Should weaker countries invest more in their militaries?

[justinian]

The question I ask is why would Canada want to spend so much on it's war machine when it is a member of NATO?

One of the main reasons UK, France etc kept their spending down is because they know the US have their backs. These countries knew their role in NATO was mainly a supporting one and justified their spending as such.

New NATO members like Poland and the Czech Rep are depending on the old motto "an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all" so why waste money on their militaries.

Unless the Canadians have a certain degree of mistrust in the future of NATO I don't see why they would want to spend all that money.

China's policy - or at least the public one - is minimal deterence. They have about 50 nukes that can strike anywhere in the US and seem to think that's enough to put of any attack on them.

Let's face it. Nukes give you a lot more bargaining power even if you never intend to them.

Every nation has the right to defend themselves and even a poor African nation needs to watch his neighbours.
When these poor non-oil-producing nations go to war no one gives a shit.