Canadian election

[Skandranon]

That point had me confused.   Could you explain a bit more about what a hybrid carrier actually is?

Certainly.

There's a few naval terms I have to introduce at this point. CV means carrier, and CVN means nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. These are the primary vessels of the American navy. Stephen Harper has not suggested we get these, as he as well as everyone else knows that they're well out of our price range; we don't even begin to have the aircraft to put on even one of these. For another, these ships mainly carry strike aircraft and support. We don't have a need to have air superiority fighters or strike aircraft, because our foreign policy is unlikely to get us into open conflict with an air-armed foreign power that we need to bomb.

What Harper was suggesting was to get a pair of LHDs. The letters stand for Landing ship, Helicopter, Dock. The US Navy calls them Amphibious Assault Ships, which is a bit of a misnomer.

These ships do look like small aircraft carriers, but their purpose is different. They don't carry planes. They could carry vertical take off and landing planes, but we don't have any of those. What they'd carry in our case would be helicopters, as well as a large detachment of troops. Paul Martin was correct when he said that the fastest way to get soldiers to an area is by aircraft, but the safest way of getting them into a dangerous area is to use one of these ships. Helicopters (our current helicopters are no good, but all parties have said that replacing them is a priority) provide support, lifting soldiers into critical areas as well as moving equipment from the ship to the shore. It's also much less expensive to move soldiers and vehicles in this manner.

It's notable that the US Navy's own page for this type of craft emphasizes the humanitarian capabilities of this type of ship. A helicopter carrier is just as good at delivering supplies and aid, and it does so, once again, much less expensively than many flights.

Finally, a hybrid carrier offers a mobile command post from which helicopters containing troops can exert influence and keep the peace. From Kabul we know that without such a capability we have to establish a base and sit on it, our influence limited by how far outside the city we can go. In nations with a significant coast, such as Haiti, a hybrid carrier lets the same number of troops project influence over a much larger area.

That said, clearly Harper's vision of foreign policy is a little more involved than Paul Martin's. Both are perfectly valid choices, and it's up to the voter to pick which one appeals more. Martin envisions going in after the US/UK/UN or whatever militaries have cleared away all opposition and engaging in "nation-building" by training police and building institutions. Harper, with a more dangerous view of security, envisions troops going in facing some kind of opposition. He also wants our peacekeepers to be more active.

In fairness to Martin's position, Haiti is a good example why we should follow his plan. The populace is quiet and it mostly needs training and institution building. On the other side, Afghanistan is a good example of how limited our influence can be (no more than a bit outside Kabul) without a mobile capability to extend it. I'm undecided on the issue myself; Harper hasn't completely convinced me that we do need this ability.

There are good reasons to pick either approach. What really annoyed me was how Martin targetted it in the debate. Instead of bringing up the perfectly sound reasons why we might not want one, he kept shouting "aircraft carrier", knowing that it would instantly make people imagine a giant American style nuclear carrier that we can't afford and can't use. There was a good and strong basis to argue against Harper, and I'm disappointed that he chose to, essentially, scare people off the position without giving them a chance.