It makes sense that a country that buries its head in the sand is the same country that views defence as an expense rather than an investment. At the risk of repeating ourselves, we believe that investing in defence yields dividends far beyond much-needed capabilities, such as better people, processes, IP, knowledge, and interoperability.

Of the 9,000 DoD-funded research reports released in the last decade, more than 2,000 included co-authors directly affiliated with the Chinese military research and industrial base. Things are no better in Canada. It's no wonder so many Canadian universities now use Strider to better vet their researchers and partners.

This is a welcome change, as Canadians deserve to know where the departments tasked with our security are focusing their time and resources. Citizens, take note: Canada is far from "secure" and our geography alone is no longer enough to insulate us from a challenging world.

"The ability to operate every part of the rare earths supply chain, from mining to processing, alloying and turning them into final products such as permanent magnets, is a strategic challenge for Canada and the US." We complain about procuring cool things, but those things are decidedly less cool if we can't source the rare earths that make them work.

"We've lost their trust, I think, and we are not particularly credible allies." It turns out alliances aren't unilateral and patience isn't limitless.

Nations must continue to strive to find common sense, common ground on the military applications of AI. China opting out doesn't obviate anyone else's obligations to adhere to international law. Also, nothing new from China...

Anyone have any principled reasons why Canada SHOULDN'T participate?

"In 2024, OpenAI expects to burn more money on technology development and growth than the ... government of Canada will spend on innovation support. In fact, it’s not particularly close. OpenAI expects to spend USD$5 billion, and Budget 2024 earmarks CAD$4.6 billion." Worth reading @CCI's latest report. It's high time that Canada stop being so precious about procurement and start supporting its domestic world-class innovative industries so that they can be competitive on a global scale.

"Connectivity has become as important to war as supply lines." Control the RF spectrum and you control the battlespace. Enabling friendly communication while denying the enemy, all while staying as "hidden" as possible is now the name of the game. The battle over the RF spectrum is one of the biggest drivers in autonomous systems able to find, fix, and finish targets without relying on any sort of RF spectrum comms.

We're looking at you, PSPC...

21st century security challenges are truly omnidomain. The battlespace knows no limits. Prepare accordingly.

"The U.S. has increased shell production by 178 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the same time period, Canada has increased its regular artillery shell production by about zero percent." Canada's preeminent munitions manufacturer, @IMT Group is opening a new production facility to meet AMERICAN demand. Canada has budgeted $1.8 billion for munitions, but those funds don't start to flow until 2027. Let this all sink in.