All matters Canadian / Canada

[Norfolk]

In my opinion, the greatest threat to Canada's sovereignty is its inability to patrol and/or guard its northern territorial claims. With ice receding up north, everyone (especially Russia) has been trying to lay claims to the Arctic seabed. Canada has been unable to perform underwater surveys due to its lack of a powerful icebreaker. Russia has made several expeditions with one of their icebreaker (nuclear powered if I recall) to do so. I know this is a tad off topic, but I feel that it is very related to this issue.

Although Canada is a "small" country as far as population is concerned, I would think they have many of the logistical issues of a much larger nation due to the shear size of the country. Norfolk, can you give some insight on this?

Adam L

Hello Adam,

Perhaps even more so than the U.S., in its own way Canada is dependent upon Airpower for its strategic defence and operational mobility. The recent acquisition of C-17s was a step in the right direction, but 4 were not remotely enough; the planned acquisition of 17 C-130Js is nice, but given the choice between having a full squadron of a dozen+ C-17s on one hand, or the planned force of 4 C-17s and 17 C-130Js, the former would be better. Canada requires strategic airflift just for its own defence, whether that's airlifting and sustaining a Battalion to deal with an enemy lodgement in the High Arctic or along one of the Ocean Coasts, or doing the same with a Battle Group on the other side of the world. It is practically inconceivable that anything larger than a Regiment/Brigade airlift would ever have to be mounted, not least, obviously, because any enemy would find it difficult or impossible to mount and sustain anything larger than a Battalion-level operation. For tactical operations, something akin to the good old DHC Caribou STOL transports would do; they were originally designed to provide Divisional-Level supply and transport in nuclear war conditions, but unfortunately there has been no replacement. Obviously, Air Superiority is critical to enable any of this.

As to Canada's territorial water claims in the Arctic and especially the North-West Passage, they are misconceived. They are not generally recognized internationally, and of course do not in any way meet the 12-mile limit under International Law. As to the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone that International Law provides for, that's a legitimate claim Canada can hold on to. But to enforce in practice would require a modest, but noticeable militarization of the Arctic, particularly along the NorthWest Passage. In general terms, think a few AIP subs, a Fighter Squadron, and a reinforced Infantry Battalion/Battle Group either in the region or able to get there, intact and sustainable, fiarly rapidly.

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Perhaps it would do to address Marc's question of what are Canada's defence obligations, requirements, and resources. In another thread, Marc mentioned that Canada required forces of very high quality, and it should go without saying that he is entirely correct. The problem is that the disparity between political will and willingess to allocate resources on the one hand, and international obligations and military requirements on the other is vast, to say the least.

At the end of WWII, the General Staff determined that the Army required 6 Infantry Divisions (1 Regular Army, 5 Reserve Army) and 2 Armoured Brigades (both Reserve Army) for the defence of Canada. The Navy Staff determined that it required 2 Aircraft Carriers along with Escorts and the like (one on each Coast), and the Air Staff determined a requirement for something like 600 Fighter aircraft (IIRC, my memory is hazy here).

They actually got an Army of 3 Infantry Battalions, 2 Armoured Regiments (Battalions), and a Regiment (Battalion) or equivalent each of Artillery, Field Engineers, and IIRC (again memory hazy) an AA Regiment, plus an SAS Company. The Navy got 1 Aircraft Carrier - plus Escorts on both coasts, and the Air Force received something like a handful of the Fighter Squadrons it was looking for. That's probably about what Canada can afford now, if it had the will do do so, though a CV or LHD is probably beyond the country's will and resources. AIP Subs and Coastal Patrol/ASW aircraft are best for coastal defence, leaving surface ships to Expeditionary and Convoy operations.

As to requirements, that's a different story. Canada is most unlikely to ever commit a force much larger than either a Battalion, Frigate Squadron, Fighter Squadron, some Logistics and Ancillary elements, or a full-fledged Battle Group or Joint Task Force. In this sense, we still possess the traditional Imperial mentality of "A Battalion, a Battery, and a Frigate". Think up to an MEU for all practical purposes. Except if a general war breaks out, then nothing short of entire Divisions, Naval Battle Groups, and Air Divisions will do. Canada attempted something like this on the cheap in the 1950's, and gave it up by the mid-1960's. Not politically sustainable then, and certainly not now.

But as to "quality" and training, that's harder now; the Human Rights Commission in the early 90's imposed requirements upon the Armed Forces that were prejudical to training, order, and good discipline, to put it mildly. The Armed Forces have tried to work around this, in some cases with quite some success. But the albatross is still there. Without the ability to demand and enforce the highest standards of selection, leadership, training, and discipline, a "small but high-quality force" is more of a wish than an achievable objective. When Infantrymen, as an example, are required every 90 days (at least) to perform the 2x10 (marching 10 miles within 2 hours with full kit, on back-to-back days), one day immediately crossing an Assault Course after the 10-miler before directly proceeding on to a Live-Fire Section Attack with no rest; and the other day peforming a Casualty-Carry immediately after the 10-miler, and then proceeding directly without rest to a Live Shoot out to 300-400m where each must achieve a Marksman's rating, then a "small, high-quality force" is practically achievable. The basics must be strictly enforced, otherwise the "small, high-quality force" is rather less than it appears on paper.

[marct]

Hi Norfolk,

Just a couple of things I'd like to toss my $.02 in on...

Perhaps even more so than the U.S., in its own way Canada is dependent upon Airpower for its strategic defence and operational mobility.

Absolutely true. Last year I was doing some research on European tourists to Canada and one of the things that really came out was that they just had no conception of how large, and under-populated, we are. One person from the UK mentioned that they thought BC was about the size of France - when I told them you could fit 4 Frances in BC (17 in all of Canada), there was a resounding - stunned - silence. This size, coupled with a very low population density, makes it very hard to use anything but airpower for defence and operational mobility.

As to Canada's territorial water claims in the Arctic and especially the North-West Passage, they are misconceived. They are not generally recognized internationally, and of course do not in any way meet the 12-mile limit under International Law. As to the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone that International Law provides for, that's a legitimate claim Canada can hold on to. But to enforce in practice would require a modest, but noticeable militarization of the Arctic, particularly along the NorthWest Passage. In general terms, think a few AIP subs, a Fighter Squadron, and a reinforced Infantry Battalion/Battle Group either in the region or able to get there, intact and sustainable, fiarly rapidly.

Not something I would be opposed to, but operationally (aka politically) very tricky. We *might* be politically able to put together a Border Unit as the main component of an Infantry BTN/BG, but I doubt we will see either the vision, money or political will for the rest... at least until there is a major economic presence in the area.

Perhaps it would do to address Marc's question of what are Canada's defence obligations, requirements, and resources. In another thread, Marc mentioned that Canada required forces of very high quality, and it should go without saying that he is entirely correct. The problem is that the disparity between political will and willingess to allocate resources on the one hand, and international obligations and military requirements on the other is vast, to say the least....

But as to "quality" and training, that's harder now; the Human Rights Commission in the early 90's imposed requirements upon the Armed Forces that were prejudical to training, order, and good discipline, to put it mildly.

Don't get me started on the Human Rights Commission and their bastard offspring, the Tribunals ! Personally, I think that if someone in a wheelchair wants to join the CF - fine, let them, but don't even think about lowering the standards for the Infantry! Honestly, I always liked Heinlein's ideas about recruitment in Starship Troopers (book, NOT film!!!!!!). Having the training standards lowered is, IMO, ridiculous. I wonder if anyone has launched a Human Rights complaint about the lowered standards .

[selil]

Marc,

When you look at European landscapes most of the forests have a manicured look. Sit down on a weekend and watch the hunting shows and the european hunts have that same look as a nice American park.

I live in a metropolitan area in the northern midwest. You walk 100 feet out my back yard and you can run into bears, deer, coyotes, raccoons, and you are in deep forest. A fair chunk about the size of a small city with it's own ecosystem.

With the changing population migration patterns and more people moving into cities the general concepts of frontier are being lost. Even suburbia is loosing the more wild feel to it. People in general are becoming more removed from nature, scope, scale, danger, and so much more. Take a city dweller into the woods and watch them stumble around. These are people who stumble on a raised edge of a sidewalk crack. Ask them to judge distance and they are done for.

Even the northern United States and Canada (what 2/3rds of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border?) they are becoming less able to deal with the aspects of frontier environment. Consequently areas that had been "civilized" are now returning to nature in some perverse twist.

All of that to get to here. Consider northern Canada and especially the Northern Rockies and mechanized transport is not going to happen. You can't fly jets into those box canyons and even missiles are of nearly no use. Yet you could hide an Army in there for a long time. Outside of Hope, BC you could interdict the entirety of the cross Canada rail road pretty much at will if so desired (and as done by the Cree in the 90s). A lot of the same skills that you might expect in Afghanistan would be required to fight in that area.

[marct]

Hi Sam,

When you look at European landscapes most of the forests have a manicured look. Sit down on a weekend and watch the hunting shows and the european hunts have that same look as a nice American park.

I remember the first time I was in Austria - I found it "quaint" and almost like a series of toy villages (outside of Vienna, which I love!). When we flew back, we landed in D'Or Val and bussed back to Ottawa - the difference couldn't have been more apparent.

With the changing population migration patterns and more people moving into cities the general concepts of frontier are being lost. Even suburbia is loosing the more wild feel to it. People in general are becoming more removed from nature, scope, scale, danger, and so much more. Take a city dweller into the woods and watch them stumble around. These are people who stumble on a raised edge of a sidewalk crack. Ask them to judge distance and they are done for.

All true, although I suspect that of our major cities, Toronto is probably the worst for that. It used to be that children were taken out of the cities during the summer - originally to try and escape the polio season. This created a culture of cottages and summer camps for both boys and girls, and a large part of this culture was woodsmanship - canoing, swimming, tracking, survival skills (slave labour building gigantic log cabins ), etc. That still seems to exist, but it is getting less common.

All of that to get to here. Consider northern Canada and especially the Northern Rockies and mechanized transport is not going to happen. You can't fly jets into those box canyons and even missiles are of nearly no use. Yet you could hide an Army in there for a long time. Outside of Hope, BC you could interdict the entirety of the cross Canada rail road pretty much at will if so desired (and as done by the Cree in the 90s). A lot of the same skills that you might expect in Afghanistan would be required to fight in that area.

Yup, and the same is true of most of the Canadian Shield area, although it is nowhere near as mountainous.

[Norfolk]

selil wrote:

I live in a metropolitan area in the northern midwest. You walk 100 feet out my back yard and you can run into bears, deer, coyotes, raccoons, and you are in deep forest. A fair chunk about the size of a small city with it's own ecosystem.

Sam, I noticed that you omitted mention of cougars there. Was that unintentional, or somehow connected to the surge in cougar sightings lately over here?

With the changing population migration patterns and more people moving into cities the general concepts of frontier are being lost. Even suburbia is loosing the more wild feel to it. People in general are becoming more removed from nature, scope, scale, danger, and so much more. Take a city dweller into the woods and watch them stumble around. These are people who stumble on a raised edge of a sidewalk crack. Ask them to judge distance and they are done for.

Too true! And the consequence of this is a sort of imbecilization; I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, but in a quite literal and technical sense. The great majority of the population couldn't fight their way out of a blueberry bush, never mind find their way back to civilization if they were dropped off in the woods somewhere. Don't even think of handing them a simple compass, let alone a map.

The e-Forces ! The Evolution of Battle-Groupings in the Face of 21st Century Challenges, by Eric Dion -

(From the Conclusion):

The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology.
New procurement and technology development initiatives are needed to ensure that fast
moving technologies can be quickly developed to maintain the capability of in-service
platforms and systems through tech-insertion, thereby guarding against obsolescence.
And as it has already been recommended that the USMC Marine Expeditionary Unit
model be introduced in the Canadian Army / CF to satisfy the requirements of a special
operations capability for the 21st Century, we would argue in fact that our whole Forces
need to adopt an expeditionary and evolutionary posture, structurally by shifting to task
tailored forces and culturally, by adopting a renewed operational focus, based on our ethos.

Major Dion published this paper last year in Canadian Military Journal, though he originally prepared it for a conference about 4 years ago. While I'm not a fan of the NCW that runs throughout the entirety of the article, Major Dion is spot-on with proposing the application of the MAU/MEU concept to the Canadian Army - something which has been considered on and off since the mid-60's; a very strong caveat that I would add to this is to bear in mind that the USMC in no way abandons its general-warfighting mission and role while resorting to the use of MEUs and MEBs during less than-major war operations. The Division and Regimental structures are very much still in place for fighting the Big One, but of course course adjust their deployed force structure in accord with GETM/METT-T. An established force structure much more similar to that of the USMC has, for 40-some years, been recognized in many quarters in the Canadian Army as being best-suited to Canadian requirements.

Now, Major Dion told me recently that he considered that total of 12 USMC MEU-style Canadian Army Battle Groups would be required in order to meet Canada's military obligations, missions, and roles. I will readily concede that this is correct; personally I could forsee a slightly more flexible range of from 10-13 such Battle Groups, but Major Dion is involved in Strategic Planning at NDHQ, whereas I am merely asserting the Worm's Eye-View. That said, while I do agree that is the Army-Force level we need, the force-level we can afford would be about a third of that. At present, the Regular Army comprises, on paper, 9 Infantry Battalions and 3 Armoured Regiments, each of which could form the basis for a Battle Group, as well as 3 each Artillery and Engineer Regiments, amongst other units.

Of those other units, 2 are SOF, with a third due to be formed. JTF-2, a "Tier-I" SF unit, roughly divides into a "Black" side (CT and CRW), and a "Green" side (SAS-type roles other than CT/CRW), and is in the process of expanding to some 750 men. In order to do so, selections tandards were relaxed recently, and the Selection pass rate has changed from ~10-15% to ~45%. The second, which is also expected to muster some 750 men when brought up to full strength, is the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. It is planned to be a "Tier-II" SF/SOF unit, with a Special Forces Company (in Green Beret-type roles), and 3 commando companies (for use in Ranger Battalion-type roles). Finally, the Marine Commando Regiment, tasked with the "Black" CT role at sea and to consist of 250 men, will be stood up.

Needless to say, three SF/SOF major units in an Army that possesses a Regular component that does not even amount to a full Division is not just overkill, but dangerously out of whack. The conventional units can barely recruit replacement for those who have burned out with the operational tempo of the past nearly 7 years, and Regular Army Battle Groups fighting in Afghanistan have come to rely so heavily upon Reserve fillers that Reservists now slightly outnumber Regulars within those Battle Groups. Trying to sustain 3 (while raising two of those three) SF/SOF units at the same time whle the Army is struggling just to keep up to authorized strength is self-defeating; when I raised this point, Major Dion told me that that is the reason why he wrote this paper in the first place. And Major Dion is an SF Officer. Interesting. It seems that, in reversal of what tends to happen with our Southern neighbours, "Big Army" is at the mercy of SF and SOF; weird...

Flat-out, Canada has and needs an SAS-type SF capability - what is in recent years is referred to as "Tier-I" SF. We had it in the late 1940's, then we gave it up and struggled to maintain - out of hide - what would nowadays be called a limited "Tier-II" SF capability within the Infantery Battalions and especially the Airborne Regiment, as well as delegating SOF further and further to the Airborne Regiment and 1RCR while other units prepared for conventonal missions in Germany, Denmark, and Norway. Sending Infantrymen on the Patrol Pathfinder and SF Q Courses were no substitute for a full-fledged SAS-type capability in a dedicated Tier-I SF unit. Now that we have had one of our own again for the last decade and a half (more or less), for some reason we seem to have to have two more, and Type II SF/SOF at that?

Why? Properly led, trained, asnd resourced Infantry Battalions can handle just about anything the CSOR is planned to do; moreover, Canada has no need for a Tier-II Green Beret-type capability in addition to a Tier-I SAS-type capability; it's just wasteful and the Army Pathfinders in the Battalions can handle most of those roles at least as well anyway; for those they can't, that's what JTF-2 are for. And the Marine Commando Regiment simply duplicates part of JTF-2's mission and role. More waste. Other than large-scale parachute and diving operations, there is little that a properly-led and -trained Infantry Battalion can't do that a Commando or Ranger Battalion can. As such, a single Commando Battalion, specializing in Mountain, Arctic, Diving, and Parachute operations, and a single SAS-type SF unit (perhaps only a Company or a very small Battalion) are necessary, but the resources for these can only be found by scrapping CSOR and the planned MCR as they are presently conceived, and of course, for JTF-2, to turn over its CT/CRW mission and role back over to the RCMP in order to prevent it from growing too large and sacrificing too much in the way of SF capability and quality.

Right now, it is the SF and SOF that are contributing to wreaking increasing havoc upon Regular Army units, and there is only so much to go around for everyone. We need Bentley-SF, not both Mercedes- and Cadillac-SF, and we need Honda-Conventional Forces, not Dodge. And if we need something in between the two, it should be Acura-SOF, not Corvette.

[davidbfpo]

Not to overlook the potential for movement of SF & SOF personnel from the Army to the private sector, once trained and experienced. Something that has happened here with regular and reservist (Territorial Army) personnel. A point that no doubt the finance ministry will identify and use to query why such a large SF & SOF when they leave?

davidbfpo

[Norfolk]

Trying to sustain 3 (while raising two of those three) SF/SOF units at the same time whle the Army is struggling just to keep up to authorized strength is self-defeating; when I raised this point, Major Dion told me that that is the reason why he wrote this paper in the first place. And Major Dion is an SF Officer. Interesting. It seems that, in reversal of what tends to happen with our Southern neighbours, "Big Army" is at the mercy of SF and SOF; weird...

Correction: Major Dion put this paper out on another forum some months ago hoping to avoid what is now happening - Things aregetting worse; not long ago JTF 2 stated on its public website that it's adjusted its physical entry standards on its selection course to reflect "functionality", and as a result the pass rate has rsien from some 10-15% to ~45%. And all the while competing with the new Special Operations Regiment - with the proposed Marine Commando Regiment to come. The Army is struggling with a 1,000 man shortage of junior NCO's, and more soldiers are leaving the CF now than are joining. The wheels on the cart may be getting wobbly soon, if not already.

Another member of this board on another thread had proposed that the CF send more candiadates on the Ranger and Q-Courses: never having been to Ranger School myself, I yet have no doubt that it is effective at toughening people up. But inititail entry training should do that, not a specialized course. As for the Q-course, while Canadians do attend it, we don't need to duplicate the US SOF model; for starters, we have just to small an Army for that kind of compartmentalization.


I really need to get out, get an FAC and a hunting license, and learn to hunt, or something.