COIN, not, er, peacekeeping/Stupidly committing journalism

From the Chief of the Land Staff in a CP story. Seems realistic to me. Why can we not now simply say "Chief of the Army Staff" and "Chief of the Naval Staff", we've already got a "Chief of the Air Staff" (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs)?

Future of the army lies in counter-insurgency: General

Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, chief of land staff, speaks with reporters in Kandahar City, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008. (Bill Graveland / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Counter-insurgency operations will eventually displace the army's traditional peacemaking capabilities [emphasis added, see below] as it prepares for life after the Afghan mission, says the general in charge of Canada's land forces.

Though the Canadian military is drawing up plans to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011 [without clear direction from the government, for shame], the counter-insurgency lessons it has learned from the mission will occupy a central role in the spectrum of the military's capabilities, said Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, chief of land staff.

He believes the current geo-political situation, in which developed countries are concerned about the security threats presented by failed states, has made the long-time penchant for peacemaking irrelevant.

"Peacemaking still saw the diplomatic political powers interacting with protagonists who were willing to sit down at a conference table with essential force being almost a last resort," Leslie said in an interview with The Canadian Press during a recent trip to Afghanistan.

"It's not going to be peacemaking anymore, it's going to be counter-insurgency because the odds of us doing peacemaking between two functional states are probably pretty low, ergo COIN (counter-insurgency)."

"Counter-insurgency will not form the cornerstone of our operations, but it's right in the centre of our spectrum of capabilities we're going to train for."

But Leslie stressed that eschewing peacemaking capabilities for counter-insurgency does not mean the army will cease peacekeeping. He views counter-insurgency and peacekeeping existing on a spectrum that includes classic warfare at the extreme end.

Leslie's comments provide an indication about how the army is preparing to configure itself following the end of the Afghan mission...

...recruitment numbers are up, and Leslie says he now has more volunteers for overseas missions than there are spots available. However he has yet to be told what, if any, future missions they should prepare for [emphasis added, so much for the "Canada First Defence Strategy" that has no actual strategy].

In the meantime, he will focus on retooling the army ability to conduct counter-insurgency operations. While that means incorporating lessons learned from Afghanistan into future training, it also requires continuing the overhaul of the army's equipment.

"Our equipment of 15 years ago had a lot of armour on the fronts and tops because we were going to go toe-to-toe with the Russian bear," Leslie said.

"Almost of all vehicles now are going to have massive capability on the bottom and side."

The IEDs and landmines are not a threat limited to Afghanistan, but they will be the weapons of choice for insurgents in any theatre, he said.

"We're moving the centre-mass of vehicle lower, we're putting more on the bottoms and sides you can still use those in classic war fighting. But we don't were [sic, "doubt we're?] going to be doing a lot of classic war fighting [more on planned new vehicles here]."

Aaargh! This typical bit of Canadian journalistic nonsense: "Counter-insurgency operations will eventually displace the army's traditional peacemaking capabilities." Placed in the first paragraph to scare the pants off the gullible Canadian public. A truly stupid thing to write.

COIN operations, which would have to be ordered by the government of the day (want to bet for some long time to come?), have nothing/nothing to do with peacemaking (read "peacekeeping") capabilities. The Army that did peacekeeping from 1956 on was not trained primarily for that function. It was mainly trained most of the time to fight a major war against the Soviet Union ("we were going to go toe-to-toe with the Russian bear").

That did not hinder the Army's subsidiary peacekeeping operations (peacekeeping was never the government-assigned priority, see below); rather the inherent capabilities of a trained combat force enabled the Army also to perform as peackeepers. And I would argue that an army with extensive COIN training might be even better peacekeepers in the modern, non-state separating, context (should the government assign the mission) since that army will be much more attuned to knowing about and working with local populations.

These were the defence priorities in the Chrétien government's 1994 White Paper on Defence, the last such paper from a Canadian government, pity:

...
Chapter 3 - Combat-Capable Forces

21. At present, there is no immediate direct military threat to Canada, and today's conflicts are far from Canada's shores. However, Canada cannot dispense with the maritime, land and air combat capabilities of modern armed forces.

22. We must maintain a prudent level of military force to:

• deal with challenges to our sovereignty in peacetime;
• generate larger forces if needed; and
  
• participate effectively in multilateral peace and stability operations and, if and when required, in the defence of North America and our allies in Europe, and in response to aggression elsewhere.
  

23. We must take account of the changing face of peacekeeping. The nature of these operations has changed considerably and now poses far more risks to our personnel [clearly a reference to the CF's participation in UNPROFOR ( think Medak Pocket), the UN's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Croatia that ended up a horrible failure] .

Peacekeeping almost seems to have been an afterthought, as it were. Would it not be nice if those committing journalism actually knew rather more about the subjects they write about?

As for peacekeeping these days, see:

Peackeeping humbug

Why UN peacekeeping is no longer such a Good Thing