DND confirms budget for new Arctic vehicles could be as high as $1 billion (ottawacitizen.com)

submitted 2 days ago by NightOwl@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Suddenly there is money

[-] mrdown@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

Enjoy your social and public services getting worse for an arm race

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 0 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Enjoy your social and public services getting worse for an [arms] race

No. We tax. If we hated healthcare, elder care, and schools, we'd've elected a conservative.

[-] brynden_rivers_esq@lemmy.ca 4 points 19 hours ago

What’s amazing to me is that regular Canadians are agreeing with this bizarre US policy of trying to get their “allied” countries’ to spend more on their militaries.

First, that’s ludicrous because the US is the empire, (when they’re not doing the plundering themselves) they garner the vast majority of the benefit of stability and an absence of piracy. Of course they, who reap the benefit, should have to pay the cost. Or don’t, you know, I’m not even convinced that Russia or China have the intention or wherewithal to start invading other countries via the arctic. Maybe they want to claim territory that doesn’t currently belong to anyone, I don’t know. But like…I don’t think either of them is interested in marching an army into Whitehorse.

Second, what are we gonna do to increase spending? Could it be that we’ll be paying US companies for these weapons? When the gun merchant says “buy guns or else” I don’t think it’s very insightful to do mental gymnastics to justify why “maybe it really would be better for us.”

Don’t get me wrong, there may be good things too, especially if we focus on domestic manufacturers, and on weapons of defense and resistance (i.e. large quantities of small arms to make occupation by anyone difficult - like the Finns!).

Instead I’m sure we’re gonna see us buying overpriced U.S. military hardware that will only really be useful helping the US do imperialism (fancy jets and the like).

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 16 hours ago

Ahh, the budget correction after decades of poor funding.

It's gonna be large, for we've let it get really bad.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago

170 vehicles. That's about 5.8 million dollars per vehicle. That's a bit steep isn't it?

[-] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 1 points 16 hours ago

It's not that steep for the low-volume high-margin equipment built by the military industrial complex. The whole point is to produce a relatively small amount of expensive products with minimal capital investment, not to take advantage of economies of scale to produce large amounts of equipment efficiently. The former is much more efficient at converting taxpayer dollars to private profits.

Comparing this arctic vehicle program to China's second-most modern tank isn't exactly comparing apples-to-apples, but it's nevertheless instructive. An Arctic vehicle is going to be more expensive than a comparable vehicle not designed for Arctic use since it needs a lot of special equipment to operate in cold temperatures for a long time, but it's still basically just a metal box with tracks and an engine. A modern tank is a very heavy steel/advanced composite box with a larger engine, tracks, a cannon, and a bunch of other advanced equipment like thermal scopes, radar, lasers, and so on. More materials total, more moving parts, more low-tolerance parts, more high-tech parts.

Even still, the Chinese Type 99 tank costs 2.5 million USD (3.4 million CAD), $2.4 million less per unit than these $5.8m unarmed Arctic vehicles. You might think that a tank should cost more than what's functionally an advanced truck for use in extreme enironments, or that they should at least be the same price, but not so fast! The Type 99 is made by Norinco, a large state-owned company that produces huge amounts of equipment. They take in $82 billion per year but only make 1.7 billion in profit. I don't know who will be making these arctic vehicles, but one possibility is Lockeed Martin. They have a comparable revenue of $75 billion, but they make a net profit of $5 billion. This means that Lockheed Martin is three times as efficient at turning taxpayer dollars into profits as Norinco, hence proving the superiority of our system of free enterprise compared to asiatic communism.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 16 hours ago

The whole point is to produce a relatively small amount of expensive products with minimal capital investment, not to take advantage of economies of scale to produce large amounts of equipment efficiently.

Lacking your psychic powers, we're going to need a citation showing that's "the whole point".

[-] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 1 points 14 hours ago

Milton Friedman said it most succinctly in Capitalism and Freedom (1962): "there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits." He argued in short that a corporation's sole responsibility is to increase shareholder value, and this argument is the foundation of modern business practives.

If a defence contractor were to produce affordable (i.e. low margin) products, they would be shirking their holy duty to the shareholders, the money would be invested elsewhere, and they would go out of business. China can get away with doing it since they just have a state-owned company do it cheaply, but that's authoritarian (bad). We, being principled democratic states, can only buy what the free market has to sell.

[-] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago

When was the last time you bought an armoured arctic capable vehicle?

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 16 hours ago

... And the staff to maintain it?

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

With that kind of attitude any price is unassailable. Edit: why not 6.8 million per vehicle, why not 15.8 million per vehicle, did you ever buy one?

Look, that 1 billion is being taken away from my public services and climate change adaptation programs. At the very least, I get to demand my tax dollars are not being wasted the way the Estadounidenses throw money down the military industrial complex money pit.

[+] Mpatch@lemmy.world -6 points 1 day ago

[removed by mod]

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Rough morning? Pipe down bud.

EDIT: Like if you hadn't written in such a rude and abrasive way, I might have responded with something like: yes we need an update, no we shouldn't do it in a dumb way. We are notoriously bad at using military budgets, so we should not be accepting anything at any price, we should be doing it in ways that create investment in our industrial base and create economies of scale to benefit the civilian economy. But, when I'm being told to "stfu you fuck you have no field experience", I'm going to respond in kind. So pipe the fuck down.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago

so we should not be accepting anything at any price

That's a bad take.

These should be amphibious, and capable of operating 72hrs without resupply, capable of ambulance fitout...

There's obvious utility, and our existing vehicles are 40 years old

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Did I debate the need of any of that capability? Like, I literally wrote "yes we need an update". The point is "we should not be accepting anything at any price". I can't understand how that simple common sense statement is a "bad take". The point of military procurement, or of any procurement really, is to maximize utility while minimizing cost. Ukraine has already shown us that the drone revolution means that modern wars are now back to being wars of attrition. And in wars of attrition, cost is a strategic resource.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

I don't think you have an idea of what civilian economy we could invest in that would match the utility of these.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Dual use technology and infrastructure is an entirely uncontroversial topic in the defense procurement sector, so I don't know what exactly you're trolling for here.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

I just need an example of something, that addresses the concerns from the article

There has been renewed focus on Canadian defence in the Arctic, with that initially being fuelled by increased interest from Russia and China in the resource-rich region.

But, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, there has been a shift in the view that the Americans are also be an emerging threat to Canadian sovereignty.

I'm drawing a blank on what we could spend the money on.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 21 hours ago

At this point I don't know what we're disagreeing about.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 21 hours ago

I don't think there's a clearly better use of this money for up north, and you think there obviously is and won't say what that is?

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

My whole point at the start was about the price point.

Angry guy responds misunderstanding my point, as if I were saying that we don't need the equipment.

To that I responded "yes we need an update, no we shouldn’t do it in a dumb way. We are notoriously bad at using military budgets, so we should not be accepting anything at any price, we should be doing it in ways that create investment in our industrial base and create economies of scale to benefit the civilian economy."

That's where you came in, focusing on the bit "we should not be accepting anything at any price" and started listing necessary features for arctic vehicles. So you're repeating the misunderstanding of the angry guy. You're assuming I am saying we don't need the equipment, whereas what I'm saying is that we do need it but we need to make sure we don't overpay for it.

So I responded to you with "Did I debate the need of any of that capability? Like, I literally wrote “yes we need an update”." Meaning, we agree on the premise about the need for these features. I went on to make a point about the strategic importance of cost.

And then you started talking about what else we could be doing with the money in the civilian economy. Which to me is a nonsensical question. Because if I have 10 units of money and need to spend it on military materiel and social programs, well, if I can get good materiel for 8, that means I have 2 for social programs. Or if I can get good materiel at 4, and a gun factory for 6, that will generate income for making materiel cheaper and fund social programs after, that's even better. Just because they gave you 10 units of money for materiel now, and given you are not going to be shooting someone in the next 5 minutes it doesn't mean that you should go buy whatever guns exist. Being smart about purchases is a good thing, actually, and I assume we share that because that's like an obvious thing.

Which is why I say I don't understand what we're disagreeing about. We both agree on the need for this equipment, with these characteristics. And I assume we both agree that the government should do its best to spend the money to get this equipment in a smart way (suppress costs, invest in Canadian manufacturing, avoid waste, etc). So what the hell is the disagreement here? I still don't understand.

============ edit: just to stupid-proof my text: Let's go back to my dumb example: you got 10 units of money. You need to buy materiel and run social programs. Is your question "if I buy materiel for 8 units, what can I do with the other 2"? Like, assume that 8 buys you good materiel to spec, and to the required amount. And you're left with 2 units to go. Is it the case that what you're asking about a "clearly better use of this money for up north"? Because the answer to that to me again is obvious: improve civilian infrastructure (e.g., improve food security, healthcare, education etc). I mean fuck, even if you HAVE to use it on military equipment, the answer is still obvious: buy more equipment, more parts, and build maintenance infrastructure.

============

edit2: to make it as clear as possible:

I’m not arguing against buying these vehicles. I’m arguing that cost discipline and domestic industrial strategy should be part of the conversation. If $5.8M is market price for spec-compliant Arctic vehicles, fine. But we shouldn’t treat “it’s defense” as a blank cheque.

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 16 hours ago

It seems like you have no suggestions on what actually is better/smarter/cheaper, you are just saying we need to be better/smarter/cheaper.

[-] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Sure yes.

Got an issue with that?

[-] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 14 hours ago

Not particularly, you just seem to be writing a lot without being useful

[-] frunch@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

The way prices are going up on literally everything these days, i imagine it's not terribly out of line. The fuck do i know about such things though, lol