The Authors have some good ideas...
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/2490133p-2885055c.html
Throwing darts at DART
How can Canada make its response to humanitarian disasters -- natural or man-made -- more rapid, agile and frequent?
Sun Jan 16 2005
By Dianne DeMille and Stephen Priestley
CANADA'S Disaster Assistance Response Team was originally meant to contribute to concerted international aid for a stricken nation. Unfortunately, the clever acronym they came up with was 'DART', which led the Canadian media and the public to actually expect a 'rapid response'. In fact, although comprised largely of Land Forces personnel, the team comes under the control of three large bureaucracies: the Department of National Defence (DND), Foreign Affairs Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Arriving at consensus among these three behemoths takes time. Each ministry has its own bailywick and its own 'priorities'.
Furthermore, DND requires that a reconnaissance team be sent out to survey conditions 'on the ground' before committing any personnel to an unknown situation overseas. Prudence.
What might we do to make DART live up to the expectations of citizens (and taxpayers) by making Canada's response to disasters more rapid -- and frequent?
Well, first, do we really need the involvement of all three ministries? It was reported that the differing perspectives of these ministries led to a long, drawn-out debate about whether DART should or should not be deployed to Sri Lanka.
CIDA is a large ministry with very long-term goals -- fostering economic development in poorer countries, building toward environmental sustainability, and encouraging sound government practices. This doesn't sound like a 'good fit' for overseeing a military operation, even if that operation is termed 'humanitarian'. By eliminating CIDA from the process, decision-making might be tightened up considerably.
Still, potential conflicts remain. While the military wants to respond as rapidly as possible, it is the many nuances of international politics and the domestic affairs of the stricken country that will determine whether it is safe, desirable, cost-effective, etc., to commit Canadian Forces to a given nation. That makes Foreign Affairs the senior ministry.
There is a chance for a compromise here. The DART reconnaissance team, numbering only about a dozen or so, could be dispatched to the disaster area immediately, along with some light relief supplies like chlorine tablets, first-aid materials and blankets.
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs could, at the same time, be quickly accummulating whatever intelligence they needed about the area and arrange the requisite contacts with their diplomatic counterparts in Canadian consuls and high commissions or embassies overseas.
The final decision -- 'Go/Don't Go' -- would be a fully informed choice made by DND and Foreign Affairs, based on all available information.
If the decision was 'Don't Go', the DART recon team could be recalled in mid-flight and other DART personnel stood down. If the decision was 'Go', the great advantage for DART would be that the full complement of personnel would already be notified, and the DART reconnaissance mission would be underway, if not already completed. Assuming that DART's ministerial wrinkles are ironed out, questions concerning the length of time between deployments remain. It's not as if there has been a shortage of catastrophes, natural or man-made. So why did five years elapse between DART being sent to Turkey and going to Sri Lanka?
The sheer physical size of DART's equipment is one of its main impediments. Dozens of 20-foot-long ISO shipping containers and 200-odd personnel must be delivered. 'Team' is a misnomer. DART is really a collection of 'sub-units' -- water purification, medical, communications, support, and security -- and it is as sub-units that DART should be deployed.
If all DART sub-units are needed (as they were in Turkey), fine. If there is uncertainty (as in the case of Sri Lanka), send the sub-units we are sure are needed first. The other sub-units can follow if, or when, they are required.
Breaking up DART into sub-units may reduce the transportation burdens somewhat, but it doesn't change the scale of equipment itself. Field hospitals and ROWPU water purifiers are big solutions to big problems. Perhaps a better approach is to deploy more, but smaller, units.
Where field hospitals and ROWPUs require 10-tonne trucks to move their containers, modular field-aid stations and lower-output Mini-ROWPUs can be broken down into manageable loads for 1.5- and 2.5-tonne trucks. Such vehicles are much easier to transport by air, and they place less of a burden on local infrastructure (road surfaces, bridges and fuel supplies). The sole downside to using smaller trucks is that more drivers would be required -- although every driver is also a willing pair of hands.
It should be noted that the 1.5- and 2.5-tonne trucks of the Canadian Forces -- the LSVW and MLVW, respectively -- will soon be due for replacement. DND is leaning toward adopting a larger five-tonne vehicle, partly for reasons of commonality with the U.S. Army.
This is a mistake. DND would be 'buying late' into the last generation of pure diesel trucks. The very next generation of military vehicles will be 'parallel' electric-diesel hybrids capable of running off batteries, or having their power boosted by a diesel generator.
How is this relevant to DART? Each hybrid truck in a disaster-relief area would become, in effect, a portable generator. When not needed for other duties, trucks could parked beside any building or tent requiring electrical power.
This hybrid technology is not as exotic as it sounds. Consumers can now buy 'parallel' hybrid SUVs. The approach is even more advanced with commercial buses -- and Winnipeg's New Flyer is an industry leader in diesel-electric hybrid applications for buses. As important as it is to scale equipment and vehicles to the size of the response team, it is equally vital that this 'kit' be deliverable. (We wonder if, in the five-year gap since DART's last deployment, whether DND has bothered to encourage Zenon, makers of the Mini-ROWPU, to miniaturize its technology still further?) Any foreign deployment of DART will involve airlift. There's no point supplying gear to a 'rapid-response' team if that gear won't fit into an available aircraft.
The Hercules is ideal for delivering light DART units to unprepared airfields. Indeed, replacing the existing CF Hercules fleet with 'J' models should have been Air Staff's top priority for the last decade.
The equipment and vehicles used by the medium-sized DART units should also fit into a Hercules. However, there will be times when a military-style strategic airlifter would be preferable for speed or unrefuelled range.
Whether equipment is transported by Hercules or a strategic airlifter, the bulk of DART personnel could be flown to the nearest civilian airfield in the CF's comfortable Airbus jetliner, before being ferried into the disaster zone.
Right now, DND leases strategic airlifters. Antonov 124s were leased for the DART deployment to Sri Lanka. In general, this arrangement works well. Unfortunately, a natural disaster on the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunamis means that every civilian relief agency is also trying to book airlift services. To get around the bottleneck created by leasing, we could purchase our very own strategic airlifter.
Our recommended strategic airlifter is a westernized version of the Ilyushin IL-76. The Canadian Forces prefers the U.S.-made Boeing C-17 but, although they are impressive aircraft, DND just cannot afford them. (Not even the Brits can afford them. They had to lease.)
The only affordable military-style airlifter available today is the Russian-made IL-76. At most, its pricetag is one-quarter that of the C-17. DND has two options: purchase new-production aircraft, or refurbish surplus IL-76s and fit them with western engines.
The Ilyushin is a bird in the hand. Let's go shopping!
Dianne DeMille is editor and Stephen Priestley is researcher/illustrator of the Canadian American Strategic Review.
