I am not a fan of Dr.Byers, but I think it is a useful document if only to show an alternative perspective on national defence policy. This is not a bad thing. I will comment per Mr.Campbell's points, as I am not sure how to individually quote each line sequentially:
Costs of Procurement:
there is nothing to suggest that deferred procurement must, somehow, equal less equipment or less capable equipment.
Byers comments are clearly a shot at the systematic lowballing of costs that the federal government has insisted on parroting in the F35 and NSPS situations.
I agree that it is not actually that difficult to know the long-term costs to anyone who looks into it, but to purposefully hide those costs from the public and pretend that they are less than they KNOW they are is irresponsible government, IMHO. That blame should lie with all previous federal governments, but the present one isn't exempt. As for the costs of deferred procurement, there seems to me to be MUCH suggesting exactly that - the longer it slides to the right, the less aircraft/ships etc are received as costs go up. It happened with AOPS, I believe it happened with the F35 as well (weren't we supposed to get 90 originally, now it is 65), and has the CSC not gone from "15 ships" to "up to 15 ships"? I have taken "deferred procurement" to include delayed procurement - I know they are two separate things, but the end result is the same I would think, with increased per unit costs even if the per-year costs are reduced due to spreading out the timeline.
Byer's stated defence posture:
"Our less-than-full-service military is made up of a small peacekeeping- and counterinsurgency-capable army organized around 550 newly refitted LAV III light armoured vehicles; a small navy organized around twelve middle-aged frigates; and a small air force organized around new transport aircraft and old but capable fighter jets."
I am not sure what portion of it is incorrect? I would agree with that characterization. That is more or less what we are at the moment, and that is the tense that he uses. I would also add that if a party decides that is the defence posture that it recommends for Canada in future, and Canadians vote them in, then we get on with making it happen and providing the best service that we can. Some of us may have joined up to drive tanks, drop bombs behind enemy lines, and engage in hand-to-hand combat, but if the
country prefers us to conduct SAR, humanitarian assistance, and peacekeeping moreso than the "hard power" aspects, they have the right to make us do so. We work for them.
Missions defining Equipment:
I disagree, vehemently, with Prof Byers when he says: "Ideally, the missions should determine the equipment and not the other way around." That's drivel. Ideally, or not, the mission must be decided by the (ever changing) strategic situation.
This seems a bit like splitting hairs. I think he is saying: "I believe it is Apples before Oranges instead of Oranges before Apples." You are saying "no, no, no.... It is Bananas before Apples!". You are both right. Ideally.....it is Strategic Situation ---> Mission ---> Equipment (or Bananas before Apples before Oranges). You are also absolutely correct that governments don't tailor the mission to the equipment on hand, we respond with whatever we have at the time to make the mission work. (That said, I also don't believe that the govt is completely ignorant of the equipment on hand - I trust the CDS informs the MND of this, even if the MND doesn't feel like listening).
Also, your list of PM's sending the CF off to major conflicts doesn't seem right to me. It should say "Chretien in 2001" vice "Martin in 2006". Some units were deployed to Afghanistan continually from 2001-2011, and others "since 2001...." I would guess.
Part IV. A Plan for Rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces
It is not fair to criticize an alternate view, particularly from an opposition party, based on "you don't have all the information". Of course they don't. NOBODY does, except the government. By that logic, nobody should be allowed to offer alternate visions on any subject unless the government has given "all the information". If this were the case, Opposition parties would never be able to articulate their proposed policies. All incumbent governments would like this to be the case, of course. But it does not serve the public, it serves only the incumbent. On the subject of F35's, an open and transparent competition would have provided this information. However, the F35 has not been subjected to an open and transparent competition against its industry competitors (the XF-35 vs XF-32 competition wasn't against its industry competitors - Typhoon, Rafale, etc)
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Should a potential NDP government take Byers report as a baseline to develop their defence policy off of, it would have to adjust as required once they had "seen the books" and knew the true costs/capabilities/equipment etc. Would it survive first contact with the "enemy"? No, of course not. No plan does. But at least it is a plan from which to deviate!
I agree completely that it is partisan, and unfairly lays all the blame on the current government, with some shots at the Liberals too. But, if we are to assume that this is some sort of a trial balloon to propose an alternate vision for defence policy that is not "official" NDP policy (thereby allowing deniability), what would one expect? Did the opposition Conservatives refrain from blaming the Liberal government in their vision of defence policy?
There are a few nuggets in the report that I agree with, others I an neutral on, and some I disagree with entirely. But I don't think the whole thing should be disregarded in its entirety. It is an alternative vision, and anything which stimulates a debate in the public about defence policy is a good thing IMHO, even if the end result of it is different from what some of us on here might prefer to see.
At the moment, the CF is not resourced adequately to meet its mission sets. There are only two ways to fix this: Increase resources to meet the existing mission sets, or reduce the mission sets to meet the resourcing level (or some sort of combination of both). Byers' report seems to suggest the latter, with some major changes in defence focus away from warfighting and back to the CF being peacekeeping-centric. Must of us on here don't agree with this, but we would ignore or disregard that perspective at our own peril, as it is consistent with a significant portion of the population.
Mr.Campbell, please don't take this email as a criticism of your views. I have a great respect for the information and perspective you provide (I may be only a recent poster, but am a long-time lurker), and I dare say your take on Byers' report is probably the majority view on this forum. I've interpreted it slightly differently, and while I do not agree with Dr.Byers on very much, I believe there are some policy nuggets there that may very well form planks of a potential NDP defence policy. Obviously, "NDP defence policy" is a bit of an untrodden path that the military has not really had to pay much attention to, but in 2015 that is no longer the case. The public clearly is not as scared by the "doomsday scenarios" as opposing partisans would have them believe, and barring some major unforeseen event, it is hard to imagine them fading to irrelevance in just 109 days. My guess is that Byers' may reflect some (though not all) of the NDP's defence policy thoughts, and this report may be a "trial balloon" to see what portions resonate (or not) with the electorate. They would then presumably release their actual defence policy prescription during the campaign, which may include some of these ideas. (To that end, it is entirely possible that the Liberals would be watching the reaction as well and may lift some ideas from Byers' report too)
No doubt the next 3.5 months will be interesting.
Harrigan