One by-product of Sept. 11 is a shocked rediscovery of the feeble state of Canada's defences. Why the shock? The facts of shrinkage and obsolescence have been published. Most media dutifully report the annual complaints of the Conference of Defence Associations and other preparedness lobbies. After a Reform member of a parliamentary committee claimed that service members padded their meagre incomes by delivering pizzas and enrolled in food banks to feed their families, the image was powerful enough to melt a six-year pay freeze. Paul Martin, the Minister of Finance, even found part of the money for the raise from his painfully acquired surplus. The rest came from another round of cuts to the defence budget.

Desmond Morton is professor of history at McGill University and author of A Military History of Canada.

Higher pay did not replace obsolete or elderly ships, guns, vehicles or aircraft. Nor did it finance the sophisticated and costly gear needed for what Americans call RMA, for "revolution in military affairs." Modern warfare, the Pentagon insists, is no longer the ponderous and blundering business Canadians watched on TV during the run-up to Remembrance Day. Using GPS (global positioning systems) techniques, sensors and computers, commanders find out where enemies are hiding and where they are moving. Instead of depending on a commander's intuition to figure out what is happening on the other side of the hill, enemy intentions are revealed by arrays of radar and satellite-borne electronic sensors and decoded radio intercepts. Computer-controlled networks feed commanders with an infinity of data.

Like any big-time innovation, a revolution in military affairs demands money and training. It promises a lot -- and it has serious critics. In the Kosovo war, Serb soldiers, hardly high-tech nerds, found lots of ways of outsmarting the revolution, including dummy tanks and guns able to broadcast electronic signatures as good as the real thing. Like any Canadians, however, members of our armed forces embrace new technology and fresh ideas. We don't want to carry spears and ride horses if war can be waged with lasers and over-the-horizon radars. In the Kosovo war of 1999, Canada's CF-18 fighters were sufficiently upgraded to be "interoperable" with the U.S. Air Force; most other NATO air forces did not qualify. In the brief Kosovo land war, Canada's Coyote reconnaissance vehicles gave NATO ground troops a tool other armies envied. As well-trained professionals, Canadian pilots and soldiers expect top-of-the-league equipment. So do we all.

In 1994, the Chrétien government adopted a policy mantra that Canadian Forces would be able to "fight alongside the best against the best." Liberals had already cancelled the EH-101 helicopter; then they closed military schools and colleges, slashed training and cut armed forces strength from 83,000 to 59,000 full-time positions. "Alternate service delivery" civilianized and privatized military supply and transport arrangements. Apart from some new vehicles from Bombardier and General Motors and four used submarines from the British navy big enough to accommodate female submariners, Canada's forces are basically equipped for war in the 1980s. If you drive a car of that vintage, you know the problems.

In the early 1990s, the Canadian Forces got a lot of advice. A Council of 21 -- dominated by Liberals but including former Tory leader Bob Stanfield, a dovish admiral, and University of Toronto professor Janice Stein -- urged a military totally dedicated to peacekeeping. The navy and air force would be mothballed, but a short-service army recruited from the unemployed would be deployed exclusively for peaceful peacekeeping, with orders to run if anyone started shooting. Because much peacekeeping since 1990 has been anything but peaceful, the council's advice was largely ignored. It contrasted with advice from Vice-Admiral Charles Thomas, the Vice Chief of Defence Staff. Vice-Admiral Thomas bluntly warned that Canadians would refuse to pay for an all-purpose defence force. Instead, the armed forces should only do what they could do well, keeping a battle-ready navy and air force and largely forgetting their land forces. Vice-Admiral Thomas was scolded and put out to pasture. Except in the Gulf War, soldiers were very largely what Canada needed for peacekeeping operations in the 1990s and Vice-Admiral Thomas's boss, General John de Chastelain, obviously influenced Liberal talk of fighting the best alongside the best.

However, Vice-Admiral Thomas's recommendations reflected underlying realities. Sorely neglected under Pierre Trudeau, the navy was a big beneficiary of the Tory years. It got six big new patrol frigates from the Saint John drydocks in the 1990s and then six more, perhaps as a reward for Frank McKenna, then the premier of New Brunswick, once he switched to support the Meech Lake Accord. The Navy has also added a score of coast defence minesweepers to train and employ its reserves, and four British-built conventional submarines to help maintain naval competence in submarine-hunting. The navy is now by far the best equipped Canadian service, and its ships have been the major part of Canada's contribution to the anti-terrorist war.

The air force has not done quite as well. Its CF-18 Hornets are the same carrier-borne aircraft the U.S. Navy has used to pound Afghanistan. Canadians flew them in the Gulf War, in the Kosovo war a decade later, and day after day in our skies as part of our NORAD commitment. The CF-18s are good, steady planes but, like any other equipment designed and built in the early 1980s and used regularly ever since, they show their age and wear. Recently, the Americans and British agreed to buy new fighter aircraft designed by two veteran aircraft producers, Lockheed and Martin. Canadians should expect pressure to acquire a few dozen to update our air defences. Past experience suggests Ottawa will take a long time to make a near-inevitable decision. For Afghanistan, we also contributed some of our Airbus transports and our Lockheed Aurora long-range surveillance aircraft.

The army took the biggest hit from 1990s cost-cutting. When the Mulroney government dropped our NATO commitment to keep a brigade in Europe, the army's 4th Mechanized Brigade vanished. So did the Airborne Regiment in 1997, after videotapes of hazing recruits revived memories of the Somalia scandal. One result is that a Special Forces unit Canada might have sent to Afghanistan was, by 2001, only a memory. Canada's peacetime army now boasts three under-strength brigades of a few thousand soldiers each, located at Valcartier outside Quebec City; at Petawawa, a few hours from Ottawa, and in Edmonton. All three need more manpower, updated equipment and some shake-down training to be combat-ready. Each of the three brigades embodies the traditional esprit-de-corps of a famous Canadian regiment and the professionalism of an all-arms formation that has worked and trained together for years. Many of the vacancies could be filled by "augmentations" from nearby militia units.

Each brigade represents a specific region of Canada. Politics would probably demand an amalgam of units for a truly national contingent. In foreign wars, Canadians have always emphasized keeping our troops together under Canadian commanders. With contributions smaller than a brigade, this becomes virtually impossible. The battalions sent to Kosovo or the company-sized contingent sent to East Timor became part of allied units or formations and Canada lost control or influence. With time and sufficient investment, the Canadian Forces can provide whatever strength our government or our allies really need, but only with time to acquire recruits, equipment and training.

Some contributions carry more risk. Sending warships to escort U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea was a shrewd use of resources. While no operation is risk-free, the Taliban have little obvious anti-ship capability beyond the outboard motor boat al-Qaeda used last year to damage the USS Kohl in Aden harbour. The air war over Afghanistan is far from risk-free, given mountainous terrain and an imminent winter, but with efficient maintenance and flying at high altitudes, pilots can avoid most obvious perils. Soldiers run more risks. When the House of Commons defence committee recommended a billion extra dollars for defence, it also proposed quadrupling Canada's Joint Task Force No. 2, a 250-member special commando unit. One assumes the MPs wanted a Canadian commando battalion in Afghanistan for the next phase of the war. Like MPs, Canadian voters may want to offer up casualties to convince allies of our commitment to the common cause. If this sounds harsh, people should be realistic when debating war policies. Creating a commando battalion is possible but its training, leadership and morale must be of a very high standard.

Canada could even send an entire brigade to Afghanistan. Its members would almost certainly suffer casualties. The Afghan troops who engaged the Soviet armies in the 1980s are not push-overs, and they would be troops defending their own difficult but familiar terrain. Their Canadian adversaries might be a little less certain of the cause they have been sent to uphold with their lives. On past experience, doubts would not seriously affect performance. Canadians have always expected valour, competence and dedication from its armed services and, despite all the decades of experimentation in unification, integration, civilianization, situational ethics and gender bending, the current generation is as good as ever and perhaps better. Of course, half a century removed from our last world war, Canadian soldiers lack battlefield conditions. Prolonged exposure to danger can do serious psychological damage, not to mention strain at home. Our ancestors learned fast; so can we. Start with a little mental conditioning. Don't expect instant miracles. Wait for corroboration before you believe a war story. Resist the temptation to pass judgment without facts.

If that seems too much to ask of Canadians here, remember what we may be asking of Canadians over there.