Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/507045
Mission preparedness Within national defence and the Ca- nadian armed Forces, the concepts of capability and operational readiness are well understood and part of a robust debate informing the future force. In a recent presentation to the Con- ference of defence associations Insti- tute, LGen (Ret'd) Stu Beare, the former commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command, outlined a series of functions that are less well recog- nized, functions that promote preven- tion, enable deterrence, inform strategic decision-making, deliver operational de- ployment and employment, and set the conditions for mission success. He called these functions "mission preparedness." He asked serving and retired military members and senior public executives to assess where the investment in these vital functions is going as military budgets shrink and defence institutions face growing challenges around resource allocation and procurement to meet commitments and requirements. C READINESS 16 aPRIL/May 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com we commit armed forces and security part- ners into future operational missions. Understanding the security environment requires work. Anticipating future crisis and challenges is our responsibility, and must be done with international and inter- agency partners. To be prepared to solve – or avoid – the crises, threats and challenges of tomorrow, it is vital that we: • Partner, plan and practice with allies and other agencies to be responsive and ef- fective, setting the conditions for speed, relevance, and effectiveness. • Posture the force to be effective where and when required in areas such as com- munications; intelligence and surveil- lance; logistics, access, basing, and over- flight; lines of communications across maritime, air and land; and operational sustainment, at home and in the coun- tries where we are guests. • Preserve and exploit our use of the glob- al commons, including space and cyber, ensuring the networks, communications and information systems stay connected to allow us to understand, partner, plan, posture, and practice. • Fight to build the picture, sustain and protect the networks, and preserve our own exploitation and use of the space and cyber domains. • And, finally, manage the concurrency of all these things across all domains – mari- time, air, land, space, cyber, and infor- mation – and all geographies. Despite the obvious demand for mission preparedness, are we seeing real invest- ment within the Defence institution in functions such as structure, capacity, sys- tems and best practices? Or in mission preparedness activities such as interagency partnering, planning, training and exercis- ing, and in relationship building? Where is that investment going? In structure, what do we see as overhead – tail versus tooth – by resource managers and by central agencies? And in resourc- ing, what do we see as discretionary or re- sidual versus baseline and necessary? Within the Force, who is charged with, Are we making the necessary investments? i n a world of increasing instability, vol- atility and uncertainty, and where the frequency and concurrency of events will endure, how should we be invest- ing in: understanding; planning and prepa- ration; practising, mission rehearsal; and in the partnerships and relationships that en- able all of these? These are fundamental functions of mis- sion preparedness and they are comple- mentary to, and essential for, the effective use of the Canadian Armed Forces, our capabilities and our operational readiness. They merit a focus and investment across and beyond the Forces. There are real jobs to be done and conditions to be set before by LGen (Ret'd) Stu Beare Photo: CDAI