Back to the Casino: Wagering on the Next CDS

Chief of Defence Staff Tom Lawson is stepping down, which is not great timing for NPSIA since we have him at our school on Monday.  But it does allow us to play the favorite game of: guess the next CDS.

I suck at this game, having guessed wrong before.  When Rick Hillier stepped down, I had a favorite candidate--the officer that I knew personally and whom I thought would be a good political choice given his Quebec origins--Mike Gauthier.  Gen. Walt Natynczyk was chosen, and should have been the obvious candidate, given that he is quite soft-spoken.  I tend to bet on Stephen Harper seeking to manage messaging more than most other priorities, so this choice made some sense.

Next time, Harper chose Tom Lawson, which was a bit surprising to me since the Air Force had been much trouble--F-35 and all that.  Still, Lawson has proved to be pretty good at sticking to the messaging. 

Which is why I doubt that Jon Vance, currently the Commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command, is likely to be chosen. Vance proved in Afghanistan that he was willing to push hard against the rest of the government when he thought his model village plan was better than sticking to the playbook as written.  That is, he did not care so much about the magical six priorities and three signature projects--he would build schools that did not count on the whole of government map of 50 schools.  I just don't see Harper going that route. 

Beyond that, I am not sure.  There is no formal rotation among the services, with the Navy being left out of this spot for 18 years.  However, given that the Navy has much of the focus in the years ahead with the shipbuilding program, it might make sense to put the Navy first for a change. 

I honestly don't know, but if I were in Vegas, I would wager on the Not Army line if the odds were good.

Deny, Deny, Deny: Costs of War Edition, Part Three

I have long argued that this government causes itself more problems by hiding information than releasing it.  Today, this describes the government's position on the costs of the Iraq mission.  To be fair, this can be a tough issue as the costs can mount, so initial estimates might look faulty or deceptive.

But what looks more deceptive?  When it is known that the Canadian Forces provided the government with an estimate, which the government then refuses to release.  The US and Australia have been clear with their publics about the expected cost. 

This government fears a repeat of Libya, where the Minister of National Defence guessed that the mission would cost $50 million but cost twice that.  The solution here is do to what the government likes to do--blame shift.  Present the military's estimates as just that--the military's estimates.  If they are too low, they can blame the CF.  But to deny the opposition parties and the public this basic nugget of reality--what we expect to be the daily/weekly/monthly (whatever) costs--is irresponsible.  How is the opposition to hold the government to account when one of the most basic sets of facts are covered in denial sauce?

One caveat about this: the Ottawa Citizen report complains that the estimates that the military usually uses is of the costs above regular usage.  That is, a CF-18 would cost some money to operate whether it is flying over Canada or over Iraq, so they calculate the costs of the mission as being those that are additional.  This is not deceptive, I think, but quite sensible--what is the added cost of this effort?  That is what we need to know--how have costs increased by engaging in this effort--not how much does it cost to have CF-18s and operate them over Iraq.

Anyhow, I am sure the government will stonewall because that is what it is best at and thinks that is the least risky way to proceed.  I am not so sure about that, but I am sure it is a crappy way to run a democracy.

Why Should Visits Matter?

Today's news had an interesting story for those studying the role of legislatures in civil-military relations (this guy): the Canadian government may be limiting access to Canadian bases for the opposition parties.  This is great news!  Well, it is good for those writing grants about the role of legislatures in civil-military relations.  It is bad news for Canada if true.

Why?  Because if parliament's job is to hold the Minister of National Defence to account for how the military is run, they probably should have some info about the military.  Oh, sure, the government and its allies might say, we can tell them what they need to know.  They can chat with the folks they ask to testify, we can bring them unclassified documents, and so forth.  Going to military bases just inconveniences the troops as they have to spend time entertaining (boring with endless powerpoint) the visitors.

Yes, visitors are inconvenient. But military base commanders do not have to entertain all three hundred and eight parliamentarians.  Just those who serve on relevant committees or in relevant positions.  There are only a handful of opposition members on the Defence committee, apparently only one search and rescue critic for the Liberal Party (wow, things must be messed up to need one of those).  So, there is not a daily parade of opposition critics seeking to hang out at military bases.  Indeed, these folks have other responsibilities that are far more demanding of their time--running for office and all that. 

What kind of info can one get from a military base visit?  Even if these visits are guided, there are opportunities for parliamentarians to talk to the sailors, soldiers, air-people (we need a better term than the joint airmen and women) who are not selected by the government.  These visits allow the parliamentarians to see what is being funded by the government (technically, the role of parliament in funding things ... confuses me).  If the parliamentarians never visit bases or do so very, very rarely, then they will not know much about their file, and can only ask questions out of profound ignorance. Might that be what the government wants?  Mayhaps.

There is another dimension to this.  That when we talk of the relationship between the civilians and military, there is often a focus on just the executive branch and not the military's relationship with the society at large.  While there are debates about whether the job of parliamentarians is to represent anyone (yes, really), the reality is that they do represent people from all over Canada.  So, they can serve as a bridge between the Canadian people and the Canadian Forces.  With them, the gap just gets wider. 

But I guess the priority of message management is more important than all of this. And to say this is a budget item is silly, as these visits are not costly at all compared to everything else, but the costs to democratic control of the military are quite another thing entirely.

Learning from Lessons Learned Exercise

I spent the past two days at a conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick.  The U of NB's Gregg Centre and the Canadian Force's Combat Training Centre held a two day conference on what the Canadian Army can learn from its Afghanistan experience.  I presented on the lessons about multilateral military operations--drawing from the Dave and Steve book (coming to a bookstore near you late in 2013).

It was a bit different of a crowd.  I have presented my stuff to military audiences before, but these folks were almost entirely Captains and Majors and senior enlisted folks (plus a general or two and some colonels).  So, they had experienced a tour or two (or more) in Afghanistan and perhaps Bosnia, Cyprus and beyond.  They knew countries varied in how they conducted the war, but not about the sources of such variations.  Ta da!

I also learned stuff.  I learned that these folks had far more multinational experience than "joint."  Joint refers to working with other parts of the Canadian Forces, but, outside of helo support (all helos are RCAF), these folks didn't have much interaction with the other services. 

Today's sessions were breakout groups or "syndicates" as they called them.  I chose the multinational one.  Someone raised the idea of multilateral ops as a carpool--that someone is always driving the rest.  Often the US, sometimes the Brits.  The problem with the metaphor is that it gives way too much control to the driver---how many cars do you know move in four directions at once?

It was interesting to see the Marines come up a lot, as they used to have little multilateral experience.  But the Canadians often used them as examples.  Perhaps because, like the Marines, the Canadians pride themselves on adaptability produced by having old/lousy/too little equipment.

I had an interesting conversation with a female FOO.  This would be a forward observation officer--a person that manages the infantry's connection to artillery and air support.  In 2006, Canada had its first female KIA--Nichola Goddard--who had been a FOO.  I wondered if the CF got more protective of their FOOs, female or otherwise, after Goddard's death, but the officer I was talking to said that they were far more protective of the new grunt in the group--an 18 year old kid.  

I realized that knowing acronyms is not sufficient to faking being a military person.  It is necessary but not sufficient.  What you also have to do is say the following things alot:

• sort.  As in: "we need to get x sorted."  Lots of sorting going on.  
• piece.  As in "he was assigned the training piece, she got the int piece (not intel, just int)" and so on.  
• construct as a noun.  As in "the training construct served us well in the short term, but can we build a similar construct somewhere else."  
• enable. Heaps of enable and enablers around.  

One of my contributions I made to the discussion was to point out that referring to the other services constantly as enablers meant that, yes, you might value their role in helping you out (enabling you to do what you need to do), but then you are also making the service feel as if they are secondary to you.  Thus, I was suggesting that if one wants better jointness, better relations among the services, one might want to stop referring to them as enablers.  "Who you calling an enabler?"  Somehow, I doubt that I will change this habit.  I do hope, however, that my stuff on multilateral military operations does enable the CF down the road.  

Finally, they kept calling me sir.  Always feels strange--me a sir?  

Oh, and I learned more than this.  A smart group of interesting people with much experience and have thougth much about it.

Semi-Blind Spew: The Least Canada Can Do

I had a heap of meetings/class/deadlines today so I was not connected to twitter as much as usual.  So, I seem to have missed Canadian folks making noise about the deployment of a C-17 (a single transport plane) assisting the French intervention in Mali.  My favorite go-to guy on things Canadian military, Phil Lagassé of the University of Ottawa, had a string of tweets including this:

The C-17 deployment also highlights the difficulties that may arise if HoC approval of military combat missions is ever put into statute.
— Philippe Lagassé (@pmlagasse) January 14, 2013

Lots of issues come up. First, and most importantly, this deployment does not mean that I lose my bet with Phil.  I wagered awhile back that Canada would NOT deploy a battlegroup into combat before the end of 2014.  One transport plane is not a battlegroup.  Plus it is not going into combat.

Second, the wager's specifics tie into Harper's statement--the plane is for non-combat.  Harper makes this clear in his statement:

"Today our Government received a specific request from the French Government for heavy-lift aircraft to assist in the transport of equipment into the Malian capital of Bamako, a location that is not part of any active combat zone."
"The Government of Canada will support our allies in this request and will be providing one RCAF C-17 transport aircraft in a non-combat role to support operations for a period of one week.  The RCAF aircraft will not operate in any combat zone.
"At no time will Canadian Armed Forces members be participating in direct action against insurgent forces in Mali."

I am pretty sure the instructions the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command (used to be CEFCOM, now CJOC) will limit what the C-17 can do.  Even if it could do combat stuff, which it cannot. 

Of course, this could be confusing as Harper had sworn off the Canadians intevening in Mali.  But that was before the French jumped on in.  So, this raises a few questions, and I will answer them here with a modicum of arrogance (since I have not done any footwork to figure this all out):

1. Is this the first step to a larger escalation of Canadian intervention in Mali?  Almost certainly not, as that would be costly and budget cutting is job one these days.  Plus Harper has a sore taste in his mouth from the Afghanistan mission--heaps of challenges, relatively little control, and endless questions.
2. If folks in Parliament are unhappy, what does this say about trying to insist on the PM subjecting combat deployments to Parliamentary votes?  Not much unless the PM does not have a majority in Parliament.  No PM is going to agree to a deployment that is so objectionable to his/her party that he/she cannot get a vote through.  Only in case of a minority government is this problematic.  And it would be problematic with or without any formalization of a Parliamentary vote since the opposition parties could cause a minority government to collapse whether nor not they have a formal excuse to do so.
3. Does the noise suggest that "Smart Defence"* is in trouble, as Phil tweeted?  No and yes.  No, in that this case shows that the PM can support an ally by providing a resource (long distance transport) that the ally lacks without any real problems.  Yes, in the sense that some folks are squeamish about the government doing the absolute minimum.  Sending one C-17 or even a dozen (as if Canada had a dozen) is far from getting Canada embroiled in combat.  If people get upset by this, then one can only imagine a Smart Defence kind of assist that has some real risk.

This post may be premature as the leader of the NDP has already muted the noise somewhat. Still, Phil is asking good questions.

For more significant reasons to be skeptical about Smart Defence, see this.

To Err Is Human, To Deny Error is Organization

Check out my latest at CIC on the tendency of the CF and DND to deny, deny, deny.

Canada and the World: Unanswered Questions

I just participated in a live chat at Canadian International Council.  Check it out as we got through a bunch of interesting issues.  But what a bit of chaos--responding to a bunch of different questions all at the same time!

I am going to hit some of the questions we got and didn't answer here.

Phil: A big part of the Canadian defence policy debate between 1995 and 2005 focused on Canada's lack of influence and importance. In redressing this problem, did the Canadian government go too far, as Roland suggests?

Me: I think there is a logical disconnect here: Having the military have more influence and importance does not mean that the civilian side has less.  The CF had a tough decade after Somalia, and played mostly at the kid's table not just in Ottawa but in Brussels, Sarajevo and elsewhere.  In and due to Kandahar, the CF had more influence and importance.  This did not require that DFAIT and CIDA had to take a back seat.  They could have stepped up.  Circumstances and their own limitations made this difficult.  The Harper government constrained these agencies from talking about what they were doing in the field.  These agencies, especially CIDA, had such top-down management styles that limited ability to adjust and adapt--which is what counter-insurgency and alliance warfare absolutely requires.

roberteisenberg: How successful has Canada been at changing our reputation in the world as war-fighters?

Me: Absolutely.  Canada was one of a minority of allies willing to fight hard in a difficult spot. Only British, Danes, Americans and a few others were comparably capable and willing.

Mahmud Naqi: Mark Collins argues that our ability to afford a blue water navy is may be coming to an end, what do to think?

Me: The shipbuilding exercise suggests otherwise. I do worry that the F-35 will crowd everything else out, but the Harper government seems committed to building more ships.  So, the question will be how much blue water navy, not if.

PostWarHist via twitter The OMLT concept took off in Afghanistan post-2006. Do you see this commitment as mission-specific or a trend?

Me:  Mostly mission specific, as it required a willingness to put soldiers into harm's way.  Not sure that willingness will come back anytime soon.

Cyber question: I punted.  I just don't know enough.

If you had questions that we didn't see, shoot them my way here or on twitter at @smsaideman.

Oh, and keep an eye on CIC's series.  There will be more interesting stuff by other folks.  And I will keep on posting there.  Thanks to today's experience, I have a theme for May--thinking about Canada's Grand Strategy.