Combating Terrorism: Canadian Realities

By Peter T. Haydon

The following was written on September 22, 2001, before the announcement of Canada’s military commitment, but not picked up by the media.

The ongoing public discussion (it cannot be deemed a debate yet as too few people have taken part) on Canada’s contribution to the so-called “War on Terrorism” has overlooked several significant issues.

The first point is that this is not a “war” in the traditional sense, it is a political response to a criminal act against a state, not unlike American operations against the Barbary pirates 200 years ago. Nor, for that matter, is it the realization of the belief espoused by some that all future wars will be either between states and non-state organizations, or between factions within states rather than between states. However, the outrage of September 11 represents a new level of violence and calls for unique responses. In this, one of the problems, as some commentators have rightly explained, is that we simply do not know what the terrorists will do next, or where they will do it. If we are brutally frank, no “western” state or major business enterprise is immune from the new violence. We are all at risk because it is our “system” that is despised, and in all probability the terrorists will not discriminate between individual states but will attack the most visible and vulnerable symbols of “westernism” wherever they stand.

In responding to these new threats, states will take action on two fronts. On one hand, the security of the homeland will be increased through a wide range of measures, while on the other hand various diplomatic and military actions will be initiated. At home, the response will take many forms from increased port and airport security, to the protection of vital transportation, water and electricity systems, to more effective screening of those seeking entry from foreign countries, to the creation of military capabilities to increase other aspects of domestic security quickly. In Canada, the latter will almost certainly lead to calls for a form of National Guard available to assist the civil authority at both federal and provincial levels. The Oka crisis of 1990 and the ice storm of 1999, should have shown us that such a response capability is necessary, and the uncertainty of the future should tell us that it will be needed again.

On the broader front, military forces will be used with the precision of a scalpel rather than with the brutality of a chain saw. It is this fact that sets the new “war” apart from traditional concepts. Comparisons between the Soviet inability to control Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the operations presently being planned are invalid: the Soviets took the chain saw approach and found, to their cost, that it didn’t work.

The responses to acts of terrorism will thus reflect carefully integrated diplomatic and military activities. The diplomatic initiatives will apply pressure on states that support or provide shelter to terrorist organizations, and force will be used both coercively, to support diplomacy, and also in a very precise manner to eliminate or otherwise disable the potential for future terrorist activities from specific venues. These military tasks call for specialist rather than traditional land forces. However, those forces will have to be sea-based or air-delivered, requiring a wide range of naval and air force capabilities.

But such responses do not mean that the entire military capability of the state should be directed to specialized forces; there will still be calls for more traditional capabilities, particularly at sea and in the air, as well as for intervention operations on land under the misnomer of “peacekeeping.”

The second point, which leads directly from the first, is “What can Canada do in this new war?” The hard truth is that Canada has little to offer immediately, but with some new legislation, a little reorganization, and some capital investment, there is much that could be done. Clearly, security for the air transportation system has to be improved quickly. Other vital transportation systems also need to be made secure. These merely require political commitment and the availability of the necessary funds to hire people and buy appropriate equipment. Moreover, the immigration system must be brought quickly into synchronization with those of the Americans and our other allies.

This is not a renunciation of Canadian sovereignty as some hold, rather it is an affirmation of sovereignty. As I and others have argued, our sovereignty demands that we manage our internal affairs in such a way that situations cannot rise which our neighbours to the south might see as a threat to their security. If Canada is seen as a threat to American security, the Americans will take unilateral action to counter that threat. Hence, Canadian sovereignty is served by ensuring that we do not allow anything to happen in Canada that is seen as a threat to the United States.

As far as providing military forces to coalition operations against terrorists and their organizations, Canada has almost nothing to offer at the moment. Our army is not structured for the type of precision land operations that will take place. The one organization capable of being trained for that type of mission was disbanded in a fit of childish political pique in the aftermath of the Somalia incident. There is the shadowy “JTF II” but that only has a limited capability for international covert operations. The Air Force has some fighter-bomber capability, but the ability to deploy and carry out sustained operations is in doubt, and we do not have a suitable airlift capability to offer. The only certain capability we can offer is naval. Here, we can offer a warship or even a small naval task group to our allies with the assurance that those forces are combat-capable and can be sustained away from home.

We have done this before on many occasions and Canadian warships and maritime aircraft have deployed to trouble spots around the world as part of multilateral naval NATO formations, during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War and subsequent operations to enforce sanctions against Iraq, and in the Adriatic during the various Balkan crises. Today Canadian frigates routinely deploy with US Navy carrier battle groups to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf as a signal of allied solidarity. Contrary to the misinformed views of some, this is not merely a new interpretation of gunboat diplomacy; rather, it is a reflection of the new realities of contemporary crisis management that forward-deployed warships provide politicians and diplomats with a range of options at a very low political risk. When those naval forces include aircraft carriers and marines, they are well-suited to the surgical responses needed to combat terrorism. Some would argue, wrongly, that frigates and destroyers are irrelevant in such operations. In fact, there is still a need to provide a secure area from which the aircraft and marines can be deployed ashore. Attacks on ships are not unknown, and the symbolism of an aircraft carrier or major amphibious ship may, in fact, be a magnet for terrorists, especially if other terrorist organizations are under attack.

The third and final point concerns the longer-term restructuring of Canada’s military forces to meet the multifaceted demands of the new era. Here we have several options and these revolve around a single question, “What do we want to be able to do on the world stage? This question assumes that the need for domestic security is a given and that steps will be taken to ensure that Canada has the necessary military capability to call upon in response to a crisis, and that the resources needed to maintain effective surveillance over our waters and airspace will also be maintained with the capacity to intervene in potentially threatening situations.

Hence, the question comes down to one of determining what military force is needed to support foreign policy. If Canada wants to be involved in the land operations against terrorism, it must develop the necessary capability and ensure that it is interoperable with similar American and British forces. This capability will also set the standard for future intervention operations in inter- and intra-state conflicts, as in the British intervention in Sierra Leone. Any less capability would not be practical, and token forces would be an operational liability. If Canada wants to participate at this level, a great deal of new equipment will have to be purchased and an extensive training program started. More importantly, it must be accepted politically that direct involvement in these operations carries the risk of a high casualty rate. On the other hand, if Canada merely wants to continue to undertake “peacekeeping” operations with the much lower casualty potential, then the present organization may be enough.

If the wish is to keep a fighter-bomber capability, as deployed for the Kosovo crisis in 1999, and to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91, then funding will have to be set aside to buy new aircraft and weapons, and to ensure that the capacity to deploy and sustain air operations exists. This will not be cheap, but it is one way that a “seat at the table” can be bought. Again, the risk of casualties, albeit lower than for land forces, has to be accepted politically.

The third option is to continue with the use of naval forces as Canada’s contribution to both counter-terrorism and intervention operations. This too will be expensive because those ships and aircraft must be interoperable with US and NATO naval forces, and they must be combat-capable. This calls for continuing expenditure on electronic and weapons systems, weapons, and in the necessary training to ensure that the ships and aircraft are able to work as equals. One immediate problem is the replacement of the existing maritime helicopter with an aircraft that has the necessary capabilities and reliability to help exploit the full potential of the warships and be useful in the multinational formation in a wide range of tasks. Also, the fleet support ships need replacing. This too should be done without further delay as those vessels provide for the operational sustainability of deployed warships.

In bringing all this together, the key fact is that Canada is not well prepared at the moment to assist in the overall “war on terrorism” and has few options for immediate support. Because there is absolutely no way that anyone can predict where this threat may next appear or when it may end, a need to take longer-term measures exists. This will require political decisions, decisions that cannot be made lightly for they concern the lives of individual Canadians. Perhaps one way of moving this decision-making process ahead is to do something unique and ask our allies what military forces they would like us to provide. Burden sharing is not a new concept—it lay at the heart of NATO defence planning—and this new “war on terrorism” will also be a collective security undertaking. In doing this though, there has to be an implicit understanding that Canada will take all necessary measures to reinforce domestic security and not became a liability to the Americans.

Simply, the first requirement for Canada is to clean house and create a secure environment for Canadians that also provides appropriate levels of security for our allies. This done, Canada can set about making a military contribution to collective operations to combat terrorism, but this contribution must be made in the knowledge that a risk of casualties exists, and that Canada is in the “war” for the long haul. In the meantime, the limited naval and air force capability should be offered to the cause without restriction.

It is time for Canada to again stand tall and behave like a world leader rather than a weak-kneed follower.

Peter Haydon is a naval and defence analyst with Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. He also serves as editor of “Maritime Affairs” and is a member of the Nova Scotia Naval Officers Association.

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