One Day Alice came to
a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
“Which road do I
take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to
go?” was his response.
“I don’t know” Alice answered.
“Then”, said the cat,
“it doesn’t matter.”
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis
Carroll
There is a Defence Policy Update just around the corner and
given that I am likely to write about it I thought I would set the conditions
so that the disappointment I am likely going to express is only matched by my clairvoyance
of the same.
I should state that I am glad that the Government has
decided to complete a review. I am not a
fan of scheduled reviews but do strongly believe that we should hold them
regularly. Two conditions should trigger the timing of such efforts. Firstly,
when the Security environment has evolved so significantly as to call into
question the basic assumptions upon which the previous policy was based; and
secondly when the road map that was laid out by that previous policy has run
its course. Both conditions exist, in
fact both have existed for well over a year.
But before getting to some evaluation (in a latter post) about
the update let me claim it will be inadequate before it hits the street for the
simple reason that it is not nested in any larger policy. We are, quite simply, Alice wandering in a
forest: Polite, sort of cute and adorable, sincere in our manner but not really
a serious actor of consequence beyond being an example to others of the
consequences of listless directionless meanderings.
Defence Policy, when conceived as a concept in and of itself
is a directionless beast. Militaries
exist for two purposes: Domestic security (sovereignty, defence, aid to the
civilian population etc. with of course relative weighting open to debate,
hence the requirement for policy) and as a tangible expression and lever to be
used in support of a Foreign Policy which itself is designed to serve Canadians
both directly and indirectly. Lacking any expression of either Security or
Foreign Policy, it is nigh on impossible to determine why our military is doing
what it is doing. This is no criticism of those who serve in uniform, for whom
I have an obvious biased affection and deep regard but rather to point out that
once again we prove we are not a serious nation. Perhaps more accurately we remain
a nation that actually seems to want to avoid saying what principles we value,
prioritize accordingly and then move to supporting those through clearly
expressed objectives and appropriately assigned resources. We want to claim all
values, or more accurately any value at any time if it is political expedient
to do so. So we will revert to the traditional claims of having a policy based
on some variation of Protect Canadians at Home, Contribution to North American
Defence, and some weaselly words about bringing peace, security, and prosperity
to the global commons. Good policy needs
more than just claiming every action is in Canada’s interests. Not defining those
interests reveals such statements for what they are: intellectual pablum.
So why should such a lack bother us. There are many reasons,
but let’s choose three relatively simple examples of what results from such a
groundless starting point.
Firstly, our Army, Navy and Airforce are fundamentally
composed and structured in an identical way as they were in the 1960s, 1970s
etc etc. Yes, the equipment is slightly
more modern, and yes we have added some additional capabilities but even the
most cursory examination of what is going on might suggest that we rethink a 50
year old + model. Now there might be good reasons for this. Government might believe
that such consistency serves our Nation’s interest both domestically and internationally
but for a country with such a small military one would think that a more
strategic lens would better suit both purposes.
Time has moved on quite significantly, the CAF less so.
Secondly despite any misplaced belief to the contrary we are
still unable to operate in the vast majority of Canada. We simply cannot deploy
let alone sustain a force of any size to any remote part of Canada. Why is this
important do you ask? Sovereignty is maintained when you have awareness and
presence leading to an ability to claim those lands and waters, as a nation,
are yours. The internal waterways of our
north throughout the Arctic Archipelago are claimed by Canada to be sovereign. Of
course, this faces the slight challenge that the vast majority of other
nations, including ALL nations with a presence in the Artic (as well as China)
don’t agree. We protest vociferously and
no doubt many stern letters have been written. Those letters have been written
in replacement of actually being able to do something. I am not claiming that
we should reorient the complete CAF to become Arctic survivalists but merely
pointing out that we are absent in both a Security and Foreign Policy that
address how we consider our land and water and how we plan to interact with
those who flagrantly ignore our virtue signaling claims. For example, how might
we respond to China’s rapidly growing Ice Breaking Fleet? Presumably, China
being a nation without any ice bound ports is likely going to search for a way
to use the capability on which they have spent so much money. They might have
conceived of such a use before committing to such a fleet. Additionally, and historically,
we have leaned hard on the US for support in continental defence matters. In
this case, given the US also does not recognize our claims, such an approach
might prove to be problematic. This is, indeed, one of the unforeseen
consequences of farming much of your defence to a neighbor.
The third example that results in lieu of having direct, i.e.,
Security and Foreign Policy, goals that drive the Defence Policy is that because
of our directionless meanderings we have classically resorted to maintaining a
General Combat Capability which essentially means we are trying to do a little
bit of everything all the time. It is the only recourse when successive
governments want to have options available to them but don’t want to make the
harder decisions before that point in time.
Our commitment to Ukraine illustrates this point: Having donated 8 Tanks to Ukraine, we have now decided to commit a 15 Tank Squadron to the
forward deployed Canadian Led NATO Battle Group in Latvia. A lot can be said
about those decisions, much of it good, albeit they presumably result from an ad
hoc decision given we don’t know what Foreign Policy drove that decision cycle.
I digress. The impact of those two
decisions is that we now have committed the entire Tank Fleet of the Canadian
Army. As a general rule the CAF runs on
a rough calculation of having a 5 to 1 ratio in order to force generate and sustain
an international deployment. Before thinking that sounds off, translate that to
being on a deployment every 32 months. With work up training (individual and
collective), the actual deployment, post deployment reconstitution, etc that
means that every CAF serving member that is involved in our Tank corps is
committed. Now for a career NCM who might spend their first 20 years in a
Regiment that means approx 6- 7 deployments before they are 40 ! For the sake
of a 15 Tank deployment. Now this isn’t a plea for more tanks (I think we
should be out of that business) but rather an attempt to highlight that in
addition to the cost borne by our soldiers, a secondary consequence is that the
overall construct of the Army’s General Combat Capability falls apart as it no
longer has available the necessary armoured element. We now have a broken model for the provision
of a general combat capability based on a decision that is not underpinned by
either a Foreign or Security Policy objective and is, quite frankly, a modest
contribution at that.
When the current government announced Strong Secure and
Engaged (SSE the current policy), they preceded it with a Foreign Policy speech
in the house by then Minister Freeland.
No debate, no engagement, merely a speech. We can argue about the quality,
scope and viability of that speech but what seems clear is that at best it was
a last-minute attempt to provide a chapeau to SSE which was released the next
day. This is not the stuff of serious thinkers no matter how sincere we are in
the articulation of such things.
So, once again we can anticipate a flurry of speeches just
before the release of the DPU. For any who watch the current Global Affairs
Canada public engagement it is impossible to mistake this for serious work. This government has rightfully earned a
reputation for their overly earnest, solemn language, and thoughtful expression
when talking in public and then conveniently moving onto the next opportunity
to do the same. A Foreign and a Security
Policy are much needed elements to integrate all parts of Government in the achievement
of common goals. To quote the Chinse
curse (which somehow seems appropriate) “We live in interesting times” but such
times need serious thought, debate and public commitment by elected officials
as to what they value, how that translates into specific objectives that serve
the people of Canada and how we will achieve those objectives. A defence policy
is part of that last piece, it should neither lead nor define itself sadly defence
for the sake of defence seems to be the way.
Prime Minister Mackenzie King was famous for adopting a policy of “don’t
let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” and was rightfully pilloried
by the poet FR Scott who labelled Mackenzie as doing “nothing by halves, which
could be done by quarters.” For Foreign
and Security policy let alone Defence Policy that has been the state of play
for generations of Canadian Governments.
