CIAO DATE: 04/2013
Volume: 10, Issue: 3
Spring 2008
James F. Keeley, John R. Ferris
The announcement of the retirement of General Rick Hillier as Canada's Chief of Defence Staff has sparked much comment about his impact on the Canadian Forces and public. He is credited with having restored the morale of the Forces, with securing more funding and equipment, and with positively raising the Forces' profile among the public. Bad memories from Mogadishu have been expunged. Everyone "supports our troops", as the public mantra goes, even those who dislike their engagement in Afghanistan. That engagement reflects other effects of General Hillier. He has raised the influence on policy of the Canadian Forces among mandarins in Ottawa and the country, and expanded public notions of the uses of the Canadian Forces beyond UN-associated peacekeeping (and a hushed association with NATO).
Comparing Wars (PDF)
Truda Gray, Brian Martin
Debates about the similarities and differences between the wars in Vietnam and Iraq have lacked agreed criteria for comparison. A set of 20 categories for comparing wars is proposed, grouped under causes/rationales, participants, methods/nature, scale/duration, and outcomes. This classification scheme is used to illustrate how commentators on Vietnam-Iraq press their cases: commonly, they select comparison categories favorable to their cases and ignore or downplay categories and evidence that do not support their case.
Fusion a Behavioural Approach to Counterinsurgency (PDF)
Major BC. Rob Sentse
This article examines the way in which we organise and combine our efforts during military operations abroad. We seek to illustrate where the current organisations involved would tend to work separately, thus enhancing the chance for missed opportunities, wrong assessment of situations or counter-productive action. To achieve flexibility there has been a great deal of emphasis on the network perspective to organisation, causing concepts such as network enabled capability and network centric warfare to become common good. Based on previous experience in the field, we here propose an additional element that will better allow the various disciplines to work together in a concerted manner providing a good base for human understanding of the situation and effects caused by previous decisions. The main focus of this approach is to influence attitudes and induce a desired behavioural context in the area of operations (AO). These ideas sprouted in Afghanistan during the installation of a fusion cell in 2006 which combined people from various disciplines to assess incoming information; impact of recent events; and impact of our own decisions and actions. Current operations and security environment are increasingly complex and require an organisational structure that is flexible and synergised, creating the necessary pre-conditions for a well conceived Counter-Insurgency (COIN1) approach. The operational environment has to be viewed in a behavioural context. The last decades we have seen situations in which military involvement was not limited to achieving military victory. Rather, it was one of the instruments to influence behaviour. Using this behavioural approach, fusion cell members assess all actors as complex, adaptive, interactive systems-of-systems in a wider context. These actors not only include the local population, leaders and media but also the public and policymakers of troop contributing and other countries of influence. To put these actors in their proper context political, military, cultural, and economical aspects of the environment are taken into account. In this article we highlight the added value of the fusion approach in Afghanistan and make some recommendations for structurally implementing this approach in future COIN operations.
William R. Sprance
China is determined to reacquire the superpower status it sees as its birthright, and its activities in sub-Saharan Africa have strengthened Beijing's strategic position by providing unimpeded access to natural resources, new markets for its export-driven economy and political influence in international bodies such as the United Nations. The U.S. insists that it is not creating AFRICOM to counter Chinese influence in sub-Saharan Africa. However, China's diplomatic and economic activity in sub-Saharan Africa has created strategic challenges for the U.S., and AFRICOM will exist to improve America's strategic position on the continent. By engaging in security cooperation and other activities, AFRICOM will challenge the strategic status quo and will make economic and political conflict likely.
Canada's National Army, Canada's National Interest 1918, 2008 (PDF)
Terry Copp
The Ross Ellis Memorial Lecture in Military and Strategic Studies is an annual lecture series honouring Lt. Colonel Ross Ellis, Commander of the Calgary Highlanders (1915-1983). Dedicated to his leadership abilities and military spirit, the series brings a renowned specialist in Military and strategic studies to the University of Calgary campus every year, for lectures and seminars open to the University population and the general public. Biography of Lieutenant Colonel Ross Ellis. Canada's National Army, Canada's National Interest, 1918, 2008 offers an analysis of the decisions made by Prime Minister Robert Borden and Corps Commander Arthur Currie in the last year of the Great War. The issues that preoccupied both men, concepts of national interest, problems of national unity, the role of a small power within an alliance, the exercise of military power, casualty rates and the purpose of the war while different in detail from those confronting Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gen. Rick Hillier raise important questions for all Canadians to consider today.
Jill St. Germain
Jill St. Germain teaches Aboriginal History at Carleton University. A graduate of Carleton University and the University of Calgary, she is the author of Indian Treaty-Making Policy in the United States and Canada, 1867-1877 (Nebraska, 2001) and Broken Treaties: Implementing Treaties with the Lakota and the Plains Cree, 1868-1885 (Nebraska, in press).