There is one more thing - there needs to be an understanding that the purpose of a weapon system is to be a weapon, not to be a mechanism for "economic development" - that is, creating jobs in some particular riding or part of the country. Note that the handgun procurement exercise alluded to (and with the link to the excellent article) has taken well over a decade because it started with a desire to have the jobs in one place. Just go buy the damn guns - even Cabellas would be a better option than what we have now.
After 20 yrs in uniform within military procurement, I believe the issues are with the process not the govt, ministers or parliament at all. The paradigm that is procurement is laced with absolute risk aversion, Industrial benefits and the delusion that repetitive competitions trump multi-decade relationships. It’s the unjustified need to “canadianize” everything, instead of Military Off The Shelf MOTS. So, no, it’s largely not the politicians, but the enshrined Treasury Board enabled requirements. Fix the process and a puppet minister could get procurement done rapidly.
It would be nice if we could move on from this notion that big ticket military expenditures need to be made in Canada. We could replace our entire RCN fleet with US warships that have already proven capability as well as interoperability *and* can be purchased and maintained at far lower costs that anything new we could design (even if we had a world class ship building industry, which we don't). The same is true for many vehicles and expensive pieces of important kit in the army. I do not think we should be having any discussion on procurement without a frank and honest discussion about where we source our material and how little our so-called Defence Community has done for our men and women in uniform these past six decades.
I speculate that Harjit Sajjan's failure as a minister may well be related to his being TOO close to the CF, with the "leadership" too familiar with his performance as a middling officer in the forces serving in Afghanistan, and who may have had too much ON him to permit him to do his job without embarrassing blowback/payback. Just speculation.
With respect to procurement, nothing ever seems to happen without industrial spin-offs being a major part of the process, thereby complicating everything, and preventing the "selection and maintenance of the aim" operating, which I was taught was important as a principal of war when I was a young Officer Cadet MANY decades ago when the Browning pistols still had their vintage-1944 tri-lingual decals saying "Canada" on the grips.
It took Canada 25 years after the Yanks adopted the M-16 rifle for us to adopt it and replace the FN C1/C2s, which, by that time, were twice the age of most of the soldiers.
If we have such difficulty replacing relatively cheap and simple, but very basic and very necessary, small arms in Canada, we obviously have an immense problem procuring anything costly, like, for example, a system to defeat enemy tanks and aircraft.
The current crisis in eastern Europe requires major and painful re-investment in our professional, but ludicrously SMALL armed forces. I'm not looking forward to the increase in my Taxes to pay for it, but we will be foolish not to pay up to stay in the game.
I've already vented my 'brilliant' strategy to take advantage of the US Army hating that the USAF is ditching their close-air-support jet (A10) - by buying a bunch off the USAF and promising that our NATO role will be close-air-support specialization. (If harshly pressed, we could buy, say, four of their stupid F35s, enough to keep one in the air every other day during a fight.)
Other than that, it should just be LAVs and snipers, LAVs and snipers. We're good at both, and they're a huge, highly affordable, contribution: delivering boots on the ground, the thing that most western militaries fear, wanting to win the whole war with strategic bombing that only kills as many civilians as soldiers.
Also, we should build more small, cheap ships that do mine-sweeping. We're good at that, too, and America's busted procurement system produced only the LCS ("Littoral Combat Ships") called "Little Crappy Ships" by those who have to sail them, which work very poorly, leaving America deficient at mine-sweeping.
Nobody should even comment on this issue without reading three books first:
The Pentagon Wars, Col James F. Burton, 1993, reprint 2014
The Spoils of War, Andrew Cockburn, 2019.
....both books detail how military procurement is almost indifferent to battlefield effectiveness and the fighter's survival; the top priority is funneling money to the suppliers, regardless of need for the weapon, or whether it works.
Canada in the Great Power Game 1914-2014, Gwynne Dyer, 2014.
...goes over Canada's entire military history from 1812. Save for that defense, our military has only defended other countries. Since WW2, we have really only acted to legitimize and support American military initiatives, to please our essential trading partner. Our military procurement has been distorted to buy what they most want to sell, resulting in the current pressure to buy the F35.
And all three books remind the reader that every single security crisis is used to sell the currently-pumped product, whether it has the slightest thing to do with that conflict or not. Selling fighter jets for the "War on Terror", against enemies with no air force, hit comedic levels.
A depressing albeit realistic assessment of just how poorly placed Canada is when it comes to national defence and, more particularly, the rejuvenation of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I’m especially pleased that the culprits behind this mess were properly identified (successive Liberal and Conservative governments, as well as a hidebound and often self-serving public service, and political culture itself).
Mind you, there was one culprit that you didn’t name.
Canadian voters, who simply do not pay sufficient attention to defence, foreign policy(and the corollary to both: intelligence collection and analysis).
As we all know military procurement has been virtually criminal incompetence here for decades. Everybody knows its broken but the feds don't want to fix it. Anybody in power who cares would search around for a system that does work. I've read that Australia does a much better job; so go there and find out what they do right. Or whatever country that does a good efficient job. But fix the system, and if that requires sacking a bunch of high level bureaucrats, so be it. If our vets from WW2 and Korean wars could see what we've become they would weep.
I sincerely appreciated this article but think there could have been some editing around the casual reference to "recent personnel scandals" here. Doesn't need to be "pervasive and ongoing history of sexual misdeeds directed to women" but maybe there's some middle ground in language that's more true to the scope and severity of the issues?
A truly excellent evaluation of a government failure that goes back to WW1. Canadians have to get on board as well, because the cost of this one is going to hurt. The military doesn't make money, but it sure goes through it.
Largely outside my experience and knowledge. But clearly a conversation that needs to be pushed towards the front burner of public discussion. Can the Canuck political class make logistics and procurement sexy enough to pry folks away from Netflix? The standard opposition has been about spending too much taxpayer money on nasty toys in a corrupt market place.
Might the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shift in political assumptions about global economic and military issues (the pandemic actually brought supply lines out of the financial papers and into public focus), put foreign affairs on the front burner of the next federal election? Canucks love to pretend that that's someone else's problem or at least it won't touch us. Are the flower children, or at least fantasizing consumers, waking up to reality?
There is one more thing - there needs to be an understanding that the purpose of a weapon system is to be a weapon, not to be a mechanism for "economic development" - that is, creating jobs in some particular riding or part of the country. Note that the handgun procurement exercise alluded to (and with the link to the excellent article) has taken well over a decade because it started with a desire to have the jobs in one place. Just go buy the damn guns - even Cabellas would be a better option than what we have now.
After 20 yrs in uniform within military procurement, I believe the issues are with the process not the govt, ministers or parliament at all. The paradigm that is procurement is laced with absolute risk aversion, Industrial benefits and the delusion that repetitive competitions trump multi-decade relationships. It’s the unjustified need to “canadianize” everything, instead of Military Off The Shelf MOTS. So, no, it’s largely not the politicians, but the enshrined Treasury Board enabled requirements. Fix the process and a puppet minister could get procurement done rapidly.
It would be nice if we could move on from this notion that big ticket military expenditures need to be made in Canada. We could replace our entire RCN fleet with US warships that have already proven capability as well as interoperability *and* can be purchased and maintained at far lower costs that anything new we could design (even if we had a world class ship building industry, which we don't). The same is true for many vehicles and expensive pieces of important kit in the army. I do not think we should be having any discussion on procurement without a frank and honest discussion about where we source our material and how little our so-called Defence Community has done for our men and women in uniform these past six decades.
At least someone’s making a lot of money selling rakes.
I speculate that Harjit Sajjan's failure as a minister may well be related to his being TOO close to the CF, with the "leadership" too familiar with his performance as a middling officer in the forces serving in Afghanistan, and who may have had too much ON him to permit him to do his job without embarrassing blowback/payback. Just speculation.
With respect to procurement, nothing ever seems to happen without industrial spin-offs being a major part of the process, thereby complicating everything, and preventing the "selection and maintenance of the aim" operating, which I was taught was important as a principal of war when I was a young Officer Cadet MANY decades ago when the Browning pistols still had their vintage-1944 tri-lingual decals saying "Canada" on the grips.
It took Canada 25 years after the Yanks adopted the M-16 rifle for us to adopt it and replace the FN C1/C2s, which, by that time, were twice the age of most of the soldiers.
If we have such difficulty replacing relatively cheap and simple, but very basic and very necessary, small arms in Canada, we obviously have an immense problem procuring anything costly, like, for example, a system to defeat enemy tanks and aircraft.
The current crisis in eastern Europe requires major and painful re-investment in our professional, but ludicrously SMALL armed forces. I'm not looking forward to the increase in my Taxes to pay for it, but we will be foolish not to pay up to stay in the game.
I've already vented my 'brilliant' strategy to take advantage of the US Army hating that the USAF is ditching their close-air-support jet (A10) - by buying a bunch off the USAF and promising that our NATO role will be close-air-support specialization. (If harshly pressed, we could buy, say, four of their stupid F35s, enough to keep one in the air every other day during a fight.)
Other than that, it should just be LAVs and snipers, LAVs and snipers. We're good at both, and they're a huge, highly affordable, contribution: delivering boots on the ground, the thing that most western militaries fear, wanting to win the whole war with strategic bombing that only kills as many civilians as soldiers.
Also, we should build more small, cheap ships that do mine-sweeping. We're good at that, too, and America's busted procurement system produced only the LCS ("Littoral Combat Ships") called "Little Crappy Ships" by those who have to sail them, which work very poorly, leaving America deficient at mine-sweeping.
Nobody should even comment on this issue without reading three books first:
The Pentagon Wars, Col James F. Burton, 1993, reprint 2014
The Spoils of War, Andrew Cockburn, 2019.
....both books detail how military procurement is almost indifferent to battlefield effectiveness and the fighter's survival; the top priority is funneling money to the suppliers, regardless of need for the weapon, or whether it works.
Canada in the Great Power Game 1914-2014, Gwynne Dyer, 2014.
...goes over Canada's entire military history from 1812. Save for that defense, our military has only defended other countries. Since WW2, we have really only acted to legitimize and support American military initiatives, to please our essential trading partner. Our military procurement has been distorted to buy what they most want to sell, resulting in the current pressure to buy the F35.
And all three books remind the reader that every single security crisis is used to sell the currently-pumped product, whether it has the slightest thing to do with that conflict or not. Selling fighter jets for the "War on Terror", against enemies with no air force, hit comedic levels.
A depressing albeit realistic assessment of just how poorly placed Canada is when it comes to national defence and, more particularly, the rejuvenation of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I’m especially pleased that the culprits behind this mess were properly identified (successive Liberal and Conservative governments, as well as a hidebound and often self-serving public service, and political culture itself).
Mind you, there was one culprit that you didn’t name.
Canadian voters, who simply do not pay sufficient attention to defence, foreign policy(and the corollary to both: intelligence collection and analysis).
As we all know military procurement has been virtually criminal incompetence here for decades. Everybody knows its broken but the feds don't want to fix it. Anybody in power who cares would search around for a system that does work. I've read that Australia does a much better job; so go there and find out what they do right. Or whatever country that does a good efficient job. But fix the system, and if that requires sacking a bunch of high level bureaucrats, so be it. If our vets from WW2 and Korean wars could see what we've become they would weep.
I sincerely appreciated this article but think there could have been some editing around the casual reference to "recent personnel scandals" here. Doesn't need to be "pervasive and ongoing history of sexual misdeeds directed to women" but maybe there's some middle ground in language that's more true to the scope and severity of the issues?
A truly excellent evaluation of a government failure that goes back to WW1. Canadians have to get on board as well, because the cost of this one is going to hurt. The military doesn't make money, but it sure goes through it.
Largely outside my experience and knowledge. But clearly a conversation that needs to be pushed towards the front burner of public discussion. Can the Canuck political class make logistics and procurement sexy enough to pry folks away from Netflix? The standard opposition has been about spending too much taxpayer money on nasty toys in a corrupt market place.
Might the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shift in political assumptions about global economic and military issues (the pandemic actually brought supply lines out of the financial papers and into public focus), put foreign affairs on the front burner of the next federal election? Canucks love to pretend that that's someone else's problem or at least it won't touch us. Are the flower children, or at least fantasizing consumers, waking up to reality?
I'll add that TB and especially PSPC (Pathetically Slow Procurement Canada) need to be on board too and stop trying to constantly derail everything.
Good Article. It needs to be a responsible Minister though not Ministers.
Good Article. It needs to be a responsible Minister though not Ministers.