"The Hollow Army": Will our public support rebuilding it?
Expanding it will not be easy.
The federal Conservatives have big plans to expand the long-neglected, overworked and underfunded Canadian Forces, but their defence policy is up against a significant obstacle: the "hollow army" syndrome.
Defence experts say many regiments, squadrons and fleets exist largely on paper, some with only a fraction of the number of troops they are supposed to have.
And filling the ranks with a flood of new recruits -- this week's budget promised to add 23,000 full- and part-time soldiers to the military -- will be easier said than done...
The army, for example, is so thinly manned at present there are not enough experienced officers to train the recruits, hundreds of whom end up cooling their heels in barracks for months waiting for training courses to begin...
The battle group now in southern Afghanistan, based on the 1st Battalion of the western-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, not only bolstered its ranks with reserve soldiers, but had to bring in a full company from one of its sister battalions -- the 2nd Battalion PPCLI -- to achieve full strength...
Which may be why the federal budget's infusion of new cash for the military is "back-loaded" over five years.
Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, gave the Forces $1.1-billion over the next two fiscal years, but the military will have to wait until at least 2008 for the remaining $4.2-billion.
Much of the immediate defence spending will go to recruiting 13,000 full-time soldiers and 10,000 reserve troops, a key plank in the Conservative defence platform. And that will take as long as five years according to experts...
Gordon O'Connor, the Defence Minister, said yesterday he has big plans to expand the Canadian Forces, including creating entirely new regiments. "But when we'll see those new units is still being discussed."
He acknowledged that increasing the size of the Forces will be a long-term project. "I can only increase the manpower as fast as I can increase it," said Mr. O'Connor, a former army general.
Mr. O'Connor said the $5.3-billion over five years allotted to the defence budget was "right in line with the plans we had laid out" and insisted that long-promised purchases of equipment such as new aircraft and warships is in the works.
He did indicate that new transport aircraft would be among the first spending plans of the government for the coming year.
"Airlift has got to be addressed first, clearly," he said.
Air force sources have said the government will purchase four to six C-17 Globemaster cargo jets, along with an as-yet undetermined number of new Hercules transport planes to replace the existing fleet of C-130 Hercules aircraft, some of which are more than 40 years old...
It's going to be a hard slog. One hopes the Conservatives really have the commitment. And that they get a majority--otherwise...
As to another sort of commitment, look at this screaming Globe front-page headline: Support plummets for Afghan mission.
The federal Conservatives have big plans to expand the long-neglected, overworked and underfunded Canadian Forces, but their defence policy is up against a significant obstacle: the "hollow army" syndrome.
Defence experts say many regiments, squadrons and fleets exist largely on paper, some with only a fraction of the number of troops they are supposed to have.
And filling the ranks with a flood of new recruits -- this week's budget promised to add 23,000 full- and part-time soldiers to the military -- will be easier said than done...
The army, for example, is so thinly manned at present there are not enough experienced officers to train the recruits, hundreds of whom end up cooling their heels in barracks for months waiting for training courses to begin...
The battle group now in southern Afghanistan, based on the 1st Battalion of the western-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, not only bolstered its ranks with reserve soldiers, but had to bring in a full company from one of its sister battalions -- the 2nd Battalion PPCLI -- to achieve full strength...
Which may be why the federal budget's infusion of new cash for the military is "back-loaded" over five years.
Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, gave the Forces $1.1-billion over the next two fiscal years, but the military will have to wait until at least 2008 for the remaining $4.2-billion.
Much of the immediate defence spending will go to recruiting 13,000 full-time soldiers and 10,000 reserve troops, a key plank in the Conservative defence platform. And that will take as long as five years according to experts...
Gordon O'Connor, the Defence Minister, said yesterday he has big plans to expand the Canadian Forces, including creating entirely new regiments. "But when we'll see those new units is still being discussed."
He acknowledged that increasing the size of the Forces will be a long-term project. "I can only increase the manpower as fast as I can increase it," said Mr. O'Connor, a former army general.
Mr. O'Connor said the $5.3-billion over five years allotted to the defence budget was "right in line with the plans we had laid out" and insisted that long-promised purchases of equipment such as new aircraft and warships is in the works.
He did indicate that new transport aircraft would be among the first spending plans of the government for the coming year.
"Airlift has got to be addressed first, clearly," he said.
Air force sources have said the government will purchase four to six C-17 Globemaster cargo jets, along with an as-yet undetermined number of new Hercules transport planes to replace the existing fleet of C-130 Hercules aircraft, some of which are more than 40 years old...
It's going to be a hard slog. One hopes the Conservatives really have the commitment. And that they get a majority--otherwise...
As to another sort of commitment, look at this screaming Globe front-page headline: Support plummets for Afghan mission.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:43 a.m.
5 Comments:
One of the most interesting ideas I heard for dealing with the training problem was to conduct some of the training outside the normal infrastructure and do it in the unit instead. That would alleviate some of the backlog for courses, since you wouldn't necessarily have to go on course to become qualified in your trade. But would standards be met? Is the training one acoustic operator gets on one ship exactly the same as what another would receive on different equipment on another ship, for example? I don't know.
You know, no offense, but I thought that last article hit the problem with the army on the head. Canadians, for the most part, see their military as one big, expensively outfitted Boy Scout troop, going around the world doing good deeds, helping old ladies across the street, cooking out, building homes for the homeless.
I think they pretend those weapons they have are just for looks, part of the kit, so when they are on parade they can pretend to be soldiers. The soldiers know it too.
It's no wonder recruiting struggles. No matter how multi-culti the society, young men do not join the armed forces to "see the world" and "keep the peace". They join militaries because they see it as adventure, danger, exciting, like living the life of all those warrio heroes they read about before.
I've seen the military websites for Canada and I've got to say...peeeewww. If that's the caliber of the recruiting, you all are in trouble. No wonder you have to accept guys all the way to 49 years old.
Training is something that I'm a bit of a geek about (well, that's a lie, I'm a huge geek about it).
There are a lot of economies to be had with setting up distance/online/e-learning and simulation training. I know these already exist, but if the goal is to spend more money on the deliverable (military personal capable of performing their assigned tasks to the best of their ability) and less on the administration, I think a lot of thought and money (in the short term) has to go into figuring out ways to deliver this training.
The US army is doing interesting things with simulators for infantry, though, from a pure WOW factor (this is according to the education geek)Devlin, Delcruz et al's work with psycho motor (Marine Rifleman training) and e-learning rules.
I will only comment about the army, as that is my area.
Some good points by kat about how the army (CF) promotes itself. There are a group of people who do not want to be "boy scouts" and in my recent experience, there has been a small increase in interest in the army since this Afstan business.
However, we will never meet the gov't goals of 23k recruits with our present system. Even if we did, we are so short of trainers, we could not train them.
The problem could be solved, but it would require (semi) radical change.
I am not big on the stuff cameron suggests, at least not for recruits, as inculcating them into the military ethos is a big part of their training.
However, at present, there is a lack of will on the part of the military to meet the goals set by the government. With the exception of one project in the west to increase the profile of the military (a haphazard, poorly concieved and executed one), the military has shown not effort towards the new reality, in my opinion.
Perhaps I am overly critical, as I have been involved in Reserve recruiting in some small way over the last 7 years and have seen little effort to address peoblems in the system.
I am convinced that the only way to fix things is a big change at the top. Fire the guy in charge of recruiting and put some of our best people in charge and give them the tools to do the job.
Without some radical change, this will carry on as usual.
"I am not big on the stuff cameron suggests, at least not for recruits, as inculcating them into the military ethos is a big part of their training."
Not being military, but understanding the whole point of total institutional training, I agree.
But for specific tasks? And for remedial and just in time training (or job aids)?
It's just an economy of scale thing.
And, again speaking as a civilian who's married to a communcations geek, the current round of CF ads are better than the BIG BLACK BOOTS series from a few years ago, but still lack in the umpf department.
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