A new United States military strategy paints a bleak picture of a world threatened by China, Iran, and Al Qaeda and kept stable through the use of armed drones, stealth bombers, missile defence systems, cyber warfare, surveillance—and global policing increasingly shouldered by stalwart allies such as Canada.
The question now is: will Canada embrace that vision?
US President Barack Obama said he was "turning the page on a decade of war" as he revealed a new US defence document, Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities For 21st Century Defense, on Jan. 5, making it clear that US-led interventionism was being downplayed in favour of a more conventional posture that will lean heavily on allies.
"Meeting the challenges of our time cannot be the work of our military alone—or the United States alone. It requires all elements of our national power, working together in concert with our allies and our partners," he said at the Pentagon.
Analysts say the document will reverberate throughout the Canadian Forces, presenting multiple ways forward on military strategy, procurement priorities, and how the military recruits and structures itself. It will all depend on how the Harper government decides to respond.
Budget cuts
The document was born out of a need to reshape the US military machine after being in Afghanistan and Iraq for a decade. It responds to Bush-era military strategy by making several historic shifts in how operations are carried out.
But it also stems from a need to respond to mandated reductions in defence spending that were passed by the US Congress last year. Those reductions could carve hundreds of billions of dollars out of the Pentagon's $700-billion annual budget, depending on Congress and Mr. Obama's new defence review.
The document is also an affirmation of the Pentagon's suspicions of a rising China. It says the US "will of necessity re-balance toward the Asia-Pacific region," and the US plans to emphasize its relationships with Asian allies like India and to protect stability in the Korean peninsula.
One major shift is that the US is no longer planning on being able to fight and win two independent wars at once in two different regions—a cornerstone of US strategy since the 1960s. Instead, the US now says it will be capable of committing to a large-scale operation in one region, while containing the threat in another region.
As well, as US forces shrink in specific counter-terrorism battlegrounds like Afghanistan, they will become more thinly spread, targeting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries.
Christian Leuprecht, associate professor in the department of political science and economics at the Royal Military College of Canada, argues that the document means Canada—if it intends to participate in more operations with the US in the future—will have to field more of the capabilities and costs traditionally carried by the US.
"I think there's a very clear signal to [US] allies...the United States has been doing a disproportionate amount of the heavy lifting on international security and international stability since the end of World War II, and the United States is no longer prepared to do that," he said.
Tim Dunne, a former Canadian military public affairs officer who writes on defence issues, also said he felt the document represented increased military obligations for Canada if it intends to participate in future missions with the US.
"I think down the road you will see that there will have to be greater co-operation towards burden-sharing for mission resources," said Mr. Dunne, who is also president of Communications Consultants Inc.
If the government chooses to embrace the new US way forward, this could have immediate overlap with Canada's Navy and Air Force, said Philippe Lagassé, an assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa who focuses on defence.
The government announced a $35 billion shipbuilding strategy in October, and promised to spend at least $15 billion on 65 F-35 fighter jets in July 2010.
"This type of document is a blessing for the Navy, because this fits exactly with their new strategy document that they've been waiting for ministerial approval to release," he said.
"It [also] certainly fits with what the Air Force has been saying with the need to maintain certain types of capabilities."
Although the US is planning on delaying its own purchases of F-35s, it is also developing military strategies to use allied F-35s in Asia-Pacific combat, according to a report in the New York Times.
If the Canadian government goes with this option, there will also be domino effect for military recruitment and how the military is made up, said Mr. Leuprecht. It will mean army spending will shrink, while the composition of the Canadian Forces will shift to fielding an increased Navy presence and air capability.
It will also mean focusing recruiting on more skilled, technical positions for those vessels, he said.
Not everyone thinks Canada should go that route. Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, argued Canada's efforts to "try and plug a hole" for the US in Afghanistan meant that Canada got burned, with the mission costing billions of dollars and killing 158 Canadians—not to mention allegations of Afghan detainee torture.
That is a road that Canada should not go down again, he said.
"I'm really nervous about increased pressure on Canada to try and go in and clean up a mess from a retracting or a refocused US military. I think a real danger is if we try and pick up where the US left off. Our interests are not the same as the United States," he said.
Instead, he said the Canada First Defence Strategy, Canada's military procurement wish list, should be revisited in light of the new US document.
"If the US is looking at its military strategy, wouldn't this be a good time for Canada to do the same thing?" he argued.
New techniques ahead
Another area where Canada will have to decide whether to reorient is in a set of military techniques called counter-insurgency, referred to in military circles as COIN. While it has become increasingly popular over the past decade in both Canadian and US military circles, it is now downplayed in the new US document.
COIN is the theory that a conventional military can subdue an insurgency that has risen up against its foreign operations by employing not only force, but by building up the local police, national military and economy, as well as engaging on friendly terms with locals and living among them. It also often calls for nation-building exercises like public works projects or governance reform.
The key to COIN is perceiving the fight against insurgents as a campaign to win the 'hearts and minds' of the local populace, a refrain frequently on the lips of pundits over the last decade.
The bloody attacks in 2004 and 2005 against Western forces that had invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, argued Mr. Lagassé, solidified the idea of COIN in many defence strategists. General David Petraeus, then a US major general, gained a worldwide reputation when the counter-insurgency techniques his division used in Mosul, Iraq were widely seen at the time as effective.
As Gen. Petraeus, now director of the CIA, was steadily promoted to oversee all US forces in Iraq, then all US forces in the region, and finally to be commander of US forces in Afghanistan, the COIN theory spread.
In the last few years, Canada has embraced it too. Canada developed a COIN manual in 2009, written by now-retired Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who was then head of the army. General Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of the defence staff, also embraced COIN shortly after the manual was released, describing the "civilian surge" he felt was necessary to win Afghan local support. That November, Lt.-Gen Leslie was suggesting counter-insurgency was "right in the centre of our spectrum of capabilities we're going to train for."
But the new US defence paper "goes back to a longstanding US practice of disavowing prolonged interventions that you saw in the aftermath of Vietnam," said Mr. Lagassé.
The document says the US military will "reduce the demand for significant US force commitments to stability operations" such as the COIN projects seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, counter-insurgency has been pushed down to the 9th-listed US armed forces priority.
In other words, it is "the end of long-term nation-building with large military footprints," as Mr. Obama said on Jan. 5.
Mr. Staples argued that this was a signal that Canada should craft its military doctrine more with a multilateral bent, embracing institutions like the United Nations.
"The UN is ideally suited for that kind of thing. Maybe we should be refocusing our efforts on supporting the UN and multilateral efforts, rather than doing big Afghanistan-like campaigns and Libya-like campaigns," he said.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office said he was so far not planning on crafting a response to the US document.
Original Article
Source: Embassy
The question now is: will Canada embrace that vision?
US President Barack Obama said he was "turning the page on a decade of war" as he revealed a new US defence document, Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities For 21st Century Defense, on Jan. 5, making it clear that US-led interventionism was being downplayed in favour of a more conventional posture that will lean heavily on allies.
"Meeting the challenges of our time cannot be the work of our military alone—or the United States alone. It requires all elements of our national power, working together in concert with our allies and our partners," he said at the Pentagon.
Analysts say the document will reverberate throughout the Canadian Forces, presenting multiple ways forward on military strategy, procurement priorities, and how the military recruits and structures itself. It will all depend on how the Harper government decides to respond.
Budget cuts
The document was born out of a need to reshape the US military machine after being in Afghanistan and Iraq for a decade. It responds to Bush-era military strategy by making several historic shifts in how operations are carried out.
But it also stems from a need to respond to mandated reductions in defence spending that were passed by the US Congress last year. Those reductions could carve hundreds of billions of dollars out of the Pentagon's $700-billion annual budget, depending on Congress and Mr. Obama's new defence review.
The document is also an affirmation of the Pentagon's suspicions of a rising China. It says the US "will of necessity re-balance toward the Asia-Pacific region," and the US plans to emphasize its relationships with Asian allies like India and to protect stability in the Korean peninsula.
One major shift is that the US is no longer planning on being able to fight and win two independent wars at once in two different regions—a cornerstone of US strategy since the 1960s. Instead, the US now says it will be capable of committing to a large-scale operation in one region, while containing the threat in another region.
As well, as US forces shrink in specific counter-terrorism battlegrounds like Afghanistan, they will become more thinly spread, targeting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries.
Christian Leuprecht, associate professor in the department of political science and economics at the Royal Military College of Canada, argues that the document means Canada—if it intends to participate in more operations with the US in the future—will have to field more of the capabilities and costs traditionally carried by the US.
"I think there's a very clear signal to [US] allies...the United States has been doing a disproportionate amount of the heavy lifting on international security and international stability since the end of World War II, and the United States is no longer prepared to do that," he said.
Tim Dunne, a former Canadian military public affairs officer who writes on defence issues, also said he felt the document represented increased military obligations for Canada if it intends to participate in future missions with the US.
"I think down the road you will see that there will have to be greater co-operation towards burden-sharing for mission resources," said Mr. Dunne, who is also president of Communications Consultants Inc.
If the government chooses to embrace the new US way forward, this could have immediate overlap with Canada's Navy and Air Force, said Philippe Lagassé, an assistant professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa who focuses on defence.
The government announced a $35 billion shipbuilding strategy in October, and promised to spend at least $15 billion on 65 F-35 fighter jets in July 2010.
"This type of document is a blessing for the Navy, because this fits exactly with their new strategy document that they've been waiting for ministerial approval to release," he said.
"It [also] certainly fits with what the Air Force has been saying with the need to maintain certain types of capabilities."
Although the US is planning on delaying its own purchases of F-35s, it is also developing military strategies to use allied F-35s in Asia-Pacific combat, according to a report in the New York Times.
If the Canadian government goes with this option, there will also be domino effect for military recruitment and how the military is made up, said Mr. Leuprecht. It will mean army spending will shrink, while the composition of the Canadian Forces will shift to fielding an increased Navy presence and air capability.
It will also mean focusing recruiting on more skilled, technical positions for those vessels, he said.
Not everyone thinks Canada should go that route. Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, argued Canada's efforts to "try and plug a hole" for the US in Afghanistan meant that Canada got burned, with the mission costing billions of dollars and killing 158 Canadians—not to mention allegations of Afghan detainee torture.
That is a road that Canada should not go down again, he said.
"I'm really nervous about increased pressure on Canada to try and go in and clean up a mess from a retracting or a refocused US military. I think a real danger is if we try and pick up where the US left off. Our interests are not the same as the United States," he said.
Instead, he said the Canada First Defence Strategy, Canada's military procurement wish list, should be revisited in light of the new US document.
"If the US is looking at its military strategy, wouldn't this be a good time for Canada to do the same thing?" he argued.
New techniques ahead
Another area where Canada will have to decide whether to reorient is in a set of military techniques called counter-insurgency, referred to in military circles as COIN. While it has become increasingly popular over the past decade in both Canadian and US military circles, it is now downplayed in the new US document.
COIN is the theory that a conventional military can subdue an insurgency that has risen up against its foreign operations by employing not only force, but by building up the local police, national military and economy, as well as engaging on friendly terms with locals and living among them. It also often calls for nation-building exercises like public works projects or governance reform.
The key to COIN is perceiving the fight against insurgents as a campaign to win the 'hearts and minds' of the local populace, a refrain frequently on the lips of pundits over the last decade.
The bloody attacks in 2004 and 2005 against Western forces that had invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, argued Mr. Lagassé, solidified the idea of COIN in many defence strategists. General David Petraeus, then a US major general, gained a worldwide reputation when the counter-insurgency techniques his division used in Mosul, Iraq were widely seen at the time as effective.
As Gen. Petraeus, now director of the CIA, was steadily promoted to oversee all US forces in Iraq, then all US forces in the region, and finally to be commander of US forces in Afghanistan, the COIN theory spread.
In the last few years, Canada has embraced it too. Canada developed a COIN manual in 2009, written by now-retired Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who was then head of the army. General Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of the defence staff, also embraced COIN shortly after the manual was released, describing the "civilian surge" he felt was necessary to win Afghan local support. That November, Lt.-Gen Leslie was suggesting counter-insurgency was "right in the centre of our spectrum of capabilities we're going to train for."
But the new US defence paper "goes back to a longstanding US practice of disavowing prolonged interventions that you saw in the aftermath of Vietnam," said Mr. Lagassé.
The document says the US military will "reduce the demand for significant US force commitments to stability operations" such as the COIN projects seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, counter-insurgency has been pushed down to the 9th-listed US armed forces priority.
In other words, it is "the end of long-term nation-building with large military footprints," as Mr. Obama said on Jan. 5.
Mr. Staples argued that this was a signal that Canada should craft its military doctrine more with a multilateral bent, embracing institutions like the United Nations.
"The UN is ideally suited for that kind of thing. Maybe we should be refocusing our efforts on supporting the UN and multilateral efforts, rather than doing big Afghanistan-like campaigns and Libya-like campaigns," he said.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office said he was so far not planning on crafting a response to the US document.
Original Article
Source: Embassy
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