I am working on a paper about Canadian military adaptation while in Afghanistan. A key example is below:
Why? Because the Canadians had been working to eliminate tanks from their armed forces until August 2006 or so changed people's minds. The idea of using tanks for counter-insurgency might seem very strange. The Macedonians were using tanks against snipers in 2001--not a good idea. But the terrain in Afghanistan where grape-drying huts served as ubiquitous fortified positions for the Taliban and where IEDs challenged most vehicles gave some room for tanks on this battlefield. There is still a debate about their added value here, but neither RPGs nor IEDs have dented them much. Something to think about, as tough tradeoffs lay ahead for most militaries.
1 comment:
Now that the combat mission in Afghanistan is over the tanks will rust on a base in Edmonton. The $1.3 billion could have been used for something that we'd get decades of use out of.
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