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http://www.canada.com/components/printstory/printstory4.aspx?id=94895636-6c8c-4c8b-a97e-c4845b985031
Not sure if most of you know BGen Beare, Comd LFWA, and future Comd LFDTS (later in Jul). He is a very skilled officer, a intelligent, articulate and charismatic leader. I think he will go very far and I suspect he will be CLS one day. The following article was carried in the Edmonton Journal and provides an overview of the state of army. Well worth the read and where we are going. Particularly note the importance of Wainwright as the premiere training establishment for the Army.
Preparing for the Three-Block War
'Yesterday, we focused on the Bear. Today we pursue the Snakes. Yesterday, we prepared to fight in the open. Today, we know our battles will be where
people and populations live.'
Brig.-Gen. Stuart Beare
Freelance
Monday, June 13, 2005
In the summer of 1978, a 17-year-old started a journey of military service -- not really concerned about where that journey would take him, nor how events would shape the institution he would grow to love. Looking back on the years that have passed, I have to admit that little has transpired as I predicted. Which brings me to today, a time where change and unpredictability have become the standard, and where Canada's Armed Forces are seeking to prepare for the predictable unpredictability of the future. Before I leave Edmonton after four years of living in this great community, I would like to share with you, my neighbours, some of the experiences we in uniform have faced in recent years. I will then paint a picture of where your army, within the Canadian Forces (CF), within Canada, and within today's world, is heading. Then, let me show you how Alberta and Albertans are playing an increasingly important role in getting us there.
OUR COLD WAR
The late 1970s and early 1980s were, from my perspective as a young officer, the height of the contest between two superpowers. The Cold War was alive and well with Canada and Western countries aligned with NATO, and the Warsaw Pact ruling Eastern Europe. Where instability did exist, middle-power nations like Canada frequently donned blue berets and supervised power-brokered peace. In 1983, Ronald Reagan was on the scene, investing mightily in modernizing the U.S. armed forces. In Germany, I watched as thousands of new tanks and armoured personnel carriers made their way into U.S. Army hands. The Warsaw Pact under Gorbachev laboured to keep pace. Canada was leading amongst peacekeeping nations with blue berets in Cyprus and the Middle East. More than 8,000 Canadian troops were stationed in Germany, ready to deter and defend against attack. The CF numbered roughly 90,000. We in uniform expected the Cold War to last for a long time. In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney declared his intent to grow the Canadian Forces and equip it with a completely new suite of war-fighting gear. A year later, the Berlin Wall came down. In Canada, Budget 1989 pulled the plug on nearly every major equipment project of note. By 1990, the CF numbered 80,000.
THE POST-COLD WAR
"PEACE DIVIDEND"
The Cold War ended in 1992. We saw the emergence of failed-state civil war and Canada deployed 2,000 soldiers to Croatia and Bosnia. Our Airborne Regiment went off to Somalia with 1,000 troops as part of the U.S.-led coalition there. In 1993, Canada ended its 30-year commitment in Cyprus. The West sought its peace dividend and Canada, alongside major European nations, continued radically reducing its defence spending. We withdrew our forces from Germany. The U.S. held the fort as the sole post-Cold War superpower. Rwanda made the news. In 1995, the UN mission in Bosnia was failing with massive catastrophes like the Srebrenica massacre. Sixty thousand NATO troops moved into Bosnia and the four-year civil war in the Balkans ended with barely a shot fired. Canadians joined that force and supported it with six-month troop rotations for the next 10 years. The CF strength declined again to 68,000 and Canada started turning down requests to contribute to UN missions. In 1999, we witnessed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. NATO planes, including fighters from Canada, bombed Serbian targets. Canada joined another NATO force with 1,000 troops in Kosovo, bringing our annual troop contribution in the Balkans up to 4,500. Missions in Haiti, East Timor, and Eritrea bracketed this time. By Sept 10, 2001, the CF's strength hovered around 59,000. We were steadily feeding the continuing commitment to Bosnia. The next day, September 11, 2001, we all witnessed a new form of terrorist attack. The instability that normally resided in far-away lands suddenly touched us at home in North America. We prepared a reaction force and by February 2002, Canada had 800 war-fighters teamed up with a U.S. brigade in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Our Edmonton-based 3 PPLCI Battle Group returned home without replacement six months later, after the much-publicized death of four of our finest to a U.S. bomb. Most recently, we experienced an operational high with nearly 6,000 soldiers deployed in Bosnia and Afghanistan between the summers of 2003 and 2004. From the 1991 Gulf War to today, our Army and the CF as a whole has been sprinting, punching routinely above its weight, and our people and our institution have tired. Now, we are reconstituting, re-forming and retraining our teams.
YESTERDAY'S BEAR, TODAY'S SNAKES
The Army that I joined in 1978 focused almost exclusively on the Cold War threat -- 'the Bear' of the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact. The Bear organized and equipped to fight with huge armies, navies and air forces. These forces were structured and identifiable in a way that allowed us to anticipate military-on-military combat as the most likely war-fighting scenario. For the last 14 years our Bear-focused Army has transformed itself mission after mission to take on the real post-Cold War enemy -- the terrorists, extremists, and internal-to-state actors such as militias, criminals, and corrupt officials that have been the prevailing threats to regional and international security. These threats are like 'Snakes' in the grass; they do not organize, equip, and act in historical military fashion. Instead, they attack the unarmed and the vulnerable. Snakes will be the main threat to peace and stability around the world for some decades to come. Your army is now well down the road to structuring itself to take on the Snakes. The army that I joined expected to meet the enemy in the woods and across the open plains of western Europe. Today's Snakes live within and amongst populations. In most cases, they are indistinguishable from the "good guys" and attack international as well as local institutions and leaders with relative anonymity. We are refocusing the "where we will fight" to population centres in failed and failing states. We will strive for sustainable stability in those places where people live. We will structure, equip, and train our teams so that they can both take on the "bad guys" and support the "good guys" concurrently.
In the Three-Block War, we are prepared to fight the Snakes on one block, to assist police and security forces in maintaining security on another block, and to support humanitarian operations on a third block -- all with the same troops working within the same teams, and all in the same period of time. The army I joined operated uniquely and solely with other armies. Today, we are institutionalizing the "Team Canada" approach to our missions. We are integrating law enforcement, diplomatic, developmental and military operations at the lowest possible levels. The security effect we are seeking to create is one that not only supports the innocent but one that enables the development and incubation of those institutions of governance, law enforcement, commerce and security that we are lucky enough to take for granted here at home. To do this, we will continue to operate with other agencies and in multinational partnerships. Yesterday, we were focused on the Cold War. Today, we are focused on the Three-Block War. Yesterday, we focused on the Bear. Today we recognize and pursue the Snakes. Yesterday, we prepared to fight in the open. Today, we know our battles will be where people and populations live. And they will be fought alongside our multinational and multi-agency partners. How are we going to deliver a sustainable, relevant and responsive military force to match today, and tomorrow's needs?
DEPLOYING TROOPS AT A RATE WE CAN SUSTAIN
We in the army overstretched ourselves in the last 15 years. A former commander declared that we had, at the turn of the century, too much army for our budget but too little for the load we were bearing. Today, the army is reconstituting -- recovering from the last 15 years. From nearly 6,000 soldiers overseas in 2003 and 2004 we will be down to approximately 2,000 soldiers deploying in 2005. This decision to reconstitute was taken deliberately by government, with the purpose of establishing a sustainable rate of deployments starting 2006 -- one that will see us putting four, 1,000-soldier task forces into deployable status every year. Four task forces annually will allow us to work at a rate that our people can bear and with a quantity and quality of teams that provide our government with what is needed to meet our overseas and security needs at home. The first of these forces in 2006 will originate from units here in Edmonton, with support from other units and reserve soldiers from across Western Canada. And they are heading for Afghanistan.
TRAINING IN WAINWRIGHT FOR THE THREE-BLOCK WAR
Starting in 2006, every task force we prepare to deploy overseas will be trained with the Western world's most modern weapons-effects simulation equipment in Camp Wainwright, Alberta. We have nearly doubled the camp's full-time military staff to approximately 700 troops. We are investing $150 million in infrastructure, positioning more than 450 fighting vehicles and command posts on the camp, and procuring a simulation system that will be worn by every soldier and installed on every vehicle. This investment of more than $500 million will allow our army to train every task force in the most arduous conditions, in the Three-Block War context, and in the face of enemy forces and non-combatants that represent the realities of where we operate today. This Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre (CMTC), with its high-tech simulation systems, will allow our soldiers and their "Team Canada" partners to live and learn. Next April, Alberta will see the first of the four annual task forces flow through Edmonton to Wainwright where each force will spend four tough weeks "in the box." With the additional troops needed to support this training, nearly 6,000 Canadian Forces men and women will transit through Alberta. Wainwright is becoming the jewel in our Army's training crown, the final "launch pad" for our men and women before we declare them ready to take on missions abroad.
TOOLS FOR THE JOB
In my four years in Edmonton, I've met and spoken with thousands of incredibly generous and supportive citizens from every community in which our soldiers live. I've been struck by how much our fellow Canadians are dismayed by our "old kit" and how much they genuinely wish to see us given the tools for the job. Right on, I say. Our Hercules transport aircraft, our CF-18 fighter jets, and our Sea King helicopters are aging. Some of our ships are nearing retirement age. And we in the Army do still have some older combat systems like our two-ton trucks and howitzers. But another truth is how we equip to do our business overseas. And this truth is largely unknown to Canadians.
If you were to observe a Canadian soldier operating on the streets of Kabul today, you would see this. He or she is wearing a system of combat clothing that is the best of its kind in the world: the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have purchased it from us.
The weapon the soldier is carrying, the Canadian-made C7 assault rifle, is an improved version of the U.S. M-16. The Royal Netherlands Army has purchased it.
Our soldier has the latest in night-vision devices and night-targeting sights.
Our soldier's radio, the Canadian-made tactical combat communications system, was recently purchased by the British army.
And finally, the soldier's fighting vehicle, the eight-wheeled Light Armoured Vehicle has been purchased by the U.S., Australian and New Zealand armies and is seeing action in Iraq today with U.S. forces.
When we put our soldiers into the Three-Block War, we do so with the knowledge that they are going with the latest in equipment, trained, ready and well led. All this is to say that your Army has not only survived the 1990s, but it has learned and evolved from those experiences. While we were shrinking, we are now ready to grow. While our systems were aging, we are modern and modernizing. While we were largely forgotten within Canada, we have become much more familiar to our Canadian brothers and sisters. And while we used to wonder where we were heading, with new policy, funding and sustained public support we are more confident now than ever before.
My son is keen to join Canada's Army -- and I am proud to see him do so. If he is supported, as I know Canadians can support him, then he, like me, will thrive in his service to our country.
Not sure if most of you know BGen Beare, Comd LFWA, and future Comd LFDTS (later in Jul). He is a very skilled officer, a intelligent, articulate and charismatic leader. I think he will go very far and I suspect he will be CLS one day. The following article was carried in the Edmonton Journal and provides an overview of the state of army. Well worth the read and where we are going. Particularly note the importance of Wainwright as the premiere training establishment for the Army.
Preparing for the Three-Block War
'Yesterday, we focused on the Bear. Today we pursue the Snakes. Yesterday, we prepared to fight in the open. Today, we know our battles will be where
people and populations live.'
Brig.-Gen. Stuart Beare
Freelance
Monday, June 13, 2005
In the summer of 1978, a 17-year-old started a journey of military service -- not really concerned about where that journey would take him, nor how events would shape the institution he would grow to love. Looking back on the years that have passed, I have to admit that little has transpired as I predicted. Which brings me to today, a time where change and unpredictability have become the standard, and where Canada's Armed Forces are seeking to prepare for the predictable unpredictability of the future. Before I leave Edmonton after four years of living in this great community, I would like to share with you, my neighbours, some of the experiences we in uniform have faced in recent years. I will then paint a picture of where your army, within the Canadian Forces (CF), within Canada, and within today's world, is heading. Then, let me show you how Alberta and Albertans are playing an increasingly important role in getting us there.
OUR COLD WAR
The late 1970s and early 1980s were, from my perspective as a young officer, the height of the contest between two superpowers. The Cold War was alive and well with Canada and Western countries aligned with NATO, and the Warsaw Pact ruling Eastern Europe. Where instability did exist, middle-power nations like Canada frequently donned blue berets and supervised power-brokered peace. In 1983, Ronald Reagan was on the scene, investing mightily in modernizing the U.S. armed forces. In Germany, I watched as thousands of new tanks and armoured personnel carriers made their way into U.S. Army hands. The Warsaw Pact under Gorbachev laboured to keep pace. Canada was leading amongst peacekeeping nations with blue berets in Cyprus and the Middle East. More than 8,000 Canadian troops were stationed in Germany, ready to deter and defend against attack. The CF numbered roughly 90,000. We in uniform expected the Cold War to last for a long time. In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney declared his intent to grow the Canadian Forces and equip it with a completely new suite of war-fighting gear. A year later, the Berlin Wall came down. In Canada, Budget 1989 pulled the plug on nearly every major equipment project of note. By 1990, the CF numbered 80,000.
THE POST-COLD WAR
"PEACE DIVIDEND"
The Cold War ended in 1992. We saw the emergence of failed-state civil war and Canada deployed 2,000 soldiers to Croatia and Bosnia. Our Airborne Regiment went off to Somalia with 1,000 troops as part of the U.S.-led coalition there. In 1993, Canada ended its 30-year commitment in Cyprus. The West sought its peace dividend and Canada, alongside major European nations, continued radically reducing its defence spending. We withdrew our forces from Germany. The U.S. held the fort as the sole post-Cold War superpower. Rwanda made the news. In 1995, the UN mission in Bosnia was failing with massive catastrophes like the Srebrenica massacre. Sixty thousand NATO troops moved into Bosnia and the four-year civil war in the Balkans ended with barely a shot fired. Canadians joined that force and supported it with six-month troop rotations for the next 10 years. The CF strength declined again to 68,000 and Canada started turning down requests to contribute to UN missions. In 1999, we witnessed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. NATO planes, including fighters from Canada, bombed Serbian targets. Canada joined another NATO force with 1,000 troops in Kosovo, bringing our annual troop contribution in the Balkans up to 4,500. Missions in Haiti, East Timor, and Eritrea bracketed this time. By Sept 10, 2001, the CF's strength hovered around 59,000. We were steadily feeding the continuing commitment to Bosnia. The next day, September 11, 2001, we all witnessed a new form of terrorist attack. The instability that normally resided in far-away lands suddenly touched us at home in North America. We prepared a reaction force and by February 2002, Canada had 800 war-fighters teamed up with a U.S. brigade in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Our Edmonton-based 3 PPLCI Battle Group returned home without replacement six months later, after the much-publicized death of four of our finest to a U.S. bomb. Most recently, we experienced an operational high with nearly 6,000 soldiers deployed in Bosnia and Afghanistan between the summers of 2003 and 2004. From the 1991 Gulf War to today, our Army and the CF as a whole has been sprinting, punching routinely above its weight, and our people and our institution have tired. Now, we are reconstituting, re-forming and retraining our teams.
YESTERDAY'S BEAR, TODAY'S SNAKES
The Army that I joined in 1978 focused almost exclusively on the Cold War threat -- 'the Bear' of the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact. The Bear organized and equipped to fight with huge armies, navies and air forces. These forces were structured and identifiable in a way that allowed us to anticipate military-on-military combat as the most likely war-fighting scenario. For the last 14 years our Bear-focused Army has transformed itself mission after mission to take on the real post-Cold War enemy -- the terrorists, extremists, and internal-to-state actors such as militias, criminals, and corrupt officials that have been the prevailing threats to regional and international security. These threats are like 'Snakes' in the grass; they do not organize, equip, and act in historical military fashion. Instead, they attack the unarmed and the vulnerable. Snakes will be the main threat to peace and stability around the world for some decades to come. Your army is now well down the road to structuring itself to take on the Snakes. The army that I joined expected to meet the enemy in the woods and across the open plains of western Europe. Today's Snakes live within and amongst populations. In most cases, they are indistinguishable from the "good guys" and attack international as well as local institutions and leaders with relative anonymity. We are refocusing the "where we will fight" to population centres in failed and failing states. We will strive for sustainable stability in those places where people live. We will structure, equip, and train our teams so that they can both take on the "bad guys" and support the "good guys" concurrently.
In the Three-Block War, we are prepared to fight the Snakes on one block, to assist police and security forces in maintaining security on another block, and to support humanitarian operations on a third block -- all with the same troops working within the same teams, and all in the same period of time. The army I joined operated uniquely and solely with other armies. Today, we are institutionalizing the "Team Canada" approach to our missions. We are integrating law enforcement, diplomatic, developmental and military operations at the lowest possible levels. The security effect we are seeking to create is one that not only supports the innocent but one that enables the development and incubation of those institutions of governance, law enforcement, commerce and security that we are lucky enough to take for granted here at home. To do this, we will continue to operate with other agencies and in multinational partnerships. Yesterday, we were focused on the Cold War. Today, we are focused on the Three-Block War. Yesterday, we focused on the Bear. Today we recognize and pursue the Snakes. Yesterday, we prepared to fight in the open. Today, we know our battles will be where people and populations live. And they will be fought alongside our multinational and multi-agency partners. How are we going to deliver a sustainable, relevant and responsive military force to match today, and tomorrow's needs?
DEPLOYING TROOPS AT A RATE WE CAN SUSTAIN
We in the army overstretched ourselves in the last 15 years. A former commander declared that we had, at the turn of the century, too much army for our budget but too little for the load we were bearing. Today, the army is reconstituting -- recovering from the last 15 years. From nearly 6,000 soldiers overseas in 2003 and 2004 we will be down to approximately 2,000 soldiers deploying in 2005. This decision to reconstitute was taken deliberately by government, with the purpose of establishing a sustainable rate of deployments starting 2006 -- one that will see us putting four, 1,000-soldier task forces into deployable status every year. Four task forces annually will allow us to work at a rate that our people can bear and with a quantity and quality of teams that provide our government with what is needed to meet our overseas and security needs at home. The first of these forces in 2006 will originate from units here in Edmonton, with support from other units and reserve soldiers from across Western Canada. And they are heading for Afghanistan.
TRAINING IN WAINWRIGHT FOR THE THREE-BLOCK WAR
Starting in 2006, every task force we prepare to deploy overseas will be trained with the Western world's most modern weapons-effects simulation equipment in Camp Wainwright, Alberta. We have nearly doubled the camp's full-time military staff to approximately 700 troops. We are investing $150 million in infrastructure, positioning more than 450 fighting vehicles and command posts on the camp, and procuring a simulation system that will be worn by every soldier and installed on every vehicle. This investment of more than $500 million will allow our army to train every task force in the most arduous conditions, in the Three-Block War context, and in the face of enemy forces and non-combatants that represent the realities of where we operate today. This Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre (CMTC), with its high-tech simulation systems, will allow our soldiers and their "Team Canada" partners to live and learn. Next April, Alberta will see the first of the four annual task forces flow through Edmonton to Wainwright where each force will spend four tough weeks "in the box." With the additional troops needed to support this training, nearly 6,000 Canadian Forces men and women will transit through Alberta. Wainwright is becoming the jewel in our Army's training crown, the final "launch pad" for our men and women before we declare them ready to take on missions abroad.
TOOLS FOR THE JOB
In my four years in Edmonton, I've met and spoken with thousands of incredibly generous and supportive citizens from every community in which our soldiers live. I've been struck by how much our fellow Canadians are dismayed by our "old kit" and how much they genuinely wish to see us given the tools for the job. Right on, I say. Our Hercules transport aircraft, our CF-18 fighter jets, and our Sea King helicopters are aging. Some of our ships are nearing retirement age. And we in the Army do still have some older combat systems like our two-ton trucks and howitzers. But another truth is how we equip to do our business overseas. And this truth is largely unknown to Canadians.
If you were to observe a Canadian soldier operating on the streets of Kabul today, you would see this. He or she is wearing a system of combat clothing that is the best of its kind in the world: the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have purchased it from us.
The weapon the soldier is carrying, the Canadian-made C7 assault rifle, is an improved version of the U.S. M-16. The Royal Netherlands Army has purchased it.
Our soldier has the latest in night-vision devices and night-targeting sights.
Our soldier's radio, the Canadian-made tactical combat communications system, was recently purchased by the British army.
And finally, the soldier's fighting vehicle, the eight-wheeled Light Armoured Vehicle has been purchased by the U.S., Australian and New Zealand armies and is seeing action in Iraq today with U.S. forces.
When we put our soldiers into the Three-Block War, we do so with the knowledge that they are going with the latest in equipment, trained, ready and well led. All this is to say that your Army has not only survived the 1990s, but it has learned and evolved from those experiences. While we were shrinking, we are now ready to grow. While our systems were aging, we are modern and modernizing. While we were largely forgotten within Canada, we have become much more familiar to our Canadian brothers and sisters. And while we used to wonder where we were heading, with new policy, funding and sustained public support we are more confident now than ever before.
My son is keen to join Canada's Army -- and I am proud to see him do so. If he is supported, as I know Canadians can support him, then he, like me, will thrive in his service to our country.
