National Post column that Canada should not sit back and let the U.S. destroy the country. “This may need to include otherwise previously unthinkable actions such as shutting off our oil and gas, electrical power and critical supplies, as well as the abandonment of historic diplomatic and military relationships and commitments,” Norman pointed out.
It would be best if Canada could just fend for itself. As we’ve seen, even relationships that seem rock solid can change very quickly.
Buying from the U.S. would be the worst possible choice.
Canada is facing an existential threat right now. While I agree that a sub building program is ultimately where we want to end up, we don’t have time or finance for that as well as the dozens of other procurements our military is desperate for. The KSS-III batch 2 would be a perfect fit for Canada in a few ways. Firstly, it’s a tested design and is in production. This could mean our forces could train immediately on in-service ROKN boats while new hulls are under construction. That could very much reduce time to deployment from the decade or so we’d need for a fully Canadian program to maybe 2 years. Secondly, the KSS-III is one of the very few conventional boats with VLS capability. It is paired with the Hyunmoo 4-4 ballistic missile, which has been successfully launched from the submerged boat. Since the only real defence Canada will ever have against American aggression is a nuclear deterrent, that capability could be key to deployment. The final point I would make in favour of the KSS-III is the size of the hull. It is already one of the largest conventional boats around. It would be a very solid design platform for an expansion to a nuclear powered platform in the future. That could represent a possible partnership between Canada and ROK going forward as our democracies look to survive against the authoritarian superpowers we are surrounded by.
Thing is, we’ve got a large amount of very thinly populated Arctic land that we have to defend. Granted, modern equipment allows us to defend more land with less people, but it’s expensive even without the requirement that it has to function in extreme cold. Maybe we could make it work, but we’d have to throw a lot of money at it, and the political will hasn’t been there up to this point.