Quotulatiousness

August 1, 2016

A new flag for the Canadian Army

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Chris Banks posted a link to this article in the Lorne Scots Facebook group:

Canadian Army flags

The Canadian Army (CA) will advance into the future under a new flag that nods to its proud past.

The flag was unveiled July 14, 2016, during a ceremony on Parliament Hill in which CA members welcomed their new Commander, Lieutenant-General Paul Wynnyk.

The new design features the Canadian flag and a white, stylized maple leaf against a red background. Superimposed on the white maple leaf is the badge that members used during the Second World War and the Korean conflict, consisting of three maple leaves over a pair of crossed swords. Sitting atop the centre leaf is an image of St. Edward’s Crown, a symbol that has been used in coronation ceremonies for over 300 years.

The maple leaf was worn on the collars of Canadian soldiers who fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge during the First World War, and was included on the new flag to honour the 100th anniversary of the battle, which will be marked in 2017. The same maple leaf flew on the Headquarters flags of the fighting Divisions during the Second World War and still flies across Canada at the CA’s various Division Headquarters.

July 17, 2016

Peacekeeping today is not like the peacekeeping Canadians remember

Filed under: Africa, Cancon, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Ted Campbell is not in favour of the federal government’s nostalgic view of peacekeeping:

Da’esh/ISIL/ISIS wants us to follow France into the peacekeeping business because modern, 21st century UN peacekeeping can be, in some respects, seen as unwarranted Western interference in the internal affairs of Islamic states. Many Islamic leaders believe and teach that Islam is a complete socio-economic-political ‘package’: all that on needs to live a good life in this world and achieve paradise in the next is to obey the holy Quran. There is no need for laws or courts or institutions or banks or schools or anything else … just obedience, submission, to Islam.

[…]

Let us understand that the United Nations, as currently constituted and managed, is a failure at peacekeeping. It wasn’t always this way … there were times and places ~ Kashmir and Palestine in the 1940s, the Egypt-Israeli borders in 1956 when there was a peace to be kept between belligerents who actually wanted peace, albeit, in the case of Egypt’s Nasser, only until one felt ready for war again in 1967. It began to go wrong in 1960 … with the first UN mission to the Congo. There was no peace to be kept … a UN Force was inserted into a failed state and left to its own devices while a civil war raged around it. The UN used second rate troops (Irish, Malaysian and Swedish) where first rate ones might have done some good and the civil and military leadership, from Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld on down was somewhere between inept and ignored. In fact the UN peacekeeping effort was being used (misused) as a proxy for the larger Cold War. Canada and a few others became proxies for the Western allies; Poland a a few others stood in for the Warsaw Pact members and Sweden and India represented the non-aligned nations. It got worse in Cyprus, although a few lessons about the quality of troops were learned, as the mission devolved into a semi-permanent “holding action” that recognizes the de facto partition of the country. The UN has, literally, become a significant component of the (failing) Greek Cypriot state and the UN force because part of the status quo, making peace even more elusive.

Most UN peacekeeping missions since 1960s have been failures … some abject, others only relatively so. Mostly the UN “kept the peace” as an adjunct of the cold war. There is, in the 21st century, too often, no peace to be kept, especially not anywhere in Africa nor in the Islamic crescent that stretches from the Atlantic coast of North Africa all the way through to Indonesia and the Southern Philippines. and the UN does not want a mandate to make peace. The internal politics of the UN prohibit members from interfering in the “internal” affairs of others ~ notwithstanding what advocates of R2P (Responsibility To Project) (or even more ill considered doctrines like W2I (the Will To Intervene) propose ~ unless government almost totally breaks down. Then the UN may step in, under certain very controlled conditions: in Africa, for example, a robust, useful peacemaking force will not be tolerated, the force must be from the African Union and it must, first and foremost, protect the interests of the failed states neighbours. If the failed state is in “French Africa” then the French may send in the Foreign Legion to protect French interests. And this is the situation into which Justin Trudeau wants to send Canadian soldiers ~ preferably, he suggested during the 2015 election campaign, French speaking female police officers ~ to be UN peacekeepers.

As a quick rule of thumb, you only send in peacekeepers where there is already something resembling a peace to be kept. You don’t send in peacekeepers to create peace. That’s not their role: they’re not equipped or organized (or ever in sufficient strength) to do that.

May 20, 2016

A reporter with the Lorne Scots at Meaford

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

My old regiment gets a bit of media attention, this time from the Orangeville Banner, as Chris Vernon goes along on a spring weekend exercise with the Lorne Scots:

As my handler Lorne Scot Master Corporal Christopher Banks drove through the gates of the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre, I was overcome with a familiar anxiety.

The centre, known by soldiers simply as Meaford, is approximately 17,500 acres of dense bush, limestone cliffs, open meadows, a lake and 22 kilometres of Georgian Bay shoreline. I spent two months here for basic training in the summer of 2005 and at age 35, I believe I was the second oldest recruit.

Soldiers in 32 Brigade Group complete their basic training at Meaford, other career courses and perform several weekend exercises on the base throughout the year, and every fresh-faced private in 32 Brigade knows the anxiety I felt, even now as a civilian, as Banks drove us through the gate.

You see, there is a certain “suckage factor” to Meaford.

“Welcome to the Meaford weather machine,” said Banks, an inside reference among soldiers that refers to the fact that it can be sunny on one side of the base while on the other side it can rain for hours while you are out on a foot patrol.

There’s also poison ivy, a rumoured ghost, mosquitos, and large ruts left in the ground from the 1940s when the army used the base as a tank range. These ruts have sent many recruits home with broken and sprained ankles, not to mention broken dreams, as the injured troop will have to wait till next year to complete basic training.

Headquartered in Toronto, 32 Brigade Group is mostly an infantry brigade consisting of more than 2,400 soldiers in 12 reserve units based in Toronto, Aurora, Barrie, Brampton, Georgetown, Oakville, Mississauga, Owen Sound, Brantford, Simcoe, St. Catharines and CFB Borden. It also has two reconnaissance regiments, two field artillery regiments, a field engineer regiment, six infantry battalions and a communication (signals) unit.

Banks, who did tours in Afghanistan and Bosnia, drives us down a pothole-riddled dirt road. I recognize the road. It’s where I jogged every day between seven and 10 kilometres at 5 a.m. while on basic training.

Banks is taking me to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) where approximately 266 infantry reservists are camped out.

“We are doing raids. Offensive training. When they (soldiers) arrived last night there was no rest. We pushed them across that line of departure at 5 a.m.,” said Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Mair from inside a command post tent where officers are milling about and looking over maps.

Reservists are part-time soldiers who serve generally one night a week, one weekend a month and a few weeks in the summer. Mair has been a reservist for 29 years and in the civilian world serves as a police officer.

Reserve units primarily respond to domestic situations, like ice storms or blackouts. However, they are trained for combat and many members have gone overseas to serve with the regular force in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

May 7, 2016

The Canadian Forces’ obesity problem

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Canadian military (all branches, but especially the reserve forces) have an obesity problem that needs drastic measures to address. Ted Campbell offers his prescription to trim down the bloat:

Command of the Armed Forces should flow from the Governor General, who is, by the Letters Patent of issued by King George VI in 1947, the Commander in Chief, through the Chief of the Defence Staff who should also, for clarity, be styled “Commander Canadian Armed Forces” (COMCAF) and to four regional joint commanders: Commanders of Pacific, Western, Eastern and Atlantic Commands. Each of those commanders should have subordinate and appropriately ranked Naval, Army and Air “component commanders.” (Appropriately means according to the size and scope of the forces in their commands. The Naval Component Commander in Western Command, which has only a handful of Naval Reserve Divisions, might be a Navy Captain while the Army Component Commander in each of Pacific and Atlantic Commands might be an Army colonel or, at best, a brigadier general.)

Staffs should be lower ranked and as [a] firm, absolutely inviolable rule no staff officer in any headquarters may outrank the principal commanders who are directly subordinate to the commander that staff officer serves. In some, rare, cases principal staff officers might be equal in rank to subordinate commanders so that the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the officer who heads the national Joint Staff might both be three star officers (vice admirals/lieutenant generals) as would be the commanders of the four Joint Commands. But in an army brigade group, which, given its size and combat power, ought to be commanded by a brigadier general (not by a colonel), where the principal subordinate commanders are lieutenant colonels, the principle operations and support staff officers ought to be majors.

In short almost every staff officer currently serving in almost every HQ, large and small, high and low, in the Canadian Armed Forces is, right now, one (in a few cases two) rank higher than (s)he needs to be. This (over-ranking) is a serious problem because it contributes to HQ bloat and it clouds what should be a very, very clear “chain of command.” It should change, soon. Change would be unpopular and moderately difficult but not, at all, impossible.

Fewer, smaller, leaner and meaner, and lower ranked HQs will, I am 99.99% certain, be more efficient and effective and they might be forced to actually understand the unique pressures that face reserve force members ~ most of whom have full time, civilian jobs (or are full time students) and who do their reserve force work after the “bankers’ hours” that almost all Canadian Armed Forces HQs work. (If I had a penny for every horror story I have heard about army staff officers who know far, far too little about the reserve force units in their areas and who give, sometimes just silly but often quite stupidly impossible orders guidance or tasks, that cannot possibly be met on time, if at all, I would be a wealthy man. Now, it may not be clear that lower ranks will solve that, but I believe that lower ranked officers are more likely to work harder (as all staff officers should) and, in an effort to impress their commanders (and his subordinate commanders, too), work smarter, too, which will alleviate many of the problems that are the result of useless HQ “busy work.”

[…]

Less money spent on useless, over-ranked staff officers in redundant HQs would mean that equipment and support personnel could be found for the Army Reserve. Minister Harjit Sajjan knows the problem … all he needs to do is to push General Jon Vance in the right (unpopular but right) direction. They are both new enough on the job and each brings to it well known sense of “operational” soldiering that they could make unpopular decisions, give unpopular orders and shake up the comfortable, somnolent, entrenched uniformed bureaucracy, especially in the Canadian Army, and, thereby, reinvigorate the Canadian Army Reserve, using the Auditor General’s damning report as a catalyst for change.

March 7, 2016

National Defense: Can You Be A Leader? – 1977 Educational Documentary – Ella73TV

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 6 Mar 2016

A promotional and informational short produced by New Horizon Films (with support from the NFB) for the Department of National Defense. The film follows a set of new recruits through officer training at the facility in Chilliwack B.C. Directed and photographed by Robert S. Rodvik; sound recording and editing by Michael J. Collier; technical advisors: Captain Stu Harper and Captain Grant Russell; music composed by Captain John Montminy; Narrated by Chad Miller; music performed by Canadian Forces Naden Band; Esquimalt B.C. “Can you be a leader?” won a Certificate of Excellence – Training at the U.S. Industrial Film Festival.

This film has been made available courtesy the City of Vancouver Archives at http://vancouver.ca/your-government/city-of-vancouver-archives.aspx Reference code: AM1553-2-S2-: MI-272

February 10, 2016

Andrew Coyne re-phrases Justin Trudeau on our Iraq commitments

Filed under: Cancon, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It’s all a bit confusing, so Mr. Coyne has thoughtfully straightened out and recast the Prime Minister’s statement:

Still, in any mission, you need to make choices, even false ones. We can’t do everything. Rather, in the fight against ISIL we have chosen to do everything except the one thing our allies have asked us to do: fight ISIL. While Canadians have always been prepared to fight, we believe that in this campaign there are better ways we can contribute that build upon our uniquely Canadian expertise. Thus, rather than actually fly the planes ourselves, we will rely on our uniquely Canadian expertise in refuelling planes for others to fly.

Let me be clear. There is a role for bombing — just not by Canadian pilots. After all, combat is not what Canada is all about. Rather, what Canada is all about is standing by while others engage in combat on our behalf. Think of the consequences, if in the course of an airstrike aimed at ISIL one of our brave and talented Canadian pilots were to inadvertently kill a great number of innocent civilians. Whereas merely providing the fuel for the plane that does — along with aerial surveillance, and of course the essential work of identifying targets by our special forces, er, training advisers working on the ground — leaves us wholly uninvolved.

A word about those trainers. It is true that we are tripling their number, while increasing the total number of our military personnel in the region by a fifth. Here again I would caution people not to think this meant we were somehow engaged in combat. Yes, it is true that they will be installed near the front line, and yes, training will often involve taking Iraqi and Kurdish troops out on patrol, and yes, this will sometimes mean that our troops are fired upon, and yes, they will sometimes be obliged to fire back. But merely because our troops will be firing upon the enemy in a war zone or calling in airstrikes from above does not mean they will be in combat. I mean, it says right there in the platform: “We will end Canada’s combat mission in Iraq.”

February 5, 2016

Military discipline

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Retired Colonel Ted Campbell has some thoughts on the Canadian military:

Nothing in what follows is, in any way at all, intended to minimize the importance of quantities ~ quantities of people, quantities of dollars and quantities of ships, tanks and aircraft ~ but it is intended to stress that there IS a qualitative measure to national defence: how much must, always, be balanced with how well. Indeed, sometimes, “not really well” can be offset by “lots of men (and women), money and materiel” and, equally, often “not enough people or equipment” can be offset by “able to get 100% out of every person and every bullet.”

For many years I have preached that we, Canadian sailors, soldiers and air force personnel need to be four things ~ we need to have four attributes ~ and we need to be those four things in a specific order. We They, now, need to be:

  1. Tough;
  2. Superbly disciplined;
  3. Very well trained; and
  4. Adequately equipped.

Now, a few years ago some friends suggested, and I agreed, that I needed to “bookend” those four things with two more; they also need to be:

  • Well led; and
  • Properly organized

I agreed and revised my list accordingly […]

And on the differences between a “typical” military organization and a properly disciplined one:

Discipline starts on the parade square, and Canadian military men and women take a back seat to no-one when it comes to pomp and circumstance, but “real” military discipline is self discipline and it comes from doing what needs to be done when one is near exhaustion, in the dark, in the cold, and when no one is looking … I remember, some years decades ago, when I was a junior officer, I was escorting a foreign visitor into our unit. As we drove in the main gate a trumpet call sounded over the loudspeakers; “what’s that?” our guest asked. “The lunch signal,” I replied, “we’re just in time for lunch.” As we drove past the transport lines we both observed many soldiers washing vehicles, loading stores, repairing armoured personnel carriers and so on … “why aren’t they breaking for lunch?” our guest asked. “They’re not finished yet,” I answered, “they’ll be off for their lunch as soon as they’re done their work.” “In our army,” he said, “they would have just dropped their tools and run for the lunch line.” “Oh, ” I responded, “not here. This is our army and these fellows know what has to be done and they’ll do it without being told or watched.” We were, in fact, discussing the fundamental difference between a very large, very well equipped and very average army, on the one hand, and a small, adequately equipped but very well disciplined Canadian army on the other. Discipline certainly starts with sergeants bellowing orders on the parade square, but in a good army it is exemplified by individual soldiers doing the hardest jobs, in the worst of circumstances, alone and without supervision. It doesn’t really matter if the task is “square bashing,” a lonely, dangerous, standing patrol at night, or the loneliness, even in a crowd, of command at sea; whatever the task, a tough, superbly disciplined Canadian sailor, soldier or aviator can do it, and do it right, the first time.

January 21, 2016

Roles for Canada’s armed forces

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Ted Campbell outlines the most likely tasks and approximate organization of the Canadian Armed Forces, regardless of the political or ideological stripe of the government of the day:

Thus far, in two posts: Establishing Some Baselines and Defence of Canada I have developed four “baseline” roles or tasks for the Canadian Department of National Defence:

  • To maintain active military forces to share in the continental defence of the North American homelands, of the maritime approaches to them and of the airspace over both.
  • To maintain a global, blue water fleet, supported by air forces, that is able to, simultaneously, maintain a constant Canadian presence in at least two different theatres.
  • To maintain trained, disciplined military units that can, on very short notice, give effective “aid to the civil power” here in Canada.
  • To maintain combat naval, land and air forces and a full range of strategic and tactical support services, able to conduct low to mid intensity operations anywhere in Canada on short notice.

Those tasks, both explicitly and implicitly, call for:

  • A surveillance and warning system ~ which, I think, to be really useful must cover all of the Canadian landmass, the maritimes approaches to it and the airspace over both and, probably, needs to have terrestrial, underwater, airborne (aircraft mounted) and space based (satellite) sensors.
  • A command and control communications (C³) system to interconnect all those sensors and the various command agencies ~ Canadian, US and combined.
  • A full fledged Navy able to operate in 9and under) coastal waters and anywhere in the world.
  • A full fledged Air Force able to conduct air and joint operations in Canada and to conduct joint naval-air operations anywhere in the world.
  • An Army for domestic, territorial defence of Canada.
  • The full fledged Navy and Air Force and limited Army also, in their turn, call for medical, logistical, administrative and financial support systems: hospitals, supply depots and warehouses, and people working away in offices, far away from the action, keeping services flowing to the people who need them.

What about forces for the next Afghanistan or UN peacekeeping mission or Korea or, heaven forbid, another world war?

That would be an Expeditionary Force.

Read the whole thing.

January 15, 2016

Defence minister Harjit Sajjan announces full defence review for 2016

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: — Nicholas @ 02:00

Marie-Danielle Smith on the recent DND announcement:

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says he plans to complete a thorough defence policy review by the end of 2016—and the public will be asked to participate.

In an interview with Embassy Jan. 12, Mr. Sajjan confirmed that Department of National Defence officials are already identifying how the review, or Defence White Paper, will be conducted.

Public consultation will be involved and foreign allies will be consulted, he said. The review is expected to set a road map for the next 10 to 20 years.

“I want to make sure that we get the ‘How’ part. It’s so important,” he said. “If we don’t get that right then the quality’s not going to be there at the end.”

[…]

“The British just did a defence review,” he said, referring to the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 released by the Cameron government on Nov. 23. “Australia is about to release theirs, and especially it’s important for us to be able to learn from those lessons.”

He said he recently spoke with UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon in London. “It is helping me to shape how Canada can look at doing [the defence review],” he said, noting the UK had used an interactive website to get public input.

“I’ve got some really key ideas that Fallon provided, and I’m looking forward to reading the Australian review when it comes out as well,” Mr. Sajjan said.

The minister said the credibility and relevancy of the review was important. “We can do a white paper of everything on the wishlist, but if you don’t have the budget to support it it really doesn’t matter.”

Defence officials declared the previous Harper government’s military wishlist, the Canada First Defence Strategy, unaffordable in 2011, but no updated document was ever released.

December 18, 2015

Canadian Forces report $4.4 million in lost, stolen, and damaged items

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Four point four million dollars might sound like a lot, but for an organization the size of the Canadian Forces (the largest department of the Canadian government), that’s actually a pretty reasonable figure. Embassy‘s Marie-Danielle Smith rounds up some of the highlights:

The Canadian Armed Forces are short more than $4.4 million worth of equipment stolen, damaged or lost—or discovered to have been lost — in the 2014-15 financial year, according to the government’s annual public accounts tabled in Parliament this month.

The Department of National Defence does not expect to recover much of this amount, says the document — there’s no Lost and Found for pistols or hammers.

In addition to more than $1.5 million in lost combat clothing alone, items that were stolen, damaged or lost included computers, machinery, technical equipment, transportation equipment, tools and weapons and accessories.

“DND and the CAF take all complaints and allegations of missing and stolen weapons seriously and all cases are investigated with due diligence by the proper authorities,” a spokesperson for the department, Ashley Lemire, said. “Every effort is made to account for weapons used in the performance of CAF mandates.”

Stolen items were worth $332,797. That’s a big jump from the year before, when a total of $44,568 in equipment was stolen from the Department of National Defence.

Part of the 2014-15 chunk includes the “theft of information technology equipment and computer peripheral” valued at $281,094.

Asked what type of equipment this is, or what exactly it is used for, Ms. Lemire said the information couldn’t be disclosed because the theft is currently before the provincial court of Ontario.

“As this matter is now before the courts, it would be inappropriate to discuss details that may affect the outcome of the court case,” she told Embassy in an email. The document says the department expects to recover the full cost in a future year.

Stolen items categorized as “tools” — only nine of them in 2014-15, worth $429 — included several types of knives, hammers, axes, cutter straps and rulers, Ms. Lemire said. Another 975 “tools” were reported lost.

November 7, 2015

DND briefings to the new minister

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It would be fascinating to find out if the Department of National Defence briefing to incoming minister Harjit Sajjan are quite as blatantly PR-focussed as the documents provided to former minister Jason Kenney when he took over the portfolio in February:

A new Liberal defence minister will inherit a self-conscious department that seems more than a little concerned about how it’s perceived by the public.

When Jason Kenney took over as national defence minister in February 2015, he was briefed with a thicker stack of papers about public opinion and media operations than about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Operation Reassurance and Operation Impact combined.

Embassy obtained the transition books for Mr. Kenney through an access to information request. Similar documents may be provided to a new minister when prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau names his Cabinet Nov. 4.

In a book about “Key Strategic Issues,” about 70 pages long, there are 17 pages worth of public opinion and media analysis, complete with graphs tracking Canadians’ perceptions of the department over years of polling data.

Conversely, only two pages of the document appear to be entirely devoted to Operation Reassurance in Central and Eastern Europe, two pages to Operation Impact in Iraq and Syria, four to NATO and two to NORAD.

[…]

Another transition book, titled “Who We Are and How We Work,” provided a broader departmental overview to the new minister of national defence.

Just shy of 70 pages, it includes information about ongoing Canadian Armed Forces operations, including all international engagements. It also gave the incoming minister a handy guide to key department officials, complete with photos and biographies.

A brief on strategic decision-making acknowledges that a prime minister or defence minister can make unilateral decisions on defence policy.

Cabinet does not need to sit together as a whole for major decisions to be made, the document explains.

“In some cases, a deployment decision will be made by a cabinet committee and, in others by the prime minister, or by the minister of national defence alone, or in conjunction with the minister of foreign affairs,” the transition book states.

H/T to MILNEWS.ca for the link.

November 2, 2015

The National Air Force Museum of Canada

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Elizabeth and I spent the weekend in the Bay of Quinte area, visiting Prince Edward County, Belleville, and Trenton. While we were in Trenton, we stopped in at the National Air Force Museum of Canada. While the Sea King may not be in the collection yet (at least, not in the collection visible to the public), many other Canadian Armed Forces aircraft are, including the prize of the museum, the Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber:

Handley Page Halifax 1

It’s a big enough aircraft that it’s hard to do it justice in a photograph.

Handley Page Halifax 2

This particular restored aircraft was shot down late in the war on a mission to deliver supplies to Norwegian resistance fighters and later recovered from a Norwegian lake.

Handley Page Halifax 3

Other aircraft in the collection include a replica of the Silver Dart, the first powered aircraft to fly in Canada (February 23, 1909), a replica of the Burgess-Dunne floatplane, the first aircraft purchased for the Canadian military (September, 1914), a CF-86 Sabre, a CF-100 Canuck, a CF-5 Freedom Fighter, a CF-104 Starfighter, a CF-101 Voodoo, a CF-18 Hornet, a CP-107 Argus, a CC-130 Hercules, and a CP-102 Tracker among other aircraft.

October 14, 2015

Canadian defence … a still-relevant view from ten years ago

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Politics, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Instapundit linked to a ten-year-old post at Albion’s Seedlings, and I noticed that the next post there is still pretty much dead-on in describing why Canada’s military is in the state we still see today. Spoiler: the post is titled “Was Canada Ever Serious? Militia and Military Since Confederation“:

Initial chapters [of Canadian Brass: The Making of a Professional Army 1860-1939 by Stephen Harris, 1988] consolidate the early periods of Canadian military history as the British military staff digested the new geopolitical realities demonstrated during the American Civil War. Canada was to be spun loose politically in 1867 but its foreign policy and defense were to remain a very strange hybrid well into the 20th century. The WW1 period in Canadian Brass is divided into pre-war, a Sam Hughes [Militia Minister] WW1 period, and a post-Hughes WW1 period. An interbellum period gets thorough coverage and then WW2 is broken out into separate Military Planning, and Training & Education chapters.

The rather shocking message of this book is that the Canadian military has been the constant butt of political interference during the last 150 years except for two brief periods: WW2 proper, and 1951-1964. During virtually all other periods of Canadian history, the permanent (professional) military forces have been starved of funds, denigrated in public by all and sundry, and then ignored completely during mobilization for wartime. The only time in Canadian history that professional pre-mobilization plans were actually used was WW2. In all other eras, professional plans were ignored and politicians turned to various militia cronies to assemble, train, lead, and transport Canadian troops.

[…]

The author suggests, therefore, that lack of professionalism in the organization of the military led to unnecessary political crises (specifically the split between Quebec and English-speaking Canada), and, in the case of the First World War, the needless slaughter of the initial Canadian divisions (because they were led by totally unqualified militia officers with political connections). The WW1 crisis created by Minister of Militia Sam Hughes was the result of a totally mythical and exaggerated memory of militia superiority in the War of 1812 and the Fenian raids of 1866, and careful news management out of the Boer War. Militia were held to be a superior in all ways to a professional force, moral and martial. Government money for militias (urban and especially rural) was a traditional source of political patronage in Canada, frustrating British military advisers and Governor-Generals for literally generations (and ruining many Brit careers in the process). Such patronage methodically starved the professional units in a nascent professional Canadian Army of training, equipment, facilities, pensions, wages and prestige. The result was a professional army that wasn’t and an oblivious overconfident citizen-soldier militia that was destined for a horrific introduction to modern war.

The casualty situation got so bad by the late fall of 1916 that Hughes was dismissed, and a new generation of Canadian officers (all political appointees but survivors of the savage Darwinian selection at the front) began to lead, and promote their junior officers out of the ranks. The impact on morale and military success from early 1917 to the end of the First World War were dramatic. Canadian reputations for combat effectiveness essentially came out of this period.

[…]

It’s clear, in retrospect, that Canadian politicians and the Canadian public have had a long-standing expectation that the British (and then the US) were going to bail them out in any serious military situation. As a result, the professional Canadian military was seen as simply another source of political largesse for the party in power. It never had to be effective, and post-1964, it actually was designed not to be used at all … unification of the three services (Army, Navy, Air Force), and endless UN peace-keeping missions were an effective way to strip combat effectiveness and combat equipment out of the Canadian military. Harris provides all the necessary context and information for that conclusion but is politic enough to avoid much further commentary.

He does writes an interesting epilogue that delicately skirts around those post-1939 issues … and avoids touching the “third rail” of military bilingualism introduced in the 60s, which further degraded esprit de corps and combat effectiveness. After all, Mr. Harris was essentially writing about his own Cold War employer at the time of publication (1988), and probably wanted to keep his job. Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear that the Liberal dismantlement of the conventional Canadian military (after tactical nukes appeared in Europe in the 60s) was yet another iteration of the political manipulation of the permanent military and a return of the good old days of “jobs for the boys.” The sorry state of today’s Canadian military (a small but excellent antiterrorist force [JTF2] to protect the elite in Ottawa, and a sprinkle of blue helmet cannon fodder without adequate air transport) is therefore very much part of a proud Canadian political tradition stretching back 135 years. It’s not a mistake. It’s on purpose.

Ten years on, we don’t do the UN peacekeeping stuff to any great extent, but even with a “pro-military” government in power for most of that time, the Canadian Armed Forces are still starved for resources and up-to-date equipment (and procurement is still seen as a way to spread government money around to “deserving” regions rather than a way of getting the best tools for the money). Thanks to our unique strategic situation, Canada can still be a military free-loader — and glories in it.

September 22, 2015

An American view of Canada’s armed forces

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The good folks at Strategy Page look at the last decade or so of the Canadian military, with an emphasis on the Canadian Special Operations Regiment:

In the last decade the Canadian defense budget has stayed about the same ($18 billion a year, adjusted for inflation) but the emphasis has changed. Now it’s all about new equipment for Canadian special operations troops, especially the Special Operations Regiment, a unit similar to the American Special Forces which Canada began forming a decade ago. That effort was a success, especially for the peacekeeping type operations Canada is so active in. Despite the enthusiasm for special operations the situation was different in 2006. That was because after cutting defense spending sharply since 1991 (and the end of the Cold War) there were more serious military problems to deal with. Back then it was agreed that the 1990s cuts were too deep and over $15 billion was allocated to improving transportation and logistical capabilities. Most of the new money went to replacing aging transport helicopters, and buying two logistical support ships, 21 transport aircraft and 2,300 trucks.

Canada’s defense spending, like everyone else’s, shrunk after the Cold War ended in 1991. For Canada, their lowest annual defense budget was $8.4 billion in 1998. Per capita, that was less than a third of what the United States was spending. At that point, spending began to increase in the face of a growing number of media stories on how Canadian troops were struggling with worn out, inoperable or unavailable weapons and equipment. A decade ago a new government got into office partially on its pledge to finally address all the material shortcomings in the military. Canada’s current defense budget is much higher as a result of that. Yet the Canadian defense spending is still less than half of what the United States spends, per capita. But during the Cold War, Canada deferred to the United States in most defense matters, including dealing with nuclear weapons threats, and protecting North America from foreign attack. While Canada outspent the United States, per capita, during both World Wars, this was reversed after World War II, when America became the main participant in the Cold War effort to contain the Soviet Union.

[…]

Apparently, the 750 man Canadian Special Operations Regiment is not a clone of the U.S. Special Forces. That’s because the basic training for Special Forces troops takes two to three years, and it then takes another few years in the field before the troops are ready for anything. Canada has had a small commando force for decades [the JTF2], and that provided the initial cadre of trainers and training facilities for the new regiment. The r Special Operations Regiment was, at least, initially closer in capability to the U.S. Army Rangers, who are very well trained light infantry. Over the next decade more members of the regiment will be put through the years of specialized training that will bring them up to something approaching the U.S. Special Forces standard. The American and Canadian ground forces have worked together for generations, so there will probably be some assistance from the U.S. Special Forces, to help the Canadians get going.

September 19, 2015

QotD: Why do we have armed forces?

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Polite Canadian society does not like to admit, though it is perfectly understood, that Canada’s presence is but dust in the military balance. It’s been about half a century since anyone regarded the Canadian military as a significant player. Current events in Iraq are not, whatever some conservatives might imagine, a replay of World War Two. This is a minor policing operation in which the middle powers are providing diplomatic cover for the actions of the Great Powers.

Among the relatively large nations of human history Canada is almost unique in one respect: We don’t strictly speaking need a military. There has not been a direct existential threat to Canada in more than a century. The only nation capable of invading is the one nation that would never try. Our security has been under written by either Britain or the United States for over two centuries. Tomorrow we could dispense with the whole of the Canadian Forces and, leaving aside the communities in which our few military bases are located, I doubt anyone would notice.

So why have a military when we don’t really need one?

Richard Anderson, “Macho Man”, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2014-10-10.

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