A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War

[Rheostatic]

The ambassador directing troops in the field?  Nobody could be that stupid.  Methinks that Hillier could be exagerating somewhat.  If he isn't, that is really scary.

More likely the media are exaggerating, given the tone of the articles linked above.

 

[Old Sweat]

In my opinion Hillier makes it clear in his memoirs that the idea of giving command to fall under civilian jurisdiction originated in the public service and not with the Conservatives. On page 422 he states

"As the mission in Afghanistan began heating up in 2007, various folks around Ottawa became very focused on our actions there and wanted command of Canadian Forces units on the ground to fall under civilian jurisdiction." He then calls them "field marshal wannabes" and calls their understanding of what command entailed "superficial." General Hillier ends the paragraph with "The civil service had no say in the matter [conduct of military operations]."

 

[dapaterson]

He then calls them "field marshal wannabes" and calls their understanding of what command entailed "superficial."

Hmm.  Gen Hillier stood up CANADACOM, CEFCOM, CANOSCOM and CANSOFCOM.

"Pot, this is kettle.  Black, over."

 

[bran]

Keep troops in Kandahar, ignore politicians: Hillier

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/rickhillier/article/714756--keep-troops-in-kandahar-ignore-politicians-hillier

 

[OldSolduer]

The idea of an ambassador "calling the shots" is not far fetched. If I remember correctly, the US Ambassador to Vietnam had quite a bit of say in what went on there.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The ambassador directing troops in the field?  Nobody could be that stupid.  Methinks that Hillier could be exagerating somewhat.  If he isn't, that is really scary.
...

But that's precisely what two American Presidents (Kennedy and Johnson) wanted done in Vietnam. It resulted in years and years of conflict between DOD and State, the NSC and the White House, proper, and, internally, between DOD/JCS and MAC(V). It was destructive of the (necessary) process of selecting and maintaining the AIM.

...
I think that Hillier broke the cardinal rule that the CDS should be seen and not heard.  Why he developed himself into a public figure and chose to publically spar with his political masters is an interesting question.  Not to be misunderstood, I do think that Hillier was a good general.

I think Hillier changed the cardinal rule from our politically familiar British model to a publicly more familiar American one. I may, probably do, prefer the British model, and that is likely a function of age, but faced with the realities of our steady decline in public respect during the decadess of darkness that extended, fairly steadily, from around 1965 to around 2000 I'm not sure he had any other choice. He needed the Canadian public, broadly, to get behind the CF because without that sort of public support political leaders – Pearson, Trudeau, Clark, Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin, Harper (all cut from the same cloth) – were not going to change anything.

American admirals and generals spar openly, in a very democratically healthy way, with their political masters. That model can work and those sparring sessions can educate the public and convince the public to get behind one faction or the other.

 

[HItorMiss]

Hmm.  Gen Hillier stood up CANADACOM, CEFCOM, CANOSCOM and CANSOFCOM.

"Pot, this is kettle.  Black, over."

Well at least one of them was a pretty good idea, SOF organisations should not be under the control of conventional commanders. When there was just one kid in town it was easy put them under the direct control of the VCDS and no worries. With 4 groups it requires it's own command structure IMO of course.

 

[dapaterson]

The OLD DCDS did well enough; splitting up made things worse from a C2 perspective, not better.

And while there may be a need for some distinct C2 for SOF to enable its force generation, if they are always off playing in their own sandbox conventional commanders do not learn how to properly employ them, removing some of their utility - if you don't know what they can and cannot do, you won't use them, so they can be marginalized.

The proper C2 relationship for SOF is a debate that will never end; in this context I'll just say that we only need CANSOFCOM if we need the other three commands.  As we don't need them, we don't need CANSOFCOM.

 

[Old Sweat]

It's a little off the point, but even back in the DCDS days the special operations community was a separate entity  from the rest of the CF. And that dated back to the earliest days of the capability becoming operational.

 

[HItorMiss]

Da this is really getting off topic and perhaps into new thread range however

The way around the marginalisation (as you call it ) is by posting SOF officers into command postions outside of the SOF community (as is currently the practice) that way you have CLS members and other commands who are experienced in the use a capabilities of the SOF community.

I think your argument is valid in and of itself only if you don't look at the solutions apparent. Most of our Allies have there own commands for SOF and they are doing just fine I believe the model we are following is proven and will work.

 

[Kirkhill]

While this topic is off topic I would note that Templer, the chap usually credited with solving the Malayan problem, although trained as a soldier and having achieved the rank of Field Marshal, acted in Malaya as the civilian authority.  He was appointed to the task in the role of High Commissioner - a civilian bureaucrat.

 

[Edward Campbell]

While this topic is off topic I would note that Templer, the chap usually credited with solving the Malayan problem, although trained as a soldier and having achieved the rank of Field Marshal, acted in Malaya as the civilian authority.  He was appointed to the task in the role of High Commissioner - a civilian bureaucrat.

Quite true but although the word gets tossed around, carelessly, about American commanders of unified commands (CENTCOM, etc), Templer was the modern world's only Proconsul having both military imperium and tribunician power over everything in Malaya - British and Malay, civil and military, private and public. That was why he was able to use some of his draconian measures - he had powers about which e.g. Paul Bremner must have had wet dreams.

Additionally, Templer had energy, intelligence and ability. He also had the full support of his political masters in London and the emerging political elite in Malaya.

 

[leroi]

I'm on page 170 and was up most of the night reading.

I went to a popular bookstore downtown Guelph to purchase the book (wanted it right away so didn't end up ordering it) and wanted to relate this short account of what I call "the Hillier effect":

****​

Me: "Do you have the new Rick Hillier book?"

Clerk:  points to it and comments, "Just came in ... he's an amazing guy isn't he? I give him credit for standing up to our politicians the way he did and advocating for his soldiers. Newfoundlanders are the most patriotic of all the Canadian military."

Me:  "Yup, I love the guy for standing up for what he believes in and find it quite refreshing."

Store owner (ambles over from the books he's been shelving to enter the conversation), "Yes but, don't forget, our military is not supposed to be quite so outspoken. I'm totally against this mission in Afghanistan, it's not winnable but Canadians have to learn to support the troops wherever the governments sends them and that's what I like about Hillier--but the mission itself is a waste of time."

Me (foot-in-mouth): "I agree, he really seemed to care about his subordinates and showed integrity by staring down the bureaucrats but I know professors who absolutely hate him."

(Store owner casts his eyes nervously about just as well-known university professor in browsing mode jumps into the foray, entering the conversation.)

Professor: "Hillier was not good for Canada because he tried to Americanize the Canadian military and Chiefs of Defense Staff should be seen and not heard ... we are a nation of peacekeepers ... still, (grudgingly) I give him credit for standing up for his people."

Me (embarrassed): "ahem, well, love him or hate him, the man had an effect on Canada and I daresay his book is going to sell really well."

(This bookstore is a rather busy hive of activity and by now other customers are on the periphery of the discussion which begins to evolve into questions about the end of the combat mission in Afghanistan and what Harper has in store for the Canadian military next and the following ideas are offered by different interlocutors):

-deployment to Africa
-put a combat mission in Pakistan
-Harper has no plans at all to end the combat mission in Afghanistan--his claims are jiggery-pokery and a ruse
-the Canadian military will be relegated to the back burner


By this point I'm grabbing my book and running out the door so I can hide the huge grin on my face as I contemplate the conversation and wonder how long it will continue.

****​

And I think that is part of Hillier's legacy: He created a dialogue flashpoint, he prompted Canadians to revise and to re-think their relationship to "Canada's Favorite Sons and Daughters!" 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Hilliar's last hurrah?  Hilliar sure had a lot of misunderstandings with a lot of people while seems to think he kept everything squared away.  If I were Gordon O'Connor and could have gotten away with it, I would have sacked him.

Perhaps if you ever got to the position of a person such as he, and had the remotest chance or opportunity to decide the fate of someone so much above your distinction, you'd possibly would have gained enough moxy and class to be able to, at least, spell his name properly on his pink slip.

 

[Kirkhill]

Quite true but although the word gets tossed around, carelessly, about American commanders of unified commands (CENTCOM, etc), Templer was the modern world's only Proconsul having both military imperium and tribunician power over everything in Malaya - British and Malay, civil and military, private and public. That was why he was able to use some of his draconian measures - he had powers about which e.g. Paul Bremner must have had wet dreams.

Additionally, Templer had energy, intelligence and ability. He also had the full support of his political masters in London and the emerging political elite in Malaya.

Not to nit-pick excessively but under our traditions where military authority is subordinated to civil authority any civil authority has dominion over the military authority collocated with it.  The military only assumes authority if the civil authority relinquishes it.

The difficulty for the Yanks/Us is that we don't finesse that locally by putting militarily competent individuals in civil roles and giving them Templer's RAB(Responsibility, Authority, Budget).

The Yanks, with their Madisonian "divide and conquer" ethos insist in maintaining the distinction between the military and the civil even when operating overseas.  Consequently you have State continuing to work at cross purposes with the Pentagon.  Its difficult enough to get politicians to talk to police, let alone soldiers, when they live in the same town let alone when they are independently conducting operations in different time zones.....

Aside from Optics tell me again why State operates its own private Army (CIA Ops)?  Why not "man up" and just turn the Navy Department Iincluding the USMC) over to State (they have been traditionally aligned) and had the "covert" jobs over to the Marines......Plausible deniability doesn't seem to be an issue when the CIA  leaks so much it might as well be holding seminars on its operations and methods.

The Army is, traditionally, the Nation in Arms force designed primarily for defence of the homeland - although sometimes the borders of the homeland are best defined in the other guys back yard.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

Perhaps if you ever got to the position of a person such as he, and had the remotest chance or opportunity to decide the fate of someone so much above your distinction, you'd possibly would have gained enough moxy and class to be able to, at least, spell his name properly on his pink slip.

But I spelt O'Connor right.  If I were to fire Hillier I believe it would be incumbent upon myself to mispell his name.

 

[Nemo888]

What a shock that special interest are pulling the politicians strings, who then pull our strings. The most powerful special interest to me is global capital free of moral or legal restraint. I prefer a sustainable economy that is self sufficient and uses renewable energy resources. I lived off of solar for 4 years. It was not that hard to do. I sometimes feel that the current economy runs on oil and dead soldiers.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

What??

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I sometimes feel that the current economy runs on oil and dead soldiers.

Oil - yes.  Dead soldiers - no.  The US could obtain all its oil from Canada at a fraction the cost of fighting wars.  Whatever oil they get from Iraq, they still have to pay for.  I'm not sure what Hillier had to say about it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is another bit of nonsense from Jefferey Simpson:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/battle-of-the-book-rick-hillier-and-how-we-got-into-afghanistan/article1350090/

Battle of the book: Rick Hillier and how we got into Afghanistan
Canada's next military role goes missing in action

Jeffrey Simpson

Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

Rick Hillier became popular across Canada as the straight-talking defender of the military he recently led. Now he's written A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War, a book that is predictable in many ways but leaves the interesting questions of his time as Canada's top soldier unanswered.

The book is dedicated to “Canada's sons and daughters who serve our nation in the Canadian Forces.” Nothing suggests that the former chief of the defence staff feels other than overwhelming pride in those men and women. That the autobiography is mostly about him, dedication notwithstanding, is what one would expect from an autobiography.

The general spoke up publicly for the Forces more than any of his predecessors. For this, he earned their gratitude and that of many Canadians. That the military's budget is now soaring relates, in part, to his public-relations efforts and to the re-equipment decisions of two governments, starting with that of Paul Martin.

Here is where the tale – or, rather, non-tale – of the Hillier book gets interesting. Eugene Lang, chief of staff to Bill Graham, Mr. Martin's defence minister, co-authored a book with the University of Toronto's Janice Gross Stein that reported in considerable detail how the general had argued for and planned Canada's entry into Afghanistan. Mr. Hillier's book suggests he took a secondary role in those decisions.

Politicians made the decisions, he says, an assertion that is correct in practice but that surely plays down his role in urging not just participation, but in the dangerous province of Kandahar. The Afghan mission has cost more than 130 Canadian lives and many more wounded, and run way over budget. It's turned out to be more costly in lives and treasure than anyone imagined.

Eight years on, the mission has failed to bring peace to Afghanistan. If anything, the security situation is worse, because Pakistan has become so unstable as an adjunct to the Afghan conflict.

Reading Mr. Lang and Prof. Stein, Mr. Hillier was the driving intellectual force convincing the Martin government. They describe his five-point package for Kandahar – after other countries had swiftly signed up for less turbulent parts of the country. A Kandahar commitment, they report the general as arguing, would impress the Americans and heighten the Canadian military's profile.

They write that this bold course of action was seen as making “a mark for Canada in the world.” Then they assert, ominously as events proved, that “there was comparatively little discussion about the operational challenges of southern Afghanistan, of Kandahar specifically.”

Mr. Lang and Prof. Stein's book is the best outsider's account of how Canada got into Afghanistan, although Mr. Lang was an insider for some of that time. Other officials with knowledge of the inside debates have argued that the authors didn't get everything right. They probably didn't. But no one looking for greater insight should turn to Mr. Hillier's book.

Readers will know what he dislikes: NATO, the United Nations, most civil servants and the Chrétien government (“a decade of darkness”). And what he likes: the U.S. military and those who serve in the Canadian armed forces.

Missing in action are serious reflections on what the Afghan mission was all about apart from killing some “scumbags,” how Canada got there and his own role, which, if Mr. Lang and Prof. Stein are to be believed, was a good deal more decisive than the general suggests in his book.

Missing, too, are any serious reflections on what a better-equipped but still small Canadian military should do in today's world. If NATO is, as Mr. Hillier says, a “corpse, decomposing,” then presumably we should not get militarily involved through that organization. The UN is also apparently next to useless, as his account of the Balkan conflict suggests.

So if Canada can't or shouldn't work with NATO or the UN, that leaves the U.S. military and, of course, independent solo missions of unspecified kinds.

The world has failing states, counterinsurgencies and genuine terror threats to Canada and its allies. It has one superpower deeply overextended financially, with a superb military that got mired in Iraq and now can't find a way forward in Afghanistan.

The Canadian military needed its pride restored and kit upgraded, for which Mr. Hillier deserves credit. The question of what to do now, given Afghanistan's lessons, would have been worth exploring.

Here’s why Simpson is spouting nonsense:

• Rick Hillier has a big brain and a Big personality and a BIG ego to go with them;

• That makes him about average in Ottawa;

• All the key players at the tables – Martin, Graham, McCallum and Himmelfarb have bigger brains and equally big or even larger egos;

• Hillier’s personality was a huge plus inside the CF, it actually was a negative in the rest of official Ottawa where it was perceived to be a threat to the established order of things;

• At the top table, where the decisions were being made, Rick Hillier was guest, not one of the ‘regulars;’

• It is almost certainly true that Hillier ”was the driving intellectual force convincing the Martin government” that Canada needed to do something big, bold and valuable to rescue our military reputation and to give effect to Paul Martin’s vision, as he articulated it in his Foreward to “A Role of Pride and Influence in the World.” But that was, still is, because the top levels of the bureaucracy in PCO, DFAIT and DND – where strategy is supposed to be developed – were almost totally devoid of visions. All the vision there, at the top of government, resided in Finance; thus

• It is impossible to believe that this is ’Hillier’s War’ as so many in the Toronto commentariat would have us believe. It is Chrétiens’ War and Martin’s War and, indeed, even Harper’s War or McCallum’s War or Graham’s war or MacKay’s War but it is not Hillier’s War.

Simpson goes father off his track when he says, ”if Canada can't or shouldn't work with NATO or the UN, that leaves the U.S. military and ... independent solo missions of unspecified kinds.” That, too, is nonsense. Coalitions, supported by (mainly) the US, is the new order of the day. NATO has provided a solid framework of standardization upon which any coalition can build and NATO might still provide a sort of official fig leaf behind which the UNSC can protect its diplomatic modesty, but all we need is:

1. A UNSC mandate;

2. A coalition coordinator – which might even be Canada;

3. A coalition ‘leader’ – which, for now, will most likely be the USA but could be e.g. France, India or Britain or even <gasp> China depending on the theatre and the politics therein; and

4. A fairly small combined and joint staff team to plan (quickly), coordinate and control the deployment and operations of the coalition force.

Simpson is right that Hillier has ‘failed’ to predict where we are headed next. Once again: not Hillier’s job, that’s why we elect and hire all those big brains and bigger egos in Ottawa.