Vanguard Magazine

20 JUNE/JULY 2021 www.vanguardcanada.com Q Partnership is an important part of the Strategy. Who are some of the key international players that the Canadian Army is looking to foster better relation- ships with to leverage and position itself as a leader on the world stage? We will continue to work with the U.S. as our closest ally. Our partnerships with the Five Eyes armies, NATO, and other key regional partners remain the cornerstones of our desire to be part of military alliances and partnerships with like-minded nations. Furthermore, contributing to the UN or coalitions of the willing is something the Army needs to always be ready to do as determined by our government. Finally, if we want to optimize our modernization efforts then we need to have good com- munications with industry and academia to stay current on emerging trends and best practices across the defence and secu- rity domain. Q Since the Army is focused on the land environment, other domains like in- formation and cyber are becoming more central to modern warfare. How does the land environment fit into this modern conflict and what sort of investments are needed to ensure the Army has the core capabilities to operate in such a conflict? One could surmise that the future will be cyber, space, autonomous systems, and the place of a land army will become anachro- nistic. I would argue that is incorrect for a few reasons and land power will continue to remain highly relevant. Land forces in- teract with and protect populations, and community engagement remains critical to operational success. Until humans stop living on land, land forces will maintain enduring relevance to control territory and influence the activity within that terri- tory. Aligned with that point, the commit- ment of land forces is a very real indication of a country's commitment to solving a problem, to deterrence, and to supporting stability or conflict resolution. This logic extends to the home front and the place of the Army in defence of Canada and the continent. The air and maritime domains are traditionally viewed as the focus of continental defence, but land forces must be a part of this lexicon for many reasons. An example: Climate change is opening previously inaccessible areas and the Army will be expected to be able to provide an "on the ground presence" to assert sov- ereignty, or to respond to situations, such as increasingly frequent natural disasters, anywhere in the country, including the isolated, remote and northern areas of Canada. With respect to capability investment, we need to be able to operate in the mod- ern battle space, at home and abroad, with some of our traditional capabilities and others that are newer, in all domains. We can maintain our fighting vehicles, in- direct fire weapons, and communication systems, but we need to ensure they're enabled for today and tomorrow. This means protecting our fighting vehicles and communication systems from cyber and electronic warfare attack, and oper- ating in an environment where both the cyber and information spaces are contest- ed. This means being better connected across the CAF to leverage any sensor for information or any system to deal with a threat, regardless of the service providing the capability. All of these challenges are at the front of mind as we go through our planning. Q As part of the Modernization Strat- egy, what are some of the key capabili- ties the Canadian Army will invest in over the next five to 30 years? Strong, Secure, Engaged provides the road- map for the development of Army capa- bilities for many years to come. The Army Modernization Strategy provides a com- prehensive list of capability investments. Some of these investments are smaller and Although we are in the early stages of our planning for the implementation of our first major change which will be to restructure the Army with the Force 2025 initiative to ensure we are organized properly for our modernization objectives. INTERVIEW Members of Charles Company, 1st Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment (1RCR) conduct dry mounted and dismounted section attacks in the training area of Garrison Petawawa on May 12, 2021. Photo: Cpl Morley, Canadian Armed Forces Photo

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