News

There has been much speculation in the Canadian news media that U.S. President Barack Obama will put pressure on NATO members to increase their troop contributions to the war in Afghanistan.

This should come as no surprise, as the United States provides more combat power to the 42-nation International Security Assistance Force than all the other countries combined and is in the process of adding 21,000 troops, with a further 10,000 earmarked for future deployment.

This United Nations-sanctioned mission has exposed a serious lack of commitment within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and by default the United States has been forced, as usual, to boost its participation to compensate for European complacency. Sound familiar?

The speculation regarding Mr. Obama's call for more international support for the Afghan mission has once again raised the issue of the Canadian parliamentary deadline dictating that we withdraw from our combat role in 2011. Some say it will be difficult, if not impossible, to say no to this clarion call for help from our next-door neighbour and “closest friend” and, like it or not, the pressure to maintain our battle group in the theatre beyond 2011 will be overwhelming.

For those unfamiliar with army terminology, a battle group, as organized for the Afghan mission, is about 1,200 strong and home to a large infantry component supported by tanks, armoured reconnaissance, artillery, combat engineers and signals and logistics support personnel. Although the other approximately 1,600 personnel making up the Canadian military footprint in Afghanistan are at risk and have suffered fatalities while on convoy duty, mentoring Afghan forces or commanding and controlling military operations, it is the battle group that fills the “combat role” and is scheduled to withdraw in 2011. With its departure, many of the military support personnel inside the wire could also be withdrawn.

What should be front and centre in any debate regarding Canada's ability to continue its combat role in Afghanistan beyond 2011 is the regrettable fact that it would be impossible for us to do so properly if the order were given.

Personnel making up each battle group spend up to a year in preparatory training before deployment. Why so long? Simple. With the slash and burn of defence budgets in the first half of the nineties - a 27-per-cent reduction - the only way the Canadian Forces could cut spending according to the schedule directed by the government was to release about 20,000 personnel from a contingent of just 83,000 in 1982.

The ripple effect down the line meant that infantry battalions, which make up the majority of any battle group, were grossly undermanned and had to be augmented by hundreds of soldiers before any operational deployment could take place. It would be irresponsible to send a heterogeneous organization into battle where the leadership is not familiar with the soldiers and the soldiers have little reason to trust their leaders. It takes up to a year to prepare such a unit for deployment, a period that would not be necessary if the infantry units were of a proper size to begin with.

Add to the pre-deployment year a six-month tour in Afghanistan and the erroneous conclusion is that a year and a half away from home is not all that bad and life can return to “normal” afterward - except that sitting in Canadian Forces bases in Gagetown, N.B., Valcartier, Que., Meaford, Ont., and Wainwright, Alta., are new recruits waiting for instructors to take them through their training.

For most practical purposes, being a few thousand kilometres from home on instructional duties is not a lot different than being 10,000 kilometres away in Afghanistan.

So, a few years away from home - what's the big deal? The soldiers are all volunteers, aren't they? Yes, except ...

At just over 5,000 members, the Canadian regular-force infantry is smaller than the Toronto Police Service. And if you marched the deployable army into the old Maple Leaf Gardens and ordered all of the approximately 15,000 members from private to general to sit down, there would be a few thousand empty seats!

Ergo, with such a small force, the aforementioned instructors must now return to the training schedule that gets them ready for another deployment to Afghanistan. The leadership ranks most affected by this operational pace are those most critical to victory in battle and the proper training of recruits: master corporals, sergeants, warrant officers and commissioned officers up to and including the rank of major.

Regrettably, after three and sometimes four Afghanistan deployment cycles, a significant number of these crucial leaders are taking their release, frequently burned out by a pace dictated by the tiny size of their army.

There will be other options to militarily support the expanded mission in Afghanistan post-2011 if desired by Parliament: the Provincial Reconstruction Team; mentors and instructors to the Afghan army and police and helicopter support to name a few. But the bottom line clearly indicates that we cannot continue in our combat role. And, by the way, our American friends know that as well as we do.

Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.