Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/337874
N NATO www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2014 35 A TIME TO TAKE STOCK caused a paradigm shift and, in response, NATO must and will adapt to remain credible and relevant to the problem. If there was ever any doubt of the relevance of NATO and the strength of the transatlantic bond before now, the last few weeks have cleared that up and reinforced the need for our essential core tasks: first, collective defence; second, cooperative security; and third, crisis management. Now is the time to take stock and consider what we have accom- plished over the last 20 years of operational commitment around the world and retain our hard-earned capabilities and interoper- ability and, importantly, adapt to meet the challenges of this new security environment. Frankly, it is time to ask ourselves some hard questions: Are we structured correctly to provide a rapid and credible response? Is the alliance agile and flexible enough to react appropriately? Do our exercises and readiness measures need to go beyond current CFI (Connected Forces Initiative) missions in order to match the capacity of, for example, Russian Snap exercises that we have wit- nessed over the past several months? And, even more tough, are our forces positioned correctly to respond? NATO must provide the platform that allows our allies and partners to achieve their most fundamental military training and exercise requirements at the operational and strategic levels, a concept that has been dormant over the last 20 years as we have been focused on real operations. We should also assess our partnership programs: What does it mean to be a partner? Do our partnership programs meet the needs and ambitions of both our allies and our partners? How successfully are we exporting security? We have to ask ourselves; what benefits has Ukraine gained from being a partner of NATO during this crisis? This crisis has clearly affirmed the strengths of the transatlantic bond to deal with the challenges of the 21 st century, even those challenges that we did not anticipate. But it has also highlighted weak- nesses in our structures, our tools and mechanisms to respond to a crisis appropriately when necessary. My three key priorities for ACO (Allied Command Operations) that I have delivered to various audiences over the past 12 months are to get the Afghan transition correct; second, preparedness – we were talking about moving from a deployed alliance to a ready alliance; then finally, cooperative security – what are we going to do with our partners? They all still seem to be quite relevant. These three priorities are more relevant to the transatlantic bond than ever and the crisis in the Ukraine has only served to under- line their fundamental importance to our alliance. We must maintain interoperability between the NATO com- mand structure, national elements and partners. This will be criti- cal as we reduce our reliance on cooperation through operations and begin to reshape our readiness to respond to the next crisis – and there will be [a] next crisis. I will be looking at our ongoing operational activities and our associated footprint to examine the potential for a broader strate- gic framework that builds on existing partnerships on the ground, at sea and in the air. In particular we need to identify areas where we have been relying on the operational cycle to provide the resources and opportunities to deliver readiness. Then we must determine which elements need to be reinvested in, in order to maintain our readiness, interoper- ability and, the hard one now, our responsiveness after 2014. As we prepare for the NATO Summit in September we must be clear about what we feel are the challenges and the threats that face our alliance. We need to clearly articulate our role in deter- rence and then, if required, our role in defence. NATO turned 65 years old this year. I would offer it is not ready for retirement. In fact, the alliance has more worldwide signifi- cance now than ever before. But, being ready is not enough; we need to be responsive in order to meet the next global security challenge. What we have been able to do is build a strong air presence that will include air policing and NATO AWAC in the north, center and south. We have been able to build a good maritime pres- ence for the Baltic sea and a good presence in the Mediterranean that could either react toward the Black Sea or can react toward the Baltic Sea if we require. And now what we are seeing is na- tions coming in alongside and considering to offer ground forces....[A]ll we have to do is build forces that assure our allies but are not neces- sarily provocative to the Russians... Many in our business I think confuse readiness and responsiveness. For instance, I think the NRF is a magnificent force, it does exactly what we ask it to do. But I think we need to reassess what we need to ask it to do – especially in the context of responsiveness. We give respon- siveness targets now of weeks, sometimes as many as two or three months... [T]hat will not answer what is [happening] on the Ukrainian border right now...I don't believe we need to build anything new, I think we need to repur- pose and re-task some of the forces we have... [M]ore responsive forces cost more, because you need to exercise and have them positioned or ready to immediately load. Nations have done this...[O]ur alliance knows how to have units on very tight strings and, with it, have the strategic lift that makes them available. Clearly cyber was a huge part of what Russia has done. When they took Crimea, cyber was a part of a well-planned, total decapitation of Crimea from the command and control struc- ture of Ukraine. Ukraine was absolutely dis- connected from being able to do anything with their forces in that area. Cyber was one of the three tools used and used quite exquisitely. NATO has a good policy for addressing the de- fence of NATO networks and that policy is grow- ing in its application. It is still relatively new, essentially adopted almost a year ago. There is great pressure...because every nation, includ- ing mine, feels like it needs to do more to de- fend itself. There is a little reluctance to begin to spend on each other to defend each other, and this is a friction that will be worked through in the next months or so because I think we will take up cyber at the Summit. On NATO's assurance measures: On NATO responsiveness: On NATO's cyber capability: