Vanguard Magazine

Let's start with two questions: • Would a general contractor ever give you a believable firm price to build a house to a yet-to-be-developed set of require- ments, on an identified mountain hilltop in the Rockies and to be delivered 10 years from now? • When you buy a new car with a three- year warranty that turns out to be a lem- on, which party is most at risk? Some would say that the first one would never happen, and that the auto manufac- turer takes all the risk in the second scenar- io. When considering government procure- ment of military equipment, they would be wrong. The first exemplifies buying a weap- ons systems platform and the monumental risk involved as the acquisition launches, and as with the owner of a new car the gov- ernment literally owns all the risk in such complex military procurements. Full disclosure, I was listening to a pod- cast with Tim Cummins, president of the World Commerce and Contracting Associ- ation. His lament of contracting challeng- es spurred me to draft this piece, and he raised a number of points that I have cho- sen to highlight in one part of this note. It strikes me that what follows was never more relevant to complex projects than it is to the execution of the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP). Consider what most of us would accept as facts about the Canadian government as the client for weapons systems platform acquisitions, whether crewed or autono- mous armed aircraft, combat vehicles and warships: • We live in a democracy. • Those who govern our nation federally have an overriding responsibility to pro- tect their nation and its citizens in an ever more complex, volatile and intercon- nected group of nations that knowingly or otherwise create threats to our nation. • The government has a responsibility to taxpayers on how revenues are spent, preferring a high degree of certainty to the required outcomes when funds are expended. • Governments often have no choice but to tackle acquisition projects for goods and/or services that put the public purse in jeopardy due to their complex- ity and the related uncertainties – proj- ects that the private sector would not normally pursue on their own. • The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is part of the national security community tasked with protecting the nation. • Given the disruptive character of tech- nologies, weapon systems acquisitions are essential enablers of the CAF's abil- ity to continue to protect Canada. • Such acquisitions are shockingly expen- sive, complex and risky, but also un- avoidable and time-sensitive. This witch's brew encourages democratic governments to be significantly risk-averse by nature, something that most taxpayers applaud. As a result, governments view the acquisition of weapons systems platforms as a threat to their finances, credibility, and re-election prospects, especially since such projects are routinely very late and thus wildly over the budget announced at project launch, and/or have commission- ing challenges to their operational capa- bilities at delivery. From both lived and learned experi- ence, I have found that nearly all major problems in weapons systems acquisitions stem from a deeply ingrained culture of risk aversion: • Decisions to launch and progress proj- ects are delayed whenever possible, of- ten rendering them late to need, thus requiring expensive maintenance to keep obsolescent weapons systems plat- forms in service and potentially jeopar- dizing the operational effectiveness of the CAF that must employ them while on contingency operations. • Before contract award, every indi- vidual in the approval bureaucracy is a gatekeeper and few remain in their lane – after all, they are taxpaying citi- zens too. Service Level Agreements are risky because the potential for failure to meet them generates blame and reputa- tion risk that civil servants feel they are not paid to shoulder amidst constantly changing work priorities. The journey to industry implementation is therefore long and arduous, as all involved con- test a broad range of project aspects at every stage of the process. • Every past issue leads to added pro- cesses based on lessons learned, which builds an ever-increasing bureaucracy that compounds complexity. • Innovation is stifled by perceived risks and the effort required for adoption, leaving processes unchanged and pre- venting international best practices and technologies from advancing beyond pilot stages. • Contracts are built to transfer risk to industry at every corner, even when no T H E LA S T W O R D B Y I A N M A C K Photo: DND www.vanguardcanada.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2025 33 RISK DYNAMICS IN DEMOCRATIC MILITARY PROCUREMENT

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