- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
From the US ARMY WAR COLLEGE - A Book Review Autmn 2005 http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/05autumn/aut-rev.htm
The text
Who Killed the Canadian Military? By J. L. Granatstein. Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2004. 250 pages. $24.95 ($16.95 paper). Reviewed by Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations, Boston University, and author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War.
A distinguished Canadian military historian and author of over 60 books, J. L. Granatstein has here delivered not a work of scholarship as such, but a ferocious polemic. The result is an illuminating, pugnaciously readable, deeply disturbing, and ultimately very sad book.
A best-seller in Canada when it first appeared, Who Killed the Canadian Military? ought to interest at least two audiences in the United States. National security professionals concentrating on the recently rediscovered arena of continental defense will find here important indicators regarding Canada's ability to carry its share of the load in keeping bad guys out of North America. For a variety of reasons, the outlook is, according to Granatstein, less than encouraging.
Students of civil-military relations, meanwhile, may use Who Killed the Canadian Military? as a case study in how to get things wrong. In enlightened, decent, and thoroughly democratic Canada, pompous and ignorant politicians, abetted by myopic generals too quick to bend to the whims of fashion and tacitly encouraged by an indifferent public, managed over the course of a half-century to transform a small but eminently respectable Canadian military establishment into a spent force, its soldiers "exhausted, their equipment rusted out, their coffers all but empty."
In charting this slow but inexorable process of decay, Granatstein makes it clear that plenty of different culprits had a hand, the ostensibly conservative no less than the proudly liberal. But looking beyond personalities-some of them achieving McNamara-like standards of arrogance-Granatstein's explanation for Canada's present-day military dysfunction emphasizes three factors. First comes anti-Americanism, deep-seated resentment provoked by the uncouth and intrusive 800-pound gorilla that is Canada's nearest neighbor. The second factor is peacekeeping, a proud Canadian tradition, which over time, according to Granatstein, has fostered widespread delusions regarding Canadian virtue and the nation's ostensibly exalted standing in the world's eyes. The third factor derives from the longstanding bifurcation of Canadian society, with Anglophone and Francophone sensitivities being especially acute whenever issues related to military service or overseas deployments arise.
Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, Granatstein writes, anti-Americanism has become Canada's substitute for a coherent foreign policy, a tendency he describes as fundamentally at odds with the vital interests of a country whose security and prosperity alike require that it foster congenial relations with the United States. But for office-seekers eager to curry popular favor, striking postures that call
148/49
into question traditional US-Canadian security ties has posed a temptation too alluring to forego. As a consequence, more and more Canadians have come to see collaboration with the United States as tantamount to absorption into the American Empire. The result has been to discredit what ought to stand as the essential organizing principle of Canadian military policy: the imperative of complementing and being interoperable with US forces.
The tradition of peacekeeping, sustained in part by ministers eagerly "chasing after Nobel Peace Prizes," has led the average Canadian to confuse effectiveness with good intentions. Granatstein argues, convincingly, that successful peacekeeping in any but the most benign circumstances requires having peacekeepers who are ready to fight, if need be. But for many Canadians, the image of their soldiers decked out in blue berets has long since become more important than asking whether those soldiers are trained and equipped for anything that might involve heavy lifting. Indeed, the conviction that Canada's army has managed to transcend the tawdriness of mere warfighting has become in some quarters a measure of Canadian moral superiority, especially when contrasted to the armed forces of the bullying and bellicose Americans.
Finally, the political imperative of taking care to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing the Québecois has mutated into a much broader penchant for charting military policy with an eye toward remedying past injustices and empowering hitherto marginalized groups, regardless of the impact in terms of military effectiveness. No Western military is immune to the pressures of political correctness, but the Canadian Forces appear to have succumbed more completely than most. The upshot: quotas for just about everything, guaranteeing not only an appropriate representation of the French-speaking minority, but also women, new immigrants, and native peoples. Granatstein reports that the current priority is to open up enlistment opportunities for the disabled.
The upshot of all of this is a military establishment that Granatstein scathingly describes as a ramshackle gendarmerie devoid of any meaningful combat capability and unable to meet the nation's pressing security and foreign policy requirements. Abused, mismanaged, and neglected, with an active duty force of just over 50,000 in all services (or "environments" since there is nominally only a single service) backed by a minuscule reserve and sustained by barely one percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, Canada's military is hurtling toward what one senior serving officer has called a "mass extinction scenario."
Granatstein believes that absent drastic measures, the present-day condition of the Canadian military will indeed become terminal. In his concluding chapter, he lays out his own agenda to avert that prospect, proposing to expand the active component to 80,000 while enhancing the reserves, doubling the defense budget to permit a long overdue recapitalization, and configuring operating forces to provide Canada with a compact but robust combat capability. He also urges renewed engagement with the United States on security issues so that Canada will have a voice in the defense of North America and above all to ensure that Canadian military weakness will never provide Americans with a pretext to violate Canadian sovereignty in the name of self-defense.
149/50
Given the absence of any party or major political figure willing to champion the cause of military revitalization, Granatstein calls upon his fellow citizens to act. His title asks, Who killed the Canadian military? In the final analysis, he charges, "We all did. . . . You and I killed the Canadian military." Reversing course, therefore, demands collective action from the bottom up. That Granatstein considers the enlightened, decent, and thoroughly democratic people of present-day Canada capable of such action exemplifies the spirit of resolve and the flinty patriotism permeating this admirable book.
The text
Who Killed the Canadian Military? By J. L. Granatstein. Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2004. 250 pages. $24.95 ($16.95 paper). Reviewed by Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich, Professor of International Relations, Boston University, and author of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War.
A distinguished Canadian military historian and author of over 60 books, J. L. Granatstein has here delivered not a work of scholarship as such, but a ferocious polemic. The result is an illuminating, pugnaciously readable, deeply disturbing, and ultimately very sad book.
A best-seller in Canada when it first appeared, Who Killed the Canadian Military? ought to interest at least two audiences in the United States. National security professionals concentrating on the recently rediscovered arena of continental defense will find here important indicators regarding Canada's ability to carry its share of the load in keeping bad guys out of North America. For a variety of reasons, the outlook is, according to Granatstein, less than encouraging.
Students of civil-military relations, meanwhile, may use Who Killed the Canadian Military? as a case study in how to get things wrong. In enlightened, decent, and thoroughly democratic Canada, pompous and ignorant politicians, abetted by myopic generals too quick to bend to the whims of fashion and tacitly encouraged by an indifferent public, managed over the course of a half-century to transform a small but eminently respectable Canadian military establishment into a spent force, its soldiers "exhausted, their equipment rusted out, their coffers all but empty."
In charting this slow but inexorable process of decay, Granatstein makes it clear that plenty of different culprits had a hand, the ostensibly conservative no less than the proudly liberal. But looking beyond personalities-some of them achieving McNamara-like standards of arrogance-Granatstein's explanation for Canada's present-day military dysfunction emphasizes three factors. First comes anti-Americanism, deep-seated resentment provoked by the uncouth and intrusive 800-pound gorilla that is Canada's nearest neighbor. The second factor is peacekeeping, a proud Canadian tradition, which over time, according to Granatstein, has fostered widespread delusions regarding Canadian virtue and the nation's ostensibly exalted standing in the world's eyes. The third factor derives from the longstanding bifurcation of Canadian society, with Anglophone and Francophone sensitivities being especially acute whenever issues related to military service or overseas deployments arise.
Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, Granatstein writes, anti-Americanism has become Canada's substitute for a coherent foreign policy, a tendency he describes as fundamentally at odds with the vital interests of a country whose security and prosperity alike require that it foster congenial relations with the United States. But for office-seekers eager to curry popular favor, striking postures that call
148/49
into question traditional US-Canadian security ties has posed a temptation too alluring to forego. As a consequence, more and more Canadians have come to see collaboration with the United States as tantamount to absorption into the American Empire. The result has been to discredit what ought to stand as the essential organizing principle of Canadian military policy: the imperative of complementing and being interoperable with US forces.
The tradition of peacekeeping, sustained in part by ministers eagerly "chasing after Nobel Peace Prizes," has led the average Canadian to confuse effectiveness with good intentions. Granatstein argues, convincingly, that successful peacekeeping in any but the most benign circumstances requires having peacekeepers who are ready to fight, if need be. But for many Canadians, the image of their soldiers decked out in blue berets has long since become more important than asking whether those soldiers are trained and equipped for anything that might involve heavy lifting. Indeed, the conviction that Canada's army has managed to transcend the tawdriness of mere warfighting has become in some quarters a measure of Canadian moral superiority, especially when contrasted to the armed forces of the bullying and bellicose Americans.
Finally, the political imperative of taking care to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing the Québecois has mutated into a much broader penchant for charting military policy with an eye toward remedying past injustices and empowering hitherto marginalized groups, regardless of the impact in terms of military effectiveness. No Western military is immune to the pressures of political correctness, but the Canadian Forces appear to have succumbed more completely than most. The upshot: quotas for just about everything, guaranteeing not only an appropriate representation of the French-speaking minority, but also women, new immigrants, and native peoples. Granatstein reports that the current priority is to open up enlistment opportunities for the disabled.
The upshot of all of this is a military establishment that Granatstein scathingly describes as a ramshackle gendarmerie devoid of any meaningful combat capability and unable to meet the nation's pressing security and foreign policy requirements. Abused, mismanaged, and neglected, with an active duty force of just over 50,000 in all services (or "environments" since there is nominally only a single service) backed by a minuscule reserve and sustained by barely one percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, Canada's military is hurtling toward what one senior serving officer has called a "mass extinction scenario."
Granatstein believes that absent drastic measures, the present-day condition of the Canadian military will indeed become terminal. In his concluding chapter, he lays out his own agenda to avert that prospect, proposing to expand the active component to 80,000 while enhancing the reserves, doubling the defense budget to permit a long overdue recapitalization, and configuring operating forces to provide Canada with a compact but robust combat capability. He also urges renewed engagement with the United States on security issues so that Canada will have a voice in the defense of North America and above all to ensure that Canadian military weakness will never provide Americans with a pretext to violate Canadian sovereignty in the name of self-defense.
149/50
Given the absence of any party or major political figure willing to champion the cause of military revitalization, Granatstein calls upon his fellow citizens to act. His title asks, Who killed the Canadian military? In the final analysis, he charges, "We all did. . . . You and I killed the Canadian military." Reversing course, therefore, demands collective action from the bottom up. That Granatstein considers the enlightened, decent, and thoroughly democratic people of present-day Canada capable of such action exemplifies the spirit of resolve and the flinty patriotism permeating this admirable book.
