And I suppose that is my point - we seem to want to wring multiple missions (territorial/sovereignty defence and NATO/UN) out of a single platform.
You misunderstand what mission stands for. An air defence mission is exactly the same whether it's taking place over the Arctic or over Libya. Sure, they adjust a bit contextually. But they fly with the same tactics, same doctrine and same readiness.
This is what one fleet per mission means. Or more accurately one fleet per role, if you prefer:
Strategic airlift: C-17
Tactical airlift: C-130J-30
Fixed Wing SAR: CASA 295 (much to my chagrin....)
Rotary Wing SAR: EH-101
Utility Helicopter: Griffon
Maritime Patrol: Aurora
Tactical Fighter: CF18
Maritime Helicopter: S-92
Air to Air Refueling: Polaris
VVIP lift: Challenger
Etc. But you get the picture.... We don't plan fleets based on their theatre of operations. They are acquired based on their role in service.
For overseas deployment, I honestly don't see much of a degrade from our current position.
Like I've said repeatedly. It's not about today. It's about the life of the aircraft. Our capability will remain roughly the same, while our adversaries will get better. That reduces the margin of safety. Do you want our crews to always have an 80% chance of coming home. Or are you willing to accept 50% in 2040? That's sort of the question.
And maybe the government just doesn't really care. And they don't give a shit about what happens 20 years from now. But any staff planner has to consider the evolution of technology, geopolitics, etc. over the life of the platform when writing specs.
We haven't gone in 'day one' in my memory.
Really close on several conflicts. Libya and Kosovo come to mind. And in both cases we had operations taking place while the enemy still had active air defences. This statement is almost maddening. Canadians just don't understand how much risk our crews have taken. And because of that, they are willing to underspend on them and risk their lives even more.
If our very limited budget is to be biased in any direction, I'll vote for domestic defence everyday.
Like I said earlier we acquisitions are decided by role not the theatre of operations. A fighter that does well overseas will be just as capable at home. And it's absurd to suggest that the CAF has ever not made domestic ops its paramount priority. Every domestic line of tasking from arctic surveillance to search and rescue to counter-drug ops on the coasts, have always been defined as "no fail" missions by the service chiefs. They will assign whatever resources it takes to get the jobs done.
but any nation that wishes to call itself sovereign cannot contract out its domestic integrity.
That ship has sailed a long time ago. Ever since Canadians decided they'd be happy letting the Americans do all the heavy lifting in North America.
I'm on exchange at the moment in the US for postgrad at an American service academy. There's more US Navy colleagues here who have seen the Arctic than our Navy. The Arctic has become an absolute playground for nuclear subs between the Americans, the Russians, the French and the Brits. Even the Chinese are getting in on it.
I've had planning classes with the Americans who are now actively discussing how to deploy a career group in the Arctic (post climate change). It's actually a running joke in the classes that we claim the Arctic archipelago. I say joke, because as Canadians we mention it and the Americans just laugh us off. The know that Canada will never field what it actually takes to defend half a continent: half a dozen nuclear subs and a few aircraft carriers. And we all know that we'll need the Americans to do what we cannot and will not ever do.
Heck, I just met a assistant deputy minister a few weeks back and was discussing my postgrad with him (space systems is one of my majors). They're thinking of starting up a space unit. Meanwhile the Americans have better coverage of the Arctic with their Defence Meteorological Satellites than our entire government.
Spending time here, you start to become aware of how amazingly hypocritical our government and society is. We don't put any resources into the region that we claim is virtually foundational to our identity as a nation. Even the recently defence review doesn't change much. And this has nothing to do with the size difference between Canada and the US. If we put in the 2% of GDP that is the NATO target, we'd have 100 F-35s, and a carrier on each coast and a handful of highly capable diesel subs at minimum, a system of comms and surveillance satellites and a few armoured tank regiments to boot.
We're so far behind. That we just laugh it off now. It's 2017. We just started recruiting cyber operators. And we're standing up our first cyber unit. They think it'll take them years to achieve full operational competency. So we might have a moderate military cyberdefence capability in 2020.
The problem seems to be that the political decisions are made either in spite of the tactical advice received, or the military command is very poor at speaking truth to power.
I've sat in on ministerial briefings. I assure you that our military chain of command is very good at communicating the issues of the day. As an apolitical entity, however, they cannot speak out publicly. And in Canada, we don't have the traditions that the Americans do, for example, of dragging up generals before congressional committees. Nor for that matter do most Canadians care about our parliamentary committees. And I suspect for most Canadians, SCONDVA is probably even lower on the list of committees they'd follow.
Wanna to know what happens to senior officers who speak out? Ask Mark Norman.
My guess is that we'll fly the CF-18s until 2025. Trudeau will have just won the 2024 election, and seeing the F-35 in general service around the world, will decide to take it too.
I just don't understand why they can't have the competition. It gives them plenty of political cover. But they insist on making it hard for themselves.
