Acquiring Nuclear Submarines for Canada: Are SSNs essential to ensure Canadas arctic sovereignty?
The problem [of acquiring nuclear submarines, as suggested by Keith Spicer,] is not so much the acquisition cost as it is the cost of training, infrastructure and operating the boats. The political aspects cannot be ignored either. The result I suspect is that the nuclear submarine becomes as onerous to bear as the cost of equipping and operating an army in Afghanistan. In short the desire to maintain general purpose combat capable forces would succumb, once again, to a single mission. There are other ways to maintain surveillance and control of the north. Satellites, maritime patrol aircraft, a range of ice capable ships, bottom based sonar systems, electronic and communications intelligence gathering, scientific research, and human presence come to mind. We have some capacity in each of these areas today and can add to that capacity relatively easily, if we so choose. New ice breakers and northern use of the Aurora/Arcturus [patrol aircraft] would be a good start. The politicians and
