Canadian Defence Review: Substance or paper?
Ottawa-based Steve Saideman raises several questions around the
now-launched defence review, from how binding it will be to whether the right
experts on military issues will be consulted in the process.


Paterson Chair in International Affairs, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs
On the way home Wednesday, I got a call and was asked by a journalist whether the new defence review, which was launched earlier that day, is going to be political or not.
The answer to that is easy: political. Why? Because
politics is about the public allocation of stuff. So, anything the
government does is political. The real question is whether the review will
be meaningful or
not. Will it shape the
future defence procurement, plans, personnel, training, doctrine and operations
or not? Will Canada’s military be any different after this exercise?
The quick answer: damned if I know. But I do have some questions and
comments about the process (I got cranky very fast on twitter, so this is my longer explanation).
First, kudos for having a very interesting pre-launch conference call. I was on it with a bunch of other people (only those asking
questions were identified). The folks on the line asked some really good
questions. I will not name names, but I will borrow some of their
questions/concerns.
Second, what is a
white paper and why aren’t we using the term for this review? This seems to be a British thing and perhaps a Canadian
thing, but not an American thing. That is, how binding is this
review? Is it just a think piece or is it supposed to be a roadmap for
everything Canada does in the defence sector over the next five to 10 years? I
think the latter, but the desire not to call it a white paper might suggest
that this is not so binding.
Third, how does one
do a defence review without a larger framework for Canada’s place in the world? That is, what about a national security/grand strategy
for Canada? The military is only one part of Canada’s involvement with the
planet (and the homefront), and its role is highly contingent on Canadian
diplomacy. So, how does one do a defence review that is building on the
foundation of a larger understanding of Canada in the world? Not sure, but
if you read the consultation document (I skimmed it quickly), there are a lot
of built in assumptions about Canada’s place in the world — NATO, NORAD, cyber,
peacekeeping. Asia is largely omitted as far as I could skim (Asia is
mentioned once, Pacific is mentioned once or twice). Something to think
about.
Fourth, what are the
fiscal constraints? A
defence review has to have some concept of what are the constraints and the big
one in Canada is money. In other countries, the big constraints are the
local adversaries. Instead, Canada’s geography largely means opportunity
to do what we want to do—there are no nearby threats but one big friend. Anyhow,
I am not so bothered by this because we can pretty safely assume that Canada is
not going to spend much more than it is currently spending and maybe not much
less (hard to spend less).
Fifth, my big twitter rant was about the process of the consultation: roundtables in six places — Vancouver, Edmonton,
Montreal, Halifax, Toronto, and Yellowknife. Whuck? The idea, as I
understand it, is to have a series of meetings where defence stakeholders
(experts, lobbyists, etc.) will be allowed to not just speechify (or else they
could just record stuff and ship the recordings) but to discuss in wide-ranging
conversations about the threats Canada is facing and the choices Canada should
be making. These roundtables make a heap of sense to me — as getting a
group of people together to talk about this stuff will help to identify those
areas that seem to have consensus, those areas where there are stark tradeoffs
about which smart, informed people will disagree, and those areas where there
are big questions and uncertainties. That is, conversations by a group of sharp
people is preferred over individual submissions by many individuals.
But I am left wondering who will populate the roundtable in Yellowknife (sorry).
Is Yellowknife a hidden centre of expertise on defence stuff? Edmonton
might make sense since it is near a major army base, so it has retired military
folks and some sharp people at the universities nearby — except Calgary is the
place which has one of the leading centres of
defence studies and yet it
is not on the list. Sure, its director, David Bercuson, is cranky and
leans right, but any defence review should have some cranky, right-leaning
people. You don’t have to do what they suggest, but such folks help to
question assumptions and raise key critical issues.
What about Ottawa? Sure, I can make this about me, but I am pretty sure that
this commentary will make sure that I am not consulted. But there are
sharp people in this town who study this stuff — academics, lobbyists, think
tanks (the few that exist), retired military folks, etc. The pushback I
have already gotten is this: they already know what folks in town think because
we are all here. Really? Have there been roundtables in Ottawa lately
with a good mix of folks addressing these big questions? Have these
roundtables been attended by those who will be writing up the defence
review? Perhaps the folks who are already super-wired will get their
opinions through, but how about others? And how about the conversations that
might ensue at an Ottawa roundtable?
I guess the good news is that it will not be hard to figure out who to invite
to the Edmonton and Yellowknife roundtables, whereas an Ottawa roundtable would
lead to tough choices about who should be included. So, as always, Rush
provides the insight: if you choose not to decide,
you still have made a choice.
Finally, the punchline: we
will only really know if this defence review is a real thing, not just a
paper exercise to keep a campaign promise, if it advocates making hard choices and then the government makes hard
choices. What would hard choices look
like? Cutting personnel. Closing some bases. Facing the naval
tradeoff of subs vs. surface ships. Shrinking the army a bit. Buying
some but not as many fighter planes of some kind. Why? Because the
costs of stuff and of personnel are going to increase faster than the defence
budget (sorry), so what will Canada do less of with less?
On the bright side, this rant might demonstrate that I am willing to criticize
this government with as much enthusiasm as the previous one. OK, with almost as much enthusiasm.