Re-thinking the Reserves
David Pratt
The Ottawa Citizen
29 Mar 2011
Later this year, when the dusty boots of the last Canadian soldier march up the ramp of one of our hulking C-17s at Kandahar Airfield, the largest Canadian Forces combat mission since Korea will draw to a close. The training contingent that follows will continue the NATO objective of having the Afghan forces take responsibility for their own national security.
For our Forces, it will be an opportunity to remember the fallen, to study carefully and to absorb the lessons learned as they make the transition from a high operational tempo to a steadier state.
As the military leadership, politicians and the general public focus on the Canadian Forces post-Afghanistan, it will be tempting to focus directly on what went wrong and to try to fix it.
Based upon that criterion, it would be doubtful if the Army Reserves would receive much more than a second thought. If they had performed badly in the Kandahar mission, then the calls for an inquiry or commission would echo from every editorial pulpit in the country.
But the fact is that the Army Reserve performed exceedingly well and drew accolades from the senior command.
As Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie noted recently, "The Army could not have done what it did in Afghanistan without the Reserve. We would have crashed and burned. The country owes them a huge debt of gratitude."
So how do we repay that debt? Well, for starters, it is time we directed some attention to the Reserve. As an institution, it has been largely forgotten.
The best evidence of that is the antiquated nature of one of the three roles we have assigned to the Reserve. Over 65 years since the end of the Second World War, official Canadian defence policy lists "mobilization" as one of the three roles of the Army Reserve. The other two roles are "augmentation" and the Reserve's role as a "footprint in the community."
But, mobilization simply has no relevance to the strategic environment we face today or are likely to face in the decades ahead. The very thought that we would muster two army corps in an age of asymmetrical and cyber warfare is completely unrealistic.
In fact, the military brass doesn't even pay lip service to the idea anymore. As Lt.-Gen. (Ret'd) George Macdonald recently noted, "Total mobilization is a total waste of time."
If we discard mobilization, what is left? It is clear that the augmentation and the community footprint role remain valid and important. The Reserve's augmentation of the Regular Force in Afghanistan, where they accounted for up to 20 per cent of the Canadian contingent, was by all accounts critical to the mission's success.
The community footprint role is also vital since the Reserve's presence in over 120 communities ensures that Canadians don't see their Army as garrisoned in a few bases and disconnected from the rest of society.
So, what other role, or roles, can we assign the Reserve?
Perhaps it is time to formalize the domestic operations task that the Reservists have been doing for years in assisting civilian authorities with disasters and emergencies. But, it may also be important to consider other more updated roles.
Over the last year, our abilities to defend ourselves against cyber attacks have been tested.
Our NATO allies are increasingly devoting more resources and attention to this challenge which threatens our security and economic prosperity. Combining the digital literacy of the civilian population with the disciplined program of cyber-security through the auspices of the Canadian Forces may be yet another way for the Reserves to contribute to the safety and security of Canadians.
But it is not just the roles of the Reserves that need a re-think. The administration of our Army Reserve is rife with problems. The recruiting system needs attention. Many soldiers aren't getting paid on time. Training courses need to be better managed and the equipment provided to Reservists needs to be upgraded. Many Reservists also return from foreign deployments feeling that their contribution has not been appreciated.
How does all this get fixed? It has been 16 years since the Report of the Special Commission on Restructuring the Reserves.
Since then, much has changed. It is time the government appointed another special comission, or assigned a major study of the Reserves to the House of Commons Defence Committee. Individual reservists know what the problems are. We just need to give them a platform to help us fix them. After what they did for us in Afghanistan, we owe them at least this much.
