Canada s Defence Posture: Tactical & Strategic Procurement Implications The Honourable Hugh D. Segal, CM Master of Massey College, Chairman, NATO Association of Canada, Fellow, The Institute of Global Affairs Chateau Laurier Hotel Ottawa, Ontario March 30, 2016 *check against delivery 1
Thank you very much for inviting me here today. The work done by the Mackenzie Institute is a valuable tool and resource for those interested in security matters and in issues relating to Canada s armed forces and their role in the larger, global picture. This conference in particular, bringing together many of the best and the brightest in government, academe and those in combat arts and industries will, I am certain, provide insights, data, resources and networking that will go a long way in identifying areas of concern where improvement and investment is sorely needed. What we need in Canada is a multi-partisan consensus on the importance of a truly deployable defence capacity, and the measures essential to achieve that capacity. Canada is not, and never has been a major military power. However, we have always been a reliable, professional, courageous and conscientious ally, ready to assist and support and, when necessary, take the lead. Canada has sacrificed more than its fair share this past century up to, and including, the Afghan conflict and in ongoing hot spots. While debate is continuing on the government s decision to withdraw our fighter jets from the U.S.-led bombing mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and we should note that our new government pledged the withdrawal during an open and democratic election campaign and are now keeping that promise. Part of what it is our Armed Forces defend is that democratic 2
tradition. And based on the honourable, decorated and battle-hardened experience of our new Minister of National Defence, I am glad to trust his judgement and that of our experienced Chief of the Defence Staff on other ways we can maintain an important anti-isis presence in theatre. I also trust that Minister Sajjan understands better than most what is required for our women and men in uniform in order to fulfil their commitment to defend freedom, sovereignty and international law and order. This conference looks to the future of the Armed Forces with an understanding that responsible democratic nations need the proper tools to deploy as necessary. The will to engage plus a coherent and practical policy with key complement and kit constitute the basics of a foreign and defence policy that is principled and competent, constructive, nuanced and realistic. The re-profiling of DND's procurement budget by 3.7 billion in last week's budget may well assist in sorting through more timely and efficient arrival of aircraft and ship necessities. But if it is a simple cut, then existing procurements will be diminished and diluted further meaning that, in terms of real deployability in support of diplomatic, humanitarian, peace-keeping or combat needs, Canada is not quite back; in fact, in terms of deployability, it may be slowly turning its back on our allies and partners. Hopefully the optimistic approach to this re-profiling is the one that applies. 3
It is important that we separate fluff from substance when assessing how governments approach defence spending and procurement. Our longest and most definitive combat assignment in history was the Afghan War which began under the Chretien/Martin administrations and was seen through by the Harper administration. During those Harper years procurement happened, in terms of heavy lift air transport, helicopter refits for the Griffin, tanks and new Armoured Personnel Carriers. Procurement happened because it was necessary. General Hillier, Ministers McKay and O'Connor found, to their credit, a way to keep Treasury Board and the Department of Finance from standing in the way, as their departments often do, so that the men and women in uniform on the front line got the equipment they had the right to expect. We engaged in Afghanistan for good and substantive reason under Prime Ministers Chretien and Martin. And while it might be de rigueur now to attack the Harper government for allegedly being too militaristic, they simply continued the engagement started under the Liberals and needed to ensure that our women and men in uniform were properly equipped. The Liberals would have hopefully done the same. A difference in nuance does not mean the embrace of militarism by one side or pacifism by the other. It was Paul Martin himself who, when he became Prime Minister, admitted that he had slashed defence in the face of a severe fiscal challenge and then, to his 4
credit, committed to re-invest. It was effective fiscal management by Finance Minister Martin that established the financial capacity for Ottawa to reinvest in our Armed Forces a process he began before 2006. The focus and determination of the Harper government facilitated the subsequent required procurement decisions quickly without an endless self-doubting and unconstructive process. While that government does deserve legitimate criticism for letting the balanced budget uber alles bias squeeze defence spending in the 2012-2015 years, some excellent progress was made before that time. History tells us that most governments of Canada over-promise on defence procurement and, at some level, under-deliver. The new Trudeau government has inherited procurement voids, especially on ships, and new fighter aircraft. As was the case with the original CF 18 fighter/bomber procurement and the remarkable Halifax-class frigates, Canada s modest sized force means we do not have the luxury of narrowly-focused capacity choices. Multi-capable kit is the only way we can multiply genuine force capacity. We will have one fleet of aircraft that must do many different things in different places. The same is true of our navy on, above and beneath the sea. 5
Going forward, we need to be sure that if we need to engage under a NATO Article 5 situation, we are prepared and ready to do so; if we need to respond to a large scale humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean or elsewhere, we are prepared and ready to do so; and if we need to patrol our own coasts to protect Canadians against drug smuggling or illegal fishing or people smuggling in our waters, we are prepared and ready to do so. Confusing tactical and strategic procurement with domestic job creation is unproductive, wasteful, delaying and counterproductive. And to some extent, the existing delays in the ship procurement cycle illustrate the costs of the confusion. I said publicly after the announcement of the ship building strategy that the word strategy probably meant no actual ships for many years to come. I said this some years ago. I wish I was wrong as opposed to prescient. Like Australia, we need independent capacity. Like the UK, we can technically adapt hulls built in Korea with avionics and weaponry completed here. Like the CF-18, buying off the shelf is not always wrong nor is joint NATO 6
procurement as is the case with the F-35. Any policy or procurement that substitutes local job creation for action this day efficiency and effectiveness is a policy that puts our national, alliance, humanitarian, sovereign, security, selfdefence and patrol imperatives second. And, as we have found time and time again in our history, that is always a mistake with tragic consequences. We know that the mix between state and non-state actors in terms of international instability and mayhem is in constant flux. This means that for Canada to have choices by which to engage diplomatically, remotely, via human and electronic intelligence, via humanitarian, peacekeeping, observation or combat capacity we need a multi-capable force that is as comfortable with any of these potential missions as any other. It also requires doctrine, theory and practice in our military and staff colleges that reflect this inter-disciplinarity having exercised among ourselves and with allies in a way that covers the full gamut of the operational spectrum. It means preserving and exacting the real-time mixed intelligence and analytical capacity that existed in Kandahar when Canadian military, civilians, police and intelligence worked seamlessly with each other and allies to ensure hyper-well informed deployments in many theatres and places at once. It means drill-down competence in technically acute and demanding 7
procurement. The Ministry of Defence Production existed in our history for a reason. By 2017, our 150 th birthday as a self-governing democracy, we need a defence policy broadly in place that is premised on 100,000 regular forces and 50,000 Reserve forces spread across our air, land, ocean and Special Force capacities. We need to have committed to develop over time a 60 ship fighting navy of which at least 10 combatants are submarine. That Navy needs ship that can operate in littoral waters, provide humanitarian relief and carry full force multiplying capacity. We need to have an air, intelligence and UAV capacity that affords our government genuine choices as opposed to bad and lesser alternatives. None of these in any way limits the freedom of government and parliament to decide where or how to deploy or the mix between aid, investment, trade, diplomacy, peacekeeping or combat. But without the requisite assets, we have very few choices we can make or worse, just bad choices which may be worse than no choice at all. 8
It is both simplistic and naïve to embrace one government as being for peace, diplomacy and sunnier ways, and another government as being militaristic, prone to always seeing the dark side of life and undisposed to seeking diplomatic solutions. Global events are what they are, neither predictable nor always manageable. Predicting the trajectory of ISIS ten years ago would have been as impossible as predicting a nuclear abatement agreement with Iran in the last twenty-four months. The style of governments and ministers will differ, as will the unexpected circumstances they may face that are generated by conditions in far-away places and engendered by forces, hostilities and undercurrents that could not have been known a short time ago. Which is why having a coherent focus and supportive capacity is so vital. The single purpose of direct procurement for the military must be a multi-capacity range of deployable options for the government and parliament of Canada. I have argued in the past and continue to believe that every part of the world, every population, nationality and ethnic group; every region and within every way of life and civilization or culture, two freedoms matter the most: Freedom from 9
fear and Freedom from want. All the other freedoms we count as vital, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression all require the two foundational freedoms from fear and want in order to survive and thrive. Naval Task Forces that escort World Food Organization convoys through pirate-ridden waters are fighting for both freedoms just as land troops and pilots who patrol no-man s zones or no-fly zones. Protecting these freedoms at home underlines the core mission of our intelligence, defence and national security organizations. Advancing and assisting these two core freedoms abroad needs to be our core foreign policy goals in support of which we are prepared to deploy diplomatically, with development aid, with humanitarian engagement, with peacekeeping, observer or, if necessary, combat capacity. These two freedoms are not coloured by whether we have a center right or center left federal government. They are pursuable only through a consensus of competence and a coalition of different capacities at home and abroad that are prepared to deploy. 10
In different parts of the world where Canada has trading, economic, diplomatic relationships or all of the above, advancing these two core freedoms may well require different and nuanced approaches. In one country it may mean developmental assistance; in another it may mean more support for the UNHCR; in another, for an enhanced NATO presence; in another, removal of people in danger or their protection or the insertion of help in various forms. The forces of darkness, be they state sponsored, non-state actors, rogue states or the more militant part of competing great powers always seek to use fear and want to advance their cause in one way or another. Everything from a trade embargo, to the increase of an intense military presence in this or that part of the world is about leveraging these two fears to achieve unreasonable outcomes in the proponents narrow interest. If there is any principal thematic to Canadian foreign policy, notwithstanding whether Liberals or Conservatives are in power, it is this: We try peacefully, cooperatively, with determination and multi-lateral leverage and consensus to work towards the preservation of these core freedoms. And we take the measures that are required. That is why we were part of the UN Police action in Korea; that is why we deployed as part of the first ever United Nations Emergency Force in the Sinai in the mid-1950s; that is why we deployed to Cyprus 11
for three decades; that is why we supported President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher through NATO in the restraint of the old Soviet adventurism bringing about the end of the Cold War; that is why we deployed to Bosnia Herzegovina under both UN and later more robust NATO rules of engagement after the Dayton Peace Accords; that is why we deployed with our Australian allies in support of a UN stability mission in East Timor; that is why after an attack on New York City and Washington by a terrorist network trained, housed and sheltered in Afghanistan, Canadian forces deployed to Afghanistan in support of NATO Article 5. The politics of the party in power mattered little. The exigency of our duty to our own national security, our own freedoms and the security and freedom of others were what has and will always matter. Without deployability, we have no capacity to engage. Without a capacity to engage, we are hostage to the will and engagement of others. Without sufficient procurement, we have little to deploy. 12
A mature sovereign country, one of the eight most economically important in the world, cannot settle for being hostage to anyone. 13