King
24 September 2001, 03:39
Don't know how many of you have read this.
Amen to the peaceable kingdom
Peter C. Newman
National Post
"Peace is brief, as fragile and transitory as apple blossoms in the spring." --Barbara Tuchman
With the world drifting toward war, I am haunted by the toast proposed a few years ago by a Canadian naval officer in a ship's wardroom in Halifax. "We attack at dawn!" he exulted. "Why dawn?" asked one of his buddies, suspecting that he was being set up as the straight man. "That way," was the triumphant reply," if things don't work out, we haven't wasted the whole day."
That is not a fair representation of how our armed forces think or act, but it does catch the frustration they feel about having to defend their country with pathetically inadequate means. Never more so than this week, as the outlines of the West's massive military retaliation to the outrage at the destruction of New York's World Trade Center came into focus.
The military options open to Canada in these perilous times are the equivalent of municipal zoning issues in a world where all the decisions that count are made "downtown," in Washington and the brooding Islamic hinterland.
As the days drop away, it becomes clear that our politicians have perpetuated fraud on a grand scale by progressively disarming and almost neutering our Forces. Our warriors, no matter how brave or patriotic, are not equipped to defend themselves, much less to uphold the territorial integrity of the nation they are sworn to safeguard.
But blaming the politicians is a mug's game. Their actions accurately reflect voter priorities. And defence is not one of them. The $11-billion we spend annually on the military has been misdirected. The limited military capability we do possess is tragically ineffective. Given any kind of armed conflict, we could field fewer than than 3,000 front line troops providing we could find some way to transport them to where the action is. Our army is grievously undermanned; the air force flies obsolescent jets with no in-flight refueling capacity; our patrol frigates depend for their combat effectiveness on 30-year old helicopters that refuse to stay in the air.
If Canada's defence posture is vague and gelatinous, our chief military asset remains the almost irrational dedication of the nearly 70,000 men and women in our Forces. While their loyalty is beyond question, most of their equipment is beyond salvage. Even at this eleventh hour, on the brink of hostilities that could turn into a Third World War, we can't defend ourselves, much less contribute effectively to any joint effort to root out the terrorists who turned downtown New York into a nuclear winter.
We cannot effectively intercept unannounced aircraft flying over our territory or enforce our sovereignty at sea; we cannot begin to suppress acts terror in our cities. In our North, all we can do is send out Mounties in Ski-Doos to hand intruders parking tickets. "The only thing that's serious about defence in Canada," points out John Polanyi, the University of Toronto Nobel Prize winner, is the cost."
The irrelevance of our professional military establishment flows from one of Canadian society's deepest-rooted convictions: that we can afford to take the country's existence for granted, because if we get into serious trouble, the Yanks will rescue us. There's a mental block about defending ourselves. We prefer to think of our home country as a cultural free port, a society so open that our citizens can claim its freedoms and benefits without any obligations or responsibilities. Robert Fulford has accurately noted that "patriotism is not a prerequisite of Canadian citizenship."
We like to believe we are the privileged citizens of a "peaceable kingdom," permanently exempt from having to defend itself. That metaphor originated with Northrop Frye, the dean of our literary critics, who recognized the notion of a "peaceable kingdom" as a recurring theme in Canadian literature.
At the same time, most of our military commanders have divorced themselves from the mainstream of Canadian society. They exercise minimum political clout, enjoy little social status, and expend most of their time caught up in the private jokes, inside gossip and Victorian formalities of military careers. Those short-haired lifers who occupy the top commands spend most of their time studying thick intelligence reports (lent to them by the Pentagon and CIA), learning to understand every country better than their own. "Canada is an unmilitary community," wrote C.P. Stacey, our pre-eminent army historian. "Warlike her people have often been forced to be, military they have never been."
Despite our magnificent record in two world wars (Canadians won 86 Victoria Crosses, the highest medal for bravery) we have produced no great military strategists or lasting traditions in the profession of arms. Canadian Legion parades have for years drawn more marchers than spectators.
We have fought no wars of independence and our homegrown rebellions, mainly Louis Riel's brief uprisings on the Red River in 1870 and at Batoche in 1884, hardly qualified as military actions. In modern times, domestic military intervention has been limited to the Oka golf course standoff and the 1970 FLQ crisis, when seven infantry battalions were mobilized to pacify conspirators who never numbered more than three-dozen.
Winston Churchill, who spent much time in defence portfolios before becoming Britain's wartime prime minister, was right when he observed that an army is not like a limited liability company, to be remodeled, reconstructed or liquidated from week to week, as money markets fluctuate. "It is a living thing," he said. "If it is bullied, it sulks; if it is unhappy, it pines; if it is harried, it gets feverish: and if it is sufficiently disturbed, it dwindles in strength."
In terms of warding off terrorist attacks on Canada, our armed forces bring few skills or appropriate equipment to the task. One exception are the Seaforth Highlanders, a historic Vancouver-based reserve regiment that recently completed FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas) training along with U.S. Army units at Fort Lewis in Washington State. John Fraser, a former House of Commons speaker with an infantry background, has been charged with writing a report on revitalizing the reserves, but so far there exists no mobilization plan that takes account of their essential functions. "We will shortly be reporting to the minister on how well our recommendations are being implemented," he says. "At least, they're paying attention."
In both the First and Second World War, Canada's military reserves provided the mobilization platforms on which were raised the navies, armies and air forces that exercised dominant influence on Allied victories. But between those conflicts, it was a very different story. By the mid-1930's, the militia's budget was so badly depleted that when the Calgary Regiment switched from horses to tanks it had to simulate the vehicles by using burlap-covered frames mounted on motorcycles, until they were replaced by sheet-metal-covered Chevrolets.
I remember watching army maneuvers in New Brunswick. Without enough rifles to go round, the trainees were equipped with broomsticks. When one recruit pointed his broom at another, and shouted: "Bang, bang you're dead!", the intended victim calmly replied: "No, I'm not. I'm a tank." Rear-Admiral Tom Smith, a former chief of naval reserves, summed up the state of the equipment used at training divisions, with the bitter comment: "There is a vigil light in front of them."
Suddenly, those quips aren't funny any more. The reserves are our first line of defense against terrorists, because they live in the communities that might become targets. They have proven their usefulness in natural disasters, such as the great Montreal ice storm of 1998 and the Winnipeg flood. But we have no defence against the virulent breed of terrorists, who refer to Canada among themselves as "Little Satan". (Although we pride ourselves on being immune to terrorist attacks, their most successful strike prior to last week's attacks, was the downing of the Air India flight in 1985: Its 330 victims were mostly Canadians.)
The sucker punch delivered to the World Trade Center wrote amen to Canada as a peaceable kingdom. Like it or not, we have joined the mainstream of history at last. And it's hell.
The author of 20 books, Peter C. Newman served as a captain in Canada's naval reserves, and wrote True North, Not Strong and Free: Defending the Peaceable Kingdom in the Nuclear Age.
It's even more interesting because the Seaforth's get singled out for some praise. Wasn't someone on here with that unit and don't all reserve units do FIBUA at one time or another?
Amen to the peaceable kingdom
Peter C. Newman
National Post
"Peace is brief, as fragile and transitory as apple blossoms in the spring." --Barbara Tuchman
With the world drifting toward war, I am haunted by the toast proposed a few years ago by a Canadian naval officer in a ship's wardroom in Halifax. "We attack at dawn!" he exulted. "Why dawn?" asked one of his buddies, suspecting that he was being set up as the straight man. "That way," was the triumphant reply," if things don't work out, we haven't wasted the whole day."
That is not a fair representation of how our armed forces think or act, but it does catch the frustration they feel about having to defend their country with pathetically inadequate means. Never more so than this week, as the outlines of the West's massive military retaliation to the outrage at the destruction of New York's World Trade Center came into focus.
The military options open to Canada in these perilous times are the equivalent of municipal zoning issues in a world where all the decisions that count are made "downtown," in Washington and the brooding Islamic hinterland.
As the days drop away, it becomes clear that our politicians have perpetuated fraud on a grand scale by progressively disarming and almost neutering our Forces. Our warriors, no matter how brave or patriotic, are not equipped to defend themselves, much less to uphold the territorial integrity of the nation they are sworn to safeguard.
But blaming the politicians is a mug's game. Their actions accurately reflect voter priorities. And defence is not one of them. The $11-billion we spend annually on the military has been misdirected. The limited military capability we do possess is tragically ineffective. Given any kind of armed conflict, we could field fewer than than 3,000 front line troops providing we could find some way to transport them to where the action is. Our army is grievously undermanned; the air force flies obsolescent jets with no in-flight refueling capacity; our patrol frigates depend for their combat effectiveness on 30-year old helicopters that refuse to stay in the air.
If Canada's defence posture is vague and gelatinous, our chief military asset remains the almost irrational dedication of the nearly 70,000 men and women in our Forces. While their loyalty is beyond question, most of their equipment is beyond salvage. Even at this eleventh hour, on the brink of hostilities that could turn into a Third World War, we can't defend ourselves, much less contribute effectively to any joint effort to root out the terrorists who turned downtown New York into a nuclear winter.
We cannot effectively intercept unannounced aircraft flying over our territory or enforce our sovereignty at sea; we cannot begin to suppress acts terror in our cities. In our North, all we can do is send out Mounties in Ski-Doos to hand intruders parking tickets. "The only thing that's serious about defence in Canada," points out John Polanyi, the University of Toronto Nobel Prize winner, is the cost."
The irrelevance of our professional military establishment flows from one of Canadian society's deepest-rooted convictions: that we can afford to take the country's existence for granted, because if we get into serious trouble, the Yanks will rescue us. There's a mental block about defending ourselves. We prefer to think of our home country as a cultural free port, a society so open that our citizens can claim its freedoms and benefits without any obligations or responsibilities. Robert Fulford has accurately noted that "patriotism is not a prerequisite of Canadian citizenship."
We like to believe we are the privileged citizens of a "peaceable kingdom," permanently exempt from having to defend itself. That metaphor originated with Northrop Frye, the dean of our literary critics, who recognized the notion of a "peaceable kingdom" as a recurring theme in Canadian literature.
At the same time, most of our military commanders have divorced themselves from the mainstream of Canadian society. They exercise minimum political clout, enjoy little social status, and expend most of their time caught up in the private jokes, inside gossip and Victorian formalities of military careers. Those short-haired lifers who occupy the top commands spend most of their time studying thick intelligence reports (lent to them by the Pentagon and CIA), learning to understand every country better than their own. "Canada is an unmilitary community," wrote C.P. Stacey, our pre-eminent army historian. "Warlike her people have often been forced to be, military they have never been."
Despite our magnificent record in two world wars (Canadians won 86 Victoria Crosses, the highest medal for bravery) we have produced no great military strategists or lasting traditions in the profession of arms. Canadian Legion parades have for years drawn more marchers than spectators.
We have fought no wars of independence and our homegrown rebellions, mainly Louis Riel's brief uprisings on the Red River in 1870 and at Batoche in 1884, hardly qualified as military actions. In modern times, domestic military intervention has been limited to the Oka golf course standoff and the 1970 FLQ crisis, when seven infantry battalions were mobilized to pacify conspirators who never numbered more than three-dozen.
Winston Churchill, who spent much time in defence portfolios before becoming Britain's wartime prime minister, was right when he observed that an army is not like a limited liability company, to be remodeled, reconstructed or liquidated from week to week, as money markets fluctuate. "It is a living thing," he said. "If it is bullied, it sulks; if it is unhappy, it pines; if it is harried, it gets feverish: and if it is sufficiently disturbed, it dwindles in strength."
In terms of warding off terrorist attacks on Canada, our armed forces bring few skills or appropriate equipment to the task. One exception are the Seaforth Highlanders, a historic Vancouver-based reserve regiment that recently completed FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas) training along with U.S. Army units at Fort Lewis in Washington State. John Fraser, a former House of Commons speaker with an infantry background, has been charged with writing a report on revitalizing the reserves, but so far there exists no mobilization plan that takes account of their essential functions. "We will shortly be reporting to the minister on how well our recommendations are being implemented," he says. "At least, they're paying attention."
In both the First and Second World War, Canada's military reserves provided the mobilization platforms on which were raised the navies, armies and air forces that exercised dominant influence on Allied victories. But between those conflicts, it was a very different story. By the mid-1930's, the militia's budget was so badly depleted that when the Calgary Regiment switched from horses to tanks it had to simulate the vehicles by using burlap-covered frames mounted on motorcycles, until they were replaced by sheet-metal-covered Chevrolets.
I remember watching army maneuvers in New Brunswick. Without enough rifles to go round, the trainees were equipped with broomsticks. When one recruit pointed his broom at another, and shouted: "Bang, bang you're dead!", the intended victim calmly replied: "No, I'm not. I'm a tank." Rear-Admiral Tom Smith, a former chief of naval reserves, summed up the state of the equipment used at training divisions, with the bitter comment: "There is a vigil light in front of them."
Suddenly, those quips aren't funny any more. The reserves are our first line of defense against terrorists, because they live in the communities that might become targets. They have proven their usefulness in natural disasters, such as the great Montreal ice storm of 1998 and the Winnipeg flood. But we have no defence against the virulent breed of terrorists, who refer to Canada among themselves as "Little Satan". (Although we pride ourselves on being immune to terrorist attacks, their most successful strike prior to last week's attacks, was the downing of the Air India flight in 1985: Its 330 victims were mostly Canadians.)
The sucker punch delivered to the World Trade Center wrote amen to Canada as a peaceable kingdom. Like it or not, we have joined the mainstream of history at last. And it's hell.
The author of 20 books, Peter C. Newman served as a captain in Canada's naval reserves, and wrote True North, Not Strong and Free: Defending the Peaceable Kingdom in the Nuclear Age.
It's even more interesting because the Seaforth's get singled out for some praise. Wasn't someone on here with that unit and don't all reserve units do FIBUA at one time or another?