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.
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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