Switzerland has a six month stint for all over 18.   Then two weeks a year to keep you up on it.  You get to keep your weapons at home.  They screen very carefully first.    My husband says the bridges are loaded for detonation to stop or slow enemy tanks. So they may be neutral but they are not entirely  toothless.

I don't think it's a bad idea myself. Just maybe not two years. It is a defensive mechanism and it is also good to have a trained organized force  for natural disasters or come what may.

 ...would that be the Canadian or US military?

 Want to talk about the military and what it does to people?  Please watch this first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XE4eRiKrz8

At least before it is taken down from youtube.

neither do pacifists.

We first have to figure out what our military is for.

Only one country has attacked us in nearly 250 years. That was the US, of course, in 1812. No country is likely to attack us. The only one who could would be the US - say, if we refused to give them our water as the US runs into serious water problems. Then Canada would try to make a deal because otherwise the US would invade again, and there is no possibility any army we could create would be able to stop them. In short, there is no war that either won't happen or that we can win if it does.

We have, in the past, fought three British wars. Now, in Afghanistan, we are fighting an American war. Harper continues to play up to the US. Recently, he aped US policy by saying an attack on Israel would be an attack on Canada - a remark that may see Canadians getting killed in Iran  (which, by coincidence, has oil.)

In short, there is no possibility of a Canadian army ever fighting wars of its choice, and for its own purposes. Nor would even a heavily militarized Canada be a significant factor in any easing or raising of the war threat.

Pearson saw that, and saw that Canada had only one interest, I cannot fight wars for its own interest and cannot benefit from them. That's why he proposed peacekeepers.

Oh, if you think it's because Iran poses a threat if it gets a nuclear bomb, get real. North Korea has at least four; it has a leader as crazy as any in the world; and it can easily threaten Japan and south; Korea. But have you noticed the US has never made a big noise about it? And certainly has not talked of bombing its facilities.

As well, Israel was allowed to get something between 80 and 250 without a peep from the US.  Obviously, if Iran were to fire a nuclear weapon at Israel, it would be obliterated in minutes.  When a country has a very, very small nuclear arsenal, it's only use is for defence. There is no possibility that Iran having the bomb could threaten world peace. The only countries which have enough bombs to launch an attack and still have enough for retaliation are the US, Britain and France  and China and Pakistan(maybe)  and India and, probably, Israel. If a nuclear should ever start, it will be started by one of those.

But army brass hated the idea of peacekeepers. Just as university teachers struggle to get recognition from other university teachers, army officers swoon at the thought of impressing "real" armies, especially the US. Wars also mean bigger budgets, neat new weapons, and promotions.

The army brass won. The peacekeeper role is pretty much wiped out. So we're back fighting other people's wars.

If we had a war that would fight only for our purposes, then it would have to be peacekeepers. And in that case, I would think compulsory service a good idea.

But if we continue with generals who appear to lack only acne to qualify as teenagers with dreams of glory, then I would very much oppose it.

Graeme

This topic reminds me of my father who came to Canada to escape manditory 2 year military service in the UK when he was 18, only to join the navy a little over a year after he got here.

Amazingly, it is not crystal clear to many, many Canadians. They think we're rebuilding Afghanistan and establishing democracy.

What ever happened to Katimavik?

How about a 2 year compulsory peace service that would include building homes, hospitals, schools for the poorest of our fellow Canadians and when that was done move out into the world.

LB

Peace, to have meaning for many who have only known suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity.

     Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904-1971)

Still around. http://www.katimavik.org/

We had them in our city a few years ago.

Canada had such a system prior to WW1. It was called the Active Militia. Men (and in those days it was men) spent a weeknight drilling at a local armoury and then two weeks at militia camp. The result of this training was that in August 1914 Canada was able to stand up the Canadian Expedetionary Force of sixteen battalions. With four months of intense training in England over the winter, the CEF was then able to add a significant and distinguished contribution to the early battles in the first two years of WW1.

How so? The health care system needs, more than ever, very specific technical skills. There are huge regulatory requirements as well as exising integrated volunteer systems.

No, the military requires the complete engagement of recruits. If you aren't 100% committed, then there is no place for you. Your own life and the lives of the other members of your unit (and especially your fire partner) depend on it.

It is already part of the normalization of war. But war has been a normal state of humanity since the dawn of time. It just depends on the degree of engagement.

I have considerable sympathy with revjohn's view, and I would certainly support it as an element of any programme. The difficulty is that we live in a world in which physical violence is a reality. We need some people trained to deal with it. We need police. Even military peacekeepers need some considerable muscle to do their work. I think we have to look at compromises.

There has been significant scholarly research in the last decade to challenge that theory. I refer specifically to Andrew Iarocci's recently published monograph "Shoestring Soldiers"

http://www.amazon.ca/Shoestring-Soldiers-Canadian-Division-1914-1915/dp/0802098223

Iarocci suggests (and extensively documents) that the Canadian 1 Division fought extremely wel ln the early years of the war , was well trained and well led but was let down by chronic poor supply lines and artillery support. Indeed, it was when the Canadian soldiers were able to develop their own combined arms tactics (artillery and infantry used effectively togther) in the latter part of the war that they became the extremely disciplined and effective troops "at the tip of the spear".

DKS - yes, and there has also been significant scholarly research on the opposite view.  There's no doubt it became highly effective from 1916-17, though I haven't seen any convincing reason why. I know about the combined arms improvement but, in fact, other countries were doing the same thng.

The militia time gave virtually no training. Currie had spent his life as a real estate salesman. He seemed a wildly improbable choice to become a field general. But he became an excellent one. I expect that was due to tutorship from Byng - but there's no doubt he must have been a remarkable pupil.

Then there's the business of the week at camp. That had become a practice only beginning with  the Laurier government. One week is far too short for any significant training. And the number of men who went through in those few years cannot have been great. As well, the urban militia was largely social, a place tor wealthy young men to wear fancy uniforms as officers and have suppers and balls, and for noncoms to be gathered as a force to break strikes.

For the rural half of the population, it was even less, often just an annual picnic with a chance for men to dress up.

Then you have the fact that the first contingent was very heavily British-born. It would seem likely that many had no militia experience at all.

I must confess to a private doubt about military historians. They are often people who want to ingratiate themselves with the military, and they often write more as propagandists than as historians. That is true even of the British historian, John Keegan, who can be brilliant.

 I DID it... I got called up in New Zealand and got cooking, diving, damage control, navigation and demolition courses, I learned how to tie lots of different knots. I got free daily tots of rum, free condoms (every time we went ashore), duty free smokes and duty free beer (whenever we crossed the territorial limit into international waters), I got to go neat places (including the Antarctic and the Cook Islands). Bellbottoms (the uniforms in those days) were cool and girls (of the 'best' sort) liked us. The violence was mostly about picking fights with Yanks, although I did learn -- to superfluous purpose -- to take a Bofors gun to pieces.

We spent time doing fishery protection patrols, oceanographic work and charting work and a bit of search and rescue. There was a lot of drink, partying and bad behaviour and it vented a lot of youthful stupidity in a more or less controlled environment. It was a brilliant time.

Nowadays, they've done away with a lot of the fun, I believe.

Jolly good for you.... really... jolly... good... for.... you....

And for all all of the people being killed needlessly in Iraq and Afghanistan (Canadians, Americans, and of yeah by the way... Iraqis and Afghans...)... do you really think hearing about free condoms makes us all feel better informed?  Are you actually comparing your quaint experience with what is being asked of our young people today?

Took all of the fun out of it?  Yeah, I guess so....

 Granton: my point was that it's long been bloody useless.

Yes, we need a Ministry of Peace as well, to develop that capacity within our federal government. I am totally opposed to compulsory military service -- I think it has the capacity to screw with one's psyche and, given the usual age at which others around the world are usually conscripted, one's brain is still in development.

Compulsatory peace service - yes, I think that might be a good idea - provided that there were no exceptions.  Not the rich kids go to university and the poor or working class go into the service.   Everybody spend a year or two between high school and post secondary doing peace service or sommunity service (receiving training and earning wages) - building houses for the poor, developing park lands and play grounds, developing urban gardens, working in hospitals and nursing homes, cleaning up the coasts and waterways, travelling to our far north to build schools or community halls, or whatever was needed.  And for those who wished perhaps they could sign on for a second year and do overseas work.

Compulsatory military service - no way. 

In the early 1900's when my maternal grandparents planned to come to this country with my grandmother's family, my grandfather had not yet served his two year term.  He was detained at the boarder and had to serve, and his family stayed with him.  Travelling with them were my grandmother's siblings (3 others and their families) who went on ahead to Canada before them and my grandparents followed 2+ years later.

Just a little story, has nothing to do with what I think about compulsory miliary service.

I'm not sure, in peace time or war, that I would particularly want someone in the military who did not want to be there.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's two books "On Combat" and "On Killing" will give you some understanding of both how right and how wrong that statement is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Combat:_The_Psychology_and_Physiology_of_Deadly_Conflict_in_War_and_in_Peace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology

There is a significatn disconnect between your first sentences and your last one.  The first are fact, the last is an opinion that is most certainly not unchallenged.  And I suspect that the "and" in your second sentence is not 100% accurate either.

Bleshkin and AKD should read a little history and law. Canadian is now participating in two invasions, Harper now has publicly announced he is willing to participate in three.

The  rules for going to  war were established at Nuremberg, whiere we hanged Nazi leaders for breaking them.

There were two basic rules.1. Only the UN can authorize a war. 2. one is justified in going to war only when attacked by another country.

Notice no mention of NATO? For all the prattling about this, NATO has no aurthority to make war. Indeed, that is opposite to what Pearson intended at its beginning, and he feared  it would be used as it is now.

As the US has been losing control of  the UN, it was begun using  Nato as its authority. And the world is full of people who get suckered in to believing this makes it legal.

Almost all the legal advice is the the invasion of Iraq was illegal. It is exactly what we hanged Germans for doing.

As to the invasion of Afghanistan, when did Afghanistan attack the US or Canada? The suicide bombers were all from Saudi Arabia. The FBI has admitted publicly and many times  it has no evidence whatever that AFghanistan helped the mission in any way. They don't even have evidence that Bin Laden did it - despite his claims. There is some evidence that much of the planning was done in Europe.

There is also ample evidence that the US was planning an attack on Afghatnistan years before 9/11.  Look up project for the New American Century on google. You cna trust it. It was signed by Jeb Bush, Bill Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld among others.

The war Harper has promised? He made a public statement just days ago that any attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada. How'sthat for a promise in advance to participate.

I know you both don't think peacekeepers are ballsy enough. Actaully, they aren't. In their vrief history as peacekeepers, they killed hardly any women and children, and they didn't torture.

What they did was to give us an army that was useful to the world. It could prevent wars and save a hell of a lot of lives. It took courage. But there was no looting, killing of old people or rape of little girls, so it wasn't realy man stuff.

That particularly upset army brass like Rick Hillier who wanted American generals to admire tham and like them. That, and pressure from exporters who want to kiss up to the US is why we dropped peacemakers.

Oh, the other invasion. Another one custom make for suckers. Haiti.

Peacekeepers were sent in when Haiti was invaded by a gang of hired thugs. The preident was Haiti's first elected and popular president after decades of brutal dictatorships. The US invaded, with the cover of inviting other countries as "peacekeeprs".  Curiously, the peacekeepers welcomed the thugs, but exiled the president. (The president was considered a dangerous radical by the US because he was thinking of a small minimum wage to replace the normal three dollars a day paid by American owned sweatshops. That's when thugs were given money and guns to attack Haiti, and when the US invaded. Coincidence.

After the earthquake ,the US,though next door, was only third in sending help. First and second were Iceland and China. At that, most of the "help" was marines... and  the peacekeeping forces were beefred up.

Interestingly enough, President Aristide had kept order largely with a small police force. He disbanded most of the army. Now, it requires a division of troops in that tiny and poor country to keep the peace.  This isn't an aid mission. this is an occupation.

So that gives Canada three invasions, with a fourth coming up soon.

And that's not counting the Boer War. That was a British war to steal the gold mines of south africa. Canada was technically at war when Britain was. But,in keeping with the practice elaborated at Nuremberg many years later, it had no obligation to send troops because Canada was not invaded by Boers. We sent them anyway.

Those are invasions by Canada in just the last 110 years And they are all illegal under the standards used at nuremberg..

There are going to be a lot more. US military power seems to require an enormous number of troops and equjipment for wars that oafter often against small and poorly amred countries. They also face a series of such wars in Latin America. We will be invited on the authority of OAS or NATO or some such. And Harper will say yes.

Teach your kid how to torture. I has a good  future, and you don't get shot.