DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY
What killed Canada's military? Years of refusing to take ourselves seriously as a country
March 16, 1997, Ottawa Citizen
The
murder of Shidane Arone in Somalia on March 16, 1993 has led to the
military becoming a major political issue in Canada for the first time
since the uproar over unification of the Forces in 1966. The focus on
the Canadian Airborne Regiment led to the exposure of extreme hazing
practices and racist infection in the regiment and its disbandment in
January 1995. The Somalia Inquiry was given terms of reference broad
enough and went about its work with such ambition that no aspect of
Canada's military leadership, training, equipment or organization seemed
likely to escape its attention.
The
commissioners have been preparing to point accusing fingers at several
individuals. They have also been preparing a sweeping analysis of what
is wrong with our military.
The cut off of the Inquiry in its prime
will prevent it from addressing the most important issues it was set up
to investigate. It is unlikely to be able to pin blame on any but a
handful of secondarily involved individuals. Brigadier-General Ernie
Beno's success on February 19 in having the Federal Court ban its
chairman, Mr. Justice Gilles Letourneau, from passing judgment on him is
just the start of the inquiry's troubles on that front.
One
Minister of Defence, David Collenette, and one Chief of Defence Staff,
Jean Boyle, have fallen victim to the surge of public attention focused
on the military. Opposition politicians and much of the public may be
satisfied if more individuals can be found to take the blame for the
messes that have been revealed.
Commentators
on military matters have argued that the roots of the problems go
beyond the individual failings. One school, best represented by Tarnished Brass,
Scott Taylor and Brian Nolan's crisply depressing account of careerism
and venality amongst the officers and bureaucrats, blames the top brass.
Others have condemned the bureaucratization of National Defence
Headquarters in Ottawa and the lack of political leadership. No one from
Master Corporal Clayton Matchee, who beat Shidane Arone to death, to
Perrin Beatty, whose relatively long stint as Minister of Defence in the
heyday of Mulroney's government led to nothing but a mountain of white
paper for recycling can be excused from their individual responsibility.
The fault, however, is finally with ourselves. Canadians have not paid
much attention to the military until it has forced itself on their
attention and the mess we see is the result of decades of public
indifference. If Canada took itself seriously it would have no problem
maintaining a serious military and not be just discovering a military
with serious problems.
Close
to two million Canadians served in the the two World Wars and over one
hundred thousand gave their lives. But even in World War II, despite the
one week delay in declaring war observed to mark Canada's legal
autonomy, we were following Britain's lead. Canada had never assumed
responsibility for its own defence. We assumed we were safe if Britain
was safe and in peril if Britain was in peril. In peacetime the military
was little more than a poorly equipped skeleton force backed by a
militia that was as much a social institution as a serious potential
force.
On
the eve of World War II Canada had less than eight thousand men in
uniform. In the fiscal year before the war, defence spending, despite
some steps towards rearmament, was under thirty-seven million dollars or
about 0.6% of Gross Domestic Product. In four years it would rise to
$4.6 billion or over 38% of GDP. After the war the military
establishment collapsed almost as fast as it had risen. The army shrank
from half a million to fifteen thousand troops in two years. By 1949-50
defence spending was down to $385 million or about 2% of GDP. The
military looked set to return to its prewar token status. The Korean War
and the building of NATO's forces in Europe combined suddenly to
reverse the decline. In 1952-53 defence spending peaked at just short of
two billion dollars or about 7.5% of GDP.
Canada's
involvement in both Korea and NATO reflected its conscious post-war
middle power status. With Europe only slowly recovering from the war and
most of what came to be known as the Third World still colonial
dependencies Canada had for a decade after the war an international
status it has never had before or since. Led by Lester Pearson, Canada's
clever and self-confident new diplomatic corps sought to take advantage
of Canada's place at the relatively small tables. Its first and most
important role was in the founding of NATO. In this role, still the most
important that Canada has played on the world stage since the war and
the keystone of our foreign relations ever since, Canada was acting in
its authentic historic tradition. We helped formalize the links between
our traditional allies and acted as the bridge between Britain and
Western Europe and the United States. There was no pretense of a special
vocation for peacekeeping or being the friendly disinterested country
that could help with everyone's problems and be looked up to and walk
with righteous pride around the world. We acted to protect our interests
by joining with allies with whom we had an historic basis of trust and
who shared our interests.
Our
joining NATO expressed our continuing interest in the security of
Western Europe, for which we had already made great sacrifices in the
two world wars, and put our necessary alliance with the United States in
a comfortable multi-lateral context. With memories of the war still
fresh and many of those who served in the war still of military age the
rapid resurrection of the forces from 1950 was relatively easy and
uncontroversial. Korea was an anomalous war in almost every respect, but
Canada's participation seemed both a restoration of the wartime
alliance, with Canada joining in a Commonwealth Brigade, and a first
serious use of the United Nations in which we placed such hopes. A
volunteer force was recruited, lead by officers all but the most junior
of whom had served in the war and remained in the regular army or the
reserves.
With
this background, the late 1950's were the heyday of the peacetime
Canadian military. By 1960 regular forces strength was touching 120,000
and spending, though down from its Korean War peak and a declining share
of a growing GDP, was over $1.5 billion, a healthy 3.8% of GDP. The
army got Centurion tanks, the navy was getting first rate Canadian
designed St. Laurent and Restigouche class escorts and the air force,
despite the cancellation of the Arrow, had its all Canadian predecessor
the CF-100 and was to get American Starfighters and Voodoos.
Since
the 1960's it has been downhill all the way. Paul Hellyer was an
ambitious minister who did not serve over four years as Minister of
Defence to weaken Canada's defences. His work eventually and predictably
had that effect. One of his goals in unifying the forces was to save
money. Any savings were achieved by the integration of headquarters and
support operations prior to unification. Hellyer's ambition expressed
itself in a kind of policy wonk conceit. He thought unification was such
a clever idea that he forced it through in the face of the reality of
obviously distinct land, sea and air roles in the military, which had to
survive unification.
Unification
cut off the forces from their history and confused their purposes. For
the public it became more like abolition as soldiers, sailors and airmen
disappeared into their parking attendant uniforms. Real defence
spending declined to about 2% of GDP, around which it hovered for twenty
years until the public expectation of a post Cold War peace dividend
and the search for politically palatable spending cuts to eliminate the
deficit sent it towards 1%.
Unification
was a mistake, but it was a mistake that occurred and would not be
corrected because Canada was losing its way in the world. The United
Nations, which had 59 members in 1950 had 127 by 1970. The former great
powers like Britain and France had sunk to the status of middle powers
and Canada, despite its economic strength, had fallen into other ranks.
The memory of the war receded and Canada's political and military
leaders had less and less experience of our role in the war or even the
immediate post-war world.
Canada's
neo-nationalism and opposition to the American role in Vietnam made
Canadians increasingly reluctant allies of the United States. An
entirely home grown peacekeeping mythology boosted by Pearson's Nobel
Peace Prize fostered an fantasy image of Canada as a peacekeeping
country without interests of its own or alignments. The inconsistency of
this image with Canada's great military history and continuing
membership in NATO never seemed to matter. As Canada agonized over its
identity and fretted about its independence, the problem of Quebec and
national unity came to dominate national politics. Despite Trudeau's
invocation of the War Measures Act and calling out the army in the 1970
October crisis, it was always evident that the military could play no
role in holding Canada together. The application of bilingualism to the
forces led to a healthy participation of French-Canadians in the forces
without answering the question of what country in the long term they
would serve.
Trudeau
had shown his contempt for the military during the war. Canada's place
in the world never meant more to him than an excuse for foreign travel
and a chance to indulge his intellectual musings before a diplomatically
polite but usually indifferent audience. An attempt to strengthen ties
with Europe as a balance to the United States, described by Trudeau
himself as banal, North South dialogue, and the 1983 peace tour only
obscured Canada's interests and relationships, premised an exaggerated
appreciation of our power and dissipated our influence and obscured our
alliances and our commitment to Western security.
Canadians
took little interest in all of this, apparently satisfied by a series
of photo opportunities that Canada was playing its rightful role in the
world. They took even less interest in military affairs. Apart from
press releases from disarmament lobbies the principal press coverage of
military matters was as business news. When big purchases could be
delayed no longer without a conscious decision to abandon defence
entirely, as with the 1976 purchase of Lockheed CP-140 Aurora maritime
patrol aircraft or the 1982 purchase of MacDonell Douglas CF-18 Hornet
attack fighters there was business to be done, either directly on the
projects or as offset purchases negotiated by the government as part of
the acquisitions deals. The only political controversy was over who, or
which province, was to get the work. The 1986 decision to have the
Hornets maintained in Montreal rather than Winnipeg was never forgiven
the Tories in the West.
Equipment
purchases were always too little too late, but political support could
generally be found for billions in spending as a questionable mix of
industrial strategy and regional job creation. The price of big
purchases was always inflated by the need to arrange production in
Canada or offset orders for what could not be built in Canada. When the
decision was finally made to order new frigates for the navy to replace
ships nearing thirty years in service, the result was a massive $6.2
billion dollar order for twelve of the most expensive ships of their
size ever built. The order had for political reasons to be split between
New Brunswick and Quebec. There were several European designs that
could have been adapted for and largely built in Canada for little more
than half the cost and in less time. Instead the industrial strategists
entertained vain hopes that having revived a warship building industry
that had been neglected for decades we might be able to sell warships
abroad. The prospect never grew serious enough that the political
complications of such major arms sales had to be faced. Even when we
decided that we had more frigates than we needed we were unable to
negotiate a deal with the Saudis to sell ships from our production.
As
the ships entered service the complimentary helicopter project necessary
to make them the effective anti-submarine platforms they were designed
to be fell victim to politics as the price tag, inflated by provision
for Canadian assembly and customizing and offsets, for the EH 101
helicopters ordered by Kim Campbell became politically indefensible. The
experience showed that political support for any large defence
expenditure had disappeared. Canadians were grudgingly prepared to
accept, largely out of thirty years habit, the small burden of Cold War
commitment to NATO. With the end of the Cold War Canadians were
incapable of imagining a true military threat or an interest requiring
military commitment.
Peacekeeping
had become the only acceptable political justification for Canada's
armed forces just as Bosnia and Somalia were about to expose the
phoniness of the idea. It ran directly counter to the purpose of having
armed forces. The military exist to be ready to kill and be killed in
defence of the country's interests. For a country like Canada their use
has always been in concert with our historic allies. Peacekeeping
premises having no interests and no alliances that might imply
partiality between warring parties. Peacekeepers are not supposed to
kill anyone and no one is supposed to want to kill them. Over one
hundred Canadian soldiers have been killed in peacekeeping deployments,
but they were not supposed to be. The level of mortality is not much
higher than what results form peacetime training accidents and would not
have been accepted if it had been.
Canada's infatuation with peacekeeping set in deeply after Pearson's succès d'estime
in the Suez Crisis. Diefenbaker's government was prompted to overcome
initial reluctance to send Canadian soldiers to the Congo in 1960 by
public enthusiasm. Peacekeeping proved to be habit forming. Canada has
managed to achieve an almost unbroken record of participation in UN
peacekeeping missions since Kashmir in 1948 and claims to have unique
expertise in peacekeeping. The unveiling of a monument to peacekeeping
next to the National Gallery on a scale to rival the National War
Memorial and the issuance of a peacekeeping loonie in 1995 marked the
climax of Canada's celebration of its peacekeeping prowess. The extent
to which peacekeeping had come to obscure our historic role in the world
was strikingly evident when Jean Chrétien devoted much of his speech on
the 50th anniversary of the Canadians embarkation for D-Day at Gosport,
England, to Lester Pearson and Canada's peacekeeping.
Foreign
leaders and diplomats are too polite to say it, but the truth is that
Canada's peacekeeping efforts amount to no more than a few footnotes in
the history of international politics since Suez. Whatever may have been
the case in the 1950's, there are now scores of countries ready, willing
and able to provide more than enough peacekeepers for any number of
conflicts. The only problem is who will pay.
We
hear little of other countries' peacekeeping roles. Canadians were
always one of the smaller contingents in the former Yugoslavia behind
the Dutch and the Ukrainians, of whom we heard nothing. A total of 35
countries had peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia in 1994. The United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon is now made up of contingents from
Fiji, Finland, France, Ghana, Ireland, Italy, Nepal, Norway and Poland.
So long as Canada has any armed forces it can continue to contribute to
UN peacekeeping missions. But it is not needed and it will not impress
anyone but Canadians by making peacekeeping the principal purpose of its
armed forces.
With
the end of the Cold War most Canadians have been at a loss to think
what need Canada could have for armed forces beyond peacekeeping. But
the circumstances of the Cold War, when the battle lines were drawn for a
war that happily never took place, were unique. For most countries
throughout history there are a range of more or less remote
possibilities of conflict, some of them remote precisely because they
are ready for them. For Canada, as for most advanced countries, there is
little prospect of having to face a hostile power alone and little
chance that it could do so successfully. But in seeking security in
common with other countries, formally in NATO, and less formally beyond
NATO, we must be prepared to bring our fair contribution to facing any
threat. Without a serious military capability we cannot expect to be
heard when any question of the use of force arises. We cannot call for a
forceful response when we have nothing to contribute. We cannot urge
restraint when we cannot exercise restraint ourselves but are merely
impotent.
Canada's
inability to shoulder properly an important military role can be seen
plainly in the state of our navy. We now have sixteen modern or very
expensively modernized surface warships. There principal purpose is
anti-submarine warfare. After some difficulties in the early years
Canada played an important role in anti-submarine warfare in both world
wars. The threat posed by submarines is now greater than it has ever
been. The volume of ocean going trade is vastly more important than it
was sixty years ago. More importantly the capabilities and elusiveness
of modern submarines, whether nuclear or conventional, make them
effectively a new weapon system compared to the submarines that nearly
strangled Britain in the two world wars. We have practically no
experience of what they can do. The sinking of the Belgrano during the
Falklands war was one of only two occasions when a submarine sank a ship
since 1945.
The
conventional opinion is that at the end of the Cold War submarines
ceased to be a threat. But Russia continues to build formidable
submarines: the 11,000 ton Akula II class and the 16,000 ton Oscar II
class. The first of a new Severodvinsk class could be ready in the year
2000. The keel was laid in November for the first of a new Borey class
of ballistic missile submarines. How many of Russia's 120 nuclear
submarines could put to sea in time of war is anyone's guess. Older
ships are steadily being scrapped. New warships have their problems. The
crew of the Akula II Vepr struck in August over back pay. But the
Germans had only 21 submarines at sea at the beginning of World War II.
Russia can do a lot better than that. Its newer submarines have been
regularly deployed in recent years, coming close to North America a
times. They are the most heavily armed and reportedly the most stealthy
submarines ever built. If, in their present state of disarray, the
Russians think it worthwhile to build and deploy such ships, it surely
makes sense to prepare seriously to defend against them.
Nor
are the Russians the only threat. China has a growing fleet of
submarines of all kinds, conventional, nuclear and ballistic missile
carrying. It bought some from the Russians but makes its own in all
categories. A large number of countries of varying degrees of
responsibility have modern conventional submarines including Iran,
Algeria, Syria and Libya. The submarine threat is large and growing. Who
knows what these ships may be up to early in the next century? By that
time Canada will still not have replaced its over 30 year old Sea King
helicopters with the modern ship-borne helicopters necessary to make its
new City class patrol frigates effective anti-submarine warfare
systems.
The
best choice would be an off the shelf purchase of a smaller number of
the Anglo-Italian EH101 helicopters we agreed to buy in 1993. But for
political reasons we are not likely to make that choice. We seem likely
to have no submarines as the political will cannot be found to replace
our three 30 year old Oberon class diesel electric submarines even with
their near perfect replacements, the basically mint condition British
Upholder class on offer at a bargain price after the Royal Navy decided
to go for an all nuclear submarine fleet.
Ecuador,
Portugal and Venezuela will keep submarines younger than those we are
retiring. Australia, no more obviously threatened than Canada, is
already replacing its six younger Oberons with six bigger Swedish
designed and Australian built submarines at a cost of close to $5
billion dollars from a defence budget about two thirds of Canada's.
Meanwhile Canada's frigates, according to recent reports are having
trouble keeping their grocery and laundry bills within budget while
showing the flag in Europe.
All
writers on Canada's military pay fulsome tribute to the dedication and
professionalism of our soldiers, sailors and airmen. Generally this is
deserved. Particularly praiseworthy was the courage of Canadian soldiers
in Croatia and Bosnia who found themselves in the middle of a real war,
taking casualties and being humiliated by the forces of those they were
supposed to be helping when they could not understand, any more than
Canadians generally, what purpose their being there served. They have
reason to be proud. Canadians should be ashamed that they have not been
ready to assume the burden of preparing our forces to fight, but sent
them vainly where they had to fight anyway.
Somalia was the other side
of the coin.
One
immediate reaction to Somalia was that we were training killers in the
army and should stop. But armies do not train their men to beat
defenceless teenagers to death and have no need of recruits who would.
It is an old saying that their are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.
The implication is that the quality of recruits does not matter.
Canadians have signalled in their indifference to the military, their
unwillingness to pay to equip and train it properly, and their smug
self-satisfaction with our peacekeeping that they do not want to recruit
men ready to kill or be killed in the service of their country. Many
step forward anyway and make the best of it. But along with those who
are looking for training in a skill useful in civilian life and those
who look forward to a cushy bureaucratic career it is not surprising
that some delinquent characters are recruited and not weeded out or
reformed. In Croatia and Bosnia Canadians were killed when they were not
supposed to be. In Somalia they killed when they were not supposed
to.
Canadians
have to face the question of whether they are prepared to have armed
forces ready to go abroad to kill and be killed in defence of their
country's interests. All the evidence, from the infatuation with
peacekeeping, to their low tolerance for defence spending and their
recoil from the harsh facts of even limited involvement in minor real
conflicts such as those in Bosnia and Somalia, is that they are not.
On
Canada's present readiness to support its military and give them not
only the money but the direction they need, we should do better to give
up any pretense of assuming responsibility for our own defence. But it
is a hard world and force and the readiness to use it are as much a part
of it as ever. A nation that cares enough to survive will have to face
that fact. Despite our experiences in the two world wars, we have
evidently not grown up enough to do so. We are heading back to our
prewar impotence. We have not learned to see long range or long term
threats and forearm against them and thereby possibly forestall them. We
have not learned that in collective security there are shared burdens
as well as shared benefits. We have not learned to treat defence as a
permanent part of our national life in which we all must take an
interest.
The
lesson of the last four years is that Canada's military require our
constant attention and support. If we turn away when the present
scandals have worked themselves out, lay the blame on a few individuals
and refuse to support forces adequate to the tasks we may give them, new
scandals will surely arise. We shall be powerless to defend Canada's
interests abroad and our friends will not help. We shall have only
ourselves to blame.