The Torch: "Too Few Hilliers: The general goes where Ottawa mandarins fear to tread"

Excerpts (rather extensive I'm afraid) from an excellent (though I be reluctant to say so) article by two usual suspects. I think it's is very relevant to this post of Babbling's (and the comments).

On the other hand...might the authors' final sentence be partisan encouragement of public servants' embarrassing the Conservative government? It should be remembered that the CDS has a unique, legislated, position very different from that of deputy ministers or other senior public servants:

Appointment, rank and duties of Chief of Defence Staff

18. (1) The Governor in Council may appoint an officer to be the Chief of the Defence Staff, who shall hold such rank as the Governor in Council may prescribe and who shall, subject to the regulations and under the direction of the Minister, be charged with the control and administration of the Canadian Forces.

Responsibility and channels of communication
(2) Unless the Governor in Council otherwise directs, all orders and instructions to the Canadian Forces that are required to give effect to the decisions and to carry out the directions of the Government of Canada or the Minister shall be issued by or through the Chief of the Defence Staff.

Now to the article itself:

Appointed by Prime Minister Paul Martin in early 2005 as chief of the defence staff (cds), Hillier is intelligent, strategic, honest, and charismatic, and he does something many Ottawa mandarins and politicians would rather he not do — talk directly to Canadians...

...as budget day [2003] approached, something unusual happened at National Defence Headquarters (ndhq) — the nerve centre of the defence establishment. Lieutenant-General Hillier, then the newly appointed assistant chief of land staff, wrote a confidential memo to his boss, cds Ray Henault. It was leaked, found its way into the national media, and caused a firestorm inside the cloistered confines of Canada’s senior officer class.

Traditionally, the army, navy, and air force shared cuts and rare budget increases roughly equally. To Hillier, this balance deprived Canada’s military of strategic focus, and he would try to break the pattern. His memo argued strenuously that the army be placed at the centre of Canada’s defence policy. Boots on the ground, Hillier insisted, represented the key contribution Canada could make to international peace and security operations in the post–Cold War period, and would give Canada influence and leverage in Washington, at the UN, and in nato. Soldiers were in terribly short supply in all the world’s trouble spots — from Afghanistan to Haiti to Africa — and would remain so well into the future. Through his unvarnished and determined advocacy, Hillier had unwittingly [?!?] declared war on his colleagues in the navy and air force...

...Although his memo failed to convince Henault of the need for an asymmetric allocation of resources, it did underline Hillier’s style. He was a leader with vision and focus, fully prepared to challenge conventional thinking and discard traditions. These qualities have now raised the badly misunderstood issue of “civilian control of the military.” Hillier represents a model of military leadership more akin to that of the US or Britain [emphasis added], but has he overstepped by inappropriately treading on the domain of elected leaders, Americanizing the leadership of the CF, and militarizing Canadian society?..

...In late 2007...he contradicted Prime Minister Harper about a military estimate, and he did so publicly. Harper had declared that Canada would be able to withdraw from Kandahar in 2011, because the Afghan National Army (ana) would be trained and ready in sufficient numbers to take over. A few days later, when asked about this during a visit to Kandahar, Hillier did not mince his words: training the ana would take at least ten years, he said. No doubt Hillier is correct — military experts know that to get the job done Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan will have to be long term — but his comments provoked allegations that the military leadership was out of control. If Hillier had reservations, a former minister of defence argued, he should express them in private.

Unpacking this contretemps is instructive. Hillier did exactly what a responsible military leader is supposed to do: provide his best estimate of operational conditions. History suggests that when generals fail to speak out, when they are reluctant to express reservations about the feasibility or progress of military operations, policy often goes badly off the rails...

...In the US, vigorous, well-funded, and well-staffed congressional committees routinely compel testimony by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and from military officers. (Arguably, this is easier in a political system built on checks and balances, but Britain’s parliamentary system also does a far better job than Canada’s.) Committee members with security clearances and substantial research budgets routinely ask tough questions and follow up when they are dissatisfied with the answers. Senators and members of Congress spend years on committees dealing with defence, national security, and foreign policy. They become recognized experts and can challenge government officials and military leaders authoritatively.

In Ottawa, by contrast, House committee memberships change frequently, well before MPs develop expertise in the subject matter. While both House and Senate committees hold hearings, summon witnesses, and write reports, the questioning tends to be less rigorous, and the absence of security clearances limits the quality and depth of information officials and officers can and do provide. “Committee sessions,” said a retired member of the Department of National Defence (dnd), “based on my own experience, provide very limited opportunities for real understanding.” Moreover, committee reports generally receive little attention from the media and less from the public [Commons' committees are useless; the (unelected) Senate one is pretty good...

...Hillier put together the package [for the Kandahar mission] of five military components that define it — in Kandahar, a provincial reconstruction team, command of the multinational headquarters, deployment of jtf 2 special forces, a combat infantry task force, and a strategic advisory team in Kabul. Hillier’s central role in designing and championing the Kandahar mission to both Martin and Harper has profoundly influenced the course of Canadian defence and foreign policy. It is more than curious that the responsibility for generating such a policy was not grabbed by senior civil servants — a move that would have certainly raised the issue of too little “civilian control.” This said, many of these same public servants were as frustrated by a sclerotic process of decision-making and micromanagement by the prime minister’s office. Hillier, in other words, was asked to fill a void in a dysfunctional policy-making system. He did not take control of policy from civilians; he was given control of policy by elected leaders...

General Hillier’s willingness to talk openly about when he is right and, equally, when he is wrong in his judgments and assessments is a refreshing change. It needs to be strongly encouraged. Conflicts today may be lower in intensity than “great wars” and more regional in nature, but they are highly problematic, complicated, pervasive; and the warfare itself, more often than not, is asymmetric and requires special training. The dangers are real, and when armies are being sent abroad to fight — rather than kept at home [the CF in France and West Germany, and then just W. Germany?] safely in the barracks, as they were throughout most of the Cold War — citizens need to be informed. Whether or not, and where, Canada’s military should go is a matter of policy, a decision only the elected leadership can make. But what the military can do, what financial and recruitment needs it has, and the constraints it bumps up against, are all properly a matter for the cds to discuss directly with the public. These are matters of fact and resources, and calls for civilian control over an outspoken cds eager to discuss them directly with Canadians reflect a unhealthy impulse to control information that belongs in the public domain...

Perhaps...the debate we are having in Canada about too little civilian control is badly off the mark. Likely we have the wrong end of the stick. Senior civil servants inside dnd and across the government are not challenging the military — or setting boundaries — the way they should. We have a growing democratic and intellectual deficit in Canada around foreign and defence policy, a deficit we can ill afford when the world has never been more important to us. The problem is not too many Hilliers in the military, but too few Hilliers across the government.