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A Step Forward for Defence (July, 2006) Some years back I happened to attend the air show at Winnipeg International Airport. I had heard that the German army was in the process of vacating its training facility at base Shilo, and I wanted to see if the panzer crews were going to put on a farewell show for province which had hosted them for decades. I was not entirely disappointed. The Germans ran some of their armoured vehicles around an improvised obstacle course and engaged directly with the day-trippers who had come out to kick tires and inhale diesel fumes. But what impressed me most about the spectacle was not the ground displays, but the aircraft from nations around the world. And the most impressive among them was a hulking monstrosity with a four engines and a high tail boom. I walked up a rear ramp into a cavernous hold. The interior of the plane was massive, belying the comparatively short fuselage. Feeling a touch of agoraphobia, I retreated back down the rear cargo ramp and into the bright August sunshine, chuckling at the paradox of fearing an open space from inside. I realized how Jonah must have felt inside the belly of that whale. Thus ended my first encounter with the Boeing C-17 transport plane - the very aircraft that the Harper government may purchase to move military personnel and equipment to places far and wide. It is one of five major crown projects totalling $17-billion that the Conservatives announced recently to restore a measure of heath to the Canadian Forces (CF). Transport trucks, cargo helicopters, and supply ships are also on the shopping list. In keeping with Napoleon’s famous adage that and army marches on its stomach, the government has decided to put logistical capabilities at the heart of defence renewal. Without a strong transport and logistical capability, no mission – foreign or domestic – will leave the starting gate. The expected C-17 buy is actually one half of a two-part plan to restore the military’s clapped-out air transport capability. To replace the 35-year old Hercules aircraft for routine operations, a similar class of aircraft will also be procured. Both types of aircraft will have the ability to operate form short, unprepared runways common to the developing world or to remote communities in Canada. (This attribute was made clear to me on my second exposure to the C-17 when I recently flew out of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The pilot gunned the engines but kept applying the brakes. When he released them we shot forward and leapt off the ground, leaving our stomachs behind. It felt as though we had been catapulted from the deck of an aircraft carrier.) Normally the purchase of complex military hardware takes up to 15 years. But the acquisition of four C-17s may set a record for the pace at which the first machine enters Canadian service. Several Canadian pilots of have been on exchange tours with US Air Force C-17 squadrons, so training has already begun. Canada is likely to take a quartet of planes right out of the existing production line rather than wait for the US Air Force to complete its 180-aircraft order. And for the first time Canada will likely apply to NATO for infrastructure funds to upgrade facilities at Trenton, Ontario, where the planes will be based. The Atlantic Alliance is in dire need of strategic air transport for operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and is sure to look favourably upon Ottawa’s request for assistance in bringing the planes into service. Although driven by national requirements, the C-17 purchase may also have international value. If Canada has no ground troops to supply to a UN mission to, say, the Darfur region of the Sudan, it will now be able to offer up its C-17s to transport other nation’s troops into the crisis area, and be reimbursed for having done so. But the nagging question of whether Canada could continue to rent large aircraft from Russian or Ukrainian sources on as as-needed basis lingers like the smell of jet fuel. Up to now, the CF has been largely successful in chartering long-range aircraft to get stuff into place, using tactical airlift to sustain what has initially been deployed. Why not continue to rent? The defence department will undoubtedly reply that military and commercial demand for chartered airlift may soon outstrip supply. Since the charter companies (former communists transformed into shrewd capitalist!) keep the number of aircraft in service fixed, increasing demand will drive up rental costs while diminishing the chances that Canada will obtain airlift when it is needed most. There is also the fact that Russian-built aircraft are cleared to carry Western equipment but not troops, which decreases their flexibility. And since those aircraft are civilian machines they cannot carry defensive aids, which are used to protect the aircraft from surface-to-air missiles in a combat zone. The C-17 can do all of the above. Still, this still won’t deter some analysts and opposition politicians from dismissing this as a vanity project. Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh has even gone so far as to invoke the “s-word”, claiming said that Canada will lose sovereignty by relying on the Americans to overhaul the aircraft. But the price of establishing an in-depth maintenance facility in Canada for only four planes would be fiscally prohibitive. Neither the British nor the Australians – both of whom have strong domestic aerospace capabilities – would disagree. A separate yet complimentary order for the 17 smaller tactical transports is also likely to cause consternation among bidders. The air force considers the Hercules replacement to be an urgent priority. The European candidate, EADS, knows that it cannot supply a sufficient quantity of its Airbus A400 aircraft (which is still on the drawing board) until at least 2012. It will not welcome a statement from Ottawa that it is not prepared to wait that long, and will likely seek to discredit its rival, Lockheed Martin, saying that the new version of its Hercules has encountered technical problems that have inhibited performance. But opposition criticisms will be muted, lest the Tories simply point to Liberal neglect of the defence portfolio. And whereas the Liberals committed themselves rhetorically to defence renewal in their 2005 defence policy statement, no tangible progress was made for the better part of a year. Harper will be able to claim success after only three months in office. He will also be pleased that the cost of any US-built equipment will be managed by the strong Canadian dollar. True, Harper’s success is partly the result of footwork done by defence officials during the final months of the Liberals’ tenure. But whereas the Grits seemed to get bogged down in the political optics of spending billions on military hardware and worrying about whose riding got the most industrial benefits, the Conservatives came into office pledging to turn things around immediately. The cabinet and caucus are both pro-defence, and the minister, Gordon O’Connor, is said to favour getting the new kit into service now. But don’t expect regional benefits to be swept completely off the table. Each of last week’s announcements emphasized that “high-quality” industrial offsets will be sought in return for each equipment purchase. This means that bidders will have to do more than buy maple syrup from Quebec or hold corporate events at a golf resort on Prince Edward Island. At best, Boeing will be compelled to agree that in return for purchasing two of its products - the C-17 and the Chinook transport helicopter - Canada’s aerospace industry would be granted a major share of the production of the company’s next commercial airliner. At worst, Ottawa will insist that the winning bidder for the army’s new trucks build a production facility in Canada as a (short-term) job-creation scheme. An assembly line would be expensive to establish, leaving less money for the trucks themselves. It would also stand idle once the 1,500 or so vehicles had been delivered. But even this might not dissuade the Tories from going that route. It was no accident that the procurement announcement was made in Quebec. If a facility is built there it might boost the prime minister’s electoral fortunes. Ditto for the supply ship contract. Using it as leverage to break into Atlantic Canada would be an expensive but politically attractive proposition. Canada’s ship-building industry has been moribund since the last of the navy’s frigates were delivered eight years ago. It will take money and time to renew it before the first of the three ships are delivered in 2012 – two years too late to mark the centenary of the Canadian Navy. After this “mini-boom” a long period of “bust” will almost certainly follow. The deal to supply 16 transport helicopters will boost the morale of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, who must either rely on a diminishing pool of allied choppers to re-supply distant outposts, or do the same using dangerous country roads. But the new machines and trained crews are almost three years away. Finding earlier-model Chinooks to use in the interim could provide a way forward. On the surface there seems little to criticize in last week’s spending package. The total price will be spread over 15-20 years, so it won’t break the bank. The military is not asking for anything particularly exotic, merely the basics. Buying what is essentially a diverse set of transport equipments is unlikely to offend anyone with tender sensibilities since they are not configured to shoot at anyone. And each will handily serve what looks to be the primary purposes of the CF of the 21st century: the security of the home front and stabilization of failed states. But the five projects will not in and of themselves resolve all the operations shortcomings facing the CF. The navy must deal with the impending loss of its destroyers, which act as command vessels for multi-ship task groups. The patrol frigate fleet is overdue for a mid-life upgrade. The airframes of the Aurora patrol aircraft fleet are wearing out, with implications for the surveillance of Canadian territory. The (arguably good) decision to cancel of the Mobile Gun System (MGS) and Multi-mission Effects Vehicle (MMEV) will leave the army with fewer options to counter ground and air threats (although irregular forces do not normally posses tanks or atttack aircraft). And equipment lost to either enemy action or to the tough environmental conditions in Afghanistan will need replacement if Canada is to remain in theatre until 2008. Laying out funds for procurement is arguably the easy part. Awarding contracts and having a successor government honour them will be harder. Recall how Jean Chrétien cancelled the Mulroney Conservatives’ EH-101 helicopter contract, even if it meant paying stiff financial penalties. Desperate to discredit the Harper government, the Grits could turn the C-17 buy into an election issue. And ensuring that there are trained personnel to operate and maintain the new equipment will present this and future governments with an even greater challenge. New gear might serve as a useful recruiting tool, but it will take more to convince a newly-minted C-17 pilot that he should not simply finish up his tour and sell what he has learned to Air Canada.
by David Rudd
David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.
Copyright CISS 2006
