In the latest militarist outrage, Mark Carney just announced the purchase of a dozen German attack submarines. The 12 subs will cost about two billion dollars each and the contract will top $100 billion over their lifecycle.
Prime Minister Carney made the submarine announcement in Halifax enroute to the NATO summit in Turkey. The huge outlay of public resources towards murderous, stealth warships is part of the government’s effort to ramp up military spending to reach NATO’s 5% of GDP target in what alliance head Mark Rutte recently dubbed the “The Trump Trillion” of new NATO spending. To placate the fanatic US president Canada and other NATO members have devoted ever greater social resources towards militarism.
At a geopolitical level purchasing the German submarines bolsters Canada’s anti-Russia partnership and prioritizes NATO interoperability. TKMS provides 70% of NATO’s non-nuclear submarines and selecting the German firm over its South Korean competitor is about prioritizing ties with Europe over encouraging new relations across the Pacific.
In what was widely interpreted as a coded anti-Korean/Asian reference, TKMS executive Philipp Schön recently posted that Ottawa should consider the “cultural ecosystem” they would be joining when buying submarines. He said the German-Norwegian vessel maker was more “compatible” with the Canadian navy since the company’s working language was English.
Canada is procuring offence-oriented submarines. Expected to integrate with US weapons systems, the submarines will be able to launch ballistic missiles. In “Canada’s New Submarines Will Be Lethal, Stealthy, and Very UnCanadian” Peter Jones argues (somewhat hyperbolically) that the procurement is “the start of a military buildup that will reshape the country’s self-image.” The professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs notes, “The new submarines are designed to launch long-range precision attacks against targets inland, an entirely new capability for Canada’s fleet, previously equipped only with torpedoes. At present, only the United States, UK, and France operate submarine-fired land-attack cruise missiles among Western navies.”
Submarines excel at blowing up ships or merchant vessels. They can also be used effectively to impose a blockade.
Submarines are a military luxury and it’s unnecessary to spend $100 billion on purchasing a dozen of them. Three quarters of the world’s countries don’t have submarines, and Canada currently has only one operational submarine (three other Victoria-class submarines are inoperable).
Manufacturing submarines consumes significant energy and produces many waste products.
Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) guidelines also permit submarines to dump waste into the sea and these vessels are known to regularly kill sea life.
Purchasing submarines strengthen maybe the most male-dominated domain of a patriarchal institution. It wasn’t until 2000 that the submarine service was opened to women and the first female submariner started in 2003. There have only ever been three dozen female submariners in the RCN.
And what use would these subs be in defending Canada against the only country that can realistically invade, which is currently led by a president threatening to make us their 51st state?
As an inherently covert domain, submarines undermine democracy, which requires transparency and public oversight. Submarines participated in the most egregious example of the Canadian military subverting democracy to assist the US empire. Without political consent, two Canadian submarines and a dozen other vessels participated in the 1962 US blockade of Cuba. According to Lieutenant Bruce Fenton, the RCN “assumed responsibility for surveillance of Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic while the United States Navy was engaged in operations around Cuba.” Incredibly, the mission didn’t have official political support.
The commander in Halifax (Flag Officer Atlantic Coast) Kenneth Lloyd Dyer quietly deployed his forces and simply said the operation was part of fleet exercises with the US Navy. Military historian Jack Granatstein labeled Dyer’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis the “the single greatest breach of proper civil-military relations in Canadian history.”
Do we really need a repeat or worse?
Once again Carney’s government has kowtowed to Trump and a military-industrial complex that is willing to destroy the planet to make more profit. Once again Carney’s actions have contradicted his “elbows up” words.
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