Canadian Warfighting Effectivieness [Archive] - Marine Corps

wrbones

01-26-03, 11:41 PM

The Canadian Forces: More Capable in an Unpredictable World

THE CANADIAN FORCES
MORE CAPABLE IN AN UNPREDICTABLE WORLD
INTRODUCTION
We live in changing times. Very little in today's complex and violent world is constant. Further, change is pervasive - in industry, in society, as well as in military affairs. The nature of conflict and the concomitant application of military force are undergoing radical change and at an unprecedented rate. The world has become more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - indeed, the entire context under which military force is and will potentially be applied bears little resemblance to that of only a decade ago. Certainly, it has shifted from the so-called Cold War era where nuclear deterrence, large standing forces, and now dated technology characterized a relatively static bipolar strategic environment. Just as no leader in the commercial world can afford the luxury of looking back, neither can any progressive military - events are simply changing too quickly. All of our available resources and force development horsepower needs to be firmly focussed on the future. The Canadian Forces need to change at a pace not previously encountered or even imagined. Its leadership is firmly committed to facing these challenges head on - and to ensuring that the Canadian Forces becomes increasingly capable in a world that is increasingly unpredictable.

THE REALITY OF THE LAST DECADE
The last ten years have been extremely demanding for the Canadian Forces, both in terms of the operational tempo as well as the breadth of operations that we have asked our military to undertake. There has been a significant variety of missions accomplished in virtually every possible area of the world - from Kosovo to East Timor and from the Arctic to Equatorial Africa. Despite these pressures the Canadian Forces have:

Performed to consistently high standards in all circumstances - and fared very well in comparison to the performance of forces from similarly sized nations;
Executed more operations in the last decade than in the previous thirty-five years; and
Completed these missions with very few operational casualties.
COMBAT CAPABILITY AND READINESS
There is an ongoing intellectual debate, both internal and external to the Department, on how best to balance our future force structure needs with policy demands and current commitments. As our forces evolve and adopt modern, high-tech equipment, as well as new doctrine and operational concepts they are becoming much more combat capable. Individual units and elements are better able to conduct the combat missions of today than the forces of a decade ago. Modern militaries must be tailored to need, needs that are very different than those for which our legacy forces prepared. Our forces are more lethal and are much better equipped - the impact of Coyote and LAV-III in the Army, the full effects of the modern and capable Halifax-class frigates, and the ongoing upgrades to the CF-18 fleet are examples of these exponential platform improvements. Our force structure and doctrine are also evolving to better utilize new concepts and equipment and to become more interoperable and capable of conducting missions that are relevant, practical and necessary today and within the future planning environment. Light and lethal, technologically enabled and rapidly deployable forces are the requirements of today's world - and we are doing our best to deliver these important capabilities for the people of Canada.

There has also been much discussion over the "readiness" of our military. Broadly defined, readiness is simply the temporal state of preparedness of a military force. It is to a large extent the simplest component of the force development equation; ie, having decided on what "shape" the force will take, one must simply decide how quickly it needs to be available to conduct potential operations. To a large degree, it is a function of the security environment and the threats that it presents. Today, there is no clear military threat to Canada - or broadly speaking to NATO, for that matter. As a result, defence spending has generally declined across the Alliance. That being said, it is noteworthy that Canada is one of the very few NATO member states to increase it's military spending in each of the last three years. This can be attributed to our improved coherence in spending these dollars wisely as reported by the Auditor General in October 2000.

Current analysis also points to the fact that the requirement to quickly deploy or forward position large, heavy mechanized formations has dramatically diminished. Our NATO allies share this view and their forces - and their armies in particular - are collectively moving away from forward-deployed, Cold War legacy structures. Heavy formations, once the mainstay of Western armies, are on their way to specialized roles and armoured/mechanized formations are being replaced by lighter and more deployable digitized forces of the future. Military capability is no longer a simple function of the number of personnel in uniform. The multiplying effect of technological enablers has led to modern forces that are smaller, yet many times more lethal. DND/CF strategic planners are thinking along these lines vice planning towards a 21st century Maginot Line. They have left the past firmly behind and are focussed on developing combat capabilities that are and will remain relevant in the ambiguous and uncertain future strategic environment.

DEALING WITH PERVASIVE CHANGE
What is the CF plan to deal with pervasive change? How do we ensure that we achieve balance between the policy-mandated and crucially important tasks of today and the incredible challenges we know tomorrow will bring? The cornerstone of our force development methodology is our institutional strategy - Defence Strategy 2020. This living and relevant plan provides strategic level guidance and direction to the Canadian Forces. Rooted firmly in the 1994 Defence White Paper, and embracing both the letter and spirit of our proud Canadian military ethos, it clearly directs that modern force development methodologies be used to shape our future military. Specifically, a robust set of policy-based force planning scenarios, coupled with defined capability goals, are being used to develop Canada's future military forces.

We have also promulgated a Concept of Employment for the Canadian Forces which is based upon the following clear principles:

Multi-purpose combat capable forces;
Expeditionary operational level results achieved in co-operation with coalition partners;
Task-tailored self-sufficient tactical units/formations; and most importantly
Effective and relevant Forces (to both Canadians and our allies)
The recent creation of the Canadian Forces Joint Operations Group, with its Joint Headquarters and Joint Signals Regiment is yet another example of a significant enhancement in capability. These newly created operational units provide a rapidly deployable, modern and robust Command and Control capability.

Additionally, we have created the Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre, where dedicated and specialized staffs will examine leading edge future trends and developments. They will exploit developments in the Revolution in Military Affairs and the latest thinking in doctrine, technology and conflict resolution to assist the Canadian Forces in developing a cogent and focussed set of concepts for long-term force development.

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