- Reaction score
- 5,973
- Points
- 1,260
I have harped on this more than a few times in the past year or so. There is a deep mistrust and lack of respect held by the bureaucratic centre (PCO, Finance, Treasury) about and towards DND – both military and civilian components.
Traditionally and constitutionally public servants, despite their specific jobs in specialized departments are all expected to be loyal to and to work in pursuit of the policies and priorities of the elected government of the day. Thus a manager in Energy, Mines and Resources and a policy analyst in Citizenship and Immigration and a branch head in Industry Canada's radio spectrum group are all obliged to get behind the government’s priorities – even when that involves e.g. cuts to their own programmes, perhaps to their own jobs. Equally traditionally it was understood that this applied only to the civil service; the armed services had, it was acknowledged, slightly different loyalties and responsibilities. The late, lamented Mr. Berry is the exception which proves the rule: civil servants are not, in the normal course of events, expected to stand in harm’s way and lay down their lives for their country; sailors and soldiers are and their leaders, in the capitals of the world, were understood to have obligations to defend their fighting men and women against e.g. the budget cuts necessitated by political or bureaucratic mismanagement.
That all changed in the ‘60s and ‘70s when, led by Washington, there was more and more integration of civil and military staffs in defence ministries/HQs and increased influence exerted by senior military officers in the ongoing national policy (and budget) debates. The military has been politicized not just in Canada, either. Senior officers, especially the most senior officers, like Gen. Hillier have a voice in the bureaucratic corridors of power: they should have. It, politicization, brings rewards and risks. The risk is that the bureaucratic centre might neither respect nor trust the defence staff. That is, I believe the case in Canada; I believe it has been the case since, at least, the mid 1990s when I got a chance to observe it close up.
In any event here is an excellent article, by a real insider from today’s Globe and Mail. It is reproduced here under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060302.wxcodefence02/BNStory/specialComment/home
DND has an additional weapon: Deputy Minister of Defence Ward Elcock is, like Kevin Lynch, almost frighteningly intelligent; there are few people in the world who have more understanding of the nature of the war we are in, right now. He has, I think, the ear and, in his domain, the respect of the PCO and, the PM. He is a classic behind the scenes man – less public, less sociable, less liked (or hated) than Lynch but, in his own way, very powerful and influential.
I believe that Kevin Lynch does not argue that we need effective and efficient armed forces; I think he would like to know that the government of the days knows what those forces should do and, therefore, what they should look like and, consequentially, how much they should cost. I suspect he is not, yet, persuaded that PM Harper and his government do know those things. Hillier and Elcock have work to do.
Traditionally and constitutionally public servants, despite their specific jobs in specialized departments are all expected to be loyal to and to work in pursuit of the policies and priorities of the elected government of the day. Thus a manager in Energy, Mines and Resources and a policy analyst in Citizenship and Immigration and a branch head in Industry Canada's radio spectrum group are all obliged to get behind the government’s priorities – even when that involves e.g. cuts to their own programmes, perhaps to their own jobs. Equally traditionally it was understood that this applied only to the civil service; the armed services had, it was acknowledged, slightly different loyalties and responsibilities. The late, lamented Mr. Berry is the exception which proves the rule: civil servants are not, in the normal course of events, expected to stand in harm’s way and lay down their lives for their country; sailors and soldiers are and their leaders, in the capitals of the world, were understood to have obligations to defend their fighting men and women against e.g. the budget cuts necessitated by political or bureaucratic mismanagement.
That all changed in the ‘60s and ‘70s when, led by Washington, there was more and more integration of civil and military staffs in defence ministries/HQs and increased influence exerted by senior military officers in the ongoing national policy (and budget) debates. The military has been politicized not just in Canada, either. Senior officers, especially the most senior officers, like Gen. Hillier have a voice in the bureaucratic corridors of power: they should have. It, politicization, brings rewards and risks. The risk is that the bureaucratic centre might neither respect nor trust the defence staff. That is, I believe the case in Canada; I believe it has been the case since, at least, the mid 1990s when I got a chance to observe it close up.
In any event here is an excellent article, by a real insider from today’s Globe and Mail. It is reproduced here under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060302.wxcodefence02/BNStory/specialComment/home
General versus Economist
The real battle pits the Chief of the Defence Staff against the Privy Council Clerk, says veteran political adviser EUGENE LANG
BY EUGENE LANG
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2006 POSTED AT 8:27 AM EST
FROM THURSDAY'S GLOBE AND MAIL
A battle of titans is about to begin in Ottawa's corridors of power. It will be a fight between two giants operating within the non-partisan, permanent side of the government of Canada. General Rick Hillier, the most visionary, charismatic and highest profile Chief of the Defence Staff in decades, will be up against the economist Kevin Lynch, the newly minted Clerk of the Privy Council, one of the most skilled public servants of his generation.
The battle will be over billions of dollars. And it will showcase starkly different world views about Canada's military.
Gen. Hillier will be pushing hard for the Conservatives to quickly deliver on their election commitment to increase funding to the Canadian Forces by $5-billion over five years. But he will go much further than that. In the view of the military leadership, notwithstanding the $13-billion increase in defence funding provided in last year's budget, defence remains underfunded by $3-billion a year. That is regarded as the bare minimum required to transform the Canadian Forces into a more nimble, deployable, operationally structured force, something Gen. Hillier has been pushing for a year now.
Add to that the Conservatives' defence commitments announced during the election -- armed icebreakers, underwater sensor systems strewn throughout Canada's Arctic waters, strategic airlift planes, and a 23,000-person increase to the military -- and you can add another $3-billion a year to that existing shortfall. Thus, the $5-billion over five years Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised is a drop in the bucket.
Enter Mr. Lynch, who is known best for his work at Industry Canada in the late 1990s. While there, he fleshed out a research and innovation agenda that had some transformational programs of its own, such as the Canada Research Chairs and a visionary initiative to connect all of Canada's schools to the Internet.
Kevin Lynch lore also exists within the corridors of National Defence headquarters. There, he is remembered with equal parts disdain and fear as the architect of the Mulroney government's cuts to the defence budget in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he was at Finance Canada and in charge of wrestling the deficit to the ground. Shortly after Mr. Lynch became deputy minister of finance in 2000, it became apparent his views toward defence had not changed in the postdeficit period. Finance under Mr. Lynch's leadership regarded the Defence Department as a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. And Mr. Lynch and his staff viewed military spending as, at best, a fiscal drag and, at worst, an unproductive allocation of scarce resources.
Now Mr. Lynch is the Prime Minister's top official in charge of managing the spending demands across the government. This will have to be achieved while maintaining a balanced budget, continuing to pay down debt and cutting taxes, three items that have always topped both Mr. Lynch's and Mr. Harper's priority list. Judging by past experience, and given his world view, the defence funding issue will not feature at all in Mr. Lynch's priorities. Now, as then, it will be regarded as a "fiscal pressure" to be driven to its lowest level. The fact that Mr. Harper's defence commitments are not among his top five priorities will give Mr. Lynch the mandate he needs to keep a lid on this pressure.
For Gen. Hillier, this is a nightmare scenario. He is driving a military transformation agenda that is not without its critics inside the Canadian Forces. So far, the critics have acquiesced because the general's plan is premised on a massive funding increase for new equipment, and he is seen as someone who can deliver. But now he will be battling his most formidable opponent yet: a former Finance Department, Bank of Canada and International Monetary Fund economist who has little time for military matters, especially ones that involve big money.
Mr. Lynch will be loath to give anything but the bare minimum to the military, especially given the large increase in funding provided last year. Most of the other countless fiscal demands Ottawa currently faces will be much higher on the Clerk's agenda than a further boost to the defence budget. Gen. Hillier is one tough customer, very smart, a real leader, and a fighter. But he is entering a new field of battle, one that is waged over scarce resources within a complex bureaucratic system. This is a battleground on which he is largely untested, against an opponent who is a virtual legend.
The Clerk of the Privy Council might well be a more formidable foe than the Bosnian Serbs or the Taliban forces that Gen. Hillier has fought in the past. His challenge will be to transform himself quickly from highly decorated field general into a top-rate tactician within the bureaucratic war zone of Ottawa.
The Ottawa careers of Gen. Hillier and Mr. Lynch have not coincided, so they do not know one another well. But that will change over the coming months. The stakes are high for both men, the Canadian Forces and, ultimately, the country, and the battle will be interesting theatre for those who have a window on it.
Eugene Lang was chief of staff to Liberal defence ministers John McCallum and Bill Graham while General Rick Hillier was Chief of the Defence Staff, and he was a senior economist at Finance Canada when Kevin Lynch was deputy minister of finance.
DND has an additional weapon: Deputy Minister of Defence Ward Elcock is, like Kevin Lynch, almost frighteningly intelligent; there are few people in the world who have more understanding of the nature of the war we are in, right now. He has, I think, the ear and, in his domain, the respect of the PCO and, the PM. He is a classic behind the scenes man – less public, less sociable, less liked (or hated) than Lynch but, in his own way, very powerful and influential.
I believe that Kevin Lynch does not argue that we need effective and efficient armed forces; I think he would like to know that the government of the days knows what those forces should do and, therefore, what they should look like and, consequentially, how much they should cost. I suspect he is not, yet, persuaded that PM Harper and his government do know those things. Hillier and Elcock have work to do.