I would like to point out that the last paper was in 1994 not 1993 (it was made in 1993, but published in 1994). I am not being a smart ass, just calrifying the actual year.
The 1994 Defence White paper retains many admirable qualties that a relevant for today and the future, but in my opinion a new white paper should be written to guide the changes that the CF should undergo. The key element of any new paper, should maintain the CF‘s "multi-purpose combat capable" element. As to what level of multi-purpose and combat-capable force should the CF maintain is the most important question.
The CF should no longer try to do everything as we currently are. I believe the CF should focus on several niche capabilities for combat operations. General conventional war (ie. WWII) is highly unlikely to occur, not that it may never occur, but the prospect in the near future is basically nil, and unlikely at best in the long term. Limited conventional wars and low intensity conflicts are highly likely to occur and in fact there are many occurring right now. Canada should seek to provide a capability to provide special niche capabilities for any type of coalition force operation/war that might occur. The financial realities of the Canadian military will never allow the CF to train properly for a general conventional war or nuclear war. Those two categories require enormous resources and indeed only the United States is likely to be able to financially fight a general conventional war. This is not a defeatist attitude, but a realistic attitude that seeks to enhance the CF, by not giving in to thetypical Canadian "we can fight in any manner, regardless of equipment limitations if we just train and/or fight hard enough and we will not suffer negative consequences" attitude.
Canada should provide a medium armoured wheeled force and forego heavy armoured forces that can not be adequately equipped or trained without a massive Canadian culture shift toward the military. I propose that the regular and reserve army be organised into eight combat brigade groups of two types. First the regualr army would field three Combat Mechanized Brigade Groups (CMBG) of approxmately 4000 soldiers utilizing the LAV III as its baseline and sole amroured vehicle with a number of supporting wheeled vehicles. Each of these brigades would be statiioned entirely at CFB Edmonton, BFC St. Hubert, and CTC Gagetown. The second type of brigade would be the Combat Light Brigade Group (CLBG) of approximatley 3000 soldiers. The regular army CLBG, stationed at CFB Petawawa, would be entirely air mobile and all tactical helicopter assets would be stationed at CFB Petawawa with the exception of the training squadron which would be stationed at Gagetown. The reserves would have four CLBGs one for LFWA, LFCA, LFQA, and LFAA. This would entail a dramatic reorganization of the militia system and a reduction in a number of regiments, particularlyin the infantry. All people who are die hard regiment proponents relax only a relatively small number of regiments would be cut. Each CLBG would have three infantry battalions of around 500+ troops divided into three companies, a combat support company, a headquarters company, and a battalion headquarters. Each infantry company would be a reserve regiment located at one or more locations in close proximity to each other, such as the GGFG and Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. In addition each company would also have one of the combat support company‘s three platoons co-located with the infantry company (it‘s company headquarters would be co-located with one of its platoons). The CLBGs would also have a brigade recce squadron mounted on HUMVEEs or similar with the .50 Cals and C-6s. The Brigade would have an artillery and combat engineer regimet (battalions), each with three companies and a headquarters company and a regiment headquarters. Also the CLBG would have a service battalion, an intellegence company, an air defence battery, and a brigade headquarters, which would be staffed by regular army personel and located at the same base as the regular army units. Regt. COs and RSMs would become
Majors and MWOs. But would operationnaly be only OCs (OICs) and CSMs. This is a basic structure of the army that I advocate, because it focuses on quality of soldiers rather than upping paper numbers and on simplifying LFC structure and reducing overhead costs.
I do have a number of specific points that I have mentioned briefly that I would like to clarify. I have said that the regular CLBG should be air mobile by helicopter and not a parachut unit, although it may maintain parachute recce platoons, for a specific reason. Para operations are effective only when able to properly support them, the CF does not and will not acquire the necessary capabilities to support an effective para operation (dropping a brigade would entail the entire CF Herc fleet and would require more to provde supplies and support). In addtion, helicopters are a battlefield necessity now whereas the mass para formation is not. As such, improving the tactical helicopter capability is far more effective. The location of all tactical helicopters at CFB Petawawa is ideal, because in the event of a national emergency the helicopters are able to Herc deploy or self-deploy to almlost anywhere in Canada in less than a day, more than acceptable. In international deployments scenarios again the the Hercs from Trento are close by. This enables the brigade to train effecitively.
The Leopard C-2s will be retained in three small training units (most will go into storage) at each of the regular army bases to provide the CF with a tank force to train against and in to retain tank knowlegde to a limited extent.
I am sure that I have left out lots of questions unanswered, but if you would like to know more of my thoughts or have questions please reply and I will do my best to respond to your questions or comments.