Cut The Fat
Government parsimony has been much in the news these days. Special attention has been given to the Conservative Government's niggardly treatment of veterans. (I note, in the interests of fairness, that the
New Veterans' Charter, which is the root cause of so many of the complaints, is a piece of Liberal legislation, introduced by Albina Guarnieri and passed by Prime Minister Paul Martin's government in 2005.) But the government's treatment of veterans has been addressed by its own members, most notably by The Honourable Laurie Hawn, PC, CD, MP on his
Facebook page.
I am concerned with another area: the Department of National Defence's (DND) internal budget priorities .
The recent budget the government brought down, is, as
the Globe and Mail put it, “a budget that pushes off billions in defence spending.”
This is familiar territory for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). We must recognize, first, that from 2010 to or even beyond, 2015, the government's primary focus is on balancing the budget, and as in the 1990s when Prime Minister Chrétien was in office and was also intent on giving us a balanced budget, DND is expected to pay a full (and more than just fair) share of the price of that effort.
But there is a difference between the past
decades of darkness (which extended from the early 1960s all the way until about the early 2000s) and the current exercise. In past “lean years” the fiscal pain was shared from top to bottom in the CAF: ships at sea were tied up, as they are now; equipment purchases were delayed or reduced, as is now the case; training was constrained, as it is this year; and flying hours were reduced, as they are now. But, in the past, Headquarters (HQ) were cut, too, often by larger margins than were applied to the fleets and the field forces.
That is not the case today. In fact the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) has,
explicitly stated that there is no room for cuts to the command and control superstructure.
I disagree.
ALL HQs can
always be cut without doing much harm. The only question is: by how much?
The Canadian Armed Forces have:
1. Over thirty combatant warships in two fleets;
2. Over thirty army combat and support units in three combat brigades;
3. Over twenty five flying squadrons in ten wings;
4. Special operations forces;
5. Logistical and communications support units;
6. Specialist schools and colleges;
7. A SIGINT system; and
8. Various intelligence and technical units.
Between National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ) in Ottawa and the 100+ ships, units and squadrons in the fleets, in the field forces and on bases, there are literally dozens of headquarters, one piled atop the others, with, at any given time, about 10 Vice Admirals/Lieutenant Generals, more than 25 Rear Admirals/Major Generals and 65 Commodores/Brigadier Generals in them.
That has been characterized as “HQ bloat” but I call it “HQ morbid obesity.”
The Canadian Armed Forces own
Report on Transformation indicates that between 2004 and 2010 the number of personnel at DND's top level headquarters rose 46 per cent, and that doesn't include the thousands of people hired as contractors and consultants. During this time, the remainder of the regular force grew by only 10 percent.
Not all headquarters are wasteful; some command and control is required to perform necessary and useful coordination, support and supervisory functions. But when the command and control superstructure is too large, disproportionately large, it tends to over manage subordinate formations and units on one hand and, on the other hand, too often act only as relay stations, which merely delays information passage and decision-making.
I am neither so bold nor so foolish as to try to decide how to organize the Canadian Forces but I am certain that it can and must be done with fewer headquarters layers and far fewer people in the command and control superstructure. That means there must be a reevaluation of the command and control requirements, some (many) of which, I suspect, have grown out of any and all relationship to the problems they are trying to solve. It also means there must be a
political commitment to defence reform.
I agree with the General Tom Lawson, the CDS, that what is not needed, and what should not be allowed, is a simplistic
more tooth and less tail debate. Both the combat forces and the absolutely critically necessary support service are under severe strain: neither has any “fat” left to be trimmed. But the CAF is like a man who lives in a sprawling mansion but drives a decades-old, rusted out car: unbalanced. In my view the combat forces and the administrative and logistical support services are, like the car, in dire need of maintenance or even replacement, but the command and control superstructure, the many, too many headquarters that stand between the commander in chief and the commanders of flotillas, brigades, wings, bases and depots, is like the mansion. The mansion owner, the Government of Canada, keeps adding to the number of household servants; that looks nice, it may even be useful, but it is out of proportion to the tasks at hand. As the income decreases, there needs to be an acceptance that fewer servants will be available. Directly tied to this is the understanding that many of these servants' tasks will no longer be done. It's time to invest in previously deferred car repairs so that it's going to run effectively when required. The CAF needs to trim its bloated headquarters staffs and 'trade' many senior officer positions for infantry soldiers, aircraft mechanics, sailors, combat engineers and the like.
It is my opinion that how DND and the Canadian Armed Forces operate internally matters little in Ottawa. The government has priorities and, right now, DND and the CAF do not figure highly in them.
Again, to be fair, defence is rarely a priority ~ except when the CAF is (usually suddenly) needed. In 1992, when Prime Minister Mulroney decided to commit forces to the Balkans and in 1995 and when Prime Minister Chrétien decided to expand and extend that mission, the CAF became a priority. In 2002, and again in 2003 when Prime Minister Chrétien decided to deploy the forces to Kandahar and then later to Kabul, and in 2005, Prime Minister Martin decided to send the CAF back to Kandahar, the military became a priority again. The CAF remained a priority in 2006 (and beyond) when Prime Minister Harper decided to keep them in Kandahar and extend the mission. Once again in 2011 when Prime Minister Harper decided to participate in the allied operation in Libya the forces were, briefly, a priority. There was, in each case, a mix of policy and political calculation. In each and every case at least one of the policy considerations was to have Canada, once again, “punch above its weight” in world affairs. The goal wasn't to conduct combat operations; they were just the means to a foreign policy end. There was, in each case, a domestic political calculation, too: doing our share and being seen to be doing our share was regarded as a way to win some votes ... to win more than the same action lost. But all those operations are over and so is the “priority” status of the Canadian Armed Forces ... until they are needed, again.
But the government of the day should recognize that it has important interests, policy interests and political interests, in making sure that the CF is ready and able when needed. I suggest that a 'rich,' bloated, command and control superstructure renders the CF weaker and less ready than it can and should be.
Money is tight. It is not going to become plentiful for DND any time soon. Canadians need to know that the money that is spent on their national defence is being well spent ~ that they are getting the most bang for their buck. The CAF combat and support elements are, already,
lean and mean, they need to be equally lean at the top.
It is a sad fact that the Headquarters in Ottawa (the ones stacked atop the others) have about 6,000 regular force military people ~ staff officers and clerks and so on; that's more people than are in the entire Atlantic or Pacific fleets, more than in any of the three army brigades, more than in our largest air wing, more than the total of the people in all our jet fighter squadrons combined - operational and training squadrons.
It is difficult to say this or that is too large. Other defence forces of similar sizes and shapes have different command and control structures so one cannot say that Australia or Israel or the Netherlands does it “better” or “cheaper.” What I can say is that many, many senior officers and some senior civil servants, too, serving and retired,
sense that our, CAF, command and control system is too rich for our blood.
I affirm that: there need to be headquarters; there must be a national command and control centre for the Canadian Armed Forces; the fleets and brigades and wings do need their own headquarters, too. The question is: how much needs to be between that national HQ in Ottawa and those operational HQs in bases from coast to coast? I answer that the command and control superstructure can be and must be made more efficient, it must be more
proportional to the size of our combat forces, and that means smaller.
I believe that one problem is that the CAF has applied too much attention to the split between “force generation” and “force employment.” The two are quite different functions and some large forces, like the US military, can, with reasonable economies of scale, separate the two. All forces do, to one extent or another, but most allied armed forces make the split at fleet, brigade or wing level, or even below. At levels above fleet/brigade/wing in many (most?) military forces of similar sizes/scales as the CAF the two functions are combined. Canada has attempted to be “pure” in the force generation/employment split and I believe it caused some of the HQ morbid obesity.
We must, as the old saying goes, cut our coat to suit our cloth.
I want to see:
1. A major overhaul of the misshapen, top heavy command and control of the Canadian Armed Forces, directed and led from the centre, from the Privy Council Office, because there is no incentive for admirals and generals to fire themselves. It is to be expected that hundreds of 'person years' can be
recycled into the fleets and field forces;
2. A concomitant and major reduction in the number of the most senior officers in the CAF. There are, now, over 100 flag and general officers in the Canadian Armed Forces, most in headquarters, I feel that reduction of about 25% is in order,
all to be taken from HQs above ship (or group), brigade and wing level; and
3. A serious reduction in rank levels in headquarters. The place to start is with the appointment of “director.” In public service parlance a director is the first
executive level. The director is the person with independent
executive (policy and application) responsibility for a complete, discrete function. In the Canadian Armed Forces, in the fleets and in the field forces, we understand the first level
executive. It is the ship's captain, the regiment or battalion CO, or the squadron CO: a lieutenant colonel. But in NDHQ the normal rank for an executive is navy captain or colonel. This is wrong because it misemployes senior officers, it does not give them responsibilities commensurate with their demonstrated skills and abilities, and it creates an
inflationary model wherein directors general are then commodores or brigadier generals and so on. A first, simple and money saving solution to the over rank problem is to re-rank NDHQ directors, and their counterparts in all HQs as commanders/lieutenant colonels and all directors generals as navy captains and colonels. When one works this up the “chain” one eventually wonders why, for example, the CDS must be a four star admiral or general. I note that many allied forces, even ones as small as ours have four star CDSs (see Australia, and Netherlands for example) but it is not universally true and the Israeli Defence Forces, a pretty good combat force, is headed by a lieutenant general. Perhaps making the next CDS a three star (vice admiral or lieutenant general) would constitute leadership by example.
But, what is really needed is item 1, the overhaul. And it needs to follow some principles.
I believe that we need a
joint command and control superstructure:
1. One, large, fully integrated
national defence headquarters in Ottawa that has ~
a. Departmental management responsibility,
b. Responsibility for the organization and administration of the CF, and
c. Responsibility to plan, mount and conduct military operations at home and abroad;
2. Several regional
joint command headquarters that will own and operate almost everything within their geographic boundaries, including some
sacred cows like, for example, the Royal Military College, and
3. Within those regional
joint commands operational formations and units (fleets, brigades and wings) and supporting elements like bases, schools, establishments and even laboratories.
If we are going to have
joint, or
unified commands then, clearly, there is no need for a Commander Royal Canadian Navy, Commander Canadian Army and Commander RCAF. Those three officers need to be re-roled as Chiefs of the Naval, General and Air Staffs. They should be ranked as rear admiral/major general and designated as “professional heads of service,” rather than as commanders. Their areas of responsibility also need to be redefined to cover areas like service doctrine, equipment requirements and individual requirement.
A principle which should be enforced quite ruthlessly is:
clarity of command. Staff officers in any headquarters, including NDHQ in Ottawa, should not, ever, outrank the commanders in the subordinate commands, formations or units and only rarely equal them in rank. This is just one of the reasons I believe the CDS should be a three star officer. This also means that the principal operations staff officer in a brigade, for example, should be a major,
not a lieutenant colonel.
(Parenthetically: I believe that there is also a problem with the ranks of brigade commanders. I have no real problem with plain, simple brigade commanders being colonels but we don't have any plain, simple brigades. We have brigade groups which are are bigger, more complex formations and they should be commanded by brigadier generals. The same general rule may apply to some RCAF wings. (There is an alternative: a new
appointment called Brigadier in between colonel and brigadier general. This appointment, with its own rank badge (a crown + 3 stars) would be assigned to officers who command brigades; they would not relinquish it on posting ~ much like a MCpl ~ even when posted to a colonel's position.))
If brigade groups are commanded by brigadier generals (or even brigadiers) then it would make sense to have colonels as the principle staff officers in a division HQ ~ assuming we form an operational division with the brigade groups under its command.
The regional, joint commands the HQs might be large, but a large HQ is not necessarily inefficient or ineffective as long as it is well designed and has a sensible set of duties.
I believe that a new, simpler, clearer and smaller structure can and will be simpler, and I believe that simplicity matters, especially in operations. I believe it can and will be cheaper in the absolute number of people employed in the command and control superstructure and in their ranks.
And I believe we can and will make better use of the
quality of senior officers by offering them more and more challenging work in the HQs that must exist.
Edit: typo
