A
Army_brat99
Guest
One of Paul Martin's most prominent, loudly-made points during the election campaign was that he wanted to "renew Canada's position as a world leader" in several respective fields, one would assume also militarily.
I believe Canada could make small, yet incredibly useful deployments of military forces throughout the world, even now as we're entering into a gradual slow-down of operational tempo, which would not only make a huge difference physically and literally, but would also command the respect of the rest of the world, and perhaps encourage them to follow suite.
For example, the de-mining of Laos. Laos is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, with hundreds of millions of tonnes of UEO dropped during the Vietnam war. Although not officially involved in the war, Laos still had more bombs dropped on it than Iraq did in GW1 and GW2 combined. (Think of how long the Vietnam war lasted to give you an idea, combined with the lack of precision guided munitions like we have now.)
If middle powers like Canada contributed perhaps a company or two worth of engineers, and a few platoons of infantry for security - Canada could make a huge, positive difference in the lives of many people in Laos, while encouraging other middle powers to do the same. A modest deployment in terms of both money and troops could still yield huge results, and command the respect of many other nations to perhaps look at doing the same in other countries.
Another example would be B-H. Although we are pulling out the last of our 650 troops there by December, a company or two worth of engineers and a repsective number of infantry for security could still vastly improve the domestic security situation in that country, even without the full range of activities a battlegroup would conduct.
I can think of other examples too, but I'm sure you all have an idea as to what I'm talking about. What are your thoughts on this?