An124-100 As Strategic Airlifter For Canada?

There is an extensive discussion of the Canadian military procurement of strategic airlift capacity over on the Canadian American Strategic Review Site with Herman Kuparov contributing an extensive summary of the costing of An124-100 aircraft for military use.

The argument follows much the same course as that used when Air Foyle bid the An124-100 for the UK Ministry of Defence requirement for Short Term Strategic Airlift (STSA).  Despite the An124 meeting the specified requirement, being about half the price of the Boeing C17 and carrying more cargo the Secretary of State for Defence at the time told the UK House of Commons that the C17 was selected due to it's greater tactical manoeuvrability - a requirement never specified in the bid documentation.  In other words, it was smaller. 

As Canada appears to be well down the same route, now everyone knows that to build and sell a strategic airlifter you have to build them small.