As PM Series: The Military part 1
It's been a while since I've had time to work on my blog. I finally got assigned to a new project at work, so I don't have as much free time as I did before.
Anyway, today's topic is the military. Canada's military is dysfunctional, but the problem requires a far better solution than just throwing money at it. The entire concept of the military as it stands today is outdated, and not suited to modern conflicts.
Canada has only one concern in world affairs when it comes to the military, and that's peace keeping. However, peace keeping is an entirely different beast than war, and old military concepts simply don't apply. Canada's military is also needed for self defence (not necessarily from any imminent threat, but as a realization that conflict can always happen).
I suggest seperating the two concepts entirely, and disband the current organization of the army, airforce, and the navy. Instead, there would be two seperate divisons: the Canada Defence Force and Peacekeeping and Search & Rescue.
The first division is the Peacekeepers and S&R. S&R fits in naturally with peace keeping, which is why I feel the two should be grouped. A peace keeper requires different training than a soldier, somewhat along the lines of a police officer. Conflict resolution and negotiation are necessary skills. The fact that the civillian population may be hostile should also be considered. A soldier doesn't wear heavy body armor since that would reduce his mobility and camouflage. A peacekeeper, however, is out in the open and should be equipped accordingly. A peacekeeper also needs non-lethal weapon options that a soldier doesn't need nor wants.
As for the Canada Defence Force, its mandate should be to ensure a hostile force cannot entire Canada's 200-nautical mile limit. There should be no real emphasis on projecting power outside of that limit. We don't have the means or the will to do so, and the money would be far better spent on the right equipment. For example, an aircraft carrier is an offensive vessel that we don't need, but a destroyer is quite suitable.
More on this to come....
posted by Kyle_From_Ottawa @ 10:40 p.m.
5 comments
5 Comments:
I'm sure you expected to get a comment from me on this post. The truth is, I don't entirely disagree with you. The Canadian military is still largely structured toward a Cold War mentality and that needs to change.
Where we disagree is on the value of UN peacekeeping. Basically, in my opinion, there is none and Canada should stop participating in this monumental fraud. There is no such thing as peacekeeping, there is peacemaking and there is law enforcement. Peacemaking is basically what we did in Bosnia. We sent troops there to stop the fighting between rival factions and the only reason we were successful is because of the threat of US air power. Lightly armed infantry with no air support are useless by themselves in the role of peacemaking. They lack the deterrence capacity necessary to compel dedicated combatants to cease hostilities. Peacemaking is a job better suited to a military alliance such as NATO. It requires coordination. NATO countries often train together. They use similar tactics and harmonized logistical infrastructure. Canada should structure its military in such a way as to be better able to integrate itself with its allies, rather than haphazardly participating in poorly-coordinated and thoroughly ineffectual UN missions.
The second type of so-called peacekeeping mission is law enforcement which is basically what the Bosnian operation has become now. Canada doesn't have to send troops half a world away to direct traffic. Regional powers should be able to take care of that. Bosnia, for example, should be an entirely European concern now. I'm not saying we should never send troops into low-risk missions like Bosnia, but we should stick to our own backyard, such as Haiti.
What Canada needs is well-equipped, rapid deployment force, something on the order of 5000 men, that is fully-compatible with our NATO allies. We should also have our own heavy airlift capability so that we can deploy the force wherever we choose in under a week. This could be done with a relatively modest increase in the military budget and would greatly increase our international profile. It would also keep the Americans off our back for awhile.
Actually, I didn't quite finish my thoughts on "peacekeepers", it was late and I was rambling before heading off to bed. Actually, what I want is pretty similar to what you suggest, and whether its a UN, Nato, or "unilateral" action is irrelevant to the composition of the force.
Essentially my peacekeeping force would consist of several components:
- Commandos to rapidly neutralize threats
- Peacekeepers themselves that are essentially a militarized police force to restore some sense of order to the civillian population
- Air support (along the lines of helicopters, not jet fighters)
- Medical & Search and Rescue to aid the civilian population
- Engineering units to restore basic infrastructure
We should have the capability to deliver these units on our own, which would probably require a combination of airlifting and some sort of support ship. The commandos and peackeepers themselves would be airlifted in first, then the other units would come in once the area is secured.
As for my CDF concept, it consists mostly of ships and aircraft. We wouldn't have a standing army, since if an invader could break through our defences and reach land, it would probably outnumber any ground forces we have. Instead, we should have "rangers" who use our vast open spaces as an advantage. They would be in a sense use VietCong like tactics, hidding in the bush and launching sporadic attacks on supply lines and such.
It would also be the perfect foil to the peacekeeping force mentioned above. By pitting the two against each other in war games at home, you'd have the perfect training program for what both groups would be expected to encounter.
Your concept of air support is flawed. As we have seen in Somalia and Iraq, helicopters are vulnerable targets. They have a role on the modern battlefield, but ground strike aircraft are essential to quickly neutralize threats. Jet fighters also play a role in defense of airspace which is just as important as defense of maritime sovereignty. It is no surprise that no country has ever considered what you are suggesting. Every country that can afford jet fighters has them.
Your right about jet fighters then. This would require though an additonal consideration of how to deploy them, assuming we can't rely on the U.S. to provide the air support. We will probably always have support from someone else, but we should have the means to do it ourselves if we have to.
Jet fighters would be necesary for defence, I wasn't suggesting helicoptors there. However, The type of fighter we buy to defend our cost isn't necessarily the same type of fighter we buy to support operations overseas. Perhaps something like a harrier jet would be appropriate, since we wouldn't need a large deck ship like an aircraft carrier to server as a base of operations.
Also, there's a reason there's no military like this. The entire world has military structures defined by early 20th century conflicts. However, the nature of things has changed, and the military mindset is slow to adapt (i.e. Somalia, Iraq, and Bosnia all showed the flaws of old school militaries against modern conflicts)
Actually, we can take advantage of the current state of our own military. Unlike the U.S. or even Europe, we don't have trillions of dollars invested into a Cold War mentality military. We can throw the whole thing out and start over and perhaps develop the first true 21st century military. After all, consider developing countries are building telecom networks that are way more advanced than our own. When what you have is broken anyway, you have no qualms about buliing something with the latest and greatest technology. However, when you've invested heavily in something, you feel a need to shove your expensive square peg into a round hole.
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