National Defence Headquarters and the Obligations of Canadian Armed Forces Senior Leadership

By Col (Ret) John C. Eggenberger

"I realize that in the final analysis we will be judged on military grounds; that is, the extent to which we have effectively contributed to the security of Canada, to the deterrence of war and to the support of our allies."
   The Honourable G. Lamontagne,
   Minister of National Defence
   January 1981

Evidently, if judged by M. G. Lamontagne, then both the government and Canada’s armed forces are in default of their responsibilities. Canada’s armed forces are within a heartbeat of collapse. Neither the government nor the armed forces leadership is without blame and as a result, the nation is at risk as never before.

Over time, the senior leaders within NDHQ have not properly exercised the function of advising the nation as to what their armed forces can and cannot do, and it is reasonable to want to discover why. One reason may be partly a result of the dramatic decrease in funding that transpired with the mythical peace dividend, and the perceived lessened need for a robust armed force at the end of the Cold War. But this is not the whole story.

What then ought to transpire between the senior leaders in NDHQ and the government? There are many specific questions that ought to be asked by our government. Responses of similar specificity and accuracy must be given by the serving NDHQ leadership mix of civilians and military.

Canadian Forces senior leaders in NDHQ – Chief of the Defence Staff, (Chief of Land Staff, Chief of Air Staff and Chief of Naval Staff) – must state plainly to government their professional military position at any given moment, and what can be done with the existing force. The composition and availability of military forces at any given time derives from the government’s defence policy and the military leadership’s efficiency in designing forces to meet the policy objectives. Adjustments to tasking must start with a veridical military estimate and not by military "second guessing" as to what the government really intends.

Governments generally task their armed forces using the A and B rule, that is to say – take force A and do B with it. More specifically, what ought to be the end dialogue between the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff is ‘direction’. That is to say: "CDS, your orders are to move X forces to Y location and do Z task, or some such." The nation should expect that X, Y and Z would operate in real time, not as a result of tacit agreement before hand that: we don't really have X, and we don’t have the resources to go to Y, but we can do something else - like the force in Afghanistan, for example.

It is the tasking elements put by the government that is crucial to military success. These taskings need to be specific, and to develop these taskings a dialogue must ensue between the government and its military leaders. Once settled upon, then the forces necessary and the logistics required to enact the tasking can be developed by the military.

The current dialogue available to the public reveals that the specificity necessary to an effective military force is seldom attained. The effect of this lack of specificity in relation to questions put and answered has been for both government and the senior NDHQ leadership to assume that they are properly doing their job. But from an examination of the tenure of these times, it appears that Canadian Forces tasking is fitted to the force available. Indeed it seems the force available is tasked with little or no thought to a variety of future or greater threats and ongoing responsibilities.

Thus the public is lulled into thinking that things can’t be too bad since, excepting Admiral Landymore many years ago, few of importance in the serving Canadian Forces community have made much of a public fuss about recent and current Canadian Forces posture, and its vastly degraded capabilities.

As for the reasons why, three seem readily apparent. One bears upon the ethos and organizational configuration of NDHQ. Another is the concomitant ethic developed by the serving members as a result of this configuration. The third is the dramatic decrease in funding as a result of the peace dividend.

Herein, the term ethos is the spirit of community that generates a "pattern of expectations" for individuals in a group. This pattern derives from a group’s common experience – and it is these expectations that set the benchmark for success. Individuals within a group seek to emulate their peers, who in turn work to "meet expectations" as called for by operational success. An ethos also induces values and beliefs for its individuals, but in the limit, it is the day-to-day, day after day activity that generates the ethos.

Ethos is developed over time within each of the Army, Navy and Air Force. This ethos derives from operational status and competence and while differing between services they share certain commonalities. For example, a part of one expression of the Army ethos says, "The professional ethos of the soldier is founded on the principle of mission before self." At the core, an expression of ethos for the Navy and the Air Force would be no different.

Moreover, as part of the military ethos within respective chains of command, each young officer must report upon the status of his Army platoon, Air Force flight, or naval division in terms of numbers, health, state of training, equipment and competence to enact a variety of taskings. This routine is at every level of operational command – company to battalion, squadron to group, ship to task force and so on. Thus at all times, every level of command knows what the force can or cannot do and what must be done to meet requirements.

However, the ethos that has developed within NDHQ does not always meet this military standard. More often, the prevailing ethos of NDHQ is somewhat different than mission before self. Avoidance of authentic reporting upon operational status often prevails – caused in the main by attempts to "do more taskings with less money." The overall casualty is operational competence. Another casualty may be the military ethos itself, subtly changed to unforeseen character by the adverse impact of the NDHQ ethos. Intuitively the subordinates of the senior military leadership copy the actions of their senior leaders. When they see their superiors avoiding the tenets of the military ethos, the tendency is to copy them.

Thus, a traumatic experience awaits the person coming to NDHQ from a military environment and its military ethos. To someone from a civilian environment or a civil service culture, or a uniformed person whose military ethos has been discarded, the ethos of NDHQ poses no real difficulty. Importantly, these persons do not bring to NDHQ the understanding that their decisions bear directly upon whether or not the Canadian Forces can fight and win for Canada. Or, that their decisions will have life or death outcomes seems not to be understood by a great many of the civilian/civil service, nor military folk who have abandoned their roots.

With over half of the senior leadership of NDHQ being civil service, the ethos of NDHQ has shifted from a military to something other than military, and the uniformed members must attend to this change in some major way, else they are ejected. And ejection from NDHQ can result in loss of promotion, as well as reduced pay and follow-on pension benefits. Thus, there is considerable motivation for military members to bend to this NDHQ ethos.

Not unlike other government departments, a major practise within NDHQ is to "sense" what the government will want, before the government does. Thus the CDS can supply the answer that fits what is thought to be government wishes. It is no wonder that there is a mismatch between authentic taskings and armed forces in being. That the questions put, and the answers supplied are not specific is one reason that has led Canada’s armed forces to this dreadful state. Moreover, that questions put are not specific does not relieve the senior uniformed leaders from the responsibility of answering questions that are not put.

Moreover, it is not the sole responsibility of the government to "tell it like it is." It is also the duty of our senior military leaders so to do; that they do not is a dereliction of duty. In sum, when tested against Lamontagne’s criteria, the judgment as to the worth of our current Canadian Forces will be devastating, and the senior NDHQ leadership must accept their fair share of the blame.

In future, for Canada to be properly served by her armed forces, the voices of serving senior military leaders must not be muted within an unnatural headquarters configuration. Our senior serving uniformed servants of the nation must be able to state their convictions without fear of retribution. That is, if now unfettered they would have to state that in addition to being unable to effectively assist our allies, we are now unable to deter war – and it is clear that against determined enemies our Air Force cannot now control our airspace, our Army cannot now defend our soil, and the Navy cannot now protect our shores.

For the nation to hear an authentic serving military voice, it will be necessary to make two decisions. One is to remove the military component from NDHQ and place it into an Armed Forces headquarters, staffed only by military persons and tasked only with military affairs. The other decision is to task what now is NDHQ with much broader matters than is now the case, e.g., homeland security, and those issues of national and international strategic importance.

As a case in point, national mobilization for defense of the nation entails much more than a purely military responsibility. It is beyond the sole responsibility or capability of the military to set out national mobilization plans. This task needs the combined effort of all government departments, corporate Canada and other entities, all under the leadership of the Prime Minister. Yet the prevailing myth is that the military within NDHQ can do so in isolation of this reality.

Successful military leadership deals with current and proposed taskings with suitable armed forces, both in hand and under development. To demand that our military leaders do more is to oblige them to tread into arenas outside their purview and beyond their competence. Clearly, if our nation is to survive, we cannot continue to waste our military vitality within the present structure of National Defence Headquarters. _

Col John C. Eggenberger is a RUSI of VI director.

      top
 previous article   |   News 4/03 index   |   next article