{"id":10447,"date":"2013-08-20T11:27:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T15:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=10447"},"modified":"2013-08-20T11:27:40","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T15:27:40","slug":"on-canadas-drawing-board-stealth-snowmobiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/08\/20\/on-canadas-drawing-board-stealth-snowmobiles\/","title":{"rendered":"On Canada’s drawing board: “stealth” snowmobiles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Canadian<\/a>

Canadian Forces patrol near Yellowknife on (non-stealthy) snowmobile. Photo: Pierre Gazzola<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s August, so why talk about snowmobiles?<\/p>\n

Well, every summer Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has headed up north<\/a> to champion issues relating to Canada’a Arctic region, both land and sea. The trips get mixed reviews, as with this explanation from Michael Den Tandt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is Harper’s eighth such visit. The current 6-day tour has generated a small flurry of news about actual Arctic topics, such as Russia beating the world<\/a> when it comes to shipping that that region. It also supplies handy out-of-the-way locations in which to toss out things like reducing bi-lingual answers<\/a> in press conferences and plans to prorogue (suspend) parliament until October<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were also news reports about snowmobiles – specifically super quiet snowmobiles being developed under contract at a cost in the range of $620K (CAD). \u00a0As reported by Andy Blatchford<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press has learned that soldiers have taken the new hybrid-electric snowmobile prototype on trial runs to evaluate features such as speed, noise level, battery endurance and acceleration.<\/p>\n

The Department of National Defence even has a nickname for its cutting-edge, covert tool: \u201cLoki,\u201d after the \u201cmythological Norse shape-shifting god.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The effort to produce a snowmobile worthy of James Bond takes place in a time of budget reductions that can’t keep up with providing sufficient regular snowmobiles, or even winter parkas, according to this account<\/a> by the Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

When it comes to military spending<\/a>, Canada is something of a lightweight. \u00a0The U.S. leads the way. Here’s a detailed article from the Washington Post full of charts on the U.S. defense budget<\/a>. (Fun fact: In 2011, the U.S. spent $711 billion, which out stripped the $695 billion spent by the next 13 highest-spending countries combined.)<\/p>\n

Even though the U.S. spends the most overall, when military spending is measured as a percentage of GNP, other countries come out ahead.<\/p>\n

Here’s a ranking from the World Bank for 2011<\/a>:\u00a0Saudi Arabia 8.4%,\u00a0Israel 6.8%, Oman 6.0%, Iraq 5.1%, Azerbaijan 4.9%. Tied at 4.7%: U.S., Jordan and Afghanistan. Further down, Russia spent 3.9% and China 2.0%.Canada came in at 1.4%.<\/p>\n

Of course, military spending is contentious in any country. What’s too little, what’s too much? And how useful might a silent snowmobile be?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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