They fight, we just won't pay

Max Boot assesses Anglosphere armed forces:

Britain can't maintain 7,000 troops in Iraq and 7,000 in Afghanistan. Those are hardly huge numbers for a country of 60 million with the fifth-largest national economy in the world. Yet even as Britain has continued to play a leading role in world affairs, it has allowed its defenses to molder.

The total size of its armed forces has shrunk from 305,800 in 1990 to 195,900 today, leaving it No. 28 in the world, behind Eritrea and Burma. This downsizing has reduced the entire British army (107,000 soldiers) to almost half the size of the U.S. Marine Corps (175,000). Storied regiments such as the Black Watch and the Royal Scots, with histories stretching back centuries, have been eliminated.

Even worse hit is the Royal Navy, which is at its smallest size since the 1500s. Now, British newspapers report, of the remaining 44 warships, at least 13 and possibly as many as 19 will be mothballed. If these cuts go through, Britain's fleet will be about the same size as those of Indonesia and Turkey and smaller than that of its age-old rival, France.

Britain is hardly alone in its unilateral disarmament. A similar trend can be discerned among virtually all of the major U.S. allies, aside from Japan. Canada is a particularly poignant case in point. At the end of World War II, Canada had more than a million men under arms and operated the world's third-biggest navy (behind the U.S. and Britain), with more than 400 ships. Today, it has all of 62,000 personnel on active duty, and its navy has just 19 warships and 23 support vessels, making it one-fourth the size of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Of course, numbers aren't the entire story. Both Britain and Canada have top-notch soldiers, allowing them to punch above their weight class in military affairs. But there is only so much that a handful of super-soldiers can accomplish if their numbers are grossly inadequate. Quality can't entirely make up for lack of quantity...

Look at Afghanistan, where NATO is always having trouble dredging up an extra helicopter or another infantry battalion to throw into the fray. The British and Canadians are doing more than their share; their willingness to fight hard and take casualties sets them apart from most NATO countries, which prefer to send troops to safe parts of Afghanistan rather than to the front lines in the south and east. But 5,500 British and 2,500 Canadian soldiers can cover only so much ground, even with another 1,500 Brits thrown in. As usual, the United States, with more than 27,000 troops in Afghanistan, is left to carry the lion's share of the burden.

The primary culprit is declining defense spending among U.S. allies. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, defense budgets among NATO members, excluding the U.S., have fallen from 2.49% of gross domestic product in 1993 to 1.8% of GDP in 2005. Britain is actually above the norm, spending 2.3% of GDP, or $52 billion, on defense. Canada, with a defense budget of $13 billion, is below the norm, at 1.1%...

And Canada needs to spend much more than even the current government is planning. But a start has been made:

The pre-budget increase in estimated spending includes a 14.1-per-cent, or $2.1-billion hike in expenditures to $16.9 billion, by the Department of National Defence to cover a variety of additional military expenditures, such as the expansion of the Armed Forces and operations in Afghanistan...

Mr Boot's figure, thankfully, is somewhat out of date.

Afstan: No more US Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)

With NATO ISAF having taken command over most US forces in Regional Command East last year, OEF seems to have quietly vanished though I can find no official announcement. It is no longer listed on the CENTCOM website (Operation Iraqi Freedom is); instead there is a link titled "Afghanistan (Combined Forces)" which leads to the Combined Security Transition Command (CSTC-A) - Afghanistan.

CSTC-A appears to have replaced Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan, which was at the top of the OEF command chain in-country. A Google for "Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan" simply leads to this page, "U.S. Forces - Afghanistan"--which then links to CSTC-A.

CDS Hillier interview on CFRA, Ottawa/CPAC interview

Steve Madely interviewed the General from 0800 to 0900 today. Audio clips are here and here.

My brief summary of what the CDS said:

*Tanks vs. Mobile Gun System: MGS capabilities, esp. protection, still not up to snuff; Leopard I replacement needed.

*Strategic airlift (CC-177) is essential for missions at home (e.g. disaster assistance) and abroad.

*No specific "airborne" regiment will be created.

*The General is not feuding with MND O'Connor...but they have "intense discussions".

*In asserting Arctic sovereignty the Canadian Coast Guard has a role and the CF also have a part to play (no mention of any specific type of navy vessels [see Predate at link], whereas Auroras, troops were mentioned).

*Submarine program is on course except for Chicoutimi.

*CF-18 replacement, around 2017, will almost certainly not be a UAV.

*The Cyclone helicopters (Sea King replacements) are scheduled to start delivery in early 2009.

*The Griffin helicopters are OK for operations in Canada but have "huge limitations" for operations abroad.

*The Taliban this year are not going to try to seize and hold ground in major "offensives"; rather they will focus on suicide bombers, IEDs and simultaneous small scale hit and run ambushes.

*1,400 out of 2,500 Canadian troops live outside the Kandahar base.

*Recruiting goals are being met and the Afstan mission is actually a major pull factor; attrition is relatively low.

And an interview on CPAC, via Army.ca, will be rebroadcast March 1, 2 and 4. Video itself here.

Is research really that hard to do?

In an article entitled "Canada eyeing using more reservists to bolster Afghan mission," CBC News is gamely trying to report on personnel issues within the CF, as identified by LGen Andrew Leslie, the CLS. Unfortunately, when it comes to military matters, our national broadcaster seems unable to find its posterior with both hands:

Lieut.-Gen. Andrew Leslie said the concern is so great he is considering dipping into the part-time reserve force — troops traditionally used in peacekeeping — to bolster the ranks seeing combat in Afghanistan.

"Traditionally used in peacekeeping?" How about "traditionally used wherever Canadian Forces personnel are needed?"

All of the reservists deployed to Afghanistan are volunteers. All train diligently and intensely with their regular force counterparts for months leading up to their deployment. The truth is that our reservists go where the regular forces go when it comes to deployments - if we were sending more regular force troops on peacekeeping missions, more reservists would be alongside them. But we're sending our troops predominantly to Afghanistan right now, which means reserve soldiers too. Reservists aren't peacekeeping specialists any more than any other CF member. To suggest otherwise is misleading.

Equally misleading is the idea that using more reservists for the Afghan mission is a new idea. More than 10% of our fatal casualties in Afghanistan have come from the reserves, and I'd expect that a similar proportion holds true for the wounded. Canada has been steadily increasing the proportion of reservists deployed to southwest Asia for at least the past four years: from 2.55% in 2003, to 7.61% in 2004, to 8.9% in 2005, to 12.2% - over 700 reservists - in 2006. As long as we continue to have sufficient volunteers from the reserves - a proposition not without its challenges - we should be fine in the short term.

This isn't to say that the personnel challenges described by LGen Leslie aren't troubling, because they are. But by focusing on reserve force red herrings, the CBC has missed his point entirely.

Afghanistan Blogger

Latest Canwest blogger in Afghanistan, the Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson with Assignment Afghanistan

RSS Feed

H/T By Mark Wells

"Arms race," my pasty white...

What he said.

Army needs several thousand more soldiers, and helicopters, and tanks

Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, Chief of the Land Staff, at a the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, February 26:

The commander of the army says Canada's military problems are serious enough that they keep him awake at night, including recruiting troubles and the need for new equipment.

The comment by Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie to the Senate defence committee on Monday prompted one senator to wonder if the general is getting any sleep at all. Leslie said the need to recruit thousands of new soldiers to expand the army is a problem because many of the people needed to train the recruits are in Afghanistan or training to go to there.

The army is already troubled by attrition which can run as high as 12 per cent a year in the infantry, meaning that to increase the force by 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers requires an annual intake of 5,000 to 6,000.

"We need more regular and reserve soldiers to do all that we've been asked to do," he said...

Leslie also said he frets at night about helicopters.

"I really, really, really would like to see medium-and heavy-lift helicopters in theatre as soon as possible."

Canadian troops in Afghanistan have had to hitch rides with allies to move around by air. The military sold its medium-lift Chinook helicopters to the Dutch in the early 1990s and now is looking for replacements [CH-47 looks a done deal, with a sweetener for Quebec].

Transport helicopters, however, would also require helicopter gunships - either Canadian of allied - to escort them in some dangerous areas.

Finally, Leslie said his sleep is also troubled by tanks - or the lack of them.

"I want more mass, more Kevlar, more steel around our young men and women when they're travelling on those dangerous roads."

The army's aging Leopard tanks - basically a 1960s design - have saved "innumerable" lives in Afghanistan, Leslie said, but they are getting hard to maintain.

They are also designed to fight in European conditions, not the hot dust of an Afghan summer...

Leslie said he hopes the government will decide within two or three months about a Leopard replacement. He said he has no particular tank in mind, but says the troops need something with solid protection and the ability to shepherd the infantry over the kind of mud-walled ramparts that can shelter Taliban forces...

Afstan: ISAF fighting forces to be up 7,300/7,300

At the Riga Summit last November NATO commanders were saying they needed some 2,500 extra troops for southern Afstan. Well, it seems they have got them--and quite a bit more--from the usual contributors.

Total ISAF forces are being increased by what amounts to one brigade of Brits and one of Americans. The Brits are sending three additional battalions of infantry (that's brigade strength, plus others), for a total of 2,200 more troops:

1st Battalion Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters (announced Feb. 1)
1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers
1st Battalion Scots Guards (latter two announced Feb. 26).

More on UK units deploying soon here. And this is the kit being provided for the 1,400 soldiers who will start arriving in May:

The list of extra equipment includes Warrior armoured infantry fighting vehicles and multiple-launch rocket systems, which are both being deployed to Afghanistan for the first time. Also included are four more Harrier GR9s, to be used as bombers in a support role for ground troops, and four extra Sea King helicopters. Another C130 Hercules transport aircraft is also being sent...

There will also be additional artillery, with a battery of six 105mm light guns from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery, and a troop of guided multiple-launch rocket systems from 39th Regiment Royal Artillery...

The US, for its part, is sending an additional brigade combat team, the 173rd, of 3,200 soldiers. One battalion of US troops will be based alongside Canadians at Kandahar.

So that's 5,400 more UK and US troops than a few months ago. All the extra Brits plus one American battalion will be in the south, total almost 2,900.

And 1,000 Poles are now scheduled to arrive in Afstan in April.

The Minister of Defense confirmed on Wednesday that Polish troops could be located anywhere that they are needed in Afghanistan, raising the possibility that Polish troops will be dispatched to the most dangerous regions.

"Everyone realizes that this is not a simple mission and that experience of the Canadian army were not the best [emphasis added]," said Aleksander Szczyglo, Minister of Defense. However, he admitted that the troops would be dispatched in Afghanistan by the beginning of April and the final decision on the location of bases is already made. Over half of domestic troops will be located in the most dangerous areas of the country, with the Minister stressing that Poland was one of the few countries that did not request any limitations to location and use of its troops in Afghanistan...

Some Poles have just arrived. The Polish

...maneuver battalion...[will] be stationed in the south of the country in Ghazni province and will be entrusted with monitoring the strategic road [red on map at preceding link] from Kabul, the capital, to Kandahar and securing it from attacks of the Taliban...

Moreover, Australia may be doubling its strength in the south to 900 soldiers.

So the ISAF troop gain overall should be around 7,300. Wow. I wonder when the media will do the math.

Update: Holy cow! A Toronto Star editorial mentions the UK and US troop boosts, though only in passing:

...Washington and London plan to send 5,000 more soldiers...

But Jim Travers doesn't (as might be expected--see second part of post at last link).

Upperdate: An article on the hard job facing US forces in the east that rings true to me (via Afghanistan Watch).

Uppestdate: James Appathurai, Spokesman for NATO International Staff, and Christopher Alexander, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan at the UN (both Canadians) pointed out the efforts of other countries in Afstan to the Commons Standing Committee on National Defence, Feb. 27. I saw the session on CPAC this morning (no video seems available). They were absolutely brilliant in pointing out the achievements of the NATO mission and of international development assistance--and in stressing the terrible error it would be for countries to bug out. MPs won no awards for intelligent questioning based on knowledge;Kandahar seemed to be the only place they knew the slightest about.

Uppestdate II: Embassy newsweekly has a much fuller report on the committee session than the major media, but with this snarky headline:

Salesmen for Afghanistan

Gulliver revisited

Death by a thousand cuts from a thousand little men it is then:

A second civilian investigation is being launched into the handling of prisoners in Afghanistan involving the Canadian military, the Military Police Complaints Commission said Monday.

The commission, an independent, quasi-judicial body of the federal government, said the second probe stemmed from a complaint filed by Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association on Feb. 21.

The complaint letter alleged that the Canadian Forces provost marshal and unidentified members of the Canadian Forces Military Police transferred detainees to Afghan authorities on at least 18 occasions even though there was evidence they would likely be tortured.

And note that these fellow-travelers of Koring and Attaran have managed to get some official recognition of their real gripe: the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities.

Of course, in the mind of your average Canadian news consumer, it's all tied together - abuse, transfer, what's the difference?

Afstan: Yet more UK forces

The Brits are committing 1,400 more military personnel until 2009.

The UK says it is having to send more troops because of the reluctance of fellow Nato members' to send their forces to southern Afghanistan...

The 1,400 figure appears to be in addition to the extra battalion already announced to be sent.

Canadian Forces: Three things you need to know

Jack Granatstein outlines the basics.

1) Procurement costs:

...Consider the four C-17s the Harper government has agreed to buy. Each of the huge transports costs about $250-million. The accrual cost, again in round numbers, is $4-billion. Many Canadians remain unaware of the change in accounting methodology, and government rules (or practice) do not appear to permit explanation. So a $1-billion purchase of necessary equipment appears to many as a $4-billion boondoggle. It's not, but it's a hard sell for all of us whose eyes glaze over at the mention of accountants' rules. The answer, of course, is to explain defence purchases (and purchases in every other government department, as well) by making it clear that the total lifetime package is included in the announced sum.

2) Procurement precariousness:

The second problem is that the $17-billion in promised equipment purchases naturally enough makes Canadians believe money is flowing in a torrent to the military. So it is, but only after a fashion. Equipment purchases are never final until they are contracted, built, and put into the hands of the troops. Governments can change and, with them, priorities. The Navy needed helicopters to replace the aged Sea Kings back in the 1980s, and the contract for those machines was carved in stone -- until Jean Chrétien came to power in 1993 and killed the deal. In other words, it ain't over till it's over...

3) Operational and maintenance lunches eaten:

...No one can say with confidence what extra costs the Kandahar operation is imposing on the military, but they are substantial -- certainly well above $1-billion a year. Most of this money seems to be coming from the existing budgets of the Department of National Defence, and the difficulty is that the Army, Navy, and Air Force are being forced to scramble to keep themselves operating as funds (and personnel) are pared away to support the mission.

The Navy made the front pages a few weeks ago when it tied up ships in Halifax and Esquimalt because it had run out of operating funds in fiscal year 2006-07, and would not have any more until fiscal year 2007-08 began. That was an unwise, partly political, ploy by the Navy's commanders, to be sure, but the problem is all too real. The operations and maintenance budgets of all three service environments are stretched to the breaking point now...

Mr Granatstein's conclusion:

There is only one answer: The Harper government must supplement the Canadian Forces' operations and maintenance funding now. An emergency appropriation of $1-billion will keep the military running at home and keep the soldiers in Kandahar supplied with what they need. Anything less and the government risks destroying the kudos it has deservedly won for its efforts to rebuild the Forces. The military might not survive, either.

And for the longer run the conclusions of the Senate Committee Senate on National Security and Defence are equally valid. Defence spending needs to be almost doubled in real terms to around two percent of GDP. Heck, let's just spend as much as the Dutch.

"two decades of darkness"?

Scott Taylor makes some good points in this article about the Mulroney governments' failures to fulfill defence promises. But, as Mr Taylor notes, the end of the Cold War was taking place; winning public support for serious increases in defence spending after 1988 or so would have been very difficult indeed.

In fact, between 1986 under the Conservatives, and 2001 under the Liberals, defence spending as a percentage of GDP was effectively cut in half, from about 2% to 1%--and especially hard hit after the Liberals took power in 1993 (see Chart IV at link). So only the Liberal decade from 1993-2003 was truly dark.

Bring back the Iltis

That would be the logical conclusion of this piece maintaining that any tanks of ours in Afstan will have some vulnerability to enemy attacks, and implying that if the protection is not perfect do not bother sending them at all.

But, if that is the case, why send vehicles with protection that are nonetheless vulnerable to greater or lesser degrees, such as LAV IIIs, Bisons, Nyalas, Coyotes, M113s, G Wagons etc.? Surely the Iltis must be all we really need.

Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese really is fishing hard for negative news. At least he has the good grace to identify the "study" on which his piece is hooked as being from "the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives".

The end result is that the Canadian Forces will be trapped in an arms race with insurgents as they try to outdo each other, according to the study's author...

Mr Pugliese also quotes from University of British Columbia political science professor Michael Wallace--"a senior adviser to the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute on International Affairs." How odd that this institute (so far it has no website) is not also identified as "left-leaning". After all its director is Steve Staples, of erstwhile Polaris Institute fame.

And how odd also that, in his effort to be fair and balanced. Mr Pugliese quotes only Army generals (and we all know how objective they are) to defend the case for the tanks. Why not civilians from say the CDFAI, the CMSS or the CISS? Could it be that they are associated with DND's Security and Defence Forum and thus not objective enough, even if actually expert (see Babbling's post below)?

Compare with this piece in the Globe and Mail:

Lives lost, lessons learned

Five years ago this month, the first Canadian soldiers arrived in Afghanistan to begin their first real combat mission in decades. The deployment came after nearly 10 years of cuts by a federal government that was more focused on deficit reduction than military expansion. As they grappled with the transition from peacekeeping to conventional warfare, the Canadian Forces have learned many hard lessons, particularly about the state and capabilities of its equipment...

Look who was consulted:

...David Bercuson, director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary; Alexander Moens, who teaches international relations at the Simon Fraser University; Wesley Wark, a security expert at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies; Scott Taylor, editor of the military magazine Esprit de Corps; and Richard Martin, the president of Alvera Consulting Inc., who previously served with the military in the Directorate of Land (Equipment) Requirements and other departments.

Rather a better selection than from Mr Pugliese. The Globe's Afstan coverage has been looking up a bit.

Update: Bruce Rolston at Flit has a similar view; his D-Day analogy is wonderful.

Upperdate: The Ruxted Group takes on Prof. Wallace at Army.ca.

The Van Doos speak out

I had bookmarked this post from Global's Peter Harris to blog about several weeks ago. It's just as valid today as it was then:

What Happens In The LAV...
As members of the Royal 22nd regiment based in Quebec, they have trouble with the fact that support in English Canada is far greater than in their home province. They simply don’t understand why, and think that the true test of how far Quebecers will go in accepting this mission is coming this summer when a flood of French-Canadian troops arrive here and it becomes a mostly French Canadian mission.

This regiment is in charge of protecting the Provincial Reconstruction Team but they’re trained – and itching – for a fight. Cameraman Barry Acton said this is ‘war by ipod’, and he’s right: as we drove, an MP3 player taped to the roof inside the LAV pumped out AC/DC and Metallica. As a Metallica song came on, one soldier said “This is the best music to kill Taliban to.” Another one piped up: “No, no. Rage Against The Machine: it’s the best for playing hockey, doing anything. Rage Against The Machine.”

An honourable regiment with a proud tradition. Canadians, specifically Quebeckers, need to hear their thoughts.

Academia strikes out

Peace research = good Defence research = bad

Personally, I think one-sided research, of which Canada has had far too much for too long, is even worse. The Security and Defence Forum provides $2.5 million in funding each year, a mere pittance compared to the massive amounts of funds distributed to other disciplines over the years.

Hawks get bucks to sell war
University centres hot on Afghan peace get left out of federal funding loop

With the the release last week of the Senate's oddly contradictory report on Canada's Kandahar mission, the country is once again awash in foreign policy polemics. But can we really have a fair Afghanistan debate when so many of the sources we rely on for info are bankrolled by the Department of National Defence (DND)?

That's the worry of peace studies experts who point out that a disproportionate number of those quoted by the media or penning op-eds on foreign affairs hail from the 14 defence, international studies and military history programs across the country receiving DND dole-outs.

Here are two organizations that I can think of off the top of my head that provide "peace" orientated funding:

Pearson Peacekeeping Centre

Trudeau Foundation - $125 million in tax dollars to found this foundation. I believe there were further funds, but haven't been able to track them yet.

Funniest quote of the article - "according a study by independent defence analyst Steven Staples."

If you know of any other related funding, feel free to drop a note in the comments.

Accurate information is key

The Sunday Times' Christina Lamb recently participated in a Royal Geographical Society debate against the following motion “Our mission in Afghanistan is destined to fail: Nato should withdraw”.

Afghanistan is not Iraq
Speaking for the Motion: Major General Charles Vyvyan, former chief of staff at HQ Land Command, the author Michael Griffin, and Clare Short, the former international development secretary who resigned over the war in Iraq.

Speaking against the Motion: Christina Lamb, Sir Lawrence Freedman, professor of war studies at King’s College London, and Whitney Azoy, director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies

Pre-debate vote on the motion: 240 for withdrawal, 232 against, 257 undecided

Post-debate vote: 524 against withdrawal, 183 for

Education certainly seems to be the key. The debate highlighted perceived flaws and possible solutions, including increased development funding in outlying areas.

Hopefully tomorrow's announcement will designate the Canadian Military to use the new funds committed to Afghanistan, instead of CIDA. We've spent hundreds of millions to give the soldiers the right tools to complete their mission. It's time to give them access to a large pool of discretionary funds to complete projects on the ground they're standing on. ($25 million per six month deployment should be a good place to start).

Cross posted to BBS

And then there were two...

Only two Canadian veterans of the First World War remain after Lloyd Clemett passed away on Wednesday February 21st. Mr. Clemett, who enlisted when he was 16, never saw battle but was on his way to the front when armistice was declared.

Clemett enlisted in the army in 1916, a month after turning 16, following in the footsteps of his three older brothers who had already left for the battlefields.

Remarkably, all four would later return home — though one suffered shrapnel injuries to the head. He would survive to the ripe old age of 96.

Clemett was sent to England, where a concerned colonel transferred him to the forestry brigade upon learning the teen's young age.

When the brigade was deployed to France a year later, Clemett repeatedly volunteered to go to the front lines and was headed there when armistice was declared on Nov. 11, 1918.

"It was all over a month or so before I reached the front line. I was within the sounds of the heavy guns and that was it," he said.

There was no disappointment, but no excitement either when his battalion heard news that the war was over.

"No hurrahs," he said of the reaction. "The war was over. That was all there was to it."

He said he never regretted joining the army and realized how lucky he was to return home, but lamented that the war was in vain.

"The war accomplished nothing. Eventually things settled down and we get into the old style of life again," said Clemett.

Take a moment and remember this brave man who was willing to risk it all at such a very young age. Never forget.

[cross-posted to bound by gravity]

It stays?

The medal everyone's been talking about - Percy Fenton's Victory Medal - will end up at the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia after all...or so we think:

With nine seconds to spare, Dave Thomson of St. George, Ont., placed the winning bid of $6,401 US (about $7,415 Cdn) for Fenton's 2nd Construction Battalion Victory Medal.

There had been concerns that the centre, a non-profit group, would not be able to add the medal to its collections because it didn't have the money to buy it.

But Thomson, who has helped recover more than 30 medals listed on eBay, said the seller agreed to give the cultural centre the time to gather enough donations to pay for the decoration.

So if the cultural centre can't scrape the money together, then what? Good for the seller to bend over backwards for the sake of community history, but this still seems like a fragile proposition to me.

Afstan: Same coin, different faces

1) An excellent piece of reporting by Graeme Smith of the Globe and Mail:

'We have absolutely no reason to give up'
[...]
Exactly one year after Canada took responsibility for Kandahar, many Canadians are expressing deep skepticism about that dream. Canadian troops fought the biggest battles of their generation to protect this dusty city on the other side of the world, losing 45 lives and spending $2.3-billion in Afghanistan so far, and the broad outlines of the country's plight have hardly changed: It remains terribly poor, and plagued by a vicious insurgency. This week, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion called for Canada to give up the mission in Kandahar by 2009 at the latest, saying the whole approach was flawed.

But a dozen interviews with key players in Kandahar, including the provincial governor and two of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, suggest that the people who are the most intimately involved in building Afghanistan are vastly more optimistic than observers abroad. A positive outlook is a job requirement for many of these people, as they have staked their careers, or their survival, on the effectiveness of foreign intervention...

2) While Jim Travers of the Toronto Star asserts the mission is effectively a failure, blames the military (which apparently the Government of Canada cannot control), and wants to send our soldiers into the heart of darkness:

A military at war with peacekeeping
[...]
Worse still, Canada's "new" government didn't learn from its predecessor's miscalculations. Instead of managing risks by limiting the Kandahar commitment to two years, as the Liberals planned, Conservatives muscled through Parliament a two-year extension without negotiating preconditions necessary for both mission success and troop safety.

When history finally doles out blame, both governments are in line for ample portions. Liberals were lulled into "how-bad-can-it-be?" thinking by an easy first tour in Kabul, and an agenda that intersected with that of an ambitious defence chief desperate for funds to rebuild the military. Conservatives, in their rush to stand shoulder to shoulder with Washington, lost the leverage to force from Pakistan, NATO and the Kabul government the concessions needed to protect lives...

The military, along with the arms lobby, will howl but one alternative is peacekeeping and there's lots of it to be done [and yet no market for the "arms lobby"?]. Despite the carefully nurtured illusion that those missions are dead, the UN now has some 100,000 troops, police and civilians active in 18 remarkably cost-effective operations...

...peacekeeping is not what the military wants to do. It doesn't want to go back to Africa where it's most needed and it doesn't like working without the U.S. logistics safety net.

But there is pressing international need for militaries as sophisticated as Canada's. And there is the discipline democracies impose on armies to deliver what the public orders, not what generals want...

Mr Travers does have the good grace to write:

Does any of this make Afghanistan a fool's mission? Not necessarily.

But, given the tone of his piece as a whole, one knows he doesn't really think that and is simply covering his ass.

Update: A very thought provoking comment at Army.ca. I fear I agree about PM Harper. More here.

Much of this has a familiar ring

Defence procurement, UK-style. I especially like this paragraph:

...the Airbus sell-off makes the government's decision in 2000 to spend £2.5bn on Airbus A400M transport planes for our forces, instead of better American ones, look very foolish. By the time the A400Ms are finally delivered, in 2011 at the earliest, their purchase will almost certainly no longer be guaranteeing many British jobs. We might as well have bought some more Hercules or C-17s from the US; they'd have been cheaper, better and in service already. And we could really use the aircraft: our lack of military air transport is a source of great weakness, as we struggle to sustain large overseas deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq...

Imagine an article like this one (read the whole thing) in the Canadian general interest media. Hah!

The Canadian Forces:Deux nations

The Québécois really don't seem to want the Canadian military to be a fighting force, whereas those in another province do (paragraphs out of sequence):

Quebeckers, whose mostly French-speaking Royal 22nd Regiment is just arriving in Kandahar [not so--a few elements arrived some time ago but the main battle group is not coming until August - MC]ahead of what is expected to be months of renewed fighting against a resurgent Taliban, want most strongly (71 per cent) to scrap any combat role for the Canadian Forces.

If the Vandoos start taking casualties, anti-war sentiment in Quebec may harden.

By contrast, only four in 10 Albertans want a "peacekeeping only" military.

Now this is really scary:

The national average among the more than 1,000 respondents to the Ipsos-Reid poll was 58 per cent favouring only peacekeeping...

The figure would probably be around 50-50, not counting Quebec. That is the result of at least two decades of what amounts to propaganda from our educational systems, our media, and our governments (I'm including the Mulroney one}.

Paul Koring of the Globe and Mail, the author of this story, starts it in this fashion:

Four in 10 Canadians think it's okay for Canadian soldiers to beat their captives in Afghanistan and nearly two-thirds doubt investigations into alleged detainee abuse will uncover the truth, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll released yesterday.

[...]

More than a third (37 per cent) of respondents said they believe Canadian troops "are involved with torturing" prisoners...

Now whyever might Canadians think such nasty things about our soldiers? A large part of the reason might just be stories Mr Koring himself wrote recently about allegations of prisoner abuse. The allegations were then picked up and given huge publicity by the rest of our media. See these posts by Babbling Brooks:

"More spinning than a figure skating competition"
"Desperate fabrication"
"You want a 'conversation'? You got my half of it..."

Mr Koring really does have a lot to answer for.

Full poll details are here.

Two in the heart, one in the mind

Remember when I said that sometimes putting Taliban thugs under a thin but permanent layer of dirt was an effective way to win the hearts and minds of the southern Afghan population?

And remember how some of the chattering class fawned all over the kinder, gentler Dutch approach?

Well, as it turns out, some of the local Afghans seem to agree a bit more with me, and a bit less with the Dutch and the doves:

"We're surrounded by the Taliban," Harmdullah told an audience Saturday that included the military alliance's southern commander and two members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cabinet.

"We need more security."

His appeal was echoed by the mayor of Terin Kowt, Mohammed Kabir, who added there needs to be more protection for schools, especially a girl's school, in the town, which is nestled in amid soaring, snow-capped peaks.

Both statements were polite rebukes of NATO's tip-toe approach to the Taliban in the sparsely populated province Oruzgan, north of Kandahar.

...

The approach in Oruzgan -- spearheaded by the Dutch and the Australians -- can best be decribed as war lite. The partners concentrate on winning the confidence of locals by keeping a low profile and never entering villages where they haven't been invited.

Unlike Canadians, Americans and British in provinces to the south of them, the Dutch and Australians have not aggressively patrolled far beyond the provincial capital or sought out extremists in the hinterland.

Counterinsurgency and nation-building is an art, not a math problem; there is no definitively right or wrong answer. But it seems that ordinary Afghans understand what many of the Canadian academic and political elite do not: firm and aggressive security measures must remain an integral part of fixing Afghanistan.

Fenton Victory Medal to stay in Canda

I just visited the Fenton Victory Medal Ebay page and noticed the following post from the auction's owner:

On Feb-22-07 at 13:57:31 PST, seller added the following information:

DUE TO THE OVERWHELMING LOCAL INTEREST IN THIS AUCTION I CAN ONLY SELL THIS ITEM IN CANADA. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE TO MY INTERNATIONAL BUYERS.

The latest bid registered is $5,100.00 US ($5,924.16)

Keep your fingers crossed that the winning bidder is a philanthropist who would consider donating the medal and accompanying documentation to the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia or, at the very least, consider a long term loan.

Description of the Medal from EBay:

You are bidding on a very rare single 1914-19 Victory Medal properly named to 931309 SPR. P.F. FENTON, C.O.R.C.C. (Canadian Overseas Railway Construction Company). Spr. Fenton was an original member of the famous No.2 Construction Bn. of Nova Scotia being Canada's only all Black unit in W.W.1. Medals to this unit are very rare and highly prized by C.E.F. collectors. A book has been written on this unit and makes very interesting reading on how prejudice the army was towards negro's. An interesting point about Mr. Fenton is that he is listed as having previous service with the 29th. Bty. CFA which was very uncommon as white soldiers would not be in the company of Blacks at that time. Spr. Fenton was from Arcadia, near Yarmouth N.S. and is listed as a labourer. Accompanying the medal is a copy of the NO.2 Construction Bn.'s nominal roll listing him and about 20 pages of his service record from the National Archives of Canada.

Huge H/T to the medal's seller for changing the auction's terms to ensure the medal remains in Canada.

On a related note, take a minute to read about Canada's only black Flying Officer during World War II - "Flying Officer Alan Bundy, flew 42 operational missions in Europe and was discharged from the RCAF in 1946 without any recognition."

Cross posted to BBS

The development partner

Canada's strategy in Afghanistan is founded upon three pillars, or "the 3D approach": defence, diplomacy, and development. The focal point of criticism of that mission here in Canada has been that we concentrate too much on defence, and not enough on the other two aspects, and the CF has taken the brunt of that criticism. But over the course of the past week, the CF has gotten a small respite as CIDA has taken over as the whipping boy of choice.

The Senate committee thinks it should be abolished, but not before another Senate panel suggested it give over $20M of its budget immediately to the CF to distribute more effectively in Kandahar.

Journalists have piled on:

It's too bad that the civilian agencies like CIDA, didn't follow that up by injecting a massive amount of aid into the area to secure the victory. That's how it's supposed to work; secure the area, then secure the peace. But that didn't happen. It might have made the area a whole lot safer for this next rotation of troops. Hopefully they've learned a lesson.

And the criticism isn't new, it's just broken to the surface. Retired Commodore Eric Lehre made the case months ago that the 3D model can't even be judged at this point because nobody other than defence is even trying:

Until that review is complete and until CIDA can generate the personnel and financial resources to re-qualify for membership in the 3-D partnership, the concept should be put into abeyance. In the interim, the military commander should be immediately given the $30 million his U.S counterparts enjoy for local development projects and, most critically, the local authority to spend it rapidly. He should be provided whatever federal officials or military officers are needed to ensure funding and project delivery follows within two weeks of a local agreement. As quickly as the security situation allows and as quickly as CIDA can generate a meaningful contribution, the military commander should return the coordination of development over to the development experts.

Even the newspaper editorialists have gotten into the act:

Whatever the solution, the commitment that Canadians have to maintaining and increasing foreign aid is deeply held, a humanitarianism that deserves a better vehicle to carry it out than CIDA has offered.

Are these criticisms fair? Perhaps. But I'd ask you to look at CIDA's performance in context.

CIDA isn't an NGO, it's a branch of the Government of Canada. I think sometimes people forget that. If you want it to be more agile, more responsive, more aggressive, then tell your MP. Because the government created it, and only the government can fix it:

"CIDA has developed a reputation as one of the slowest bilateral aid agencies in the world," testified Ian Smillie, research co-ordinator of Partnership Africa Canada. "We have more checklists, forms, studies, consultancies and evaluations than any other donor I know. We are pathologically risk averse."

When an organization is "risk averse," it's because mistakes are punished harshly, and bold action isn't rewarded generously. I deal with this mindset every day in my work. It's a standing joke that nobody at an insurance company was ever fired for saying "No, it's too risky." I suspect the same is true of CIDA.

This story by Murray Brewster of the Canadian Press backs up my contention in an article from January 15th, 2007:

The killing made it harder to recruit civilians into PRT positions, said Grant.

The two governmental agencies virtually pulled out of the PRT from the time of the attack until April of last year, stalling a number of programs. At the same time, CIDA halted spending on rebuilding programs amid a further wave of suicide bombings.

When staff finally did return to the ground, they were prohibited from travelling by road, forcing the army to arrange helicopter rides, even for short trips to nearby Kandahar Airfield, where the bulk of Canada's 2,500 troops are based.

The restrictions made accomplishing anything painfully slow.

The rules have been relaxed somewhat, especially after Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government was accused in the House of Commons of concentrating more on war and less on aid. Even now, civilian staff are unable to venture very far beyond the heavily fortified compound that is the provincial reconstruction base.

Despite that, the man who replaced Berry says they're still able to complete their mission even though they're often forced to ask Afghan authorities to meet with them behind the razor wire.

"Our job is slightly more difficult to do and perhaps takes a little more time to accomplish things," Gavin Buchan said in an interview Sunday.

"In a perfect world, of course, I'd love to be out there on a bicycle or walking down a street talking to people in a market. That is how the most effective diplomacy gets conducted. But you can't do that in the current environment. That's simply the reality. We work as effectively as we can given the security constraints."

Last fall, a senior military planner with the Defence Department told the Senate security and defence committee that the army was having a hard time getting CIDA to cough up already approved funding for Afghan redevelopment programs.

In case you missed it, CIDA employees can't even travel by road. For them to actually get off the base and out into the boonies where the aid projects are actually happening, they need to bum a helicopter ride. Assuming a helicopter is available, and that the troops in that area actually have the time or inclination to secure an HLZ at the village the development specialist wants to visit, that is.

The situation is ridiculous. And the blame for it rests squarely with the federal government - this one, the last one, the one before that, who cares? People don't become aid workers to fill out bureaucratic forms in quintuplicate before handing some dirt-poor peasant a blanket. They don't become aid workers so that they can sit around on their duff in a PRT in Afghanistan with no ability to do their jobs. They don't sign up specifically to be ineffective.

So untie their hands. Our soldiers do a damned good job, but they're not development specialists. The CF needs CIDA to be a full partner in the Afghan mission. And the Government of Canada is the only body that can make that happen.

Update: Some interesting commentary from a number of the folks writing over at Macleans.ca - all the comments are quite worth reading. I found this snippet particularly interesting:

Last fall, I spoke with Ashraf Ghani, a former top World Bank official and a former chief advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, now chancellor of Kabul University. He's a sage and candid commentator on what's happening in his home country. I asked Ghani what he thought of CIDA, and this was his informed reply:

"It's one of the best. I have enormous respect for [CIDA president and former Bombardier executive] Robert Greenhill. But you know he comes from business management, and he needs to change the culture of an organization that is used to slow and steady. And slow and steady gives you accountability, but it doesn't give you rapid results in the context of Afghanistan. That means the rules and regulations of CIDA have to change."

Something about babies and bathwater comes to mind.

Precious medal

Further to BBS' previous post, it seems the effort to save Nova Scotian war medals has hit the wall:

The auction price of a medal awarded to a member of Nova Scotia’s historic black battalion has shot past the means of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia.

Centre curator Henry Bishop and Dave Thomson of Ontario, who want to see the medal properly honoured, hope other interested people might help buy the 1914-19 Victory Medal awarded to Sapper Percy Fenton of the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

The opening EBay bid for the Arcadia, Yarmouth County native’s medal was $29.03. But by Wednesday afternoon, bidding had reached $1,432.88.

That’s already too rich for the non-profit Dartmouth centre to afford on its own, Mr. Bishop said Wednesday.

"We can’t afford much. We need to get some assistance if we can. We’re crossing our fingers that we can still obtain it."

If you're interested in helping the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia with this effort, you can contact them here.

Methinks they doth protest too much

The Liberals arguing publicly with him are wrong, and Hillier is right: the 90's were a "decade of darkness" for the CF. Eddie Goldenberg misses the point entirely:

"His so-called 'decade of darkness' for the military was the same decade that saw $12 billion invested in higher learning through the creation of the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the endowing of 2000 Canada Research chairs in our universities and much else," said Mr. Goldenberg, an Ottawa-based lawyer. "For Canadian universities in general and particularly here in Ottawa for the University of Ottawa and Carleton, it might be called the 'decade of enlightenment'."

Feel free to argue that the Chretien years were good for universities, for Canadian finances in general, hell, for Canada as a country overall. You can probably make a case for it.

But you won't be engaging Gen Hillier in that debate, because his remarks were specific to the CF. Regardless of whether the budget cuts were good for the country, they were certainly not good for our military. How Denis Coderre, Eddie Goldenberg and other Liberals on the defensive have missed that distinction baffles me.

The Chronicle Herald gets it right:

Was that a partisan statement? Hardly. Is it a statement of fact? Certainly.

What upset Mr. Coderre, the Liberal defence critic, is that the general decried the hit the military took during the Grits’ deficit-fighting years, but did not credit them with their substantial $13-billion reinvestment in the Armed Forces in their final budget in 2005. The Tories essentially picked up where the Liberals left off in terms of defence spending. Fair enough.

But it’s unfair to suggest Gen. Hillier was taking sides against the Liberals and for the Conservatives. The only side he’s on is the military’s and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Even more on point is Barbara Yaffe in the Vancouver Sun:

The Liberals were within their rights to make those cuts to defence expenditures while in government. And to health care and transfers to provinces and a host of other spending programs, because Canada was running a $40-billion deficit by 1993, racking up debt like no tomorrow.

Voters thanked the Liberals at the ballot box in 1997, 2000 and 2004 for reintroducing fiscal sanity to this country. The gratitude did not run out until 2006, when Liberal scandal exhausted voters' patience.

However, not a slice of this reality pie appears to have been digested by Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre, who is lambasting the popular Canadian general for being "a prop" of the Conservative party.

"I felt it was part of a communication plan," Coderre told reporters. "To get involved in politics, there is one way: You should run."

That commentary is so over the top, an apology is owed Hillier. If Coderre doubts the veracity of what the chief of the defence staff has stated publicly, he can consult with his fellow Liberal, Senator Colin Kenny, who has said much worse about Liberal cuts to the military in a series of reports by a group he chairs, the Senate committee on national security and defence.

Hear, hear, Ms. Yaffe. Contrary to what Coderre and others are saying, Hillier stayed in his lane; they're the ones who should be reeling their necks back in.

I'd have a hell of a lot more respect for the Liberals on this issue if they'd simply said: "I can see why the CDS would feel that way, and I know the cuts across the whole spectrum of government expenditures were uncomfortable. But as honest as General Hillier has been, I must be equally frank: the cuts were necessary for the country as a whole. Had we not cut then as we did, the budget General Hillier would have to work with as our economy struggled today would have been positively crippling. Besides, in the last Liberal government, Mr. Goodale's budget recognized the need in the CF and addressed it in concrete terms..."

Unfortunately, it seems politicians suffer the same tragedy as liars: they can't believe anyone else isn't speaking from partisanship because they don't know how to do it themselves.

Cats and dogs

“It surprised me that a Muslim community leader could be so interested in a Jewish cemetery."

- Lt Gabriel Granatstein, 712 Communication Squadron, serving with Op Boreas

You can't keep them down on the farm

The National Post editorializes about where the members (volunteers all) of the CF come from.

On Monday, for the first time in a generation, the Governor-General presented Canadian soldiers with medals for combat valour. As soldiers have always understood well, these medals each reward one conspicuous series of actions under fire, but they represent our gratitude for a hundred more that might have gone unseen or unrecorded...

These half-dozen men will all deny being heroes, but whether they are comfortable with it or not, they are destined to become symbols of martial virility in a world where the demand for it is still mercifully scant. They also symbolize a curious truth about our frontline soldiers, one that generally goes unnoticed: Despite the increasing urban concentration of the Canadian populace, none of them come from big cities.

Sgt. Tower is from Sidney, B.C., a town of about 11,000 on the Saanich Peninsula. Maj. Fletcher hails from St. Albert, a quiet residential satellite of Edmonton. Sgt. Michael Denine comes from the tough but close-knit St. John's neighbourhood of Shea Heights. MCpl. Collin Fitzgerald is from tiny Morrisburg, Ont., on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Pte. Jason Lamont comes from the Annapolis Valley village of Greenwood. And Capt. Derek Prohar's hometown -- with a population of all of 412 --is Avonlea, Sask.

This is not the profile one would expect to obtain from a random sampling of six Canadians of military age -- but the same mix of minor cities and microscopic villages is yielded when one studies the origins of the Canadian soldiers who did not come home alive from Afghanistan. You don't see very many names from Toronto or Vancouver or Montreal; the men and women doing the fighting and dying for us, to an overwhelming degree, come from places like Gananoque or Burgeo or Comox, with the Western and Atlantic provinces greatly overrepresented in the count. Depending on how you choose to look at it, the fact that most of the complaining about our war effort does seem to come from Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal either bespeaks a marvellous empathy on the part of urban dwellers, or an intrusion by them into a debate in which they may not necessarily have done much to earn a place [ouch! MC]...

Blogshite to PR example in one post

Keelan Green, Thornley Fallis Vice-President, was recently franked for a supposed preferential relationship with the members here at the Torch.

A true PR pro - he turns “Blogshite: The Torch” into a relevant example of one of the services his firm provides it's clients.

Nicely done.

Afstan: Poop from professor

Prof. Michael Byers is Steve Staples' equally evil twin. That anyone with such complete disregard for facts can be a university professor drives me nuts. He writes in the Toronto Star, February 20:

Since becoming Canada's top soldier two years ago, Hillier has pushed the politicians hard. At his own swearing-in ceremony, he criticized Paul Martin for underfunding the military; one month later, he browbeat the Liberal cabinet into volunteering troops for a combat mission to Kandahar.

We all know some politicians are wusses, but that wussy?

Then-prime minister Martin and his ministers assumed Canadian casualties would be limited. So far, 44 soldiers have lost their lives. Hillier, the professional upon whose expertise the politicians relied, should have explained the real risks to them.

This is what Gen. Hillier said in July, 2005 (the Kandahar mission was announced by then Minister of National Defence Graham in May, 2005):

...Hillier says Canadians should realize the mission the Canadian military is undertaking in Afghanistan is a dangerous one that could lead to casualties.

Did the General change his tune in just two months?

More from the professor:

Under Hillier's leadership, Canada's role in Kandahar has morphed from a "provincial reconstruction team" made up of soldiers, diplomats and development personnel, into a "battle group" supported by Leopard tanks.

Where's the morphing? Prof. Byers just called it a "combat mission" above. No secret in July, 2005, either [full text not online]:

...the next three missions [rotations, I think - MC], involving 2,000 troops, will be heavily centred in the southern mountains, where soldiers will be called upon to hunt down and fight the insurgents.

Prof. Byers goes on:

Characterizing the enemy as "detestable murderers and scumbags" [in July, 2005] can only exacerbate the situation...

Well, Jack Layton was against the scumbags before he was against the mission:

"Controlled anger, given what's happened, is an appropriate response," NDP Leader Jack Layton said. "We have a very committed, level-headed head of our armed forces, who isn't afraid to express the passion that underlies the mission that front-line personnel are going to be taking on.

"A bit of strong language in the circumstances, I don't find that to be wrong."

Now the professor plays the Bush card:

On the whole, Hillier has been content to adopt the approach of the Bush administration, emphasizing aggressive search-and-kill tactics and downplaying diplomacy, development, and international law.

It just happens however that since last summer Canadian troops have following the approach of NATO ISAF, not the Bush administration. The professor also never mentions in his piece that the ISAF mission has the unanimous authorization of the UN Security Council. Development has not been played down either (whether it's effective is another matter)--see the January, 2006, "Afghanistan Compact", also unanimously endorsed by the UNSC and of which Canada is a part.

More "B" words:

Hillier shares the dubious company of U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in stubbornly refusing to admit his mistake.

If there has been a mistake, primary responsibility rests with the Martin government, not the General. Mr Graham said this in a speech in the fall of 2005 (one of several explaining the new Kandahar mission that our media essentially ignored--and remember there was not one question on Afstan during the federal election leaders' debates):

...we will be deploying a Task Force of about 1,000 troops into Kandahar for one year. As an essential complement to the reconstruction efforts of our PRT, this force will provide much needed security in the region...

...Canadians should be under no illusion; Kandahar is a very complex, challenging and dangerous environment and mission. The part of Afghanistan we are going to is among the most unstable and dangerous in the country. Indeed, that is why we have been asked to go there and that is why we are going there...

No decent respect for the truth, chez Prof. Byers.

Much ado

"How can the military plan rotations that Parliament has not approved?" Ms. Black asked.

Very easily, Ms. Black. It's called staff work, and it's a big part of why the military can react to new situations quickly: much of the intellectual groundwork has already been laid by the time the situation presents itself.

Here's a better question: how can an MP who is her party's Defence Critic and a member of the SCOND not have even the most rudimentary understanding of military planning? And how can any of us take her seriously if she won't even make a cursory effort at learning about her area of responsibility?

Update: Bah. What is O'Connor thinking?

O’Connor, as he does almost every day, left the Commons via a members-only exit and, as a result, avoided reporters who may have wished to ask him about this.

Your job, sir, is to fight the political and communications battles, not run from them.

Pin it on

The Governor General of Canada held a ceremony this morning to decorate some deserving soldiers. You can see some of the ceremony here.

Update: It would be useful if the good folks down at cbc.ca would learn the difference between a Corporal and a Captain. Derek Prohar, call your agent.

Jason Beam, call your agent as well. Thanks to the Canadian Press for messing it up in just about every paper's website across the country.

Let's see how long it takes to fix these errors. The clock starts...now.

Upperdate: Wow. Checking back at 1620, and the cbc.ca piece has been fixed. We have yet to see the CP correct its error.

CF-18s and Afstan: Toronto Star fixation

As milnewstbay puts it at Army.ca (Babbling has his own post on this):

An Apparently New Discovery by MSM: the military plans things before they're asked to do things, so that if they're ordered to, they can do them (or explain why not). What a concept!

While there is some news value in the planning details reported in Bruce Campion-Smith's Toronto Star story, the consideration of a deployment is not the hot scoop that the story implies. In fact Mr Campion-Smith was writing about it last September and in last October (Star links no longer work) took credit for having spilled the beans:

The Toronto Star revealed last month that Ottawa was making preparations in case its fighter jets were needed in Afghanistan. That included a $1.9 million contract with the U.S. government for "deployment support" for the CF-18s.

Rather than getting Star readers in a tizzy of righteous upset by raising in today's story the spectre of the CF's being even more warlike,

Today, a CF-18 deployment remains a sensitive topic for senior federal government officials who fear the public may perceive Canadian jets in Afghanistan as an escalation of Canada's involvement in a divisive mission...

Mr Campion-Smith might have at least mentioned that the possible deployment itself is indeed old news and that the government has denied for several months there will be such a deployment.

In any event, so long as no other country is operating F-18s in-country, I suspect logistical and maintenance problems would make a deployment of our planes impracticable. Though strategic airlift from CC-177s might help.

By comparison, the US, The Netherlands and Norway all have F-16s in Afstan and the latter two can benefit greatly, in terms of efficiency, by operating alongside the USAF. And the Belgians may be sending four F-16s this year (Belgian and Danish F-16s have taken part in the past).

Wearing the orange

This is why, when I was in, many of the best and brightest from across the CF tried to get into Search and Rescue: for the longest time, it was the pointiest end we had.

"It's like jumping into nothing, blackness," said Cooper. "It's also quite nerve-racking." Given the howling winds over the bay, the SARTECs had to jump out of the Hercules over open water so they could drift on to the massive ice floe where Wolki was pinned.

"If there was even the smallest malfunction or problem, we'd be in big trouble," said Guay. "It would have made us casualties for sure."

The SARTECs landed on the floe, within 100 metres of their target. Guay said they quickly made camp, aided by continuing flare cover from the Hercules, and then bedded down for the night. The three spent Friday night and all day Saturday on the ice floe before being rescued by the Cormorant helicopter very early Sunday morning, nearly a full day after dropping on to the ice floe.

BZ to the boys in orange, some of the toughest and bravest SOB's I've ever met, and to these two from 435 Squadron in particular for risking their lives to rescue a man who, without them, would have died on the ice.

More trouble than we're worth?

An article by Bruce Campion-Smith of the Toronto Star today breathlessly reveals that CF planners put together a plan to deploy CF-18's to Afghanistan to support the ISAF mission there.

Canada's air force has detailed plans to deploy six CF-18s fighter jets to Kandahar, even to the point of predicting how many so-called "smart" bombs would be needed for a six-month air campaign battling insurgents, documents show.

Defence officials say they have no intention of sending the fighters overseas. But military memos and orders obtained by the Toronto Star make it clear that extensive planning has laid the groundwork for a deployment should the Conservative government give the okay.

"With respect to the current situation ... there are no plans at this point in time do so," Lt.-Col. John Blakeley, director of air force public affairs, said last Friday.

But just over a year ago – as Canada's army units made the move to Kandahar from Kabul – it seemed certain the air force's front-line fighter would be deployed to join them in an operation expected to cost $18 million, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show.

Later in the article, the author pays lip service to the idea of contingency planning, but doesn't give the idea much weight in his piece.

A few points need to be made to provide some context here. Firstly, professional militaries plan obsessively. Contingency plans exist for every development under the sun. Developing detailed roadmaps to a whole host of operations that will never, ever happen is the lot of the staff officer. The fact that a journalist has misunderstood this institutional fetish for planning is disappointing, but unsurprising.

Secondly, the air force plan seems to be a response to a commitment we made to NATO to have the six aircraft discussed available if requested. Note that this was revealed to the public back at the end of October last year:

In Ottawa yesterday, Canada's Defence Minister admitted under questioning from an opposition MP that CF-18 fighter jets are being readied for use in Afghanistan.

"Recently we made a commitment to NATO that we will have six CF-18s ready for NATO if they require us," Gordon O'Connor told the House of Commons during Question Period. "That is why the money was spent to fix up these CF-18s."

Mr. O'Connor stressed yesterday that there was no plan currently in the works to send the jets overseas. "They will not be deployed unless there is an operational requirement, and at this time there is no operational requirement," he said in response to a question from New Democrat MP Dawn Black.

Thirdly, it's my understanding that the air force is anxious to get into the fight in Afghanistan in a more direct way. Again, you need to understand the mindset of the professional air force officer: Canadian troops need close air support, Canada has a weapons system that was designed to fly such a mission, so Canada should employ such assets as soon as possible. Pride and honour in the sky-blue element of the CF, exemplified by the desire to get into the fight to support their Army brethren - a fight they've trained hard for - should not be underestimated.

So, to recap, the air force was asked to develop contingency plans to deploy six jets to support NATO operations if required, they did so in appropriate detail, and they did so with some enthusiasm, given their desire to become more active in the front-line prosecution of this mission.

If it weren't for the last few paragraphs of the story, I'm not sure why this would merit an entire news piece in Canada's largest circulation broadsheet:

The deployment, planned for sometime after May 2006, never took place and now seems to have been shelved indefinitely.

Today, a CF-18 deployment remains a sensitive topic for senior federal government officials who fear the public may perceive Canadian jets in Afghanistan as an escalation of Canada's involvement in a divisive mission.

Aha. The failure to deploy these assets is evidence of a reluctance to be seen as escalating the Canadian mission to Afghanistan. It's all about the political intrigue, dontcha know.

Or maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, it's about how ready and desirable our fighter-bombers are for action in a high-profile international mission like this.

You see, the CF-18 fleet is undergoing a whole series of much-needed upgrades, which won't be completed until 2009. A good brief on the high-points of this modernization program is available at SFU's CASR. While the first stage of this upgrade schedule was completed last year, it's instructive to note what wasn't included: a data link system that allows Canadian pilots to meld easily into a complex tactical environment with our allies.

Obviously I'm not plugged into the classified details, but I suspect that while our CF-18's could perform ably if pressed into service, and while our air force would love to answer that call, our allies haven't asked us to contribute in that way yet because integrating our aircraft into joint operations in Afghanistan would be problematic.

While domestic politics may play a part in all of this, I believe the technical capabilities of the aircraft play a much bigger part.

Update: Someone just reminded me that $18M for a six-month CF-18 deployment isn't a good use of scarce budget resources. Especially when the broad consensus from the guys on the ground is that we have sufficient air cover from our allies. And if the government is going to splurge an additional $18M instead of taking out of the current budget, it would be better to spend the money on another fifteen RG-31 Nyala mine-protected vehicles, for example, since that's a more urgent need.

Saving a Piece of Canadian Military History

I came across this article this weekend but didn't have the time to blog about it. My hats off to St. George, Ontario resident Dave Thomson for this worthwhile and noble endeavour.

Man wants to retrieve N.S. medals on auction
By JOHN GILLIS Staff Reporter

Medals awarded to a member of Nova Scotia’s famous Black Battalion and a Halifax soldier killed in the Second World War are up for auction on EBay, and an Ontario man wants to make sure they end up in an appropriate place.

A 1914-19 Victory Medal awarded to Sapper Percy Fenton of the No. 2 Construction Battalion — the only all-black battalion in the First World War — was posted for auction Saturday. The lone bid for his medal as of Saturday afternoon was for $29.03 Cdn.

Pte. John Warren Ross Grant of the Canadian Army Dental Corps was killed on active service at age 25. His Memorial Cross and three service medals had attracted one bid of $174.54 as of Saturday.

Dave Thomson of St. George, Ont., has successfully bought and returned more than 20 such medals to families, communities and legion branches over the past year.

He found the Nova Scotia medals on EBay and would like to see them go somewhere they would be honoured.

Thoughts on the War Museum's Afghanistan Exhibit

Yesterday I had a chance to check out the Canadian War Museum's Afghanistan : A Glimpse of War. I suppose the best word to describe it would be "sobering."

The thing about this is that it's a little hard to imagine a museum exhibit, which we associated with history, that is directly relevant to an ongoing operation. Among other things, it means there's not much by way of interesting artifacts -- things like motor vehicles, war "souvenirs," etc. aren't going to be in big supply for something like this because either the items are still in use or modern collection policies don't allow for a museum purchase. So the exhibit is a little short on artifacts and quite long on documentation.

And there is quite a lot of documentation -- not quite from the soldiers themselves, but from two journalists who were embedded with them, Stephen Thorne and Garth Pritchard.The exhibit is based mainly on their footage and notes taken while "on the run," so to speak. There are a number of video stations along the exhibition route, showing interviews with the troops on the ground and some of the family members back home.

To its credit, the footage doesn't try to be a "rah rah go team" propaganda exercise, nor does it overemphasize the general horrors of war. The footage is basically of people like you and me, trying to do their job in dangerous circumstances. That approach creates resonance within the museum visitor, an empathy for the folks over there.

You might think that the highlight of this exhibit is the wrecked G-Wagon. Based on traditional museum rules, I suppose that's true, but for me the highlight was the ending, a giant screen on which flashed the private and family photos of Canadians who lost their lives in Afghanistan. A lot of the photos shown here could easily have been of your neighbor, or your relatives. As I say, there's a good deal of resonance here.

If you're in the Ottawa area before next January, this exhibit is worth a visit.

Brooks' Addendum: Another perspective on this exhibit from G&M contributor Val Ross.

National Defence critic is Liberal with the truth/Feuding at Fort Ottawa?

M. Coderre's memory is faulty, or else he does not care about the facts:

Coderre...pointed out the Liberals had a comprehensive plan to replace military aircraft and other equipment, including the Hercules air transport fleet.

The only difference between the Liberal and Conservative plans, Coderre said, was the Liberal plan did not include a $3.4 billion purchase of four C-17 Globemaster long-distance transport planes...

Not quite true. In November 2005 the Martin government only agreed to buy a Herc replacement (in effect the C-130J). Then MND Graham was unable to get the government to agree to a much larger 12.1 billion dollar acquisition of tactical transports, heavy-lift helicopters, and fixed-wing SAR aircraft.

So M. Coderre is wrong on two points:

1) the actual Liberal plan was much smaller than what the Conservatives are now doing;

2) the "only difference" with the Graham package that was not accepted is not the CC-177s (oops! he didn't get that right either)--the Conservative government still has not agreed to a fixed-wing SAR purchase. Plus the Conservative package includes Joint Supply Ships and trucks.

And it now appears there is a chance there may be no SAR acquisition after all, with Buffaloes instead being re-engined and older but serviceable Hercs kept on doing SAR--as they do now for the country outside B.C. where the Buffaloes roam. The fixed-wing SAR story certainly seems to be turning into a soap opera.

M. Coderre can be contacted here.

Meanwhile Don Martin of CanWest News comments on reports of tensions between MND O'Connor and CDS Hillier. There's this ridiculous inaccuracy:

Retired general O'Connor used to be Hillier's boss, but fell just short in his dream of reaching the top spot in the military's command...

A Brigadier-General (the MND's highest rank) is nowhere near the full General of the CDS.

But this does seem plausible:

By most accounts, there was a very acrimonious showdown last month when O'Connor rolled out a six-page attachment to the mandate letter that diverted soldiers to protect Arctic sovereignty and put them in position around a dozen cities as emergency responders.

It's a prohibitively costly exercise that will lay claim to thousands of already scarce troops who are needed on international fronts, particularly with the Taliban on the rise. The way some military brass see it, a domestic priority is admirable, but those soldiers just train for eventualities that may never come.

Still, O'Connor is adamant that his Canada First defence policy is critical and has infuriated the brass by demanding Hillier plan for the questionable deployment of a rapid-reaction battalion to Goose Bay, N.L., and the relocation of the Joint Task Force 2 to Trenton, Ont., which seems more to do with electioneering than legitimate military manoeuvres...

Somehow I suspect it's not just the MND pushing the politically-motivated ideas; the Prime Minister himself made some of the silly election promises. Some posts on this issue:

Conservative campaign promises: other shoes drop/CF strength increases
Campaign promises and JTF 2
"The Goose Bay boondoggle"
Stupid Conservative defence promises
Minister of National Defence seeing the light?

Now a post of Damian's on what really needs to be done regarding budgets.

MND O'Connor can be contacted here.

Happy Blog Day!

Speaking of born on this day...

One year ago the Torch was launched by Damian with the able assistance of Andrew, Chris and Mark. Although the baby arrived kicking and screaming, the formal announcement was not to follow until several days later.

Before today's festivities begin, I thought I would pass out an appropriate gift for all the grunts (Government Rejects Unfit for Naval Training) here.

BZ to Damian for the foresight to launch such a worthwhile effort.

Cross posted to BBS