On Target: Top Admiral Thrown Overboard

Photo Credit: http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/

By Scott Taylor

On Monday, January 16 at 8:00 am, the Office of Chief of Defence Staff issued a brief statement from General Jonathan Vance. The bilingual message stated that Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was being temporarily relieved of his duties as the Canadian Armed Forces’ vice chief of defence staff (VCDS). The notification further stated that Norman’s responsibilities as VCDS would be immediately assumed by the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, Vice-Admiral Ron Lloyd.

The removal of Norman was a bombshell and the widespread dissemination of the notice throughout National Defence Headquarters ensured that the media were aware of it almost at once.

Phones and email in boxes lit up throughout the entire military community. Initially there was only confirmation of Norman’s removal, with absolutely zero explanation for such a drastic course of action.

With no clues to go on, everyone began speculating to fill the void.

By unfortunate coincidence, that same day The Toronto Star had published a story detailing how CDS General Jonathan Vance was going to start terminating the career of anyone in the military who was guilty of sexual misconduct. The Star story was based on an internal memo that Vance had issued back on December 16, but for many speculators the timing seemed too obvious — Vance will fire sex offenders, Norman gets fired, fill in the blank.

However, for all of us who know Norman — and in the interest of full disclosure, I do consider him to be a professional acquaintance — such an allegation made no sense.

Norman had a well-earned reputation as a straight shooter and has been a prominent promoter of recognizing the contributions of women in the defence field.

Within hours of the story breaking, additional information was leaked to the Globe and Mail — probably in an effort to spare Norman any additional public speculation about sexual misdeeds — that his firing was related to a security breach involving the disclosure of information. Again, no specific details were given.

Some began guessing that Norman was the culprit who had leaked details of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Christmas holiday destination on the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

For his part, General Vance was travelling in Europe when the story broke on January 16, and he responded to media inquiries with an email.

“I understand there is a great deal of speculation surrounding the circumstances that led to my decision with regards to Vice-Admiral Norman,” Vance wrote. “For privacy considerations, I’m unable to provide further information,” he added.

This non-clarification from Vance, with the allusion that it was something of a personal nature, was akin to ladling chum in a swirling shark tank. The rumour mill kept churning at full tilt.

Additional details were drip fed to the media and, despite reporters trekking out to the front door of his suburban home, Norman maintained his silence.

Prime Minister Trudeau issued a statement that distanced himself from Norman’s firing while at the same time supporting it. “The Chief of Defence Staff took a decision and this government supports General Vance in the decision that he took,” Trudeau told reporters.

This sentiment was echoed by Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan, who repeated that the firing was the work of Vance.

Within 48 hours of Norman being removed from his post, the incident was drawing international attention. The BBC and the U.S. news outlets were reporting on the unprecedented removal of such a high-ranking official, in such a public fashion.

With such intense media scrutiny, more details found their way into the public domain — albeit not through official disclosure. Unnamed inside sources advised the media that Norman was being investigated by the RCMP for allegedly disclosing classified shipbuilding information to a private company. Reportedly, the timeframe for Norman’s alleged crime occurred while he was still the commander of the RCN – prior to assuming his most recent post as the VCDS in 2016.

Such a security breach, if proven to be true, will have significant repercussions for the Canadian military’s reputation, not only with the defence industry but also with allied nations.

However, because of Vance’s decision to relieve Norman without providing a clear explanation as to why, the country's second-highest military commander has endured unfounded public speculation that he was everything from a sexual deviant to a Russian spy.

Sometimes silence is not golden after all. 

On Target: Charlie Don't Surf

Photo Credit: Combat Camera

By Scott Taylor

On December 27, 2016 a dozen or so Canadian embassy staff, including Ambassador Kenneth Neufeld, were brought from Kabul to Kandahar for the purpose of playing a ball hockey game.

This was the final game played at the Kandahar Airfield ball hockey rink before the U.S. Army engineers began dismantling the boards and benches. Once disassembled, these iconic boards were transported back home to Canada where they will be put on display in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa and the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

In addition to flying in the ambassador, the Canadian military also flew in reporters to ensure that the final minutes of the Kandahar rink would be recorded for posterity.

It has been two years since Canada concluded military participation in the Afghan intervention, and the media reports focused on the nostalgic aspects of this unique sports facility.

For the tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers who served tours of duty in Kandahar, there can be no question that the regulation-sized hockey surface served as a rare respite from an otherwise dangerous and frustrating mission.

The ball hockey rink was conveniently located right next to another equally iconic Canadian fixture: a Tim Hortons outlet, which the Department of National Defence operated in Kandahar.

To illustrate just how hockey-mad Canadians are to their bewildered NATO allies, then Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier brought the actual Stanley Cup to Kandahar in 2007. A selection of former NHL all-stars were brought in for the occasion, and they played a game against a brave handful of Canadian soldiers as the revered trophy was closely guarded on the sidelines.

With the positive media stories about the rink’s removal, one could be left with the false impression that Canada’s mission in Afghanistan was a glorious chapter in our military history. We came, we saw, we conquered and then we played hockey in the desert. Now we are bringing home that rink so that future generations can be reminded of how, for more than a decade, Canada brought our sport to Afghanistan.

None of the media stories about the final ball hockey game mentioned the current situation in Afghanistan.

Despite the fact that he flew all the way down from Kabul, no one asked Ambassador Neufeld about the state of affairs in this war-torn country that so many Canadians fought and died trying to bring about some stability.

The sad truth is that things are worse than ever. Last Wednesday, U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko released an update on the challenges facing Afghanistan today. Some of the key points made by Sopko illustrated the absolute incompetence of the Afghan security forces. According to the inspector general, there are tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers” in the Afghan ranks whose commanders retain their paycheques because the individuals do not exist.

“The best spin the Afghan security forces can put on their activities is that they are able to re-take strategic areas after they temporarily fall,” wrote Sopko. “We may be defining success as the absence of failure,” he added.

The Taliban has begun simply purchasing their weapons and ammunition from the Afghan security forces because that is cheaper and easier than trying to capture them. Money is no object for the Taliban as they are harvesting bumper crops of poppies.

And the Taliban are not operating alone, as there are now an estimated 20 separate terrorist groups operating in east Afghanistan alone, including Daesh (aka ISIS).

A whopping 90 per cent of Afghans report corruption is a part of daily life, and it is estimated that more money was paid in bribes than was generated by the entire Afghan tax base in 2016.

Sopko’s conclusion was that despite the U.S. pumping in over $750-billion in military costs alone over the past 15 years, the Afghan government is still in no position to support itself, and “will require donor assistance for the foreseeable future if it is to survive.”

Against that backdrop, the repatriation of our hockey rink boards seems almost nonsensical.

I’m reminded of that famous line from the Vietnam war movie Apocalypse Now, wherein the American commander explains why it was necessary to capture an island: “Because Charlie don’t surf.” In this case our rationale for deploying troops to Kandahar would be the equally absurd “because Afghans don’t play hockey.”

On Target: Canadian killed by Daesh was naïve and foolish

Photo Credit: FACEBOOK/Bring Nazzareno Tasson Home Page

By Scott Taylor

Last week it was reported that 24-year-old Nazzareno Tassone of Edmonton was killed by Daesh (also known as ISIS) fighters near the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Tassone was a Canadian volunteer fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) when he was killed in a firefight on December 21. News of Tassone’s death only broke after Daesh posted photos of his body on the Internet.

The Kurdish community in Canada have hailed Tassone as a hero and a martyr for their cause, and even Tassone’s distraught mother told the media, “He’s our hero, he really is. As much as it hurts, the pain. This is him, this is what he wanted.”

Tassone was also hailed as a hero by the usual military cheerleaders who deemed his actions to be akin to that of men bent on saving the Western world from Daesh evildoers.

The truth is that Tassone was a reckless adventure-seeker who was duped by the Kurds into accepting risks he was not qualified to undertake.

Although friends and family admit that Tassone had a lifetime obsession with all things military, the truth is that he never joined the Canadian Army. He had zero military training when he left Canada last June. Furthermore Tassone had no experience in the Middle East; even at the time of his death, colleagues admit that Tassone had only learned a handful of words in Kurdish.

The night he was killed, Tassone was with a fellow British volunteer, Ryan Lock, who also had zero previous military experience, spoke no Kurdish and had only arrived in Syria in September. He was also killed in the Daesh attack.

Let’s put this in perspective: A recruit joining the Canadian military does a three-month basic training course, then spends four to six months at an intensive battle school learning a particular combat trade. Recruits are then posted to a battalion as junior rookies to augment the more seasoned soldiers. Prior to sending a battle group to Afghanistan, the Canadian Army conducted a full twelve months of mission-specific training before these extremely professional soldiers were considered ready for front-line operations.

Tassone and Lock had but a few days of rudimentary training before they were sent into battle, and only weeks of experience before they were killed in an exposed forward position. Oh, did I mention that neither one of them spoke Kurdish?

There is no way in the world that if a foreign volunteer — let’s say a Korean — showed up in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, with zero previous military experience and unable to speak English or French, that Canadian soldiers would let them join their patrol. It would be an irresponsible endangerment of the Korean’s life, and it would also put the Canadian soldiers at risk.

Just because someone has a burning desire to become a firefighter, they would not be allowed to simply start climbing up a ladder at a three-alarm blaze.

Tassone and Lock were not bringing any martial expertise to the conflict, and they were not in a position to instruct or advise their Kurdish comrades. They were novices who did not share the Kurds’ strict Islamic faith, nor did they speak their language.

Their quest for instant adventure was their downfall, and the Kurds selfishly took advantage of that weakness. Better that two foreign volunteers get killed by Daesh than two of their own Kurdish countrymen.

The Tassone family has been urging the Canadian government to do all it can be to recover their son’s body. This would of course mean somehow negotiating a deal with Daesh with whom our Canadian authorities have no direct contact. Instead, the best bet is that the Kurdish fighters on the ground will negotiate a deal with the local Daesh commander. In the past, the recovery of foreign volunteer fighters’ bodies has involved the payment of money or the reciprocal exchange of Daesh prisoners.

Either way, it will only serve to further illustrate Tassone’s misguided naivety. By getting himself killed he will have actually benefitted the Daesh evildoers he set out to eliminate.

My advice to any other would-be noble adventurer who wishes to fight for a gallant cause is to join the Canadian Armed Forces. They are the best in the world, bar none.

ON TARGET: RUSSIA SETS SIGHTS ON LIBYA

General Khalifa Haftar is the most powerful warlord in Libya - and Russia is looking to back his militia with the goal of securing peace in that war torn country. 

Photo Credit: Magharebi - Flickr

By Scott Taylor 

In recent days there has been considerable progress made towards paving a pathway to peace in war-ravaged Syria. This latest flicker of hope is pinned on a ceasefire agreement brokered between Russia, Turkey and Iran. What is significant about this particular cessation of hostilities is that it was negotiated without the inclusion of the U.S.A. For their part, the oft-maligned Russians are dealing from a position of power and with a clearly stated objective.

Since first committing combat troops to the Syrian civil war in September 2015, Russia announced its intention to support those forces loyal to embattled President Bashar al-Assad. Their motivation for assisting Assad was to protect Russia’s only military base on the Mediterranean Sea — the large naval facility at Tartus.

On the flip side of that equation, when the Syrian insurrection first erupted in March 2011, Canada was one of the loudest cheerleaders for the anti-Assad rebels. Canada’s Foreign Affairs minister of the day was the leather-lunged John Baird, and he took advantage of every photo opportunity to be seen encouraging Syrian rebels with the chant “Assad must go!”

Of course, the longer Assad and his loyalists clung to power, the more evident it became that many of those opposing his rule were some pretty nasty Islamic extremists. At first it was the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, and then we saw the emergence of Daesh (also know as ISIS or ISIL). As things in the Syrian conflict became that much murkier, Canada chose to simply go quiet and officially distance itself from a conflagration that our government’s bombastic rhetoric had helped to ignite.

In contrast, the Russians chose a side that was in their best personal interest, and then deployed sufficient combat force to ensure that Assad’s loyalists were victorious on the battlefield. The recent victory over the Syrian rebel stronghold in Aleppo has put Russia in the driver’s seat in terms of dictating the terms of the peace agreement.

With the ink still not dry on the Syrian ceasefire, and with multiple violations still occurring, the Russians are already setting their sights on the quagmire that has overtaken Libya.

In March 2011, Canada led the NATO intervention to oust Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi. Ostensibly, NATO was only to enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi from using his air force to bomb Libyan rebels. However, from the outset, NATO aircraft mounted a bombing campaign of their own against Gadhafi and his loyalist forces. The NATO air armada was commanded by Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, and Foreign Minister Baird ensured that everyone knew Canada was leading the charge to depose Gadhafi.

Like Assad, Gadhafi had enough loyal fighters to stave off his immediate overthrow. As the Libyan civil war dragged on from days to weeks to months it became apparent that many of the anti-Gadhafi rebels were in fact Islamic extremists.

In fact, prior to heading into Syria to fight Assad, the al-Nusra Front was a major faction in the eventual rebel victory over Gadhafi in October 2011. Despite media revelations about the dubious composition of these Libyan rebels, nobody in the West cared, so long as they defeated Gadhafi.

Well, hindsight being 20/20, in the immediate aftermath of Gadhafi’s capture and brutal public execution, it became readily apparent that someone should have cared about who these rebels were.

The widely disparate militias refused to disarm, and following their collective victory they began fighting each other. Libya, a once prosperous, oil-producing, progressive, secular Muslim country, devolved rapidly into a failed state of total anarchy. Today, there are an estimated 2,000 independent militias active in Libya, all controlling their own personal fiefdoms, many of them enforcing strict Sharia law.

There are two self-declared parliaments: one is United Nations-backed and based in Tripoli, and the other is based in Tobruk with limited international backing. Add to this mix a powerful warlord by the name of Khalifa Haftar, whose militia controls the largest swath of Libyan territory. Despite the fact that Haftar is in conflict with the impotent UN-backed Libyan regime in Tripoli, Russia is betting that this 73-year-old warlord — a former general in Gadhafi’s army — is the only force with the capacity to reunify and secure Libya.

If Canada is truly seeking a meaningful military mission on the African continent, we should look at following Russia’s lead in the backing of Haftar in Libya. In our rush to rid the world of Gadhafi, we created a power vacuum that has proven to be far more deadly than the murdered Libyan despot ever was. Haftar may not be a perfect choice, but anything would beat the violent anarchy in which Canada and NATO have plunged the Libyan people for the past half decade.

ON TARGET: ANOTHER MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

PHOTO CREDIT: (AFP Photo / Joel Saget)

By Scott Taylor

The Trudeau Liberals have been at the federal helm for over one year now, and the grace period afforded any new government is rapidly coming to an end. During the election campaign Trudeau had promised to end Canada’s combat role in Iraq. However, once in power the Liberals settled for the compromise solution of not renewing the combat air mission when it was scheduled to expire last February.

While the CF-18 fighter jets were in fact repatriated to Canada, the refueller and reconnaissance aircraft continue to support the U.S.-led air campaign in Iraq and Syria. As for boots on the ground, the Trudeau Liberals actually increased the number of special forces trainers deployed to assist the Kurds in the battle against the Daesh evildoers.

The training role originally assigned to these Canadian commandos was soon defrocked when it was reported these ‘trainers’ had been involved in numerous firefights. Afraid to be caught exceeding their political masters’ mandate, military brass went to great lengths trying to explain to Canadians how firing rifles and rockets in battle is not ‘combat,’ so long as you are doing so in self-defence … or in defence of others … or in order to eliminate a threat that might later endanger you … or anyone at anytime for that matter.

Soldiers on the ground know all too well that combat is combat, and unfortunately due to the official policy of denial, a lot of heroic deeds done on the battlefield by Canadian special forces soldiers will go unrecognized. That said, despite the campaign promise to pull Canada out of another violent quagmire, under the Liberals we are even more directly involved in the fight against Daesh.

The allied siege against Mosul – Daesh’s last stronghold in Iraq – has been underway for more than two months now. While it may take many more weeks to eliminate the last of the Daesh fanatics, allied planners have suggested that resistance will not end with Mosul’s recapture. What is feared is that Daesh will simply change tactics and launch a campaign of terrorist attacks throughout the entire country. Canadian military sources have indicated that if such scenario unfolds, our troops would still have a role to play in northern Iraq. In other words, we are slowly being dragged deeper into an unwinnable quagmire of a multi-factioned civil war, in which we have absolutely no influence over the eventual outcome.

Then of course there was the Liberal promise to get Canada back in the game of United Nations peacekeeping. After announcing in August that 600 Canadian soldiers would be deploying to Africa, it seems that the government will soon announce that the actual destination for these peacekeepers will be Mali.

The original UN mission there, known as MINUSMA, was established in April 2013 in response to the northern half of the country being overrun by separatist Tuaregs allied with Islamic extremists flying the flag of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). France had sent a military intervention force to assist the demoralized Malian military to regain the lost territory, but to this day the Tuaregs and AQIM fighters continue to wage a bloody insurgency.

The presence of 12,000 UN peacekeepers from 48 different countries has only led to a lengthening list of casualties among the blue helmets. With over 100 peacekeepers killed to date, Mali is the UN’s deadliest mission. It is also one that bodes little chance of ultimate success. The semi-nomadic Tuaregs in Mali’s northern Saharan territory want nothing to do with the corrupt regime in Bamako, the country’s capital in the southern sub-Saharan region.

If these Tuaregs have violently resisted their fellow countrymen, the French military, and now the amassed UN forces, why would they submit to a young Canadian soldier from Red Deer, Alberta or Baie-Comeau, Quebec?

Embarking on a dangerous UN peacekeeping mission — one which has no clearly stated objective or easily attainable goal, for the sake of getting Canada back in the good books of the UN — is pure folly. Our veterans of Afghanistan are still suffering the mental anguish associated with waging a counterinsurgency against a hostile local population in order to prop up the corrupt regime in Kabul. Do we really need a fresh crop of disillusioned soldiers returning from a failed mission in Mali? 

ON TARGET: WAR IS A CRIME

photo credit: Aleppo Media Center - Facebook

By Scott Taylor

Last week, the war in Syria garnered international headlines as Russian-backed government troops finally recaptured the last rebel-held territory in the city of Aleppo.

The civil war that has gripped Syria since March 2011 was particularly brutal in this sprawling city, the largest urban centre in the country.

In recent weeks, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were able to contain and surround rebel forces in just a few of Aleppo’s eastern suburbs. Under the terms of a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey, the remaining rebels agreed to be withdrawn from the city and relocated within other Syrian territory that is still under rebel control.

Under seige

This final rebel collapse in Aleppo set off a wave of indignant condemnation by the western media, all of it aimed at Assad and his Russian ally, Vladimir Putin. One claim, levelled by none other than Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth, was that the siege of Aleppo constituted a war crime perpetrated by Putin and Assad. Roth’s rationale is that, by starving the besieged rebels, the Syrian government troops had denied humanitarian aid from being delivered to those unfortunate innocent civilians within those rebel-held areas.

By Roth’s logic, we need to revisit every siege staged throughout history and declare each and every one of them a war crime. There has never been a case where some benevolent commander allowed supplies through the siege lines in order to relieve the suffering and hunger of the civilians trapped inside.

One need only look at the news stream coming out of neighbouring Iraq to see the hypocrisy of Roth’s allegations. The U.S.-led coalition has boasted that they have completely surrounded the Daesh-held city of Mosul and that some Iraqi and Kurdish units have fought their way into the city’s eastern suburbs. There are an estimated one million residents left in Mosul and only some 5,000 of these are considered to be Daesh extremists. There is no way in hell that the U.S.-led besiegers are letting truckloads of food and fuel into Mosul to alleviate the suffering of the civilians.

When the Russians and Syrians do it, it’s a war crime. When the U.S.-led force — including Canadian special forces — employ a siege, it is a brilliant tactic.

The "moderate" rebels

There have been reports out of Aleppo that forces loyal to Assad have committed revenge killings as they entered rebel-held territory. The killing of what the Western media terms “moderate rebels” is then attributed directly to Putin and Assad as proof of their criminal policies.

I am not going to condone battlefield executions, but first off it must be pointed out that there is no such thing as a “moderate” rebel. The anti-Assad forces include some of the nastiest killers on the planet.

Not even counting the Daesh fighters, who were not present in Aleppo, the most effective fighting force in Syria is the al-Qaeda affiliate known as the al-Nusra Front. At the core of this unit are foreign jihadists, many of whom fought to oust Moammar Gadhafi from Libya in 2011.

Critics of Assad and Putin are quick to point out that many of those fighting for the embattled Syrian president are actually foreign Shiite Muslim volunteers waging a holy war against the majority Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels. These Iranian and Hezbollah fighters certainly helped Assad turn the tide in this war. However, if employing foreigners to fight your war is evil, then we must denounce all of those foreign fighters who chose to assist the Syrian rebels — aided and abetted by state sponsors such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

If foreigners should not insert themselves into these Middle Eastern conflicts, then what the hell are 200 Canadian special forces soldiers doing training Kurdish fighters to battle Daesh in Iraq?

In one media interview concerning the fall of Aleppo, I heard some sage commentary from a Syrian refugee who is currently residing in Toronto. His concerns were for his relatives who remained in Aleppo and the reporter expected him to condemn Assad for the siege and subsequent revenge killings. Instead, the Syrian refugee said, “All of those who took up guns in this conflict are to blame for the suffering.”

Instead of sending in agencies to assign guilt for specific war crimes in isolated incidents, we should begin with the premise that war itself is a crime.

On Target: Bolstering Latvia’s economy with Canada’s defence budget

photo credit: www.mil.ee

By Scott Taylor

Back in July, when Canada announced it would be sending troops into Latvia, the tub-thumping Colonel Blimps popped their pacemakers. This was the stuff they have been longing for, a throwback to the good old Cold War days: A chance to square off once again with those nasty Russkies.

Since Canada withdrew from the international intervention in Afghanistan in the spring of 2014, the military has dropped out of the media spotlight. Many of the warmongers felt that the Canadian Armed Forces needed a high-profile mission to justify increased procurement budgets. The idea of deploying a contingent of Canadian soldiers along the Latvian–Russian border to contain the supposed naked aggression of President Vladimir Putin seemed like a godsend.

The rah-rah jingoistic pundits breathlessly wrote that Canadian soldiers were being deployed along NATO’s “northern flank” as if the alliance was already engaged in a full-scale war with Russia. It is true that when Ukraine devolved into a bloody civil war in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Russian troops into the Crimea to reinforce those already stationed there under an existing lease agreement.

Fearful the new pro-Western regime in Kiev might revoke the lease and thus deny Russia its longstanding major naval base in the Black Sea, Putin held a referendum in the Crimea. The majority of the ethnic-Russian population voted to secede and Putin formally annexed the territory.

This tiny territorial grab then became the cornerstone of NATO’s accusations that Putin is bent on nothing less than world domination. One problem with that theory is the fact that two other pro-Russian breakaway provinces — Donetsk and Luhansk — had also staged referendums on secession and voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Despite these results, Putin did not gobble up these provinces.

Instead, Russia is insisting that both warring Ukrainian factions adhere to the Minsk II ceasefire agreement, with an eventual course that Donetsk and Luhansk rejoin a Ukrainian federation. But, of course, that does not sound as frightening as depicting Putin in 2016 as the new Adolf Hitler in 1939, poised to conquer the free world.

The NATO plan will see a total of some 4,000 soldiers from four member states deployed into Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia on a rotational, non-permanent basis. Of that number, Canada is to commit a combat contingent of 450 soldiers to Latvia. These troops are to be rotated in and out of the Baltic on six-month or one-year tours, indefinitely. For those familiar with just how tiny Canada’s combat cupboard really is, this means that nearly one-third of our infantry capability will either be deployed, training for deployment, or just returned from Latvia at any given time.

If Canada does commit to a similar-sized mission in Mali, as they are expected to announce any day now, that will tie down two-thirds of Canada’s primary combat force, excluding the ongoing commitment to northern Iraq.

While the good news is that the Baltic region is not a “front” at all and there is no imminent danger of Russia starting a shooting war there anytime soon, the bad news is that after the initial two-day artificial euphoria of deploying face-to-face with the Russian juggernaut, our soldiers will become bored gormless.

You can only patrol the Russian border so many times and conduct rapid reaction drills to perfection before you realize that you are a hell of a long way from your home and family and, oh yeah, the Russians aren’t coming.

The good news for the Latvians is that this token contribution of a few hundred Canadian soldiers will create a mini-economic boom. The Canadian defence budget will absorb the cost of building or refurbishing all the necessary facilities to house a mini-battalion of soldiers. This will create construction and service jobs in the local economy, and I have it on good authority from a Latvian colleague that the women there are keen on the prospect of landing themselves a Canadian husband.

Regretfully for those Colonel Blimps who wish it were so, this just ain’t your father’s Cold War.