Clairvoyance prior to the DPU

 

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.