But Ed, you referred specifically to operations in the Middle East, not Afghanistan, and those "peacekeeping" missions are the cheapest kind there is! Hardly any people, no complex weapons systems, only combat support and combat service support equipment ... How is that disproportionately large?

Afghanistan was large by comparison only with Canadian deployments (not counting Germany) since 1970. Joint Task Force Afghanistan was capped at just under 3,000 all ranks, in all units and functions -- or about the size of the 1st Canadian Division in Italy circa 1943. As for the billions spent, a lot of that was spent to acquire howitzers, helicopters, Globemasters and other big-ticket items we needed just to operate in that theatre, and to fund the development projects that the great and the good thought would make the war go away but didn't, from primary schools and police sub-stations to the dam on the Arghandab River that was supposed to ensure the supply of electricity to Kandahar City. The last combat rotation of Operation Athena was spent laying the bed of a new road through the Panjwa'i District from Sperwan Ghar to Mushan, rather less than 30 kilometres. (See the latest film by Paul Gross, "Route Hyena", for a highly romanticized view.) Wanna guess how much that cost, with the construction site under constant guard by a company of infantry and a squadron of Leopard tanks?

But in the league table of per-capita defence spending, Canada has never cracked even the middle ranks of the NATO nations. For many years, it was said that only Luxembourg spent less than us, and if we have edged up in the ranking by much it's very recent.