Look. Everyone has ideas. And some are good, some bad. Don't underestimate the current problems, though. Even simple things aren't being done. Realistic and meaningful training seems to be lacking. Some other problems are the people in charge. How they rose to senior positions of responsibility boggles the mind. Importance of choosing the right people can't be understated. Push comes to shove, that's where the emphasis needs to be.
...or, in other words, the foundational deficiency in the Army Reserve in BC is the first letter of each sentence...
Good one - and not subtle at all.
Many years ago we joked that "senior leadership promotes in its own image." The problem is that mediocracy perpetuates itself. Following the same model year after year, even when it demonstrably deficient, is deeply engrained. At best, when there is vision, it is cyclical; the same wheel is reinvented that existed two or three decades previously to the current iteration.
I've said it many times: the reserve force model which we use, which is marginally effective, has been unchanged for some sixty years, at least. One has to concede that the current reserve model did generate large numbers of effective augmentees for Afghanistan, but that was a peacetime war. It was a war which was entirely optional for the government. It could throw as much or as little into the effort as it felt inclined to do. And at that, the best that Canada could do was to keep one battlegroup in action. Out of three and one half full-time brigades Canada was hard pressed to keep one cobbled together battlegroup - augmented by roughly 20% reservists - in the field. The most troubling thing about that is that this is what the system was designed to do.
The real role for reserve forces is to not just augment the holes in full-time establishments, but to rapidly expand the force in times of threatened danger; to present an image to a potential adversary that if they take aggressive steps they will be met by a host that will make the enemy's potential success doubtful. We know how Russia and China operate but we simply do not have the structure to oppose them, either with allies or without. Ottawa is wrapped in an illusion of perpetual peace, and our military leadership takes its cues from that.
Quite clearly, an army based principally on an ARes force will be limited and have risks attached to it. The principle one is its level of readiness at any given times. Practically speaking, our RegF has that problem as well when you consider the needs for managed readiness and equipment management programs (and our current VOR rate). The trick is to find the right balance where the full-time component is just large enough to provide the leadership and technical competence for the whole force and to continuously regenerate its professional standards. The ARes, OTOH, needs the numbers, the training and the equipment to rapidly provide the mass needed to face varying situations. What the term "rapidly" means is a matter of definition and risk tolerance. "Rapidly" should, however, not mean "non-existent."
Cost and readiness are the critical factors. It is inarguable that the annual maintenance cost of a part-time force and its equipment is less than an equally sized and equipped full-time force. Acquisition of equipment costs will vary with the size of the force desired. But that's where the key trade off comes: If costs for acquisition and maintenance are aggregated, one can afford to acquire and maintain a small, poorly equipped full-time force or a a larger, well equipped but less ready mixed force based largely on part-timers.
This is where the fallacy of our defence strategy comes into play. Just how ready is Canada's expensive full-time force when it is missing thousands of people and it has a VOR rate of 50% of key equipment? And yet the army's leadership is unable to dismount from this PY dependant, one-trick pony that it continues to ride. And yes, ARes leadership is just as bad. While their arguments for a larger, better trained and better equipped ARes is not only desirable, it is critical, the ARes leadership model is no longer viable. Simply put, war has become too complicated at the unit level to be effectively conducted by individuals who have not advanced through a proper regime of military education and experience. Skills bridging the Maj to LCol and MWO to CWO levels require full-timers. One might get by with part-time Majs and MWO in many circumstances but never at the LCol and CWO level. The army needs to integrate into hybrid structures.
To get back to your point about how leadership got into being in charge? It's simple The full-timers have created a self-perpetuating cult following amongst themselves that refuses to get out of the current, perpetual peacetime construct and who not only ignore but adamantly deny the need to have a mobilization structure in place to rapidly grow the force beyond its full-time component. It's unfortunate that what is leaking out of the current force development project seems to indicate a status quo. I fervently hope that buried deeply behind department secrecy is a phase 2 model for the increased funding, which will allocate the appropriate full-time and equipment resources to grow 7 Div (and maybe an 8 Div) into what it ought to be, a proper hybrid force.
