Vanguard Magazine

14 JUNE/JULY 2021 www.vanguardcanada.com ARMY fence more broadly" (as Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan's spokesperson described the ultimate goal in an email to the Toronto Star). Dr. Charron also suggests that fo- cusing back to symmetric threat challenges and major power competition shifts atten- tion away from other persistent threats, like climate change (which accounts for a significant percentage of Canadian Joint Operations Command missions) and asymmetric threats to North America. The Army is already thinking beyond traditional service and level-one stove- pipes and discerning possible new roles in the cyber and cognitive domains – this is important, and I think that it will require challenging some deeply entrenched as- sumptions about who the Army needs to recruit, and the balance between different forms of service and a culture of univer- sality of service. This is a topic on many senior leaders' agendas – and I anticipate that this will increasingly be the case. My second point is about destabilizing factors that require adaptiveness, agility, and readiness for a whole range of contin- gencies. First, we should avoid conceptualizing or depicting climate change as an Arctic issue – it is a pan-Canadian and a global issue, and future continental defence plan- ning will have to contemplate massive disaster relief efforts that draw resources from across our North American borders. We also cannot lose sight of asymmetric threats can come from outside, and from within. I worry that as Canadians and North Americans grow increasingly frus- trated with inextricable tensions between our economic system and climate change (as we see in disputes over pipelines) and try to overcome persistent inequalities, consensus will be more difficult to achieve – and the risks for internal conflict more acute. Scenarios involving eco-terrorists are examples of this and, given how much of our critical infrastructure is linked to the United States, we must see this as a continental defence and security issue. Furthermore, the roles that the Army is called upon to play in an assistant-to-civil- authority capacity affirm, first and foremost, that Canadians must see the Canadian Army as credible. Canadians must believe causing a human crisis that requires a mas- sive government response including the Army, sowing seeds of distrust in the Ca- nadian government's ability to protect its citizens, and diverting our attention and resources from elsewhere in the world – and thus opening up freedom of manoeuvre for our adversaries. What we have already seen in terms of hybrid warfare and grey zone tactics is but a small harbinger of what we may see in the years ahead. In terms of North American defence writ large and what NORAD is envisaging, I share my colleague Dr. Andrea Charron's worries that this might be a lot for the gov- ernment and the Canadian public to digest right now – particularly with it being the unwritten and un-costed chapter in Strong, Secure, Engaged and with COVID leaving us in an uncertain economic state. Budget 2021 allocates $163.4 million over five years for NORAD modernization, which is a welcome investment – but merely a drop in the bucket of what will be required to "enable the enhancement of all-domain surveillance of our northern approaches and renewed investment in continental de- To speak to the Canadian Army Commander's role as the Indigenous champion within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, I always marvel at how the Army is seen as a positive, constructive force in remote Canadian communities – largely because of the Canadian Rangers and relationships with the Ranger Instructors who train them, as well as with the various army elements that have exercised in the North. Members from the 4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group that taught on the Basic Wilderness Survival Training (BWST) course pose in Dease Lake, British Columbia on January 31, 2020. Photo: DND

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