[1Hussar]

If war were to break out on the ground in Iran or North Korea and a multinational contingent was needed to address it, it's a fairly sure bet Canada will be asked to participate.

Going with a light, all-wheeled force (as Canada has now) definitely does the ability to function within such an environment.

Such a force composition would relegate Canadian forces to a rear-echelon security role or going on mop-up operations against weak or bypassed enemy units. Without the presence of allied/coalition heavy weapons systems (like tanks and attack helos), even missions like these could be fraught with danger if an enemy counterattack is launched to save those weak/bypassed units.

Canada had an opportunity to send combat troops to Iraq in the first Gulf War. The plan was to have Canadian troops deal with bypassed Iraqi units.

In the end, Canada was unable to participate. It was not operationally ready to do so, because its obsolescent Leopard 1 tanks, M113 and Grizzly wheeled APC's were deemed incapable of doing the job without undue risk. Long-standing resupply and transport problems originating in Canada also prevented Canadian forces from being ready in a timely manner. Finally, the politicians did not like the casualty estimates (an election was pending) and drastically down-scaled Canada's role.

The greatest irony was that the Canadian troops to be deployed to Iraq were stationed in Germany, and were at least nominally trained to deal with a large-scale enemy force (whose general ORBAT and T&OE then was what Iraqi forces were based on).

None of us can predict what the future will bring. What is certain is that Canada's military, in its current state, is only marginally ready for that uncertainty.

Simply saying that Canada will never participate again in a major conflict is a pretty weak excuse to explain away the fact that Canada has the wealth and the potential to do more.

As an aside, it is worth noting that the transition to a wheeled force was driven by three things. 1. The desire to maintain a small army on the cheap; 2. The belief that Canada could continue to get away with letting others do the heavy lifting; 3. The desire of politicians to continue catering to the Canadian public's desire to to cast Canada's military into a constabulary/peacekeeping role, even when the real world showed that peacekeeping was essentially a dead horse.

I'll switch off now since this is turning into a political rant.