Is it time to disband the Canadian Armed Forces?

[a_majoor]

Well at least someone is finally taking some action on operating in a very changed environment. This is the sort of discussion that needs to take place in Ottawa as well, WRT how our military and security forces need to be configured and operate:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/10/15/army-rolls-out-operating-concept-emphasizing-threats-like-isis.html

Army Rolls Out Operating Concept Emphasizing Threats Like ISIS, Ebola

Oct 15, 2014|by Kris Osborn

The U.S. Army is rethinking how it's formed and how it operates, placing more focus on unconventional threats like Ebola and non-state actors like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) versus conventional large-scale armies.

Army generals have rolled out the 2014 Army Operating Concept this week at the Army's largest annual convention hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army at Washington D.C. The document calls on the service to strengthen its focus on information warfare, psychological operations, and politics in order to more successfully adapt to today's threats.

While the Army has been focusing on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism for quite some time, the new concept challenges the service to think more broadly about different faces of conflict.

"Do we not owe the American people to be as good as our adversaries at this form of warfare when our interests are at stake? We're transitioning from an industrial-age Army – to an Army that is agile and retooling itself as we speak to take on some of the nation's most significant problems," said Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

He added that the Army needs to be able to prevent and win conflicts without having to deploy and use its "iron mountain" of weapons, troops and equipment. While the Army can't completely discount conventional operations, it must operate on quickly changing battlefields that some soldiers might not immediately recognize.

"We can think differently about enemy organizations. Our enemies operate on multiple battlefields. Our Army cannot just function on a physical battlefield," said Lt. Gen. Herbert McMaster, Deputy Commanding General, Army Capabilities Integration Center, TRADOC.

In particular, there is a political and informational element to successful counterinsurgency, Army leaders explained.

As a result, the new Operating Concept calls upon an approach which recognizes the need to engage in political warfare and counter information.

"We have to begin to understand interests of the various groups and understand how to exert influence through cooperative means, persuasive means and ultimately through coercive means," McMaster added. 

This strategy requires that the Army recognize the dimensions of today's global information age, build more alliances and work more aggressively on informational, political and cultural techniques to thwart enemies.

"There are over 7 billion people in the interconnected world that we live on. This requires that you have some form of persistent influences. We need to in a proactive preemptive way build those lash ups with those like-minded militaries so that we're ready when we have to deal with groups like ISIS," Cleveland said.

Cleveland, McMaster and defense analyst Max Boot emphasized the need to understand the local political and cultural dynamics of strategically vital parts of the world where the Army is likely to operate.

Boot, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, pointed out how terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, the Islamic State, and the Iranian Quds Force use social media and information campaigns to indoctrinate and recruit followers.

Defeating groups such as this requires countering the disinformation campaign, working to win over local population and helping to establish credible and enduring government institutions in order to reduce the leverage or hold terrorist groups try to claim over local populations, Boot explained.

He said the U.S. military, along with its government partners, should become much more adept at political warfare.

"We need to figure out the insidious political hold terrorist organization have over populations and empower moderate organizations to wage political warfare. Political warfare can be much more decisive than kinetic warfare," Boot said.

Along these lines, Boot argued that the U.S. government would be well served to better emphasize nation-building in strategically vital parts of the world in order

"If we don't have nation-states down range able to create order – that creates gaps that give rise to groups like ISIS," Boot argued. "We have to focus on governance. We are never going to win the long war against Islamic extremists unless we focus on this."

 

[Kirkhill]

The politicians do indeed have to get involved with this unconventional warfare.  They will have to adjust to different comfort levels on when they are willing to authorize counter measures.

I have made repeated reference to a closing remark by a retiring member of the SAS in his book Ghost Force.  After having been involved in Malaysia, the Radfan, the Iranian Embassy and a number of other operations he felt that the day of the SAS as he knew was coming to a close.  It's place would be taken by people in business suits with credit cards.  Everything they needed to sabotage an economy, assassinate the inconvenient, foment an insurrection could be bought in country.  The technicalities of the tools and the toys were immaterial.

 

[George Wallace]

The politicians do indeed have to get involved with this unconventional warfare.  They will have to adjust to different comfort levels on when they are willing to authorize counter measures.

I have made repeated reference to a closing remark by a retiring member of the SAS in his book Ghost Force.  After having been involved in Malaysia, the Radfan, the Iranian Embassy and a number of other operations he felt that the day of the SAS as he knew was coming to a close.  It's place would be taken by people in business suits with credit cards.  Everything they needed to sabotage an economy, assassinate the inconvenient, foment an insurrection could be bought in country.  The technicalities of the tools and the toys were immaterial.

I disagree.  That is a totally different type of warfare, fought on a different "battlefield", concurrent with other operations that are "more physical".  Unconventional warfare will still need the SOF soldiers to physically go in and kill enemy combatants.  Someone in a suit, with a credit card, is not going to stop the progress of ISIS/ISIL or any future terrorist or insurgent group.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I disagree.  That is a totally different type of warfare, fought on a different "battlefield", concurrent with other operations that are "more physical".  Unconventional warfare will still need the SOF soldiers to physically go in and kill enemy combatants.  Someone in a suit, with a credit card, is not going to stop the progress of ISIS/ISIL or any future terrorist or insurgent group.

Even the 'physical' (wet) work can be contracted ... especially against groups of 'combatants' like IS**.

 

[Kirkhill]

I think what the author was getting at was that the SAS he knew was not so much a reactive force as a creative force.  It was deployed to make things happen and to dislodge logjams.  They were quietly working away outside of the media glare. 

Once the guns started to shoot they were reduced to conducting operations much like any other soldier.  In part that is why the UK SF Group has expanded so much, why the Para's 1st Bn has become a Reaction Group, and why the Brits hold onto their light infantry capabilities.  That is all due to the need for rapidly deployable reaction forces.

Ken Connor, the author, specifically references a Gambian operation - summarized below.

Special Air Service (SAS) - Gambia Hostage Rescue

Share: Share on Tumblr share by email
It's testament to the faith that the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, had in the Special Air Service that when, in the early 80s, a crisis erupted in Africa, just 2 SAS men were sent in to help reverse a coup and rescue the family of a President.

Background:

Dateline : August 1981
When the President of The Gambia, Sir Dawda Jawara, came over to England to attended the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, Left-wing rebels back home took advantage of his absence and launched a coup d'etat against his government. The rebels had captured the capital, Banjul, taking over its radio station and airport. In addition, rebel forces took the President's wife, Lady Jawara, and family hostage. Of further concern to the British, were a large number of British citizens who had been caught up in the escalating violence and lawlessness that had taken over the capital.

Jawara headed back to Africa to try an reclaim power, but not before asking the British government for assistance.

The SAS Go In

2 SAS men, one a Major, one a Seargent, where assigned the task of entering The Gambia and running a low key operation to help reinstate Jawara's government and secure the safety of the President's family and any British citizens.

SAS in Gambia
A BBC film crew caught a brief glimpse of one of the SAS team in a Gambian armoury following the coup.
The 2 SAS men, dressed in civilian clothes and armed with MP5s and Browning 9mm pistols, and hand grenades were flown covertly into Senegal, the former French colony that neighboured The Gambia, their weapons secreted in Diplomatic bags. Crossing the border into the The Gambia, the SAS men linked up with Clive Lee, an ex-SAS Major who was working for the Gambians. The 3 Britons then joined forces with Senegalese Paratroopers who had been drafted in to quash the coup. Within short order, small groups of rebels were being captured and handed over to the Senegalese troops who seemed as mystified as to who was doing it as the rebels themselves. Quickly the tide had turned, the Radio station and Airport soon fell, and the Rebels' grip on the capital was loosening.

Moving on to their other objective, the safety of Lady Jawara, the SAS men learned that, due to illness, she and her 5 children had been moved to a British-run hospital where she was under armed guard. The SAS made contact with some of the medical staff and convinced them to help resolve the situation without bloodshed. The doctors were able to draw out the hostage's treatment, keeping them in the lightly-guarded clinic whilst the SAS could arrange for a rescue bid. The resourceful doctors were also able to convince the guards inside to leave their weapons out of reach, claiming they were frightening the patients.

Posing as medical staff, the SAS were able to disarm the Rebels guarding the hospital entrance and make their way inside. Inside, the unarmed rebels guarding the hostages were easily overcome and soon the Lady Jawara and her family were escorted to safety.

As the Senegalese forces routed the remaining Rebels, the SAS stuck around only long enough to ensure that no British citizens needed assistance, before quietly flying back to Britain.

The Gambian operation had proven that a couple of well-trained special forces troops could covertly affect the fate of an entire nation.

« SAS operations

http://www.eliteukforces.info/special-air-service/sas-operations/gambia-hostage-rescue/

When things get noisy you do have to send in conventional troops. Agreed.

But how do you counter men with credit cards and polite green men, as in Ukraine?  Openly or covertly?

 

[GR66]

I disagree.  That is a totally different type of warfare, fought on a different "battlefield", concurrent with other operations that are "more physical".  Unconventional warfare will still need the SOF soldiers to physically go in and kill enemy combatants.  Someone in a suit, with a credit card, is not going to stop the progress of ISIS/ISIL or any future terrorist or insurgent group.

I think that some would suggest that if there was a political willingness to unleash these "men in business suits" earlier and with less restraint then the threats could be eliminated before they got to the point that more blunt (and much more expensive) conventional military forces are required like we're seeing now against IS**.  There certainly are historical precedents for this...the Iranian coup that toppled Mosaddeq in 1953 (and the counter-coup by Khomeini in 1979 as a win by the other side) for example.

I personally don't think we usually understand the underlying politics enough to make this our only (or primary) form of combat however.  We have and will continue to make big boo-boos in our political decisions that will result in the requirement to make use of more conventional military forces to solve some problems.  I do however think we are stuck pretty far on the "Conventional" end of the military spectrum in our thinking, organization and application of power.  Staying stuck in this rut I think is every bit as dangerous to our military capability as allowing our equipment to rust out.

Moderators:  I'm not sure if a split from this thread might be appropriate.  The original thought project was to ask if it's time to DISBAND the CF.  I think numerous posters have given some pretty solid arguments showing that such an action is not impossible or totally without precedent.  I think continued discussion about the changes to other departments and organizations that would be required to fill in many of the gaps created as well as discussion of what Canada would lose by giving up a conventional military are worth continuing.  However, I think other posters are more discussing keeping the CF but making fundamental and radical changes to the size and structure and employment of our military.  Both fascinating discussions but apples and oranges.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just as another historical footnote - Dragoons were raised for policing the countryside before Police Forces were raised.  Police forces were raised only after society became polite enough to permit unarmed nightwatchmen to be effective*.

The RCMP, curiously, is a regiment of dragoons.  The area between Policing and Dragooning is becoming increasingly grey as the criminals again become less polite.  But that way leads to the Standing Army that all good Englishmen, whether they reside in Scotland, Canada or the US, abhor.

The need for an army of heavy forces, to break up the other guys dragoons when they come for us, continues. That force is epitomized by the US war machine.  A heavy weight that drops fast and destroys utterly but takes time to remuster and can't be sustained.

*Interestingly the Glasgow Police lay claim to the title of the world's oldest modern police force (the Met no longer challenges this) having been in business since 1779.  Which just goes to show you what happens when you treat criminals politely. In Canadian terms you have to start a registry for hammers, steel toed boots and razor lined caps.

Edit note: suffering from Prudori's Disease.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Back on main topic: ls it time to disband the Canadian Armed Forces. well, the answer has always been quite clearly no, although many suggested alternatives are afoot, nothing really replaces today in short order what we currently have to work with. Notwithstanding that, after this weeks events and in particular the speech last night by PM Harper "There will be no safe haven for savages ..."  He needs to pay up, or shut up. Sorry to be so frank, but damned good men have died, more will surely die before this is over.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Edit note: suffering from Prudori's Disease.

Funny guy .....  ;D

 

[Edward Campbell]

Back on main topic: ls it time to disband the Canadian Armed Forces. well, the answer has always been quite clearly no, although many suggested alternatives are afoot, nothing really replaces today in short order what we currently have to work with. Notwithstanding that, after this weeks events and in particular the speech last night by PM Harper "There will be no safe haven for savages ..."  He needs to pay up, or shut up. Sorry to be so frank, but damned good men have died, more will surely die before this is over.

I quite agree, on both counts ... those of us who are Conservative Party members need to keep reminding the PM that we need effective, combat capable and efficient armed forces. To me that means both a) more money, soon; and b) amongst other things, a less bloated C2 superstructure.

I keep saying to him that "The CF needs a new paint job: less gold (admirals and generals) and more grey and green (ships, planes, guns and soldiers)."

 

[daftandbarmy]

"Every country has an army on its soil; either its own, or someone else’s". Konrad Adenauer


http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/05/27/military-spending-need-not-be-ruinous-to-the-economy