There are many problems with some of the financial analysis that seems to underlie the leaked Conservative defence strategy. While hardly the only problem, the first thing to grab my attention was the reported need for the "savings" gained from getting rid one of our three air defence destroyers and both of our two supply ships two years before the latter are replaced. Essentially, mothballing these will produce no savings in operating costs other than the $5 million in fuel these ships would normally burn a year. The maintenance savings will be negligible as the Navy is unlikely to refit them in their last two years of life. The personnel savings are nonexistent as the sailors from them will be required for the replacement ships the Conservatives still promise.

The question one must ask is why savings are being extracted from critical naval capabilities when the Conservatives posted a $7 billion surplus? There are only two possible reasons, and they are not good ones.

The first reason these desperation level savings are being sought is because Afghanistan is costing much more than DND has budgeted.

The second possible reason for desperate measures is that the Conservative government has, despite this NATO commitment, no intention of providing the defence increases promised in the last budget. This leaked document seems to confirm that (in promising) $35 billion dollars in the make believe world of 2025. But after inflation, this is the same inadequate spending level we have today of between 0.9 and 1.3 percent of GDP. As Senator Kenny makes clear, you can only do Afghanistan and reequip the Armed Forces if you increase defence spending to the 1.8% level - somewhere near what the Conservatives initially promised a year ago. However, a minority government facing election seems to have chosen to short change our men and women in Afghanistan, our ability to guard our coasts, and our military's larger future for some pre-election goodies.

Cutting the Navy by over twenty percent and our military maritime surveillance capability by about a third, for marginal savings, will cripple Canada's ability to ensure its maritime security. Historically, promises by any Canadian Government have never been fulfilled unless forced by political embarrassment. Buying transport aircraft and helicopters for employment in far off lands at the expense of military and naval resources critical to the security and the sovereignty of Canada seem to be driven by a desire, by some in the military leadership, for military adventures such as Afghanistan rather than a plan based on our National Interests. If this plan is approved Canada will essentially have renounced its maritime sovereignty to other nations, something that will never be regained, something that will have a profound impact on all Canadians.

Larry Bagnell, the Liberal MP for the Yukon, said Mr. Harper made very specific promises during the election campaign, including the stationing of three heavy naval icebreakers in the North. The Conservatives' election platform promised a Conservative government would also build a civilian-military deep-water docking facility in the region as well as provide an army emergency response capability for the Arctic through a new airborne battalion. It would also install an underwater surveillance system in the region.

But a leaked copy of the government's Canada First Defence Strategy does not include anything about an airborne battalion for the Arctic or heavy icebreakers. Instead it notes the military will be outfitted with Arctic patrol ships. The deep-water docking facility is instead described as a forward operating location for refuelling and berthing military vessels. In addition, the Canadian Forces will "investigate options" for the development of an underwater sensor system.

International law professor Michael Byers, who specializes in Arctic sovereignty issues, points out that during the election the Conservatives didn't talk about patrol ships. "Mr. Harper specifically mentioned armed naval heavy icebreakers," said Mr. Byers, a University of British Columbia professor. "Arctic patrol ships are not icebreakers. They're not even close to icebreakers."

Giving up the fleet support ships before their replacements arrive probably spells the demise of the naval task group concept that has served this country so well for the last 15 years. On their own, the frigates don't have great endurance, perhaps some 11,000 kilometres, and this limits their operating range as well as making them dependent on refuelling stops in port or from one of the support vessels if they are to be at sea for more than about 10 days. For the navy to retain its traditional flexibility and mobility, it will have to buy or lease a commercial tanker and fit it out for the fleet support role. This is not difficult. The Australians have just done that with HMAS Sirius, and the British have considerable experience as a result of the Falklands War.

O'Connor also wants to phase out one of the three Iroquois-class destroyers, which serve as command ships.

The question we should be asking is whether 12 frigates is enough to do the work that the navy has been called upon to do over the last 15 or so years. For instance, will there be enough ships to maintain a frigate in NATO's standing naval force (as Canada has traditionally done for most of the last 40 years), and keep another frigate operating with U.S. and other Allied naval forces in the Middle East, as well as keep one frigate on patrol in both the Pacific and the Atlantic and also meet maintenance and overhaul requirements?

A 400-YEAR epoch of world history is about to draw to a close. If Britain's current Labor government has its way, Britain's Royal Navy will mothball at least 13, and perhaps as many as 19, of its remaining 44 ships, or nearly half its effective fleet.

With one bureaucratic stroke, the Ministry of Defense will end a naval tradition reaching back to Sir Francis Drake - reducing the Royal Navy, which 40 years ago was still the second-largest fleet in the world, to the size of navies of countries like Indonesia and Turkey.

Because the Blair government's drastic plans include more than taking existing ships out of commission. The service's entire future as a blue-water navy (that is, a navy capable of operations outside Britain's own waters) may be forfeit. According to The Daily Telegraph, plans for two new fleet carriers of the kind vital for fighting today's War on Terror and projecting power overseas - and for which $6.9 billion had already been set aside - will also be scrapped. Two new destroyers, which were supposed to replace at least some of the retired ships, are also out of the picture.

Delaying that level of spending until 2025 would mean another two decades of stretching our troops on a rack to perform the difficult tasks that politicians keep assigning them. It simply isn't fair to them to use smoke and mirrors to make Canada look like an effective performer on the world stage when the money isn't there to allow the military to do its job. If we're going to defend ourselves, and help build a better world, it's going to cost money.

The plan would scrap both remaining AORs (the 3rd was binned in the mid-90s to make way for an anticipated replacement - still not realized!), and they are just as necessary for our homeland defence. It will be recalled that we got the first of our own AORs after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it was brought home to us that we had little capacity to sustain independent barrier operations off our own coast, without relatively short-legged destroyers and frigates having to go off-station, leaving gaps in the line for 2-3 days at a time, while going back into port to refuel. Halifax, St John's, Esquimalt and Prince Rupert are the only four ports on both coasts - a glance at a chart will reveal they are a long way from nowhere (adding Inuvik and Iqaluit to the mix will not make the problem easier).

Essentially the Navy is in big trouble, but, as you rightly point out, the CF as a whole is in big trouble. The leadership have squandered a year when a government was/is predisposed to rebuild the CF and, given the PM's speech yesterday at the Canadian Club where he stated "Canada needs a stronger military and a stronger role in the world to protect our people at home and our interests abroad" they may still be predisposed to rebuild given the right plan. As for the Navy, they have yet to build a strategic plan. My insights tell me they have not been able to operationalize Leadmark.

Every 20 years or so we go through a boom and bust cycle: the changing security environment demands we build up a very workable little fleet (lately of world class), we get a couple of very good op cycles and accolades from our allies out of it, but then we begin to starve it by having not bought enough spares to keep it fit, then penny-pinch till finally it fritters away into the rust-bucket butt of media jokes. The inspired design of the Halifax-class and the "Trumped" 280s really transform us into a world class "medium power" navy. That was the fleet that made Canada a world leader for the Second Gulf War, Op Apollo, when we commanded the Coalition naval effort in the Arabian Sea for the better part of two years after the 9/11 attacks - not that the government of the day appreciated the wonderful foreign policy tool it had at its disposal.

Byers idea of the Navy having an armed icebreaker is nonsense. We must act soon; Canadians will expect firm govt action (especially ship orders) over the next year as these vessels need 5-8 years to deliver. Other nations will be assessing our seriousness regarding the Arctic by how quickly and fully we react.

The US has spending $15 billion on coastal defence (Deepwater) since 2001 and we have spent less than $30 million on new at sea systems. The US is not necessarily our only sovereignty problem or our largest one. Our sovereignty/resource claims may be most heavily by challenged by Russia and perhaps China who is energy short and (apparently) has a significant arctic resource exploration effort.

We need to coordinate all of govt in the north but not at the expense of mixing up responsibilities and duplicating very expensive capability. The Navy no longer has any expertise in ice breaking, and never had any in navigation aids, vessel safety inspections, vessel traffic management, or regulatory regimes. Coast Guard has no expertise in advanced C4I (especially with respect to coordination of army/air/militia activities), undersea or air surveillance, robust armed response, and taking and inflicting battle damage.

We need to coordinate their activities to provide the maximum possible Canadian sovereignty effort, but it is wasteful to duplicate the skills of the other agencies. Perhaps the snowplow/cop car analogy works: Coast Guard will open and maintain the arctic sea routes, the navy will patrol them, enforce the rules (with specialist Coast Guard and RCMP support flown in when required - and that is the limit of shared crewing) and respond to both military and sovereignty challenges. The problem is that the CFDS is getting around to arctic patrol vessels late in the game and Coast Guard capital renewal seems to be in a decades long stall. Somehow agree with CPI40 to north but not at the expense of abandoning the Atlantic and Pacific. Has anyone told the US they are now responsible for these areas?

It is important to distinguish between grey hulls and red hulls. In essence, under our system of governance, red hulls have the constabulary function, grey hulls the defence; if USN were to come upon a Canadian grey hull "patrolling" the NW Passage, they would probably infer it was an international waterway.

If the Coast Guard is not soon re-capitalized we will soon be moving backwards in the ability act in the north. The Louie St. Laurent (heavy ice breaker) was built in 1969, the next four largest icebreakers were built between 1977 to 1982. We must get beyond only thinking in terms of naval capability or coast guard and think Canadian! And anyone not yet convinced about the absolute need to prepare for change, please see the latest IPCC reports.

Canadian warships have no law enforcement jurisdiction within Canadian waters, which is why we pack Mounties on drug busts and fisheries officers on fishery patrols. Grey hulls in the NW Passage will not accomplish what this govt says it wants to do, re-capitalizing the Coast Guard certainly will. Therefore, we need new red hulls to do the safety of navigation and fisheries enforcement, ice-capable grey hulls to patrol the approaches, and either can pack Mounties as required

David Pugiliese's recent article is accurate in its assessment that the Canada First Defence Strategy is sending mixed signals about the Arctic. Yet that document did get some things right by killing the idea of "heavy naval icebreakers." This proposal was awfully close to trying to improve highway security by having the police drive the snowplows. It looks very impressive but achieves nothing. Its also expensive, puts the wrong people in the wrong job and shifts attention from the fact that what one really needs are more snowplows and more police cars.

The Navy no longer has any expertise in icebreaking (it stopped doing this 50 years ago); and never had any in maintaining navigational aids, chart making, vessel safety inspections, or vessel traffic management. The Coast Guard, on the other hand, has no experience in wide area underwater, surface and air surveillance and in building and manning ships that give and take battle damage. Efforts to transfer these tasks back and forth or worse, combine them in one ship, or have the navy man the guns on coast guard ships will be expensive, ineffective and largely designed to avoid spending money on the large number of vessels that are actually needed.

Thus the recent defence plan to purchase six naval arctic patrol vessels is very much welcome as long as they are delivered promptly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings suggests this kind of preparation is long overdue in Canada. In addition the navy will have to be closely monitored for its tendency to gold plate. Their model should be the well armed, ice-capable Norwegian SVALBARD or Danish THETIS arctic patrol vessels. They should not attempt to mimic our billion dollar frigates.

We are a self-declared Arctic nation that cannot exercise our sovereignty, and, despite the protestations of the MND, seem to have no tangible means now or in the future to exercise our sovereignty in the Arctic, although the proposed Arctic Patrol Vessel will be a positive move if it is delivered. Unfortunately, a similar situation also exists in the Atlantic and the Pacific. Cutting the Navy by over twenty percent and our military maritime surveillance capability by 100 percent, for marginal savings, will cripple Canada's ability to ensure its maritime security. If this plan is approved it will have a profound impact on all Canadians as over forty percent of our trade moves by the oceans. Abandoning the security of the economic life of the country and stripping away our ability to prevent attacks or infiltration from the sea will put into question our national sovereignty.

If the leaked reports are true, the Harper Government is about to announce that it has changed its mind about three new ice-breakers, deep-water port and replacements of the Twin Otters. Instead, the navy will be getting new patrol vessels that can visit the Arctic in the summer -as long as the ice conditions are good! One has to ask what it is about the Arctic that causes successive Canadian Governments to make substantial promises that are never fulfilled. If this ingrained habit was not so detrimental to the Canadian control of its Arctic it would be comical. Instead it is both sad and dangerous.

The north is changing and we no longer have the luxury of making promises that we do not keep. We will need the means to know what is happening in the north and to respond when we find visitors doing thing that we do not want them to do. Otherwise Arctic sovereignty is an empty phrase in the coming years. Lets hope that the reports of the alleged Harpers clawback on its earlier promises are only rumours. We need new icebreakers. They should be under the control of the Coast Guard who have the necessary expertise and not the navy, but we need them. We also need to show our American and Russian neighbours that now when we make promises about what we intend to do in the Arctic that we are now going to keep them. And we need them to know that as the ice melts and the resources become accessible we are determined that the resources in the Canadian Arctic are developed in a sustainable manner that benefits all Canadians and particularly those who call the north home. The time has come to break the time tested Canadian practise of big talk and little action.

I think the important linking idea is that sovereignty-building in the Arctic is a whole-of-govt activity; the CF (in this case Navy) does nation-building as a result of what we do defending the nation; however, it is not the responsibility of the CF (Navy) to bear the considerable burden of nation-building from its existing meagre budget. If we (the people) give the CF (Navy) new tasks, we must give them the money to do it. Icebreakers are a new task that must be funded - that is why the CFDS is walking back - this govt failed to fund the bold promises it made during the election.

One thing I think is being overlooked here is that ice-capable patrol ships can have valid tasks in joint warfare and in service-specific naval tasks. The best example is the USCG Lake- and Tampa-class cutters of Second World War. These ships were 'ice-capable' for their day, and because the USN's General Board had given it some thought, made sure they had some 'latent capability' for warfare. Most importantly, because they were intended for ice operations, they had an excellent fuel capacity that gave them very long endurance. But, they also were sturdily built, with extra accommodations, and had sites identified in their plan for the addition of 'bolt-on' weaponry. All these ships went on to have useful wartime careers doing things that they were not intended for, but for which they provided good utility. I wrote in my article on "Expeditionary Warfare" in CNR (citing Milan Vego) that, "far from emphasizing the extreme case of amphibious assault against defended beachheads, traditional naval support roles in expeditionary warfare most commonly involve cover, administrative support, and supply operations." An ice-capable patrol ship can easily be pressed into any number of support roles in expeditionary warfare, constabulary cooperative operations abroad, and humanitarian relief missions. Seeing ice-capable patrol 'cutters' (or sloops) as warships of little combat value is a mistake that has been made all to frequently senior leaders that don't understand either history or theory.

Bedeviled with cost overruns, the Navy's shipbuilding program is in danger of sinking under its own weight. Navy leaders have struggled to upgrade an aging fleet of warships with next-generation aircraft carriers, destroyers, amphibious assault ships and submarines that cost billions more than the vessels they replace. Navy leaders and military analysts have warned that if Congress doesn't boost the Pentagon's shipbuilding budget - $11.6 billion this fiscal year - the Navy won't be able to meet its growing list of commitments...

"You don't see it or hear about it, because the focus is on boots on the ground..." said Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association, the industry's lobby group."(But) any time you talk about a global war, you can't be there, you can't get there without ships."

Sky-high shipbuilding costs are by no means new. A 2006 study by the RAND Corp., a Santa Monica-based defense consultant, showed shipbuilding costs over a 40-year period had risen 7 percent to 11 percent a year, far outpacing the rate of inflation.

As an alternative to souped-up ships such as the DDG-1000, the Navy in the late 1990s hatched the bare-bones Littoral Combat Ship. Small enough to operate in the near-shore seas and estuaries that Navy officials call "brown water," the littoral hull was designed without weapons systems. Instead, warfighting modules for functions such as antisubmarine or countermine warfare could be designed separately and loaded onto the ships as needed. The no-frills design would allow the mass production of at least 55 littoral ships, at a cost of no more than $220 million apiece.

The obvious answer to this problem is the high/low fleet mix that I proposed at the CFPS conference two years ago. Gold-plating by the navy (and coast guard) results in these astronomical costs. Norman Friedman said it best at last year's Maritime Security conference. There is absolutely no point in committing to big buys of the latest technology (SCSC) when we are in a era of radical technological change that will drive the theoretical constructs about how we fight (which is real transformation, not the organizational sham that passes for it nowadays). We need only very few advanced warships to 'keep up with the Joneses' and large numbers of low-end cutters (and I mean LOW end and small!) to attend to the myriad of domestic constabulary duties and low end naval tasks that are relevant in this age of littoral joint warfare. My article on "Expeditionary Warfare" in Canadian Naval Review stated that the CPF is too small to be an effective superior ship and is too big to do either the domestic constabulary job or the joint littoral job; they are neither fish nor fowl - designed for long range ASW operation in the Cold War, they are not what we should be basing the future of our navy upon. We should also be putting more resources into operational logistics support that will serve as a huge force-multiplier when we need to be effective through persistent presence. Without a peer-competitor in the offing for at least 20 years and the world's only super-power as our closest ally, anything else is an unaffordable impossibility

Small may make sense in some respects, but if one is serious about national maritime security then endurance trumps size. There is a myth that the WWII corvettes were tactically useful all the time; in reality, in any heavy sea they were utterly useless because survival became the driving force. It was the same when we took a diesel-electric submarine under the ice; we were about ten percent effective operationally, the rest of the effort was spent making sure we didn't kill ourselves.

One of the major problems of Canadian maritime security is the vast amount of ocean that has to be covered. The following list gives an idea of approximate distances (in nautical miles) between Halifax and select points in the Atlantic, the north, and in the Arctic.

(1) Approaches to St. John's (as a point of departure for most northerly and easterly voyages) - 544 NM;
(2) Flemish Cap and the Grand Banks patrol areas - 815 NM;
(3) Entrance to Hudson Str. - 1466 NM, with a further a further 977 NM to Churchill;
(4) Entrance to Davis Str.(which is also about the distance to Iqaluit) - 1,672 NM;
(5) Entrance to Lancaster Sound and the Northwest Passage - 2,273 NM;
(6) Western Approaches to the English Channel by the most direct route - 2,344 NM;
(7) Entrance to the Gibraltar Strait - 2,658 NM and a further 1,323 NM to Malta;
(8) Western end of Northwest Passage - around 3,800 NM (a transit of the Northwest Passage from the eastern end of Lancaster Sound, through Melville Sound and into Amundsen Gulf, using the route taken by the SS Manhattan through the Prince of Wales Strait, is about 970 nautical miles.)

With a theoretical endurance of about 7,000 miles (or 5,600 given a 20 percent safety factor) at about 14 knots, one of Canada's Halifax-class frigates cannot conduct a patrol of more than a few days duration north of the entrance to the Davis Strait without refuelling. In comparison, a large ice-breaker, such as the CCGS Louis St. Laurent, has an endurance of more than 20,000 miles, and the Norwegian Coast Guard vessel Svalbard has an endurance of about 10,000 miles at 13 knots.

Small and many may work in the Strait of Malacca but it doesn't in Canada, other than perhaps the West Coast. Far too few people understand the geography of this country especially the maritime geography. Are we talking about a new multi-purpose fleet or a two-purpose fleet that is designed to accommodate the reality of the mid-21st century? This a far more important decision point that some realize.

I too am a subscriber to the "tyranny of distance" thesis, as well as that "size matters" in providing seakeeping platform stability for systems effectiveness as well as creature comforts. However, there is also much to be said for Ken's thesis, if I may paraphrase, that "good enough is good enough." Our navy is entering a period of considerable risk, in which no govt will put forth the eye-watering sums needed for fleet replacement (that is assuming it can muster at the "jarmy" capability review board). It may be time to scope back considerably on the full-class capabilities of the future surface combatant. Is there any logic to arguing that the first four (as planned) be replacements for the 280s (not only for C2, but so that we don't get out of the big missile game), and accept that the follow-on dozen will be only very-basic capability (defined, I propose, as sufficient to conduct MIO and naval fires, the latter to support an amphib capability)? I would subscribe more fully to Ken's thesis (ie, delete the 280 replacement), except that I just know in my gut that whatever is built will be ours for the next 40 years, and a lot of strategic surprises can happen in that period of time.

The corvette analogy is correct, but only insofar as the corvettes goes. The long-range escort of that day was the sloop, with the aforementioned USCG cutter having even better endurance due to their innovative turbo-electric propulsion systems. Both sloops and cutters had cruiser-like endurance on far less displacement and were, in fact, designed to be part of two-armed team for distant operations of all sorts, both expeditionary and sovereignty.

The Halcyon-class minesweeping sloops had nearly double the range of the Flower-class corvettes on the same fuel capacity and the Lake-class cutters had an extra 1,000 miles of range but carried an extra 100 tons of fuel. The Secretary-class cutters were best of all, capable of 12,300 nm at 11 knots on 572 tons of fuel, or about 6,000 more miles than a Canadian River-class destroyer on about 100 more tons of fuel but at a slightly slower cruising speed. All classes of sloops were vastly better seakeepers than either corvettes or destroyers.

It is a myth that it is not possible to achieve either good endurance or seakindliness in ships of about 250-275 feet length and 1,250-1,500 tons displacement. History has many examples of such vessels but they are overlooked by both historians and military experts. They should not be overlooked on either account.

The vast amount of internal capacity used in superior warships for high-powered engines, long-range weapons and sensors, and magazines for long-range weapons are all unnecessary in a simple ship, which puts this reserve capacity to good use for fuel tanks, extra accommodations, and utility working/storage spaces. Ships designed for lower top speeds had more ample hulls, that have better internal capacity and better seakeeping performance in bad weather. These are, and have always been, the ways that the simple ship achieves the endurance to form part of the two-armed high-endurance force structure. Therefore, the desire for uniform high speed, big guns, and sophisticated sensors should be ruthlessly countered by requirements staffs and ship designers when considering simple ships. Otherwise, we end up with this staggering bill for the one-size-fits-all ships, which are, in fact, a operational liability in the joint operating environment we see oversees and in our own areas of national responsibility.

The other key factor is operational logistics, which allows the liberal use of speed to achieve tactical advantage without concern for fuel consumption; normally a huge concern. Support ships are both an operational and a tactical force multiplier and any move to deprive a maritime force of its source of ready fuel supply should be resisted with the utmost energy. Likewise, other forms of sustainment are important, but not nearly so critical as fuel.

With all due respect I think you are overlooking a couple of key points. A "simple" ship is just that -- a simple ship, able only to do simple tasks. The operational requirements (perhaps imperatives) of the North, based on the high probability that those waters will slowly open-up for more shipping and other commercial marine activity over the next 40 years -- i.e., the projected lifespan of some new form of warship/patrol vessel, which I believe the Navy must man for a host of reasons, are:

(a) endurance -- perhaps to the extent of being able to conduct a three-month patrol with only limited logistic support;
(b) utility in being able to respond to situations of many kinds including apprehension of criminals, landing teams of people ashore, and providing disaster assistance; and
(c) survivability in the extreme weather conditions in the region which can change quickly and without warning.

To meet these requirements the ship will need ice strengthening, double hull construction to meet anti-pollution regulations, at least one helicopter, landing craft (RHIBs are too small), and a comprehensive C4ISR capability for a range of tasks from supporting an on-scene SAR commander to basic information gathering and management. This is not a simple ship.

For years, the Danes used two-man dogsled teams to patrol Greenland; it was "presence" but little else. The point about the future is that change is fundamental, especially in the Arctic. As several wise men, including Professor Don McRae of Ottawa U., have pointed out "A responsible government provides proper policing, surveillance, search and rescue and other services throughout its territory and the claims about its failure to protect Canada's sovereignty over the lands of the Arctic are often claims about the failure of governments over time to act as governments should in respect of remote areas" That is essentially the mission statement of the future.

When the Arctic/Northern waters open-up, the government better be ready to show that Canada is master of those waters because if it does not somebody else will. The sovereignty claim of the Arctic islands is not in doubt, rather it is the right of Canada to claim that the waters of the Northwest Passage are either internal or territorial waters that is not assured. A challenge, according to the legal community, could go either way particularly as there are no precedents or established patterns of regular use of those waters. Thus, it is in Canada's interest to maintain a government presence in those waters as long as they are open or likely to be open soon. The vessel that can do that job, and only a ship can, is not a "simple" ship. It is a highly versatile vessel. It doesn't have to be a full-fledged icebreaker, but it has to be ice capable and built to meet the requirements of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act.

Should this be a Navy role? Yes, because of the complexity of the patrol, the requirement for quick response, and the associated politics of the mission, which are beyond the capabilities of a unionized organization. Does this mean that naval officers should become law enforcement officers? Probably. The RAN have had to do this and have done it without difficulty. I do not believe though that the Navy should try to take over the icebreaking or marine safety mandate of Coast Guard. Those are highly specialized task and best kept where they are, with Coast Guard.

Should we try to make the Coast Guard a military force? No, there is no need, they are good at what they do and in view of present problem and their unionized status probably could not undertake the new role in such a way as to meet political expectations.

The time has come to realize that the domestic role is becoming as important as the now-traditional foreign policy/expeditionary role, and for that reason, consideration should be given to adding new types of ships to the inventory. Unlike 1969-70 and 1985, the Arctic is no longer a political "blip" that will eventually go way; the effects of global warming and the potential riches of the region are combining to make this a true frontier waiting to be opened up. And there are more than enough potential predators out there.

Ideas of making the replacement for the frigates (and destroyers too I hope) all-singing, all-dancing warships able to go North and South with ease may now be unwise because of the high cost. What future force planners need to do is work out a new fleet mix that allows the Navy to undertake both tasks (or missions if you prefer): Northern/Arctic patrol and foreign policy support and expeditionary deployments. In this, I still think the point of departure is to go back to basics and figure exactly what work has to be done and design ships accordingly, not visa versa. Simply, the decisions taken now have implications until 2050; we cannot afford to get it wrong.

Perhaps, "small and many" may work in future expeditionary or foreign policy deployments but it is a concept that would be a great mistake in Arctic and Northern waters.

All three of [Peter's] criteria fit quite nicely into my definition of a simple ship and were fulfilled nicely by a USCGC cutter of 50 years ago. Endurance, utility, and environmental survivability are all easy and cheap to attain through sensible design. All of your characteristics were part of my presentation two years ago. The simple ship does need situational awareness and should be able to contribute towards it. This is where the admirals of the past were right to ensure that the old 205-class 'steamers' had a data link system, but forced them to 'soldier on' with their original sensors. That does not mean that they have to have advanced, long-range sensors for multi-dimensional combat. The simple ships' emphasis should be on short- range/shallow water EM and EO systems. Eric asked me for an example of a 'simple ship' and I gave him the same one I used for my presentation: the Vosper-Thornycroft River-class OPVs, which are going through a refit to make them more utilitarian (working deck enlargement, extra boat booms and cranes for larger craft and unmanned UUVs, USVs, extra accommodations, and expanded flight deck facilities for refuelling helos (but not accommodating them) and for launching and recovering UAVs). Although it is not doubled-hulled, this is a cheap design feature that can be built in from the start.

'Neil Reynolds, in his column "Bring back the mighty ship Labrador" (Feb. 14), writes that "Canada could very quickly deploy heavy Arctic icebreakers that function simultaneously as armed naval patrol vessels." But there is no national or military need for Navy icebreakers.

As Mr Reynolds notes, the Canadian Navy has not operated an icebreaker since the 1950s. Since then the Canadian Coast Guard has had Canada's icebreaking fleet. Current icebreakers are getting very long in the tooth and will need replacement soon. The Auditor General's report released February 13 confirms the Coast Guard's desperate need for new vessels.

The sensible thing to do would be to acquire truly Actic-capable vessels for the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard, even though not armed, would be perfectly adequate by its presence to assert Canadian legal claims in Arctic waters. If necessary its icebreakers could act as a platform for armed Fishery Officers, the RCMP, or troops.

Moreover assigning the icebreakers to the Coast Guard would avoid the inevitable delays, complications and extra costs involved in the Navy's re-learning very specialized operational skills. Besides which the Coast Guard can use such vessels for the varied other missions its icebreakers already perform in the north, off the east and west coasts, and in the St. Lawrence River. These are civilian missions; there is no reason for the Navy to take them on and I doubt it would want to.

If Arctic-capable icebreakers are not also used for the full spectrum of Canadian icebreaking operations then the ships would be severely under-utilized and a great deal of money wasted.'