UK SAS to Afstan/Blackout on our special forces

Month ago:

British SAS to be expanded for Afstan/Plans to increase army size

Latest:

SAS take on Taleban in Afghanistan after defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq

Canadians, however, hear nothing about our special forces in Afstan. The government no doubt thinks the Canadian public are too sqeamish for details on what our forces actually do [one past rare account here, from someone rather senior], and that providing information would only undercut support for the mission. Sadly, the govenment is probably right. I mean, our media headline new "war wagons" for our special forces. Hurl.

The Aussies are more, er, robust:

Diggers kill Taliban specialist, not civilians, says inquiry

Diggers dispute Afghanistan body count

Australian special forces kill Taliban commander

Update: See milnews.ca's comment on offical Aussie forthrightness. And they still have an Air Chief Marshal...

Improving ISAF's infowar

It's taken quite some time for NATO to come to grips with the Taliban's (dis)information capabilities:

NATO targets Taliban's propaganda

The Taliban "never lie." So says one of the insurgent group's usual spokesmen, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, speaking via cellphone recently from an undisclosed location.

The insurgents are agents of peace, he said, while Canadian and other coalition soldiers in Afghanistan "kill innocent civilians, especially women and children. They are the cruelest in the world."

The Taliban and their adjuncts can say whatever they like [see "Taliban Propaganda Watch (RC-South)" at Milnet.ca], of course, with no fear of reprisal. They follow no rules, and are seldom held to account by Western journalists and war correspondents, who tend to focus more on coalition armies [emphasis added--see end of post].

Yet Taliban media strategies are becoming more sophisticated. They work hard at getting out messages to local populations, and at shaping public opinion, here and abroad.

Even their most outrageous claims can become conventional wisdom. Once accepted by Afghan civilians, Taliban propaganda often filters into Western media stories where it can be interpreted as fact.

"We are being out-communicated by the Taliban," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted to a Senate appropriations subcommittee in Washington this month. Clinton hinted at a new strategic communications counterattack under development, scheduled to coincide with the coming U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan. She did not elaborate.

But Canwest News Service has been given exclusive details of the multi-faceted "stratcom" surge to be implemented by the coalition's multinational International Assistance Security Force in Afghanistan (ISAF).

It's an elaborate plan that requires the installation of new satellite transmitters across Afghanistan.

These will be used to move anti-insurgent messages across the country as quickly as possible. Targets are to include traditional information sources and new media, including social networking websites.

Fully equipped broadcast and print media "operation centres" will be established at coalition-run military bases in Afghanistan, and 129 U.S. public affairs officers will staff them.

The new resources are to be in place by the end of the summer. For now, the Canadian military is looking at ways to hook into local cellphone systems in Kandahar to transmit counter-insurgency messages to villagers via text-messaging.

Delivering pro-coalition informationis vital if Taliban propaganda is to be neutralized, ISAF sources say. Beating insurgents to the punch is the new imperative.

Besides using new media, ISAF is turning to traditional word-of-mouth methods, tapping trusted Afghan government sources and local district leaders such as village elders and mullahs, and asking them to pass along pro-coalition messages.

Of course, trust must be established before Afghans will accept and pass along ISAF information.

That means telling them the truth, something coalition forces have been accused of avoiding.

Earlier posts:

Losing the infowar in Afstan

A Canadian general getting out the message from Kabul

As for the Canadian media and the Taliban:

Talking to Taliban flacks

"The Afghan War Will Be Won And Lost On Media Propaganda"

Land Force Western Area exercises

Useful website, especially since large-scale exercises prior to deployment to Afstan take place there.

Embedded student journalists on CF exercise

Good thing to do, I'd say (via GAP):

Editor embedded with the Canadian Forces

Melissa Vasey - Editor-in-Chief

Melissa Vasey

An explosion blasts in the distance. Several more blasts detonate, and then four insurgent men sprint back to our base camp.

Lt. Ian Nash stands beside me and practically buzzes with excitement as he informs me that the tanks perched on the hill can see my face clear as day, and they’ve got a problem: I’m a civilian.

On that day, I was one of nine other student journalists embedded with the Canadian Armed Forces, participating in a military training exercise at CFB Suffield. The exercise is just one step in the lengthy preparation process for the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who are scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan in September.

My peers and I are here on scholarship but instead of the stereotypical pomp and circumstance, we’ve been thrown into intense academic training and non-stop networking.

The night before, we sat with Reserve soldiers in their officer’s mess, discussing the personal realities of war in Afghanistan. (Too-soon wedding proposals to girlfriends back home are one common phenomenon.) As the night went on and the beer bottles emptied, one thing became apparent: every soldier there was aching to go back.

But here on the field, the soldiers aren’t as relaxed. The men and women have been out here for 30 days and just discovered that the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), responsible for this exercise, aren’t letting the soliders off easy on their final day.

The Patricias know there are insurgents in our plywood village, but the Rules of Engagement prevent them from being able to respond with force. Simply put, every person is a civilian until proven otherwise.

The Patricias don’t know that there are two insurgent individuals hiding in the village, one of which happens to be crouching beside me. The soldiers will have to demobilize the threat without harming anyone else.

Off in the distance, an accidental fire causes billows of smoke that envelope the tanks, fading them in and out of sight. Lt. Nash looks more alive than ever as the troops lose their visual ability to assess the situation from afar. Now they have no choice but to move in.

Light armoured vehicles (LAVs) speed up to our encampment, dropping off soldiers just outside the perimeter.

Small explosives are thrown towards the vehicles, each howling a warning whistle and then detonating clouds of smoke. The first lands two metres from my location and the loud ringing in my ears makes me temporarily wonder if I’ve gone deaf.

As the soldiers begin to infiltrate the city, the insurgent beside me starts to fire. The bullets are blanks, but the gunshots are overwhelming. I suddenly feel trapped and try to maintain composure by fighting my flight instinct. A few very long seconds later, three troops burst through the door and shoot the insurgent.

I stay in the plywood building, with the now “corpse” insurgent, and watch from the window. Orders are shouted from superior officers, the language uncensored. Pairs and trios of soldiers pass by, each stopping and going as necessary, in what appears to be organized chaos.

Many of the soldiers make eye contact with me, watching as I shoot photo after photo on my camera, sometimes right in their face. They glare, they grimace and they scowl, but not one soldier says a word to me.

A woman dressed in all black approaches three soldiers on the opposite side of the street. Distracted by the action up ahead, they pay her little notice until she lifts up her shirt and detonates a plume of baby powder — she was a suicide bomber, and they’re now all dead.

One of the three soldiers leans against the nearby building in shock, neither sitting nor standing, as he tries to mentally process what had just happened. He had just learned first hand how quickly a simple mistake can kill. A few moments later, the firing stopped and the organized chaos became a little less chaotic.

With the village now void of violence, the soldiers begin to check and clear the buildings. Finally well organized, the soldiers herd the mass of protesting civilians and journalists outside of the village.

The adrenaline is still pumping through our bodies as we finally break character, and leave the real soldiers be. The 10 student journalists head back to camp for some food, and then hunker down in a large tent with two rows of cots to finally rest. After 36 hours without sleep, it’s well deserved.

I'm not certain but I think it was part of this:

Exercises Desert Ram and Western Defender To Culminate with Exercise Total Ram

Student journalists also took part in this in January:

Exercise Noble Guerrier

Pirates, Somalia...

...and:

THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE CRUISE

To The Point is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia!

We board our luxury cruise ship in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, and disembark in Mombassa, Kenya seven adrenaline-charged days later.





...the object of the cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates. The weapons rental costs are as follows.

Rent a full auto M-16 for only $25/day with ammo attractively priced at $16 per 100 rounds of 5.56 armor-piercing:



On a budget? Rent a full-auto scope-mounted AK-47 for only $9/day with 7.62 ball ammo at $12 per 100 rounds:



Hello! Nothing gets a pirate's attention like a Barrett M-107 .50-cal sniper rifle; only $59/day with 25 rounds of armor-piercing ammo affordably priced at only $29.95.



Need a spotter? Our professional crew members can double as spotters for only $30/hour (spotting scope included, but gratuities are not.)



Want to make a real impact? Rent an RPG for only $175/day with three fragmentation rounds included!



Also included: Free complimentary night vision equipment - and throughout the night, coffee, pastries and snacks are always available on the main deck from 7pm until 6am.

Our deluxe package comes complete with gourmet meals and all rooms offer a mini-bar.

But that's not all! Twin mounted miniguns are available for rental at only $450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire!


...

As for Canada and pirates:

Our sailors finding true justice elusive

Related:

Captured pirates: Kenyan solution for Canada?/Update: Lawyers and guns

Plus a CBC photo gallery:

On board HMCS Winnipeg
Chasing the pirates of the Gulf of Aden

Natural gas, pipelines, and the great game

The Iranian angle:

What Are The Prospects For Iran-Pakistan 'Pipeline Of Peace'?

The signing of a 25-year deal under which Iran aims to export some 150 million cubic meters of gas to Pakistan per day has resurrected a moribund pipeline project known as the "Pipeline of Peace."

Not much has been heard about the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline for some time, but that all changed on the sidelines of a regional summit that brought together Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Tehran on May 24.

At a signing ceremony, the two leaders hailed the prospects of a pipeline that would start in the Iranian city of Asalouyeh, travel to Pakistan, and could eventually end in India.

But there are some major obstacles to overcome before any Iranian gas actually crosses the border into Pakistan -- and even more before that gas can be routed to India.

The first major question is where the money will come from.

The first leg of the plan is to build a 2,100-kilometer long pipeline from Iran's South Pars gas field into Pakistan -- at an estimated $7.5 billion. The next step would be to build a 600-kilometer extension that would go on to India.

But while a rival gas-pipeline project -- the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) -- is supported by the Asian Development Bank, the IPI does not have any backing from international financial institutions. Furthermore, TAPI is not as vulnerable to the financial or political opposition that IPI could experience due to the involvement of Iran, whose nuclear program has made it a pariah in the international community.

Complicating matters for both projects is that they are to be routed through Baluchistan. Considering that Baluch nationalists have already blown up domestic gas pipelines on the Pakistani side of the border in their fight for greater autonomy from Islamabad, their stance on a new pipeline from Iran (or Afghanistan) could be easily guessed...

Pakistani adviser on petroleum and natural resources Asim Hussain said Pakistan and Iran would sign a formal agreement on the pipeline project within 15 days in a third country. Hussain did not say which country, but given India's longtime interest in the project, it is assumed that it is the "third country."

That leads to more uncertainty, considering New Delhi's difficult relations with Islamabad. Pakistan, however, has made clear it would build the pipeline with Iran even if India opts out of the project. Iranian and Pakistani officials have said construction of the new pipeline could start within three to four years and be finished some five years later.

Now the US angle:

...
The former George W Bush administration in Washington strongly resisted the IPI and had exerted considerable pressure on both India and Pakistan to abandon the project. The Bush White House instead supported purchase by South Asian nations of energy from the Central Asian republics contiguous to Afghanistan. Geopolitical considerations and continuing security issues in Afghanistan work against that from materializing. The present US administration of President Barack Obama has not yet given its views on the IPI project...

One supposes all those "the war in Afghanstan is all about pipelines" conspiracy theorists will now say that the Americans are fighting there so that the TAPI pipeline--whenever it might be online--will give the Paks (and Indians) an alternative to the the Iranian project. Sure. See:

No pipeline shoot!

Dewar makes a great to-do about Afghanistan and energy, no?

Guns: More bucks, more bang

More howitizers, presumably some for Afstan (via GAP)

BAE's Lightweight Howitzer Wins $118M in Further Orders

The U.S. Army, Marine Corps and Canadian Forces have ordered additional BAE Systems M777 155mm lightweight howitzers, taking the company's order book for the type to 800 guns, BAE announced May 28.

The three orders' total value is about $118 million, and the program is now worth in excess of $1.6 billion to the company. The United States is buying 38 more weapons, while Canada is ordering another 25 to add to the 12 already in service.

U.S. and Canadian forces both operate the type in Afghanistan, where its ability to be transported by tactical helicopter makes it particularly useful in the difficult terrain faced by coalition forces...

The weapon can fire the M982 Excalibur smart munition, jointly developed by Raytheon Missile Systems and BAE, to a range of up to 40 kilometers with a high degree of accuracy.

The circular error probability requirement is for less than 10 meters, and "the system has consistently demonstrated an ability to meet and exceed that requirement," said James Shields, program manager for the weapon at Picatinny Arsenal, speaking on the occasion of the delivery of the 500th M777 to U.S. forces in April.

Even firing conventional ammunition, however, the M777's accuracy has met and exceeded expectations. Feedback from U.S. forces employing the weapon during operations in Afghanistan has revealed "shifts of only 50-60 meters after the first round - and that's just awesome," according to Col. James Matthies, TRADOC capabilities manager at Fort Sill, Okla...

Photo:

"Exploding bombs and renewing forces"

Excerpt from Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up:

...
Brian MacDonald, senior defence analyst for the CDA, reviews the Canadian defence budget for 2009/10.
http://www.cda-cdai.ca/CDA_Commentary/defbudget0910.pdf...

End of the road (for a while) for expeditionary Army

Maj.-Gen. (ret'd) Lewis MacKenzie is on the money:

We can't answer the battle cry
Our infantry ranks are so diminished that Canada's combat role in Afghanistan has to end

...a battle group, as organized for the Afghan mission, is about 1,200 strong and home to a large infantry component supported by tanks, armoured reconnaissance, artillery, combat engineers and signals and logistics support personnel. Although the other approximately 1,600 personnel making up the Canadian military footprint in Afghanistan are at risk and have suffered fatalities while on convoy duty, mentoring Afghan forces or commanding and controlling military operations, it is the battle group that fills the “combat role” and is scheduled to withdraw in 2011. With its departure, many of the military support personnel inside the wire could also be withdrawn.

What should be front and centre in any debate regarding Canada's ability to continue its combat role in Afghanistan beyond 2011 is the regrettable fact that it would be impossible for us to do so properly if the order were given.

Personnel making up each battle group spend up to a year in preparatory training [more on training here, here, and here] before deployment. Why so long? Simple. With the slash and burn of defence budgets in the first half of the nineties - a 27-per-cent reduction - the only way the Canadian Forces could cut spending according to the schedule directed by the government was to release about 20,000 personnel from a contingent of just 83,000 in 1982.

The ripple effect down the line meant that infantry battalions, which make up the majority of any battle group, were grossly undermanned and had to be augmented by hundreds of soldiers before any operational deployment could take place. It would be irresponsible to send a heterogeneous organization into battle where the leadership is not familiar with the soldiers and the soldiers have little reason to trust their leaders. It takes up to a year to prepare such a unit for deployment, a period that would not be necessary if the infantry units were of a proper size to begin with.

Add to the pre-deployment year a six-month tour in Afghanistan and the erroneous conclusion is that a year and a half away from home is not all that bad and life can return to “normal” afterward - except that sitting in Canadian Forces bases in Gagetown, N.B., Valcartier, Que., Meaford, Ont., and Wainwright, Alta., are new recruits waiting for instructors to take them through their training.

For most practical purposes, being a few thousand kilometres from home on instructional duties is not a lot different than being 10,000 kilometres away in Afghanistan.

So, a few years away from home - what's the big deal? The soldiers are all volunteers, aren't they?..

...with such a small force, the aforementioned instructors must now return to the training schedule that gets them ready for another deployment to Afghanistan. The leadership ranks most affected by this operational pace are those most critical to victory in battle and the proper training of recruits: master corporals, sergeants, warrant officers and commissioned officers up to and including the rank of major.

Regrettably, after three and sometimes four Afghanistan deployment cycles, a significant number of these crucial leaders are taking their release, frequently burned out by a pace dictated by the tiny size of their army.

There will be other options to militarily support the expanded mission in Afghanistan post-2011 if desired by Parliament: the Provincial Reconstruction Team [see here and here]; mentors and instructors to the Afghan army [see also just before Update at this post] and police and helicopter support to name a few. But the bottom line clearly indicates that we cannot continue in our combat role. And, by the way, our American friends know that as well as we do.

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.

More on the Army's problems, with equipment as well as personnel, here and here.

"CHINOOK CONTRACT TO BE ANNOUNCED IN THE SUMMER: BOEING"

Let's hope:

Boeing says it is expecting a contract to be announced this summer for the acquisition of 16 Chinook F model helicopters for the Canadian Forces. According to Richard Meanor, manager of Business Development for International Rotorcraft Integrated Defense Systems, negotiations are in their final stages. The contract will include the establishment of an in-service support program using domestic industry but, similar to the C-130J deal, involving Boeing as the prime contactor. Boeing will select domestic companies for the work and then present the package to government for approval. When (if) the contract is announced this summer it will mark the end of a long process of discussions and negotiations on the Chinooks (by then three years in total).

How many really?

Defence funding: Want to bet?

I don't:

MacKay touts $60B for new military equipment
'The funding will be there,' defence minister tells industry

One reason:

Flaherty says deficit to soar to $50 billion

See this post for background:

"The Canadian Forces: Stuck in neutral"/CF future strength; major capital projects

More here.

Predate: The MND has been defensive about capital spending before:

Military contracts
'Buying Canadian'
Is Canada getting its money's worth?

Additional Afghan mission costs...

...seem reasonable to me:

Manley's Afghan equipment list to cost $1.1 billion

Fulfilling the Manley commission's conditions to extend Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan to 2011 will cost more than $1.1 billion, say federal budget documents.

The Conservative government is asking for an extra $822 million in the current budget year to pay for "basic infrastructure to support air enhancements" and "mission close out costs."

That request is in addition to the $292 million set aside last year for six used Chinook CH-47D helicopters from the U.S. Army.

The final price tag for the two-year extension, which would include troops and armoured vehicles, is still being worked out by National Defence.

The latest request before Parliament refers to the operational expenses of deploying helicopters and unmanned surveillance aircraft [more here on Joint Task Force Afghanistan (JTF-Afg) Air Wing] to support ground forces, said a spokesman for the Canadian Forces Expeditionary Force Command, the headquarters that oversees the war...

This a relief--good on Uncle Sam:

...
The independent commission – headed by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley – also recommended that the country's NATO partners deliver an extra battalion of ground troops to reinforce Canadian operations.

The Americans last year provided 650 soldiers, belonging to the famed 1st Infantry Division, who deployed to western Kandahar under Canadian command [in August 2008, though the MND seemed unaware of their presence in November last year--more here on Task Force Kandahar].

Canadian taxpayers are not on the hook for the U.S. reinforcements.

Regarding MND MacKay, I think Norman Spector has rather a point here:

THE COLUMN I’M GLAD I DIDN’T WRITE
...

Since when do serving military officers write this kind of stuff?

MacKay proves his credibility (Cochrane)

CF's procurement problems

An overview from Senator Colin Kenny (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

Fix defence bureaucracy

Military stories don't get much play in the media these days. So it was largely overlooked when Auditor General Sheila Fraser reported [report here] that the Canadian Forces lost out on $300 million in spending last year on badly needed equipment because of bureaucratic tie-ups at the Department of National Defence.

A few papers picked up on it, but most ignored it.

But the slippage at DND is key to understanding the argument between the Harper government and its critics as to whether the government is spending the money it must if it is going to resuscitate our badly overstretched military.

On the one hand, you have people like me and historian Jack Granatstein saying that while the Harper government has spent on its most obvious equipment needs, it isn't spending nearly enough to give Canadians the military they will need to protect them and advance their interests over the coming decades.

This is from a recent article by Dr. Granatstein:

"Money is going to be tight, the numbers of personnel will continue to be insufficient to do the required tasks and much of the military's equipment, while better in several areas than a few years ago, will continue its long, slow slide into obsolescence."

On the other side, you have Conservatives like Senator David Tkachuk (a fellow member of the Senate committee on national security and defence) arguing that his party is doing fine by the military, but that it is going to take time for the Harper government to make up for years of under-spending by Liberals.

Senator Tkachuk quotes Walter Natynczyk, chief of the defence staff, as saying that "defence funding in the next four to five years will increase at a rate faster than our capacity . . . to fully invest the additional funds across the four components for military capacity: personnel, capital, infrastructure and operational readiness."

Gen. Natynczyk did say that at one of our meetings in support of government policy. In the United States, military brass must by law report truthfully to Congress about the state of the military. In Canada, our generals are forbidden to make statements that contradict government policy.

Gen. Natynczyk was telling the truth to a point. But he omitted that the major reason the Canadian Forces can't spend all the money they are allocated is because they don't have the qualified personnel to navigate complicated procurement requests through the bureaucratic hoops. Nor did he say what the auditor general discovered--that the DND bureaucracy is too often inept at procurement.

The auditor general says they are part of a system that keeps finding ways of delaying approvals until funds allocated under one-year budgets lapse.

One hears rumours some bureaucrats even do this on purpose if they dislike a project. It's also possible they know that while the government likes to advertise it's willing to spend on military needs, it doesn't mind when it gets money back that isn't spent in time.

But maybe it's just lousy management. That is Fraser's best guess. Her report says that due to a lack of "accurate and timely" information for decision-makers, the department had $300 million left in the 2007-08 fiscal year that wasn't spent and could not be carried forward under government rules. (For some reason, these rules only allow one per cent of DND budgeted money to be carried forward, compared to five per cent for other departments [see this interesting comment by E.R. Campbell at Milnet.ca].

If the government were really intent on giving its military leaders the personnel and equipment they need to defend Canadians and make life safer for their troops, it would respond quickly to the auditor general's report.

First, it would give DND more money to create a more sophisticated system of financial management, and it would also provide the navy, army and air force with money to hire qualified personnel to navigate that system.

Second, it would reduce the number of bureaucratic hoops the military needs to jump through to get its requisitions approved. Our committee examined the bureaucratic process for military procurements a few years ago, and it is just bizarre how many other government departments are allowed to stick their noses in and slow things down.

Third, the prime minister and the minister of defence would take a personal interest in acquisitions of importance to the well-being of the military, and put a cattle prod under the bureaucrats from time to time.

That happens every now and then--notably with the purchase of Chinook helicopters to move troops in Afghanistan in a way that is less vulnerable to roadside bombs. That intervention only came after the government had come under public criticism for not having replaced the Chinooks sold by the Mulroney government in the 1980s. It is remarkable how quickly funds can be allocated when the Prime Minister's Office is keen to get things moving.

But I am not expecting any quick responses to Fraser's report. The truth is that--at least so far -- this government has not shown itself to be much more willing than its Conservative and Liberal predecessors at giving Canadians the military they need now and will need in the future [emphasis added--quite].

The committee has been told that after Canada's combat duty ends in Afghanistan, the army will probably have to turn down any more combat assignments overseas until it can rest and rehabilitate. That would mark two shutdowns in six years--unprecedented for any army representing any industrialized country. And the navy is in worse shape, but that's a story for another day.

Either the government is going to have to increase its modest plan to increase military spending by two per cent a year, or cease deploying troops when Canadians' best interests tell it they should be deployed. That's not a reasonable option for any government that wants to be taken seriously on the international scene, but it will be the only option left.

Senator Colin Kenny Is Chair Of The Senate Committee On National Security And Defence. Kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca

Examples of our procurement problems here, here, here, here, and here.

The government's position on our Afghan mission's future

Read the tea leaves (via milnews.ca at Milnet.ca):

From Question Period yesterday:

Ms. Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ): Mr. Speaker, after the Minister of National Defence stated last week that the Canadian mission in Afghanistan might be extended beyond 2011, Afghan sources indicated that President Obama would require NATO members, including Canada, to provide more ground resources [see this, in my view, pretty flimsy story - MC]. Will the government again say no to President Obama and remind him that this House has decided that the Canadian mission in Afghanistan will end in 2011?

Hon. Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there has been no change in the Canadian government's position. Its position is unchanged and reflects the will of the members of the House of Commons expressed in a motion that was passed, establishing six priorities and the end to our combat mission in 2011.

Ms. Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government, with the support of the Liberals, voted to end the current mission in July 2011. That is the truth. Therefore, is the government committed to withdrawing Canadian soldiers from all combat zones at that time? Yes or no?

Hon. Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada shall respect the will expressed by the majority of MPs in this House.

New tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicles for Army, plus LAV-Hs?

To fill a capability gap (the reporter takes certain, er, liberties with language):

DND eyes 20 armoured vehicles

The Defence Department wants to buy at least 20 tracked armoured vehicles within the next two years to relieve pressure on the army, whose fleet has been pounded by the war in Afghanistan.

The proposal, which officials are trying to get through cabinet, is one component of an expected $4-billion overhaul [emphasis added] of the military’s combat vehicle fleet, defence sources said Monday.

The army currently uses light armoured vehicles known as LAV IIIs, eight-wheeled fighting vehicles armed with a 25 mm cannon.

Although agile and quick-handling on roads and solid ground, the army has found LAVs often get stuck in boggy ground along riverbeds where the Taliban have increasingly chosen to stage ambushes.

One of the vehicles under serious consideration is the [Swedish] CV90 [actually a whole family of vehicles], which is essentially a light tank that’s capable of carrying troops, according to defence sources.

In terms of size and firepower, the BAE Systems vehicle falls in between the LAV III and the 64-tonne Leopard tank.

The British defence giant is offering Canadian industry the opportunity to build the turret and other components [emphasis added] for the CV90.

The 32-tonne iron [mainly steel, actually] monster [!?!] - with a 35 mm cannon and crew of three [plus seven fully-equipped soldiers] - affords roughly the same level of protection as a Leopard tank [!?!] , which has thus far survived strikes by ever-increasing Taliban roadside bombs.

The war in Kandahar has taken a huge toll on both the army's armoured vehicles and stock of spare parts [see second part of this post], says the army's current strategic assessment.

"Battle damage has eliminated various stocks from the Whole Fleet Management system," said the 2009-10 review, penned by Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, chief of land staff, and obtained by The Canadian Press.

"Procurement and (management system) did not adequately take vehicle casualties into account."

Leslie recently told the Senate's committee on security and defence that the out-of-service rate for some vehicles across the entire army is running around 70 per cent.

In testimony Monday before the Senate committee, the Defence Department's assistant deputy minister for materiel said the alarming assessment was only a "snapshot in time."

Dan Ross, a former brigadier-general, said in some cases the absence of maintenance technicians has hampered returning damaged vehicles to the road.

"The vehicles are being used hard," he testified.

As many as 70 of the army's LAV IIIs are brought back to Canada each year for a major "reset" and come out of the overhaul "brand new," said Ross.

Still, the Defence Department is planning a major upgrade to its light armoured vehicle fleet. That includes the possible purchase of a newer, larger version of the LAV - dubbed the LAV-H.

That project would help the country's economy since the contract would go to General Dynamics Land Systems [emphasis added, no competition needed I guess], which has an assembly line in London, Ont., and refurbishment factory in Edmonton.

A second pillar of the plan would be an upgrade to the army's 1960s-vintage M113 armoured personnel carriers [info here on earlier upgrade to become Tracked Light Armoured Vehicle (TLAV)].

Ross also told the Senate committee that contracts will soon be released to upgrade used Leopard 2A4 tanks purchased from the Netherlands last year [yet another lengthy saga].

The army borrowed 20 state-of-the-art Leopard A6M tanks from Germany for the Afghan mission and promised to return them. But Ross said that those vehicles will be replaced by equivalent tanks purchased from the Dutch.

Planning for these acquisitions has been underway for some time and the price seems to be going up. A post from November 2008:

"DND seeks more than $2B for vehicles for Afghanistan...

By the way, it's most unlikely any new vehicles would be in service before the planned 2011 end of our Afghan military mission, despite the above headline.

Photo of Danish CV9035 (35mm gun version, more here, change from previous photo):

What Joint Support Ship anyway? And when?

Another procurement mess flounders along:

Navy faces seven-year wait for new ships, Senate hears

It could be up to seven years before the navy is able to replace its 1960s vintage supply ships, senior defence officials told a Senate committee on Monday.

And even then, the ships they get may have to be a scaled-down version of the original multi-purpose vessel envisioned by National Defence and the Conservative government.

Dan Ross, assistant deputy minister of materiel, testified that a request for proposals for three new joint support ships likely won’t be issued until next year, and it will take another five to six years before the first one is delivered to the fleet.

Last summer, the federal government scuttled a $2.9 billion replacement process for supply ships, which were to double as army transport and command vessels, because the bids exceeded the Conservatives’ budget envelope.

That has forced the navy to go back and re-think the kinds of things it wants the ship to do, said deputy defence minister Robert Fonberg.

"We’re trying to live within the funding envelope," he said Monday.

"We’re looking at the capabilities to see what within that design was driving up the price, and if you were to take that out of the design what it would actually mean for the navy’s ability to operate."

Liberal Senator Tommy Banks wondered whether that meant the navy will be left with a less capable ship.

Fonberg said the federal government has not ruled out increasing the budget, but such a measure would mean the military would have to do without some other appropriation [emphasis added--oh dear].

The two existing supply ships — HMCS Protecteur and HMCS Preserver — are both nearly at the end of their life expectancy and have required major overhauls to stay in service.

Ross noted that at least one of the ships will have to undergo a year-long refit in order to remain in service until the new vessels arrive.

Replacing the aging tankers with multi-purpose ships — capable of carrying army supplies and vehicles — was first suggested in the 1994 defence white paper produced by Jean Chretien’s government. But the plan collected dust on the shelf until 2005, when it was resurrected by former prime minister Paul Martin and eventually adopted by the Conservatives.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay suggested last winter that he wanted to see a comprehensive shipbuilding strategy that would include work on the joint support ships.

I guess I was right when I wrote yesterday near the end of this post:

..."replenishment ships [why no longer called Joint Support Ships--capabilities to be reduced?]...

An August 2008 post:

JSS: "a compromise between an AOR and a troop ship capable of supporting an amphibious landing is exactly that: a compromise that does neither"

So now, realistically, it'll be at least 2016 before the Navy has a new vessel. In 2006 the new Conservative government said the target date would be 2012. On and on and on things go.

Predate: Defense Industry Daily has a good summary of the project that end with this prescient bit written in 2006:

Appendix A: DID Op-ed/Analysis (June 30, 2006)

HMAS Collins launch
(click for alternate view)

Candidly, the record for small to mid-size powers attempting to develop new military technologies is not all that good. Engineering is a challenging art at the best of times, and military projects are more demanding than most because of the myriad of parts to integrate and the advanced (and hence often new and unproven) nature of the technologies. Add local unfamiliarity into the mix, and the result is inevitably schedule slips and cost overruns – often significant slips, and major cost overruns.

Given the limited procurement resources of small to medium powers, such projects can easily threaten to swallow entire service procurement budgets. Cancellation means millions or even billions of scarce dollars has been flushed down the toilet and wasted. On the other hand, continuing the program may break one’s military as other areas are starved to pay for it – all with no guarantee of success.

Australia’s Australia’s Collins Class subs, for instance, are excellent vehicles. Yet cost overruns have measured in the hundreds of millions, remediation is not yet finished, and the schedule for full deployment has slipped by years. All for vessels of a well-understood ship type, based in part on a pre-existing class (Sweden’s Gotland Class), and built in cooperation with an experienced, world-leading firm in submarine technology.

Overall, the Collins Class is an example of a successful local to medium power project to develop an advanced military platform despite previous inexperience.

Canada’s Joint Support Ships, in contrast, conform to no known ship type in their breadth of required functions, and are based on no pre-existing class. The firms competing for the design are not world leaders in similar ship classes like amphibious assault ships or LPDs. Nor does the depth of Canadian design and build experience in related efforts give cause for optimism; quite the reverse. Indeed, the JSS’ breadth of functions alone suggests a difficult project for any entity or country to undertake, and little hope of much beyond mediocrity in all functions due to the required trade-offs.

The Canadian Forces may succeed in the end, and if so we at DID would be happy to apologize. Indeed, we would be pleased to run an article here explaining why they believe they can succeed, and what steps they have taken to address their approach’s inherent risks and performance trade-offs.

For the project’s critics appear to have the high ground when they suggest that JSS is set up to become a budget-eating failure, and recommend that Canada replace the unwieldy JSS idea with a conventional oiler or two plus a few HSV rapid deployment vessels like the ones the USA is gravitating toward. Or recommend the LPD-17 San Antonio Class amphibious support ship as an alternative. Or even recommend a larger number of smaller Dutch/Spanish Rotterdam Class LPDs, plus the USA’s versatile new T-AKE supply ships.

Those kinds of risk reduction strategies would leverage successful R&D efforts, and spend more money on cutting steel and floating boats. As opposed to pursuing paper visions that risk sucking up vast resources and producing inferior products – or no products as all.

Appendix B: Additional Readings

• DND – JSS Project Office

• Wikipedia – Protecteur class auxiliary vessel

• Naval Technology – LPD Rotterdam Class Landing Platform Dock, Netherlands. A less ambitious, less expensive, and successful effort.

• New Zealand Navy – HMNZS Canterbury – L421. New Zealand has its own multi-role ship design, which combines transport and some minor patrol tasks. The vessel was built by Merwede Shipyard in the Netherlands, under subcontract to Tenix.

• CASR – BG Comparison – Joint Support Ship (JSS) Project – AOR or LPD. Includes an excellent comparison of the proposed JSS specifications with several existing ship classes – including the Dutch Rotterdam Class LSD.

• Canadian Conference of Defence Associations (Nov 19/08) – Military/Naval Procurement in Canada: A Flawed Process by Commander (Ret’d) Ken Bowering [PDF]

• Ottawa Citizen: David Pugliese Defence Watch Blog (Sept 2/08) – Navy Talking Points for Joint Support Ship

• National Post (June 20/08) – J.L. Granatstein: Canada needs a navy that can do the job

UAVs for CF: No real news here

Once again our intrepid reporters dig up stories through Access to Information that simply regurgitate what's basically already well known--A Canwest News example:

Military needs more drones for 'dull, dirty and dangerous' missions

May one refer readers to this post from September 2008 (also, interestingly, Canwest News)?

UAVS: A story in search of fuss

Oh well, the MND himself hasn't been too sure about our UAV programs.

Existential Pakistan/Threatened Afstan

Fouad Ajami tries to get to the heart of the matter:

Pakistan's Struggle for Modernity

The country's voters have never endorsed religious extremism.

The drama of the Swat Valley -- its cynical abandonment to the mercy of the Taliban, the terror unleashed on it by the militants, then the recognition that the concession to the forces of darkness had not worked -- is of a piece with the larger history of religious extremism in the world of Islam. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was the latest in a long line of secularists who cut deals with the zealots, only to discover that for the believers in political Islam these deals are at best a breathing spell before the fight for their utopia is taken up again.

David Klein

The decision by Pakistan to retrieve the ground it had ceded to the Taliban was long overdue. We should not underestimate the strength of the Pakistani state, and of the consensus that underpins it. The army is a huge institution, and its mandate is like that of the Turkish army, which sees itself as a defender of secular politics.

The place of Islam in Pakistani political culture has never been a simple matter. It was not religious piety that gave birth to Pakistan. The leaders who opted for separation from India were a worldly, modern breed who could not reconcile themselves to political subservience in a Hindu-ruled India. The Muslims had fallen behind in the race to modernity, and Pakistan was their consolation and their shelter.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was secular through and through. The pillars of his political life had been British law and Indian nationalism. Both had given way, and he set out for his new state, in 1947, an ailing old man, only to die a year later. He was sincere in his belief that Pakistan could keep religion at bay.

Jinnah's vision held sway for three decades. It was only in the late 1970s that political Islam began its assault against the secular edifice. A military dictator, Zia ul-Haq, had seized power in 1977; he was to send his predecessor, the flamboyant populist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to the gallows. Zia was to recast Pakistan's political culture. It was during his decade in power that the madrassas, the religious schools, proliferated. (There had been no more than 250 madrassas in 1947. There would be a dozen times as many by 1988, and at least 12,000 by latest count.)

Zia had been brutally effective in manipulating the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. His country was awash with guns and Saudi and American money. He draped his despotism in Islamic garb. He made room for the mullahs and the mullahs brought the gunmen with them.

Say what you will about the ways of Pakistan, its people have never voted for the darkness that descended on Swat and its surroundings. In the national elections of 2008 the secular and regional parties had carried the day; the fundamentalists were trounced at the polls. The concessions in Swat were a gift the militants had not earned...

...candidate Barack Obama had maintained that he would begin with active diplomacy over the long-standing Pakistani-Indian dispute over Kashmir. But by any reckoning, India's weight and power preclude taking up that question. No government in New Delhi would countenance any change in the status in Kashmir [more here].

In truth, the U.S. can't alter the balance of power between India and Pakistan. For six decades now, Pakistan has lived in the shadow of India's success. This has tormented Pakistanis and helped radicalize their politics. The obsession with the unfinished business of partition (Kashmir) has been no small factor in the descent of Pakistan into religious and political extremism. The choice for Pakistan can be starkly put: the primacy of Kashmir in political life or the repair of the country, the renewal of its institutions, and the urgent task of putting in place an educational system that would undercut the power of the religious reactionaries...

Mr. Ajami is professor of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies and an adjunct senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

By the way, can you imagine the outcry from our usual suspects if actions by NATO troops in Afstan led to headlines like this:

Pakistani Refugee Crisis Poses Peril

Amid Army Offensive, Extremists Are Filling Needs That the Government Can't

Meanwhile, a stark warning from US secretary of defense Gates:

American public support for the Afghan war will dissipate in less than a year unless the Obama administration achieves "a perceptible shift in momentum," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview.

Mr. Gates said the momentum in Afghanistan is with the Taliban, who are inflicting heavy U.S. casualties and hold de facto control of swaths of the country...

With the Obama administration recently unveiling a new Afghanistan strategy, Mr. Gates said it made sense to put new commanders in place there as well. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a veteran of the military's secretive special-operations community, will assume overall command in Kabul. Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, one of the Army's top experts on counterinsurgency, will run day-to-day operations [emphasis added]...

Yet:

...Lt-Gen. Rodriguez...has been nominated as Deputy Commander for US Forces in Afghanistan with the COMISAF being double-hatted also is commander of US Forces Afghanistan. This is a three-star position. It is, as you know, in line with the increase in the number of US Forces. Gen. Rodriguez will wear a US hat; he will not be part of a NATO command structure [emphasis added].

So who's going to be in charge of ISAF, er, operations? After all, the majority of US forces are formally assigned to ISAF--and that number will only grow as US strength increases in RC South [more here]. Unity of command, where art thou?

Update: A lengthy story from Helmand province relevant to what Mr Gates said:

Stalemate
A single company of U.S. Marines is slugging it out with the Taliban in Afghanistan’s toughest ghost town. The battle shows how limited troop numbers have hurt the war—and why the U.S. is changing its strategy.

Unsung

Ian Elliot of the Whig-Standard draws our attention to a book on combat logistics by LCol John Conrad, entitled What The Thunder Said -- Reflections Of A Canadian Officer in Kandahar:

"Combat logistics is not sexy and it is certainly not overcomplicated, but it will reach out and cut your throat if it is taken for granted in times of war," he writes in What The Thunder Said -- Reflections Of A Canadian Officer in Kandahar.

"And cut it did in Afghanistan in the early summer of 2006."

...

The battles that were fought in 2006 have been chronicled in a number of books from the point of view of the soldiers at the sharp end.

Conrad's take is unusual as it may be the first book in a generation written by a combat service support officer and for a general audience, rather than a technical military treatise.

Logistics has dramatically changed. In a war like Afghanistan, there are no front lines behind which supply units can safely operate -- every supply mission is a combat operation, and his book is a litany of improvised explosive devices, firefights and rocket attacks in which the only difference between the support units and the combat arms is that the logistics units never go on the attack, they always defend.

"We're like the linebackers," Conrad said.

Remarkably frank for a book by a serving officer, he also points out that logistics had been ignored or outright neglected until Afghanistan began to force a change in thinking, although one rather too incremental for his liking.

He is also frank about his own problems, such as when fighting flared in July 2006 and the Canadian Forces was in real danger of running out of bullets.

Conrad had been estimating that ammunition would be used at a steady rate, a planning concept that transfers poorly to a rapidly-changing war. He points out that on most Canadian deployments, the biggest danger is having ammunition go stale, because guns are rarely fired on peacekeeping tours.

With a major Taliban offensive ongoing and Canadian soldiers returning daily in armoured vehicles up to their knees in spent brass, Conrad had to arrange an emergency airlift of ammunition from Canada after a humiliating sorting out by a general that he details in the book.

This looks like it would be quite an interesting read.

Comrades in arms

A moving post at AFGHANISTAN SHRUGGED:

A Farewell to Arms

Memorial Day 2009 will be one that I remember for the rest of my life. By my own admission I’ve not treated Memorial Day with the appropriate gravitas. Like many Americans, I’m embarrassed to say, I understood why we celebrated it but failed to completely embrace it. It tended to be another day off to barbeque and spend time at home.

It is humbling to stand in a war zone and see your country’s flag flown at half mast in honor of those that have made the ultimate sacrifice on her behalf. I think back to others in my family that glimpsed a similar site. My father in Vietnam, with the Sky Soldiers, and his father before him with the Tough Hombres at Normandy; I’m just the next in line to pick up the family trade; the profession of arms.

This year is different though. I lost one of my soldiers several nights ago during a mortar attack. He wasn’t an American but he was no less a patriot and no less my soldier. He was a Sergeant in the Afghan National Army. He’ll have to remain nameless as those that wished to do his country harm will still attempt to reach out and harm his family even after his passing.

In a country where so many chose to sit on the sideline, to wait and critique he chose to pick up arms and insure that his country would not be ruled by a despot or religious fanaticism. He fought to guarantee a better future for his fellow citizens.

He chose a life of hardship and danger. Serving beside the best equipped and trained military in the world; while he fought to the best of his ability with what his country supplied him. His spirit and his determination moving him forward into battle.

His sacrifices will not be forgotten. Yesterday we had his memorial service; much different than what we have for US soldiers. We gathered behind the mosque; we being ANA, ETT and the CF [Coalition Forces] Company here. The death of one soldier no matter the country is memorialized by all. ACM bullets, rockets and mortars do not differentiate between US and Afghan.

The mullah sang several suras from the Koran and the Kandak [ANA battalion] Commander spoke about the important choices each had made to defend their country. Not that much different from what a US Commander would say. Even through my interpreter I understood the meaning, “Don’t let your brother die in vain, keep up the fight.”

After this we departed and the Kandak entered the mosque to pray and remember their brother. That it was Memorial Day in the US made it all the more poignant. As I walked back across the FOB my boots stirred up the chalky Afghan soil that has absorbed so much Afghan and American blood.

Some reading this may wonder why I’ve chosen to write about an Afghan on Memorial Day. When there are so many great Americans to be remembered. I see no difference between my dead ANA soldier and Americans, if I could; I would have made him an honorary American citizen there on the spot. He embodied what we believe in, the fight for what is right.

So, this Memorial Day and those forward will be much different. I’ll remember those who’ve sacrificed for my country and celebrate their lives, but I’ll also remember a lone Afghan sergeant who perished in a distant corner of the world. In hope that one day his country will be free from tyranny and evil.