An Air Force Crystal Ball

(Cross-posted from The Phantom Observer.)

If you're wondering whether this story from the Toronto Star about the Canadian military's "doom & gloom" scenarios is based on a brown envelope -- it isn't. The actual study is available online here at the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre website.

As an aside, think tanks like this are common throughout military forces. Somebody has to figure out what possible future warfare is going to look like, if only because it's necessary to configure military logistics and finances to equip an army, air force or navy for the future. (Such scenarios are also necessary for defence ministry officials to explain and defend a budget before skeptical MPs and politicians looking for potential budget cuts -- and given the need for deficit reduction and the political unpalatability of our involvement in Afghanistan, you can bet that today's MPs would like to see the DND budget as a plum tree ripe for harvest.)

Some scenarios in this report will be controversial. The return of conscription, for example:

In 2016, faced with the need to meet pressing defence human resource requirements, the coalition Government promotes the unifying theme of “Service to Canada” equally across all regions and groups. As well, with the need to instil a loyalty and commitment to Canada’s goals among new Canadians, the Government urged the official opposition to support a form of mandatory or cooperative military service. Driven by internal pressures to unify a country heavily reliant on wide-scale immigration for its continued economic well-being as well as external pressures for Canada to meet its obligations as a leader in the global community, the Government felt it had no other choice as manning and experience level in the CF was falling to dangerously low levels. Ultimately, the motion was defeated, leaving the CF with little choice but to resign itself to becoming a weak constabulary security force. (page 6)

Unlikely? Maybe not, given something mentioned in an earlier paragraph:

A higher proportion of Canada’s future population will consist of new first generation citizens. This represents a large, and growing, segment of the Canadian population that, under existing rules, is largely ineligible for service in the Canadian Forces. Strategies may be required that will reach out to this segment of the population. For example, accelerated citizenship opportunities for those who serve in the Air Force, even if they are directly recruited outside our borders. (page 5)

Other things this report is predicting:

• Fewer sergeants for less time. The report predicts it's going to be harder to hang onto a cadre of long-term personnel, due to demographics (more retirements, fewer replacements) and career tracking (there's more people switching out for something else). Solutions include more incentives to stay in, as well as a re-examination of early retirement for CF personnel.


• The Army may be on the hook for avgas. They're predicting significant price hikes for aviation fuel:
  

  To accommodate the projected increases in aviation fuel in the 2019 time frame, the Air Force will need to adopt a method that insulates its operating budget from rapid increases in aviation fuel costs. Novel methods need to be explored and could resemble the model currently employed by the civilian aviation industry, where fuel surcharges are passed on to the customer. For the Air Force, the transfer pricing concepts (from the Air Force budget to the Army budget) could be one means of insulating the Air Force budget from potentially spiralling fuel costs.

  
  Why this transfer? Because more Air Force flights have to do with transporting and escorting Army assets than buzzing around in CF-18s. Speaking of which:


• Less Tom Cruises, more R2-D2s. The CF-18s are due for retirement within the next couple of decades, but apart from one initial purchase for a fighter fleet, most of their work is likely to be taken over by unmanned vehicles.

It's a fairly good read, this one; really makes you think about the future, which is what good reports are supposed to do.