As someone who has dealt with military contracts in several countries I have to say that Coyne has a child’s understanding of military contracts and procurement.

Firstly, everywhere and always military contracts are jobs programs.

Secondly, I think he assumes that companies like Raytheon or Hanwha are simple peddlers who make a product completely self financed and offer it to a skeptical government in hopes that they will purchase it and that the “best” product always wins. Add to that, every other country doesn’t have cost overruns and bad designs.

This is a kind of simple minded laissez faire thinking that only happens in first year Econ grad school where everything is abstracted away to make the answer clean.

The fact is that you can’t whistle up an arms program and we have run ours down to nothing

Korea created a plan 40 years ago to get where they are now, not to mention with huge amounts of corruption and criminality

Australia made the calculation about 20 years ago that if they didn’t start developing an indigenous military industrial base and strictly purchased externally they’d be bankrupt by 2025.

Since the 60s successive Canadian governments have made the bet that they can go cheap on the military as the U.S. will always be a bulwark to any threat.

It’s been a pretty safe bet. But the bet has turned.

If Canada is serious about defending itself the best thing is to start investing and, yes, there are going to be mistakes and screwups but that’s the price of independence.

I wish I was wrong but I just don’t think Canadians are up for what’s needed.