What Does "Ready-Aye-Ready" Mean In Today’s World?

There is a saying that adversity has a way of introducing us to ourselves—not a pleasant experience for Canadians who have followed international and domestic developments that have surfaced since the terrorist attacks that befell the United States on September 11.

The deployment of Canadian forces, along with the American, British and other coalition forces to the Arabian Sea as a component of Operation Apollo in response to the events of September 11, has prompted many to question the state of readiness of the Canadian Forces. The media’s litany of military readiness issues as described by politicians and defence experts, has provided Canadians with many real or speculative scenarios, all of which call for careful examination.

Dismissing constructive criticism of the state of the CF—to which Canadians have been exposed since September 11—doesn’t serve to strengthen our armed forces, but it has certainly given the government a long overdue wake-up call regarding the deficiencies in the military dealing with terrorism and intelligence-gathering issues.

Dunnigan and Martel in their book “How to Stop A War – The Lessons of Two Hundred Years of War & Peace,”¹ cogently offer an observation which might apply to what some say is happening in Canada today. They write: “Within a government, it is in everyone’s best interest to say that the military is in good shape. Pointing out shortcomings is looked upon as disloyal, disruptive or suspicious. It’s easier to make excuses than to get things right.” Certainly food for thought in these days of speculation and uncertainty.

One could spend time analyzing, rebutting and creating statements that relate a sad story about what has happened to the CF in the past decade. A credible exercise perhaps, but it would not serve to help those responsible for preparing our armed forces for deployment today. Such an undertaking should however, be given serious consideration in the months to come.

Advocating awareness of naval requirements for additional personnel, new logistic support and replenishment vessels, a replacement for the Sea King helicopters, and better capability to carry out maritime air patrols, may seem irrelevant at this time. But, it is important that funding for naval equipment replacement needs not be overlooked when budgeting for increased federal funding for counter-terrorism, controllable immigration, and improving Canada’s intelligence-gathering capability.

The Navy’s contribution to Operation Apollo is the best equipped and trained maritime force Canada has ever sent overseas. In recent years our frigates have gained valuable experience as they are rotated into US Navy carrier battle groups. Interestingly, ours has been the only foreign navy invited to join USN carrier battle groups, largely because of our interoperability and modern equipment (Sea King helicopters excluded).

Although very little has been said about the specific tasks our ships will be assigned during Operation Apollo, one can assume they will perform an important air/sea defence mission when they join a USN battle group.

We have the utmost confidence in the men and women who serve in Canada’s largest naval deployment in almost fifty years. However, we would be remiss if we failed to remind the government of the urgent need to replace the Sea King helicopter, and get on with plans for the replacement of our overage supply ships.

The award of a contract to replace the Sea King has been left in limbo for far too long. Attempts to keep this venerable and often unreliable helicopter in the air continue to be costly, and we cannot ignore the potential air-safety problems they present. Canadians now recognize that the longer the government delays the award of a contract, the more serious Sea King air-safety issues will become.

In the weeks following September 11, the media, certain politicians and defence experts reminded the public that having no airlift, strategic air-to-air refuelling, or sea-lift capability, comprised a hindrance to moving Canadian troops and equipment overseas. The Navy’s afloat logistics sea-lift project must be accelerated if the possibility of future deployment of land troops and equipment overseas is to be taken seriously.

NATO and UN countries recognize that the concept of war as known in the early days of the 21st century is in the process of change. Additional funding must be provided for the “war on terrorism,” and concomitantly, intelligence-gathering. For Canada, we must add to the list the cost of increasing CF personnel strength and acquiring modern equipment.

The government should take heed of a comment made by the UK’s Air Chief Marshal Sir John Slessor, who said:

“It is customary in the democratic countries to deplore expenditures on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free.”

Procrastination is the thief of time. The Canadian government must not allow itself to become the thief of Canada’s military readiness and her international reputation.

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1 James F. Dunnigan & William Martel, How to Stop a War, Doubleday, New York (1987), p.35

Copyright © 2001 Fred R. Fowlow
All Rights Reserved

(Originally Published in Vol. VII, No. 16 Autumn 2001 issue of Starshell)