The Conference of Defence Associations Institute made a splash this week with an open letter "Call for Action: Canada's National Security and Defence in Peril." It made a heap of news given who signed it: a heap of former ministers of defence, a bunch of ambassadors and high ranking civil servants, and several retired generals and admirals (tis funny to me that the title of the piece omits the squids and skimmers):
I respect the hell out of many of the signers as well as folks at CDAI, which as been a terrific partner of the CDSN. However, I have quibbles, both minor and major, which I would have shared this morning on the radio had the host not gotten the wrong talking points--he asked me about Elon Musk and the CBC. While it was fun to rant about bad faith actors engaged in vice-signalling, I did prep for the interview and didn't want to waste it, so here's some thoughts about this piece.
First, I want to address a few specific gripes before getting to the larger context.
- The letter talks about our military capabilities being woefully inadequate to protect our landmass. That is not only true, that will ALWAYS be true. How so? The primary military threat to Canada are missiles launched by Russia/China/North Korea. We can't stop those. No matter how much we spend, we can't because we don't have ballistic missile defenses. The Americans have been working on such defenses since Reagan's Star Wars speech, and they really haven't made much progress on it. So, we should be clearer about what are the threats and what we need to defend ourselves from those threats. The biggest threats to Canadian lives and property are stuff outside the military domain: climate change, pandemics, and cyber attacks (while the military has a cyber role, we should not be spending the scarce commodity of disciplined, trained people in uniform on jobs civilians can and should do). People can cite Russian investments in the north, but we have to keep in mind that they have a whole lot of north to defend. I do really worry about a war with China, but that is a China-Taiwan conflict that will spillover, and we will never have a navy big enough to make a dent in that conflict. I say all this, even as I agree with the basic premise--we need to spend more. But there are some difficulties with that, as I get to, below.
- "We have also fallen short in meaningful contributions to burden
sharing for the collective defence and security of our allies and
partners."
Oh really? What burden has Canada shirked? Canada paid the third highest price of any ally in Afghanistan and had far less restrictions until it became a training mission. Canada is one of four framework nations organizing the defense/deterrence/reassurance missions in the Baltics and Poland. While our contingent has been smaller than the others, the resulting need to organize many smaller and less respected (sorry) contingents has earned Canada a heap of kudos for stepping up when France refused to do so. Canada has played a leading role in training Ukrainian forces before the Russian invasion of 2022 and since. Canada has shipped a comparative level of arms and ammunition and other supplies to Ukraine.
When people say Canada has not burden-shared enough, they really mean Canada hasn't spent enough on its military. But that is not "burden-sharing" because spending on our own military really does not lift the burden that much from the others. Here's a secret: the US would spend as much as it currently does even if Canada doubled its spending. Indeed, given the domestic political dynamics driving American defense spending, I am pretty sure that if each and every US ally spent the equivalent of 2% of GDP on defense, the US would still spend about the same. Which branch of the US military will say: hey, our allies have spent more, we don't need to spend as much? Which defense contractors? Which Senators and Representatives?
And, yes, the easiest way to make progress to 2% is to tank the economy since it is all about spending relative to one's economy. If one's economy grows pretty well, one might find one spending more money absolutely but not relative to that metric. Canada is spending more on its military than it was a decade ago--more dollars, even if not a greater % of GDP. More importantly input measures are dumb. See Anessa Kimball's book for more on the craptastic nature of the 2% conversation.
- Canadian civil-military relations conversations don't really address the challenges posed by having retired senior officers take political stances the same way these are raised in the US. But perhaps they should. If JC Boucher and I get funding, we will be studying whether the signals sent by retired officers cause Canadians to think that they are speaking for the active military. If so, well, damn. Because then the military is seen, rightly or wrongly, as taking a partisan stance. And that ain't good. Folks can say this is a bipartisan letter since it has both former Conservative and Liberal politicians signing it, but nope, that doesn't do the trick since this letter is calling on this government, this party, to do better. It does not call on Parliament to get its house in order even as the role of parliament in Canadian defence is so much weaker than damn near any other democracy. So, this is critical of this PM and the Liberal party because they are the ones in power.
- Speaking of the former ministers, how many of them are responsible for the current mess? How many of them cut spending, pushed back procurement processes, under-invested in procurement expertise, and so on? Most of them? All of them? So much easier for them to criticize this stuff now that they are no longer beholden to parties and no longer running for office.
- Which gets to the part that is most unrealistic: "the Government must radically accelerate timelines for procurement..." Um, through magic? A great application of Green Lantern theory. DND doesn't have enough people to do the procurement stuff to buy the
equipment and such. So, that needs a heap of work to make happen before one can spend the money. If one were to magically allocate $15b more, the current staffing at DND couldn't spend it.
Ok, the larger context. The letter is right that the latest budget is disappointing from a defence/security perspective as it had no new money. In my humble opinion, the gravest threat to the Canadian military is its recruitment and retention crisis. That being short 16k people means not only that the CAF can't do as much, but that those in the CAF are stressed. Stressed by having to do multiple jobs, stressed by not being well served by various offices that are understaff, and so on. These pressures are likely to make it harder to retain people and harder to recruit, which will exacerbate the crisis--a downward spiral. It would seem to me that while throwing money at the problem won't solve it, it probably could help. Increase pay, increase benefits, spend more money on recruiting efforts, improve military bases, etc. I do wonder what is happening to the money that is supposed to be going to the 16k soldiers, sailors, and aviators who aren't in the CAF. Anyhow, that is one place where the money should be going.
Another key part of the current context is that the Defence Policy Update is late and has generally been an opaque, underwhelming process. Canada should have a quadrennial process--to review how well the last four years went and whether goals were attained, why DND/CAF fell short, and plans for improving as well as responding to new developments. Instead, the DPU was going to be, from what folks have gleaned, a sales pitch for spending more money on NORAD modernization (which is necessary but won't actually lead to us being much safer due to that aforementioned missile defence problemo). We will only be able to evaluate the DPU after it comes out.
The previous review was much better than expected. Maybe people liked it since it didn't make any hard choices as it didn't force any real tradeoffs. But it did cost out the spending for the various programs and was pretty transparent. Of course, when rolled out, much was made of putting personnel first in the document to suggestion putting personnel first in reality, but then Trudeau kept around a Defence Minister who kept around a Chief of Defence Staff that was abusing his power and engaged in sexual misconduct. So, the proof is in the doing, not in the words on the page.
Finally, the political pressures run against most of this. If we wanted good ships fast and less expensive, we'd buy them from countries that are good at that. Instead, notice how the ship building is pitched by this government (and by the previous one, just not quite so starkly):
That graphic is the cover for the 2015 Liberal Defence Platform. Notice the purpose of naval investments--jobs. Not ships. Jobs. Not defending maritime approaches. This is one of the primary reasons why Canada doesn't have the equipment the CAF needs--that decisions are made about jobs and votes. Stephen Harper's plan was to capture Halifax and Vancouver via the shipbuilding program, but now all the parties are held hostage by Irving, Seaspan, and now Davie shipyards. Folks can argue we need this capacity to maintain and upgrade the ships, but the choice to do it this way is incredibly expensive and ... no frigates (the AOPS ships the navy didn't really want are mostly broken).
When we do import stuff, there is an urge to Canadianize it to make it fit Canadian standards. So, now we have
helicopters that are too heavy. Oy. The military always wants to put as much stuff as they can, so that the equipment can operate in all kinds of scenarios since they can only get one type of plane, one type of ship, and so forth. But that goldplating makes the systems more expensive and less effective. Again, choices need to be made, which might mean that a ship is good at one thing and not so good at another. Because you know.... 👉
While this government is not great at delivering, most of this is hard-wired into Canadian politics. Which party is going to get more votes by spending more money on defense? "We believe this could be best accomplished on a non-partisan basis and would have broad public support." Um, no.
Structural problems can't be fixed with just a call to arms and a smidge more political will (whatever that is). Maybe this letter might impact those writing the Defence Policy Update, but that impact is likely to be on the packaging as the money is already set. Trudeau has already made the decision for this year, and given the context--the war in Ukraine, the DPU, etc--I doubt that next year will be any different as we get closer to the next election.
I get the frustration of those signing this letter. I share it. I write blog posts out of frustration. Other folks write open letters. But move the policy needle? I think not.
