We’re at war again. Or perhaps a better way to put it is we are still at war.
Parliament has approved a one-year extension of our military action against ISIS in Iraq, and extended operations to include Syria as well.
A friend emailed this to me as part of an ongoing debate: “1939-45 saw us declare war and create a total war economy with rationing until the Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese imperialism were crushed. 2015 sees us extending military contributions. War is not technically declared, we have no intention of creating a similar economy in order to destroy Islamism in general and ISIS in particular. So I fail to see why you make the comparison as we have no will to go all out. We're hoping air strikes are enough and that the Syrians and Iraqis finish the job.”
He’s right on pretty much all points here, as is Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair on almost all his debating points. Where is the end game here? Where is the exit strategy?
My earlier point to my friend had been, “We are there because direct threats have been made against Canada, and TWO direct attacks have been made in their name. As for exit strategy, did we know on Sept. 11, 1939 what the exit strategy was? Because if you don’t remember, we declared war on Germany on Sept. 10, 1939.”
Over the past few days I finally got around to reading a book that had been on my shelf for years. It was the autobiography of General Rick Hillier, Canada’s top general and Chief of Defence Staff from February 2005 to July 2008, right when things got really nasty in our Afghanistan campaign. Along the way he had also been the general commanding NATO’s ISAF in Kabul, our Bosnian contribution, the response to the Winnipeg flood of 1997 and the ice storm of 1998. It is no exaggeration to say he has been considered Canada’s most significant and influential general since the Second World War. Prime Minister Harper offered to extend his term as CDS from the usual three years to as many as six, but he declined.
His book is called A Soldier First – Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War. It was published in 2009, and reading it now in 2015, with the benefit of a further six years, provides an interesting perspective on some of the issues then, and that are still unresolved today.
When he was first appointed he made clear to then-Prime Minister Paul Martin that the military needed to be transformed, and it needed several crucial procurement programs to be carried through immediately. Several, like heavy lift helicopters (Chinooks), tactical airlift airplanes (Hercules), he got. I’m not sure about new trucks for the army. But the supply ships for the navy, search and rescue airplanes for the air force, which in 2005 he told Martin “could be put off no longer,” still have not materialized a decade later.
One item that got tacked on by the new Conservative government was C-17 heavy airlift planes. It’s interesting to note how the impetus of war and a cabinet minister’s pet project can speed some things up. “We got cabinet approval, negotiated and signed the contracts and had the first one delivered in August 2007, less than eight months after we had signed the first contract.”
Similarly, new tanks, artillery pieces and mine-resistant vehicles also found their way to Afghanistan eventually.
Hillier made the point that military has changed, and the nation finally recognized we do actually support our troops. However, since then, I would say the action on behalf of the government on many other fronts is still very much stalled. With Canada now in yet another engagement overseas, albeit on a minimal basis, we have a military that is facing rust-out on numerous fronts. Our navy is losing capability by the day. We still don’t have those supply ships. We’re bombing Iraq and Syria with CF-18s that were procured 30 years ago and will need replacement very soon, yet we haven’t decided with what.
Also note: we’ve deployed only half a squadron to the ISIS fight. That’s about all we are capable of mustering these days. Out of an initial force of 138 CF-18s procured in the 1980s, reduced to 80 upgraded planes in the 2000s, all we could send (or chose to send) to Iraq was six. Our previously planned purchase of 65 F-35s would likely mean the most fighter bombers we could ever deploy, anywhere, is a half-dozen planes.
Much of Hillier’s book talked about surviving the “Decade of Darkness” the Canadian Armed Forces endured during the 1990s due to budget cuts and a lack of leadership in Ottawa. Now, with another war picking up steam, it appears we are entering yet another decade of darkness.
As my friend intoned earlier, we seem to be lacking direction and clear purpose in Syria and Iraq, and I would add we’re doing it with a once-again depleted military. This time instead of taking a worn-out army into combat, we’re doing the same with our air force.
So we’re marching off to war, yet again, and have no clue where it’s going to take us, and no gumption to actually step up to the plate in a meaningful way.
You don’t cut military spending when you go to war. If we’re going to put people’s lives on the line, let’s back them properly.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
