The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Looking ahead to what 2022 means for the Canadian Armed Forces
We are now into a brand New Year and despite the fact that it is simply another entry on our calendars, hope springs eternal that this annual marker will be a harbinger of a brighter future.
It is also always a milestone wherein we pause to reflect on the recent past and plot out a new set of resolutions with every intention of, this time, keeping them.
The Canadian Armed Forces are starting out 2022 with newly minted Minister of National Defence Anita Anand, and I think it is a safe bet to say that as an organization they are collectively eager to consign the sexual misconduct scandals of 2021 to the dustbin of history.
Looking forward, there is ever increasing sabre rattling with Russia over the Ukraine. As international tensions mount and the political brinksmanship intensifies, Canadians should be reminded that we presently have a forward deployed battle group of about 650 soldiers based in Latvia. Were hostilities to erupt in eastern Ukraine with a Russian military incursion and NATO in turn vowing intervention, the Latvian based battle group would be placed in danger of being engulfed in an escalation of conventional warfare.
However, as Russia possesses a hefty nuclear arsenal and have threatened to employ it if cornered, one has to believe that calmer heads must soon prevail.
What this pandemic period has illustrated to Canadians is that there are different domestic threats to our citizens that have proven far more real than foreign military forces potentially redrawing the map of Europe. The CAF’S quick response to assist in civilian long term care facilities during the early phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, the RCAF’S international repatriation flights for stranded travelers, and military assistance in the wake of climatechange natural disasters in western Canada were all immensely popular with the Canadian public.
That was the face of the Canadian military of which the average citizen could take note and thereby appreciate those selfless services provided by our men and women in uniform. Unfortunately, this crisis also served to illustrate that the CAF has very limited resources dedicated to such domestic relief operations. The medical personnel in uniform are in theory sufficient in numbers to administer care to fellow service members with a slight emergency surge capacity.
As for deploying combat troops to flood zones or forest fires, the optics of having them drive around in Light Armoured Vehicles may put a very military imprint on published images but the truth be told there are far more capable civilian logistics vehicles that are not coated in armour.
As we (hopefully) begin to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us from a public health perspective, the pressure will soon mount on the Trudeau minority government to start reigning in the burgeoning debt load that this two year economic implosion has created. With inflation spiraling and threatening to boost bank interest rates, those hundreds of billions of dollars which the federal government borrowed to cover the price tag of dealing with COVID will now suddenly become very costly to manage.
I think this inevitable future budget belt tightening by the federal government could lead to a healthy public debate about where Canadian citizens want to see their tax dollars spent when it comes to the defence of this nation.
For instance, the Russian air force utilizes its massive Antonov strategic airlift planes to fight forest fires. In such a mission, the aircraft are equipped to carry and drop fire retardant. The RCAF presently has five C-17 strategic airlift planes yet none of them were converted for such a dual purpose use.
I think that moving forward, future Canadian defence policies and procurements need to be based upon a wider range of threats than simply military threats. We cannot afford to not do so.