A Sow's Ear from a Silk Purse
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209905400110 |
| Author | Douglas L. Bland |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Essay |
DOUGLAS
L.
BLAND
A
sow's
ear
from
a
silk
purse
Abandoning
Canada's
military
capabilities
All
history
is a
tale
of'slights
and
fights
and
spirits
vexed,'
and
we
must
expect
such
unpleasantness
as
an
assured
thing,
whereas peace
is
a
good
unguaranteed -
dependent
upon
the
unknowable
interior
dispositions
of
our
friends. St
Augustine,
The
City
of
Goa4
426
AD
CANADA
TODAY
IS
AN UNMILITARY
NATION
BY
CHOICE,
not
by
charac-
ter.
Political
leaders
habitually
abandon
military
power
as
an
instru-
ment
of
national
security
and
defence
policy.
No
one
should
be
sur-
prised
that
Canada's
security
now
depends 'upon
the unknowable
inte-
rior
dispositions
of
our
friends.'
Military
power,
measured
as
capabili-
ties,
is
occasionally
recognized
as
necessary
and
important
for
Canada's
national
ends.
But
more often
governments
adopt
defence policies
that
result
in
an
irregular,
but
continuing,
loss
of
military capabilities
because
they
discount
the
utility
of
national
armed
forces.
Abandonment
as
policy,
though
never
announced
as
such,
operates
in two related
dimensions
-
budgets
and
ideology
-
depending
on
the
disposition
of
governments.
Since
1945,
military
capabilities
in
Cana-
da
rose
and
(usually)
fell
according
to
a
cycle
of
retrenchment
and
Chair,
Defence
Management
Studies
Programme,
Queens
UniversiO
Kingston. The
author
acknowledges
the
advice
and
assistance
of
Professor
David
Haglund,
Professor
John
Treddenick,
General
Paul
Manson,
and
officials
from
the
Department
of
National
Defence
in
the
prepara-
tion
of
this
article.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
Douglas
L.
Bland
shifting
ideologies.
After
the
Second
World War,
Liberal
governments
cut
defence
budgets,
then
spent
hugely
from
1949
through
1953.
Both
Liberal
and
Progressive
Conservative
governments
in
the
1950s.and
early
1960s
acknowledged the
role
of
armed
forces
but
still
cut bud-
gets,
although
they
tried
to
control
the
rate
of
the
descent.
Neverthe-
less,
capabilities began
to
suffer.
The
arrival
of
Pierre
Elliott
Trudeau
as
prime minister
in
1968
marked
an ideological
change
in
defence
poli-
cy
and with
it
a
major
cut
in
defence
allocations.
In
1974
Trudeau
attempted
to
counter
the
adverse
effects
of
this
ideologically
based
pol-
icy,
but without
much
conviction or
success.
Capabilities
continued
to
decline.
The
Conservatives
in
1983
practiced
retrenchment
while
preaching
'honest funding'
for
the
'tools
to
do
the
job.'
Capabilities
eroded
further.
Today,
the
Canadian
Forces
struggle
under
a
duel
chal-
lenge:
the
code
of'financial
responsibility'
of
Paul
Martin,
the
minister
of
finance,
and
the
ideology
of
'human
security'
through
'soft
power'
of
Lloyd
Axworthy,
the
minister
of
foreign
affairs.
There
is
little
room
for
military
capabilities
in
this
environment;
consequently, Canada's
military
power
is
simply
drifting
away.
This
is
no
accident; it
is
gov-
ernment
policy.
Many
commentators
today
see
the
withered
and
increasingly
atro-
phied
state
of
the
Canadian
Forces
as
an
unintended
consequence
of
retrenchment
in
government
expenditures.
Retrenchment
undoubt-
edly
contributed
to
the
decline
and
will
continue
to
do
so,
even
if
current
policy
were reversed
immediately. However,
Canada's armed
forces have
little
value
today
as
instruments
of
national
policy
because
governments,
especially
after
1969,
decided
Canada
had
lit-
tle
need
of
them.
This
idea
stumbled
along to
its
own
conclusions
until
1993
when
security
and
defence
strategy
shifted
away
from
mil-
itary
power
and
military
capabilities and towards
the
notion
of
soft
power.
Typically, defence
expenditure
bears
little
relevance to
declared
objectives.
Funds
are
usually
spent
according
to
the
pressures
of
the
day
on personnel,
operations and maintenance
(O&M),
and
capital.
Because
personnel
and
O&M
costs
are
more
or
less
fixed
in
the
short
term,
capital to
sustain
capabilities
and fund
new ones
almost
always is
a
residue
of
these
other
expenditures.
Defence allocations
are
often
used
to
support
domestic
projects
that
serve
the partisan
interests
of
the
government
of
the
day. In
the
absence
of
government
preferences,
the
budget
is
distributed
to
the
institutions
and
capabilities
that
inter-
144
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
A
sow's
ear
from
a silk
purse
est
senior
officers
and
officials
in
power.
Defence
policy
is
then
merely
the
ad hoc
ends
of
domestic
partisan
politics
and
of
bureaucratic
poli-
tics
within
the
defence
establishment.
When
governments
reduce
defence
budgets, capital
expenditures
on
capabilities
decline
and military
power
is
lost.
Even
in
periods
of
increased
defence
allocations,
as
in
1974-84,
the
proportion
available
for
capital
is
rarely
enough
to
overcome the 'bow
wave'
of
deferred
requirements
or
desires
set aside
in
lean
years.
Consequently,
military
capabilities appear,
decline,
and
vanish
randomly.
Declining
capabilities
are
also
the
result
of
policies
inspired
by
the
shared
ideology
of
influential
ministers and
what
they
think
about
international
relations, Canada's
place
in
the
world,
and
the
utility
of
military
power
in
national
security
strategy.
Roughly
between
1945
and
1968,
ministers
followed
a
so-called Pearsonian
strategy
in
which
military
power
was
a
necessary,
if
not
necessarily loved,
component.
After
1969,
and
especially
during
the
early
Trudeau
years
and
at
pre-
sent, ministers
believed
that
Canada
did
not
need
military
capabilities
to
guard
and
enforce
security.
MILITARY
CAPABILITIES
The
sight
and sound
of
long
lines
of
marching
soldiers
accompanied
by
brass
bands
and
the
sweep
of
tall
ships
under
sail
once symbolized
the
brute
power
of
states.
Today,
the
image
and
the
message
are
carried
by
jet
fighters,
sleek
ships, satellites,
fast
tanks,
and
smart
bombs,
although
prancing
'revolutionary
guards'
are
still
de
rigueur
in
less
sophisticated
nations.
But
what
is
shadow
and
what
is
substance?
His-
tory
is
replete
with
examples
of
putative
military
power
that
fails
on
encountering
the
enemy
-
consider,
for
example,
the
Armada, the
Russian
army
circa
1914,
the
Maginot
Line,
and
any
number
of
tech-
nical
'revolutions
in
military
affairs.'
A
military capability
is
a
complex
arrangement
of
inseparable
parts.
If
any
part
is
missing or
defective,
the capability
may
not
exist
for
long
in
battle.
A
military
capability
(especially
in
peacetime)
is
a
potential
compe-
tence
created
and
maintained
for
a
specific
purpose.
A
credible
capa-
bility
must
be
able
to
cause
harm
to
an
opponent's
interests
and
be
rel-
evant
to
the technology,
tactics,
and
strategy one
anticipates.
No
mili-
tary
capability,
not
even
a
nuclear weapon,
provides
an
absolute
capa-
bility.
Every
competence
-
weapon,
unit,
or
individual
-
is
a
potential
capability
until
it
is
tested
and
consumed
in
use.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
145
To continue reading
Request your trial