Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/274231
D DEFENCE www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2014 15 sadly the answer to this question is "no," there is no substitute for training. We get what we train for as long as we keep training for it. Q Are we focusing our limited resources, then, in the right direction? If, as demographics suggest, urban populations are increasing, most large cities are coastal, and the rate of networked connectivity is increasing, is an emphasis on general purpose combat capability appropriate if we are going to be asked to intervene when services, infrastructure and gover- nance/rule of law collapse in urban littoral environments? I served 27 years in the combat arms and in that time we did an aw- ful lot of general purpose combat capability (GPCC) training, but in operations it was always adapted, sometimes unrecognizably, to fi t the circumstance. The GPCC we learned and practiced emerged from the doctrine of machine warfare between industrialized nation states on the north German plain. Although we did not deploy to Iraq in either of the Desert Storm operations, those skills would have been widely applicable there if we had. But as you rightly observe, the nature of warfare is changing, much as the Toffl ers predicted it would. We have to adapt the GPCC baseline the CAF uses so that the gap between that baseline and the confl icts Canada will fi ght next does not become un-crossable. The risk is that we paralyze the ability to adapt quickly – our agility in other words – by reducing our training and force development capacity below the critical mass it needs to drive that adaptation in time. There is another aspect to this that bears thinking about. It may well be that the asymmetric and to some degree fractal future battle space you describe requires a complete rethink of the type of force needed to dominate it. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the GPCC baseline my generation learned and practiced can- not be adapted to this new reality and that it is more suited to the special operators. It is well known that unconventional operations require a different set of skills and attributes than those learned in what we think of as conventional operations. Even though many special operators begin their careers in conventional warfare units, many more come from extremely different backgrounds in many other branches of the service. They succeed despite not having that background and they do so as much because of their adap- tive minds as their physical abilities. It just may be that the units required to succeed in the chaotic environment you describe will be populated by soldiers that have no GPCC training at all but rather come to the forces by some other route. The risk is that we fail to recognize this possibility and adapt to it. Q Back to your fi rst point about organizational risk, what are the most signifi cant threats to the organizational side of the CAF? I think there are three. I think right now the rising number of suicides are the most immediate and troubling. We strive to look after everybody and we think we understand combat and opera- tional stress injuries – Pat Stogran and General Dallaire have made great strides bringing that forward – but we haven't reduced the suicides. In fact, they are going up. We haven't yet fi gured out how to recognize the changes in a personality that lead down that path of despair and end in a suicide. Canadians have a right to ask, what the heck is going on here? However, I don't think it is fair to point fi ngers at the Army Commander, the CDS, or the health care system. This is a new phenomenon and everyone is trying their best to deal with it. But if joining-the-armed-forces-leads- to-suicide becomes a mantra in the minds of Canadian parents, that poses a tremendous institutional risk to the CAF. I think the second organizational risk is procurement, or at least the public perception of it. There have been some spectacular missteps, but if we look at the requirements organizations and the tools that support them, we should be pretty good at it. No matter the reason, these failures shake public and government confi dence. We can't be agile and adaptive if we cannot defi ne requirements quickly, validate them and procure the capabilities to meet them effectively. But whatever the causes of inertia and/ or failure are, the organizational risk to the armed force's institu- tional credibility posed by such missteps is clear. The third risk is potentially critical. If we continue to cut op- erational training so ships can't go to sea, airplanes can't fl y and troops can't train in the fi eld, when government calls on the CAF to deliver operational capability as advertised, the CAF won't be able to deliver. As Prime Minister Chretien is reputed to have said once when he got an answer he didn't want to hear, "I give you $16 billion a year and 60,000 people; 'no' is not an answer!" In many ways he was right. The government and the people of Can- ada know they are paying a lot of money for operational capability that can protect their interests at home and abroad. If we priori- tize the acquisition of the latest equipment over the generation of credible operational capability, perhaps at the third generation instead of the fourth, and the capacity to adapt quickly to a new reality, then there is a very real risk that the CAF might posses the latest military hardware in the world, but would not be able to respond when called on. The consequences of that would be profound and lasting. Photo: MS Steeve Picard In December, Risk Logik announced the additions of General Rick Hillier, former Chief of the Defence Staff , and Bob Huggins, a digital media entrepreneur, to their board of advisors. Gen. Hillier will serve as a paid board member, providing guidance, strategic vision, insights on leadership and relationship-building. Photo: 2nd Lt Isabelle Provost