Earlier this month we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that heralded the rapid demise of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and ultimately ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union itself.

The Cold War was over — and we had won!

But for those of us in uniform at the time it was a quiet and bittersweet victory since the political forces in this country, primarily of the left and which had always sought to minimize the need for a viable modern military, clearly felt they had won a victory as well.

Why should we have a military now that the Soviet threat is waning, they asked.

For many Canadians, the time seemed right for what was being called the "peace dividend."

It was an opinion that reached right up to the Conservative cabinet of Brian Mulroney, which, in 1989, began to cancel plans to purchase such speciality equipment as nuclear-powered submarines and new battle tanks — all valuable military assets that would have served us well in recent years.

Gen. Rick Hillier in Kandahar in 2007. His 'decade of darkness' ended the previous year when Canadian soldiers were sent to Afghanistan on a larger mission. (Canadian Press)

But nothing could match the severity of the Liberal fiscal axe when it came down in 1995 with deficits ballooning and the economy reeling from recession.

Jean Chrétien's Liberals entered office on the promise of deep defence cuts and it was one promise that they would keep.

'Decade of darkness'

"The defence cuts were done from the point of view of trying to get government finances in order and they were also predicated on the view that after the ending of the Cold War that there would be a peace dividend" said David Collenette, the former Liberal minister of defence during that period, in a recent interview.

"What got the support of the Canadian public was that we had to get our finances in order and that we were going to hit the wall."

Enter the period that the former chief of the defence staff, retired general Rick Hillier, aptly called the Decade of Darkness, a period in which the Forces were bled of financing, training, equipment and personnel almost to the point of implosion.

"We took the Canadian Forces to, and in some cases past the breaking point," Hillier writes in his recent book A Soldier First.

"What changes did take place during these years were consistently for the worse. Units were shut down, our numbers were reduced, leaving us with fewer soldiers and a smaller footprint on the ground."

A brief respite

Then, as the Twin Towers came crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001 so, too, did all that talk of peace dividends.

But is the Canadian Force's decade of darkness over? In my opinion, no. In fact, after a brief respite, we are likely headed back into its cold embrace.

Today, the major aggravating factors — both political and economic — that contributed to the severe defence cuts in the 1990s have either returned or are hovering on the horizon.

At the same time, I have seen no signs that we have matured enough as a nation to see the need for defence spending purely for the sake of our own nation's territorial integrity.

To begin with, the current Conservative government appears sincere, at least at the moment, in its plan to pull out of Afghanistan.

So be it. But let's be realistic here: Even more than the Cold War, the so-called war on terrorism and the conflict in Afghanistan have been the raison d'etre for the renewed emphasis on our military in the eyes of most Canadians.

Take away those conflicts, pull our combat troops out of Afghanistan, and it is hard to imagine that Canadians won't feel, yet again, that we have done our bit, made our sacrifice and that it is time to ratchet down the armoury.

Makes no sense

But does demanding a peace dividend now from Canada's military make any sense?

I would argue no. In fact, when you look at the numbers, cutting military spending makes even less sense today than it did 20 years ago!

In 1989, the percentage of GDP spent on defence in this country stood at just over two per cent, which many thoughtful people at the time felt was embarrassingly little.

Today, even under a supposedly pro-military Conservative government, defence spending is only 1.2 per cent of GDP and is actually less than many of our smaller NATO allies such as Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark whose spending on defence currently stands at 1.8 per cent , 1.5 per cent and 1.3 per cent of GDP, respectively.

Yes, the Harper Conservatives have promised much more. In fact, they've pledged to add $60 billion in new military equipment over the next decade or so and to raise annual spending at DND from the current, roughly $18 billion a year to $30 billion by 2027.

But in politics, image is everything and, for better or worse, the image that has been created is for a significant national commitment to the Canadian Forces, which, with no comparative combat commitment, could well make the department an easy target for any budget-conscious government.

"Going forward you have to do two things," says Collenette. "You have to cut expenditures or raise taxes. It is not rocket science. If you are spending too much you have to either cut back on your expenditures or you have to get other sources of income."

Even in a best-case situation, there will not likely be much in the way of real improvement for the military. "I think that we will be better off in 2011 than we were in, say, 2000," says Jack Granatstein, senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

"But there is not going to be the continuing, qualitative improvement after that because I suspect the funding will decrease or at least the rate of increase will diminish rapidly."

But dare I make the audacious suggestion that there is an overriding reason why this country, in good fiscal times as well as in bad, needs to maintain a large, well-funded, well-trained and well-armed military?

It is that if we want to be taken seriously in the world then we have to show that we are both capable of defending ourselves from those who might violate our peace and security while continuing to be at our most professional when the international community calls for help.

But maybe that is a lesson that still needs to be learned.