"Adjusting Course"...A Strategic Orphan?

Peter Haydon

This is the first of a series of articles examining the Canadian Navy's recent publication Adjusting Course: A Naval Strategy for Canada.

Because the majority of Canadians do not understand or even recognize the maritime dimensions of their country, naval programs seldom enjoy public or political support. As a result, a long succession of naval staffs have had to wage public education campaigns to explain the navy's place in the national fabric and to justify naval procurement programs.

Adjusting Course: A Naval Strategy for Canada is the latest such rationalization. It comes at a time when public scepticism over all military programs appears to be at a level not seen since the end of the Second World War. So, explaining the navy's purpose in detail makes sense. However, the latest such explanation is incomplete.

The very comprehensive analysis and explanation of the raison d'etre for a continuing Canadian naval capability deals almost entirely with the issue of integrating an existing naval force into an emerging global maritime security regime. There is absolutely nothing wrong in this, but it is not a complete rationalization. What Adjusting Course does not address is the fundamental question "What function does the navy perform which obligates Canadian society to assume responsibility for its maintenance?" I cannot claim copyright to that question; it actually comes from Professor Samuel Huntington's excellent analysis of the lack of public support for US Navy immediately after the Second World War. (Proceedings, May 1954, pp. 483-493). He explained the need to answer that question as follows: "the resources which a service is able to obtain in a democratic society are a function of the public support of that service. The service has the responsibility to develop the necessary support, and it can only do this if it possesses a strategic concept which clearly formulates its relationship to the national security." In other words, a naval strategy should be anchored firmly in a national strategy that establishes exactly how the state intends to preserve its security and sovereignty and also protect its international interests.

Theoretically, this is completely consistent with traditional concepts of "grand strategy" discussed by Liddell Hart, Paul Kennedy, and others. But, as Kennedy points out in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, (Yale University Press, 1991) it is not necessary to have a clearly defined military threat to have a national strategy. Non-military threats to national security, in its broadest meaning, require coordinated responses every bit as much as military threats. Although the focal point of a national strategy is the application of military force, such a strategy is, in Kennedy's words, "about the balancing of ends and means, both in peacetime and in war time." As he explains, the military force that you may need to use in a crisis or future war has to be maintained in peacetime in a condition that it can be dispatched without delay when necessary. To do otherwise could place national interests and security in jeopardy or cause them to become functions of the strategies of other states, thereby abrogating national sovereignty. Maintaining those forces, and thus national support for the strategy, are direct functions of the voters' willingness to pay the related costs.

A well-founded naval strategy thus needs to answer the "national function" question from the perspective of the national grand strategy. Hence, there must be a clear link between the naval and the national strat egies.

In the Canadian case, a national "grand" strategy does not exist in an unequivocal form, and thus Adjusting Course lacks the national foundation upon which to build. It could be argued that the 1994 Defence White Paper meets that requirement. And perhaps it does in part, but it is a political document without binding commitment to longer-term requirements. What is needed is a non-partisan statement defining our national security interests and stating exactly what we intend to about protecting them. In many respects, this would also be a statement of the way in which Canada intends to conduct itself on the world stage. Some would say that developing such a statement is an impossibility today. I disagree. Some overarching vision of Canada's place in the world should not be difficult to develop once one cuts away the constraints of partisan politics and starts to identify those "interests" fundamental to our continued well-being.

In this respect, the 1994 Report of the Special Joint Committee on Canada's Defence Policy comes much closer to the idea of a statement of national security objectives. This occurs through a series of fairly simple statements:

"we see a continuing purpose in a military capacity to oversee and protect Canadian territory and airspace..."
"we see a continuing purpose in a significant naval presence on our coasts."
"we see an important purpose, both today and in the future in having the military capacity to participate effectively in multilateral security operations overseas..."

The Committee placed a caveat on the those beliefs that: "If we are to put our sons and daughters into harm's way, there has to be a reason, a good reason." This is surely coming close to the definition of a national interest as a condition of such importance that it is worth spending national treasure and blood to protect.

The Committee's statements represent a careful blend of foreign and defence policy considerations that transcend partisan politics. However, that very logical document, which represents an honest attempt to develop guidelines for defence policy unfettered by partisan ideology (in so far as this is ever possible), has no legal standing and thus cannot be interpreted as a national "grand" strategy.

What should be done to correct this deficiency? Perhaps we should ask first if we really need a "grand" strategy as the basis for a maritime strategy? Some would argue that the present process of having Cabinet approve every naval procurement program forms an adequate strategic underpinning for the navy. Others hold that subordinating the entire procurement process to the partisan political process has the potential to leave the navy (or any other service) unable to respond to emergency situations in the future because procurement decisions will be taken on the basis of near-term political objectives rather than in support of longer-term national aims. This really comes back to the underlying question, "Why does Canada need a navy?", and to the need to convince not only the political leadership but also Canadians as a whole of the value of a navy in the national fabric.

The nature of the requirement is such that two statements are actually needed to answer the question. The first, as already explained, takes the form of the national "grand" strategy that establishes the principles of national security policy and provides the basic criteria by which military force will be used. The second part of the answer establishes the type of navy to be maintained and the general concepts for its employment. As Huntington explained, "a military service may be viewed as consisting of a strategic concept which defines the role of the service in national policy, public support which furnishes it with the resources to perform this role, and organizational structure which groups the resources so as to implement most effectively the strategic concept." The naval strategy, therefore, must address the type of navy that will be maintained to meet national security objectives.

In doing this, it is not enough to merely state that "We will do more with what we already have." There has to be has to be a widely accepted belief that the national interests are best served by maintaining a naval capability. I do not believe that such support exists today. But that is not to say that it cannot be found. The problem may be more the lack of knowledge than any lack of concern.

Ideally, the public expression of support, in both the "grand" and the naval strategies, should be a political statement or, as in long-estab lished maritime states such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands, be an entrenched part of the national character. Unfortunately, a Canadian maritime "character" does not exist. In character, we are principally a continental state more concerned with internal lines of communications than with those reaching out over the oceans. Despite the economic value of the maritime dimensions of the country, the continental perspective is unlikely to change. The geography of Canada is an insurmountable barrier. On the other hand, a political endorsement of national objectives may be too much to expect because it would be seen as a continuing commitment and thus expenditure. Nevertheless, it should be possible to explain publicly the value of the contribution made to the national fabric by the navy. In part, the 1994 Defence White Paper meets this objective in discussing force levels, but as noted earlier that document does not meet the longer-term criteria of a "grand" strategy.

How can the problem be solved? If the politicians cannot, or will not, produce the necessary statement entrenching the navy as part of the national fabric, the naval and maritime communities must take the neces sary steps to gain public support. In the Canadian case, public support may have to lead political support. Essentially, the aim should be to get the public to accept the argument that the longer-term costs of maintaining the navy are lower in terms of national security than of not paying to maintain the navy in peacetime. In what Paul Kennedy referred to as a process of "balancing ends and means", public and political support for the navy has to be gained by force of logic.

Is Adjusting Course up to the task? At the moment it presents a good argument but is not a complete strategy because it does not adequately answer the question: "What function does the navy perform which obligates Canadian society to assume responsibility for its maintenance?" Moreover, Adjusting Course is a strategic orphan because it is not tied to an overarch ing national strategic vision free of the constraints of today's short-term political imperatives and locked tightly on the future of this country in the longer-term.

Putting this situation to rights is a tall order for the navy to fulfil on its own, but the process can be advanced by actively generating public support for both the strategic concept and the raison d'etre for a standing naval capability. The public education process provides many opportunities for presenting arguments for both "grand" strategy and a more specific naval strategy, and they should be taken. In this, it makes sense to engage the whole naval community in the process.

Peter Haydon is the editor of the Maritime Affairs Newsletter.