Over a period of nearly 10 years, the Harper government has been at pains to project an image of Canada as a military nation and a military power. It has done so in a wide variety of ways. It lavishly celebrated the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, even though that war took place long before Canada was a nation and primarily pitted the forces of Great Britain and the United States against each other. It chose to revive the text used to prepare immigrants for their citizenship examinations, putting the emphasis on the country’s military history. It has repeatedly lauded the performance of the Canadian Forces in the Afghanistan and Libya campaigns. And it has even more often pledged its total support for "our brave men and women in uniform." At the same time, it has deliberately downplayed the role played by the Canadian Forces in UN peacekeeping operations over many decades. But is any or all of this sufficient to convince Canadians and our allies that Canada is indeed a military power today?

There was, of course, a time when Canada was a genuine military power. By the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Armed Forces of Canada numbered more than one million men and women. The Canadian Navy and the Canadian Air Force were among the largest in the world. Canada’s soldiers, sailors and airmen had made militarily significant contributions in the Battle of the Atlantic and in the campaigns in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and the Low Countries. (The Dutch and the Belgians continue to celebrate the valour and prowess of Canadians to this day.) When victory was finally achieved over Nazi Germany, Canada ranked behind only the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union as a contributor to that victory. Canada’s war effort had been massive for a country of only 11 million people.

But that is all now fairly ancient history. The story of the Canadian Forces since the end of the Second World War is one of steady decline, with only occasional upticks under the Trudeau government in the mid-1970s and under the Mulroney government in the mid-1980s. Even at the height of the Cold War when Canada was faced with an existential threat, the size of its Armed Forces never surpassed the 125,000 mark. And today it stands at roughly half that number.

In assessing Canada’s relative military strength, it is perhaps useful to begin by noting what the country’s Armed Forces do not have. The Canadian Navy does not have any aircraft carriers, having disposed of HMCS Bonaventure in the late 1960s. It does not have any cruisers capable of launching cruise missiles. It does not have any amphibious landing craft capable of transporting troops to foreign shores. As of this year, the Canadian Navy no longer has any supply and support ships capable of sustaining its war ships at sea. For its part, the Canadian Air Force does not have any long-range bombers or long-range missiles. Put in a nutshell, Canada is totally devoid of the assets normally associated with the concept of power projection abroad.

As for the Canadian Army, the story can perhaps best be told with reference to the defence policy white papers or statements issued by the Canadian government over the past 30 years. The Mulroney government’s white paper published in 1987 spoke of divisions, formations normally consisting of 15,000 to 20,000 troops. The Chretien government’s white paper promulgated in 1994 referred to brigades, formations normally made up of 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers. The defence policy statement issued by the Martin government in 2005 spoke of Army battle groups consisting of somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 troops. The Harper government has chosen not to produce a defence white paper, but that does not obscure the inexorable decline in the Army’s capabilities.

Now to turn to the major assets Canada’s Armed Forces do have. Canada’s blue water Navy consists of 12 frigates and four submarines. The frigates are now 20 years old and several of them are in dry dock being refitted. The helicopters mounted on board the frigates are now more than 50 years old and require numerous hours of expensive maintenance for every hour flown. The submarines were acquired secondhand from Britain a dozen or so years ago, and have been plagued with problems ever since; even today they are barely operational.

The Canadian Air Force cuts a somewhat more robust figure than the Navy. With some 80 CF-18 aircraft, it is still capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground operations. But even on this front, age is becoming a factor. The CF-18s first came into service in 1982 and are fast approaching the point where they will have to be either replaced or extensively refurbished. Other Air Force assets are in even worse shape. The Buffalo aircraft used in search and rescue operations first came into service in 1962, more than 50 years ago. The only real bright spot in this picture is the recent acquisition of C-17 transport aircraft, giving the air force a strategic airlift capability for the first time in decades.

The Canadian Army was able to take advantage of the operation in Afghanistan to upgrade and modernize its equipment. At the same time, however, the combat, the harsh terrain and harsh climate in Afghanistan took a toll on the Army’s equipment. Much of it is in bad need of replacement or repair. And, of course, of the Army’s most potent weapons systems, its main battle tanks, one-third are now more than 40 years old and sit in storage.

The situation sketched out above is compounded by the fact that the Canadian Armed Forces are relatively small. Despite all of its pro-military protestations, the Harper government has only marginally increased the number of Canadians in uniform from 62,100 in 2006 to 66,000 in 2014 (the number was 90,000 in 1990).

What accounts for this state of affairs? There would seem to be three principal factors.

The first is the size of the Canadian defence budget. Canada expends only 1% of its Gross Domestic Product on defence, well short of the NATO target of 2%. This means that Canada’s effort lags behind not only that of its G7 partners, but also behind those of Australia, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden. These comparisons were brought out in a recent article in The Economist, which described Canada as a "free-rider."

The second factor is Canada’s seriously flawed system for the acquisition of major military equipment. Whether it concerns helicopters, jet fighters, ships or armoured combat vehicles, it is an endless saga of hesitations, cancellations, delays and cost overruns running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this is accompanied by political posturing and back-biting. One of Canada’s most eminent political scientists, Prof. Kim Richard Nossal of Queen’s University, concluded a well-researched policy brief on this subject with the comment that "defence procurement in Canada is deeply dysfunctional." Amen.

The third factor is to be found in the murky realm of national psyche and political will. While Canadians tend to admire and respect the accomplishments and sacrifices of their highly professional Armed Forces, they have given no substantive evidence to the effect that they wish to see the Canadian government increase its expenditures on defence. When queried by pollsters, they tend to attach a much higher priority to issues such as health care, education, poverty, jobs and the environment. Defence is usually an also-ran in such surveys. And without serious pressure from a large portion of the electorate, political leaders are unlikely to be moved to change.

The result of all of this is that Canada is at best a military power of the third or fourth rank. The Harper government’s decision to send six CF-18s to the Middle East and another six to eastern Europe will do nothing to change this reality.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University.