ON TARGET: Canadian Armed Forces By The Numbers

By Scott Taylor

As we fast approach the end of 2023, it is a natural milestone to reflect on the state of the Canadian Armed Forces.

How did they fare in the previous 12 months and what we can expect in 2024 and beyond?

The most objective manner in which to access the Canadian military is by the numbers, and spoiler alert, those numbers are not good.

One of the most crippling statistics is that the CAF are presently 16,500 personnel short of a combined regular and reserve strength of 115,000.

This represents a nearly 15 per cent shortfall in trained personnel. To put that into context, the Pentagon considers any unit which suffers 10 per cent casualties in battle to be hors-d’combat (aka out of action).

The commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, recently released a video message in which he admits that Canada’s navy will be unable to fulfill their mission objectives in the near future.

There is also a crippling shortage of trained pilots in the RCAF which has resulted in the cancelling of Canadian participation in joint foreign exercises.

The Canadian Army recently acknowledged that it will need $220 million worth of equipment to simply replace those weapons and vehicles which Canada has already donated to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ammunition is one item in particularly short supply as a result of our contribution to the war in Ukraine. At a recent briefing to Parliament, Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre bemoaned the fact that there is only three day’s worth of ammunition left in Canadian magazines based on an expenditure rate commensurate with what we observe in Ukraine.

The $26.5 billion allocated to Canada’s defence budget only represents 1.3 per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The usual tub-thumpers bemoan the fact that this remains well below the NATO Alliance’s stated goal of two per cent of GDP spent on defence.

However, the truth is that DND is so woefully mismanaged and under strength that Canada does not even spend that full $26.5 billion.

As a result of project delays, some $2 billion of procurement money went unspent last year, and the shortfall in personnel saved taxpayers more than $1 billion in salaries and benefits.

Recruiting remains a challenge despite the 2023 change in dress regulations which now allows all hairstyles, facial hair, tattoos, piercings and choice of gender uniform items.

Of course a major impediment to those considering a career in uniform has been the steady stream of negative news reports about widespread sexual misconduct. Again, the numbers don’t lie and they only got worse in 2023.

The most recent numbers released by Statistics Canada reveal that in 2022, despite the barrage of media reports and widespread public scrutiny, the number of reported cases of sexual assault actually increased.

An estimated 1,960 regular force members – or roughly 3.5 percent, “reported that they were sexually assaulted in the military workplace or outside the workplace in an incident that involved CAF or other military members in the 12 months preceding the survey” the Statistics Canada report stated.

A would be recruit considering a 30-year career can do the math, calculate that this amounts to a 100 per cent chance of being sexually assaulted at some point and politely decline the military’s offer of employment.

Unfortunately, without a major uptake in recruiting and training to bring the CAF back to full strength, the coming year will be a steep challenge.

The RCN will be taking delivery of more ships, while they cannot put the ones they have to sea for want of trained crew members.

The Canadian Army is to increase the forward deployed battle group in Latvia to the status of full brigade while lacking ammunition for training and still awaiting the acquisition of a low-level air defence system.

The first of the newly purchased F-35 Strike Fighters is due for delivery in 2026, with a total of 88 being received by 2029.

Somehow the RCAF will need to keep their aging CF-18 Hornets operational while transitioning to this next generation fighter. Again this will require a major turn around in recruiting and training to keep apace with current attrition.

As the old recruiting ads used to say about the CAF --“There’s no life like it.”

ON TARGET: Who Are the 'Two Michaels' Really??

By Scott Taylor

Ever since Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig – aka ‘the two Michaels’ - were first detained by Chinese authorities on charges of espionage in December 2018, there has been a paucity of detailed analysis as to just exactly who these two gentlemen really are.

This remained the case throughout their 34-month detention and even after their release in September 2021.

The official line was that they were definitely not spies as the Chinese alleged and they were ‘arbitrarily’ abducted.

The rationale for the ‘two Michaels’ arrest was considered to be retaliation for Canada’s detention of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the tech giants’ founder, on a U.S. extradition request. The brief bios of these men outlined that Kovrig was a former Global Affairs Canada diplomat and that Spavor was a businessman living and working in China.

Although occasionally mentioned, Canadian media glossed over the part that Kovrig was a retired diplomat then currently employed by the International Crisis Group – which was founded by billionaire George Soros. It was also scarcely mentioned that Spavor’s primary trade client was the North Korean government.

One would think that mere curiosity would have led journalists to delve deeper into the two Canadians who were caught up in the middle of what was dubbed ‘hostage diplomacy’ between the Canadian government and the People’s Republic of China.

However, it seemed at the time that the patriotic thing to do was to simply parrot the official line that the ‘two Michaels’ were just two random dudes that were arbitrarily picked up by Chinese goons.

It seemed laughable to most Canadians that the ‘two Michaels’ were alleged to be spies because, well, Canada just doesn’t do that kind of thing.

Unfortunately, not everyone is buying into that party line, and it turns out that Michael Spavor is one of them.

On Saturday November 18, the Globe and Mail reported that Spavor is now seeking a multi-million-dollar settlement from the Canadian government. According to two unnamed sources, the Globe report alleges that Spavor was detained because he ‘unwittingly’ provided intelligence on North Korea to Canada. Spavor’s Lawyer, John K. Phillips alleges that his client was arrested by the Chinese because of information that he shared with Kovrig, which was then passed along to the Canadian government and shared with the intelligence agencies among the Five Eyes Partnership (United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

The sharing of the information was done allegedly without Spavor’s knowledge or consent.

Of course Global Affairs Canada was quick to deny the allegation and to repeatedly reiterate the ‘arbitrary’ nature of the ‘two Michaels’ arrest and detention.

Coming to Kovrig’s defence, Canada’s former ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques told the National Post that what the former diplomat had done in China was perfectly above board. According to Saint-Jacques it was Spavor not Kovrig that would have been under intense scrutiny because of his close ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Spavor ran a cross-cultural tour company out of the Chinese border town of Dandong. He arranged business, academic, sporting and tourist outings into North Korea – including the controversial visit of NBA star Dennis Rodman.

Spavor was a frequent guest aboard the yacht of Kim Jong-Un and the two were known to enjoy jet-skiing together.

No one can deny that the ‘two Michael’s’ detention was linked to that of Meng-Wanzhou – they were released on the same day as a negotiated swap. But these newly released details make their arrest seem less ‘arbitrary’.

Like the classic line from the movie Casablanca wherein the French police chief orders the ‘usual suspects’ to be rounded up, in this instance, Kovrig and Spavor were indeed the ‘usual suspects’.

Spavor claims Kovrig was a spy and the C.V. of Spavor as personal importer to a ruthless dictator would certainly put him on the close watch of Canadian authorities – let alone Chinese.

All very untypically Canadian.

ON TARGET: RCAF Officers Continue to Mishandle Their Weapons

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By Scott Taylor

Glancing through the Ottawa Citizen last Friday, I almost skimmed past an article with the headline “RCAF Officer charged with firearms offences after a Police search.” I initially assumed that this was an update on the bizarre tale out of CFB Trenton that first surfaced in August.

In that saga, Colonel Leif Dahl, the Commander of the RCAF’s 8 Wing and by extension the base commander of CFB Trenton – Canada’s largest operational airbase – had been charged by Ontario Provincial Police with several firearms infractions.

Witnesses had reported that Dahl was discharging a firearm from a boat on the Murray Canal. This is a narrow waterway that connects the Bay of Quinte with Prescu’ile Bay on Lake Ontario.

For those familiar with the Murray Canal, this is not a remote backwoods area but rather a public waterway with residential properties lining the bank.

Bystanders were also alarmed at the fact that the ducks which Dahl was allegedly targeting were a protected species. With the arrival of OPP officers, Dahl allegedly dumped a firearm into the canal. Divers subsequently recovered not one, but two weapons at the scene.

As a result, Dahl was charged with the following; obstructing a peace officer, careless use of a firearm while hunting, hunting birds without a license, and having a loaded firearm in a conveyance (his boat).

Following a search of his residence, the OPP added the charges of; possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, careless storage of a firearm and, breach of firearms regulations – transporting a firearm or restricted weapon.

While none of the charges have yet to be proven in a court of law, the RCAF Commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, Maj-Gen Iain Huddleston permanently removed Dahl’s as Commander of 8 Wing and CFB Trenton.

Given the similarity in the recent headline, I was surprised to learn that this latest case of firearms offences involves yet another RCAF officer entirely.

In a press release issued by Canada Border Services Agency, it was announced that a Major Kendrick Barling has been charged by the CBSA’s Ontario Firearms Smuggling Enforcement Team.

Following searches by CBSA investigators which took place October 19 in Kingston and October 23 in Petawawa Ontario, Barling has been charged with the following offences;

-       Seven charges under the Customs Act (five for smuggling goods into Canada, two for making false statements).

-       20 charges under the Criminal Code (nine for importing a firearm knowing it is unauthorized, nine for the unauthorized importing of a firearm, and two for contravention of transportation regulations).

-       Two charges under the Export and Import Permits Act for importing goods without a permit.

The CBSA claim their searches netted a haul of seven handguns, ten rifles (allegedly including assault rifles), two shotguns, 45,000 rounds of various calibre ammunitions and hundreds of magazines that allegedly include AR-15 over-capacity magazines. For me the real kicker in the CBSA press release was the quote from Eric Lapierre, the CBSA Northern Ontario Region’s director general.

His statement read in part, “Thanks to their dedication and due diligence, [the CBSA] have successfully taken many dangerous weapons off our streets … as we work together to keep our communities safe.”

The fact is in this instance the CBSA, and in the case of Colonel Dahl, - the OPP – are the agencies arresting senior officers in the RCAF on firearms infractions in order to “keep Canadians safe.” That is almost impossible to comprehend.

ON TARGET: We Need To Do More Than Simply 'Remember' Afghanistan Veterans

By Scott Taylor

On Saturday November 11, Canadians from coast-to-coast-to-coast pause for a minute of silence to remember the sacrifice made by those in uniform in the service of our great nation.

For the younger generation Canada’s 12-year commitment to the war in Afghanistan from 2002-2014 has put a modern face on the notion of a Canadian combat veteran.

In total 158 Canadian servicemembers were killed in Afghanistan, a further 2000 suffered wounds or injuries and countless thousands more suffer from the invisible damage of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

There was no victory parade when our soldiers concluded the Afghanistan deployment in 2014.

At that juncture there were howls of protest from the pro-war pundits in Canada who still argued that NATO was just one school house away from total victory.

Their collective facetious argument was that our troops pulling out of the NATO mission in Afghanistan in 2014 was akin to Canada opting out of World War II after D-Day in 1944, and leaving our allies to finish the job without us.

The wilful ignorance of these tub-thumpers has now been exposed following the December 2019 publishing of the Washington Post’s story on what became dubbed ‘The Afghanistan Papers.’

This collection of documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act clearly illustrated that the Pentagon knew from the outset that the U.S. led coalition could not achieve victory in Afghanistan. Instead of revealing that truth, senior officials conspired to lie to the public to keep them ‘onside’ in supporting the conflict.

For the die hard hawks, even the revelation that the U.S. commanders knew it was a no-win war did not stop them from hoping for a last minute miracle victory.

In August 2021, that last dim hope was extinguished for good when the Taliban roared to victory against the U.S. trained Afghan security forces who simply melted away without a fight.

When our troops had come home in 2014, most major media outlets had used that milestone to pose the question as to whether or not Canada’s sacrifice in ‘blood and gold’ had been worth the cost.

These assessments had of course been loudly denounced by all of those pro-war cheerleaders who had spent 12 years selling Canadians on the war. They cried that it was ‘too soon’ to tally up the losses against those gains being made in Afghanistan, as the war was not yet over.

Well folks, as of the summer of 2021 and the U.S. abandonment of Kabul airport, one can safely say that the war is over. We lost.

Which means that the sacrifice and expense of the Afghanistan war cannot be justified or offset by an elusive victory.

To ensure that such a failure is not repeated, Canada needs to establish a public inquiry to probe how this mistake happened, and continued to happen over 12 bloody years.

With the Afghanistan Papers in the public domain, we need to ask whether those U.S. officials who knew the war was unwinnable, shared that info with NATO allies, including Canada.

In other words was it American officials deliberately misleading their Canadian counterparts into believing victory was around the corner? Or were our Canadian leaders in on the ruse from the outset and they chose, like the Americans to continue deceiving the general public?

Such a set of public hearings could follow the example of Britain’s Iraq inquiry which is better known as the Chilcot Inquiry.

This probe delved into the circumstances which led British Parliament to participate in the 2003 U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq.

Launched in 2009, the Chilcot inquiry published it’s finding in 2016.

The report concluded that at the time of the invasion, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not possess the Weapons of Mass Destruction as was falsely claimed by the U.S. and UK Intelligence.

If the British can own up to a lie that led to an illegal and disastrous war, surely Canada can do the same.

Our soldiers and the families of the fallen deserve no less.

ON TARGET: Canada is at War??!! WTF??!!

By Scott Taylor

I must admit that when I retrieved my Ottawa Citizen from my front porch last Friday morning my heart literally skipped a beat when I read the headline “Russia and China at war with Canada, says General Wayne Eyre.”

For the past twenty months I have been closely following the conflict in Ukraine, and since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, I have also been monitoring the conflagration in the Middle East.

However, I had no idea that two major superpowers – Russia and China – were presently at war with Canada.

Yet in a document obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff claimed that such a state of war actually exists. “We must remember that Russia and China do not differentiate between peace and war,” wrote General Eyre in his introduction of a paper entitled the Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept. “The hostile intentions and actions of our adversaries show they consider themselves to be at war with the West: We must accept this reality and respond accordingly,” the concept document added.

First of all, I’m pretty certain that both Russia and China clearly differentiate between peace and war.

Russia has been bogged down in a bloody stalemate since they invaded Ukraine more than 600 days ago. The failure of the once vaunted Russian military machine to achieve a quick victory over Ukraine has no doubt given China second thoughts as to any military aggression towards a U.S.-backed Taiwan. However, if we are to take General Eyre’s assessment to heart and “accept this reality” that we are already at war with China and Russia, we must also take stock of Canada’s current state of military readiness. Sad to say folks but the situation is not good.

To begin with, according to General Eyre, the Canadian Armed Forces are presently 16,500 personnel short of an authorized combined regular and reserve strength of 115,000 service members. This personnel gap is only expected to grow in the months to come as the CAF continues to face an existential threat in the form of a combined recruiting and retention crisis.

Despite sweeping reforms to the regulations on dress and deportment – including the allowance of various hairstyles, beards, piercings and tattoos – recruiters are still failing to meet their quotas.

For many of those already in uniform, a recent study showed that personnel are increasingly leaving the ranks rather than move to another military base where their housing will be unaffordable.

As for the morale of our combat troops, this is being steadily eroded as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.

To date Canada has provided some $8.5 billion in financial and military aid to the Ukraine war effort.

Much of the military aid came from the existing arsenal of the Canadian Army.

In addition to 10 Leopard 2 main battle tanks, Canada has stripped its munitions stocks of anti-tank rockets and artillery shells to send them to the frontlines in Ukraine.

While Canada is heavily engaged in training Ukrainian recruits in the U.K our soldiers realize that the more kit weapons and ammo that we supply means the less likely that Canadian soldiers will be able to engage in a combat role themselves.

One of the aid packages Canada is providing to Ukraine is that of a sophisticated air defence system. When the $33 million purchase was announced by Defence Minister Bill Blair, critics were quick to point out that the Canadian forward based battle group in Latvia does not possess such an air defence capability. Even though their proximity to Russia puts them at risk of an airstrike.

As a result, there are now plans to hold a competition to acquire low level air defence missile systems for the Canadian military. But with the complexity of the Canadian procurement system that means it will be many months before such a capability can be fielded.

It would seem that only General Eyre understands that we are already at war with China and Russia. Given the sorry state of our military, we can only hope that the good general is wrong.

ON TARGET: Behaving Badly: A Synopsis of the Senior Level Misconduct in the CAF

By Scott Taylor

There have been a series of news stories lately pertaining to the string of senior level cases of alleged sexual misconduct that have hamstrung the Canadian military leadership for more than two years.

With all that is happening around the globe, not to mention the sheer volume of these overlapping scandals, it is easy to lose track of just what exactly has transpired. Here, as a matter of public courtesy is a brief summary of how this ongoing saga has unfolded to date.

Things kicked off in late January 2021 with just retired Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance.

He had barely stepped aside when Global National News alleged he had had a 20-year extra marital affair with a subordinate, and that he had sent another subordinate an email invitation in 2012 to accompany him to a clothing optional beach. Vance was subsequently charged with a single count of obstruction, for asking the subordinate to lie about the affair. In March 2022 the former CDS plead guilty and was given a conditional discharge with 80 hours of community service and 12-months probation.

Just twenty-two days after the Vance story broke, it was announced that his successor, Admiral Art McDonald was stepping aside to allow a sexual misconduct claim against him to be investigated. The allegations against McDonald stemmed from a party aboard a ship back in 2010.

In the end the military investigators found insufficient evidence to lay a charge. McDonald claimed he had been exonerated, but the Trudeau government thought otherwise. McDonald’s twenty-two day stint as CDS remains the shortest tenure of a top commander in Canadian history.

While McDonald was still under investigation it was learned that air force Lt-Gen Chris Coates’ extra marital affair while at NORAD HQ precluded him from a post at NATO HQ. He retired early.

Then came the shocking allegation that Chief of Military Personnel (CMP) Vice Admiral Haydn Edmundson had committed sexual assault against a female shipmate in 1991.

Edmundson was subsequently charged with one count of indecent acts and one count of sexual assault. The trial was originally set for August 2023 but has been delayed. Edmundson remains awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Next in the spotlight was Maj-Gen Dany Fortin. At the time of his suspension from duty, Fortin was the face of the federal government vaccine roll-out. The allegation against Fortin dated back to 1989 when he was a cadet at military college. Fortin was charged with one count of sexual assault.

He was recently acquitted of that charge by the Quebec Superior Court. He subsequently brought a lawsuit against 16 senior military and government officials for the manner in which he was publicly removed from his post. On Oct 12, it was announced that the government had settled out of court with Fortin for an undisclosed sum.

Then there was the case of Maj-Gen Pete Dawe being sent on paid leave. This was due to a public backlash over Dawe writing a character reference for an officer who was convicted of sexually assaulting a fellow officer’s wife. Dawe has been since quietly brought back on active duty.

Vice Chief of Defence Staff, Lt-Gen Mike Rouleau, took early retirement after it was learned he played a round of golf with General Vance while the former CDS was still under investigation.

Vice-Admiral Craig Baines also played in that same round of golf, but he made a public apology and agreed to counselling, thus retaining command of the Royal Canadian Navy. Baines has since retired.

The next two incidents came in rapid succession with Lt-Gen Trevor Cadieu and Lt-Gen Steve Whelan. Cadieu was set to take command of the Canadian Army and Whelan had briefly replaced the suspended Edmundson as CMP.

Both of their cases recently concluded with the military dropping the charges in Whelan’s court martial and a civilian judge staying the charges against Cadieu due to the length of time it took the prosecutors to bring their case to court.

Some might argue that the string of incidents involving nine senior commanders in less than six months resulted in few tangible outcomes in terms of formal punishment of those facing the accusations. However, given the actual impact of the results from the military ‘me-too’ moment, the institution itself has been changed for the foreseeable future.

ON TARGET: 'Sex Abuse' or 'Cultural Differences'?

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday the Ottawa Citizen broke the story of a Canadian civilian worker who was sexually assaulted by an Albanian soldier on the NATO base in Latvia. What made the story exceptionally newsworthy was the fact that when the victim reported the assault, she was told by her employers that she should have realized she faced such dangers when accepting a job supporting Canada’s military mission in Latvia. 

I can understand that when a soldier voluntarily enlists, they realize they are entering a contract which entails unlimited liability in that they could be killed in the line of duty. However, I cannot fathom a civilian position with the Canadian Department of National Defence that comes with the inherent risk of sexual assault.

To recap events as they unfolded, Kristen Adams was employed by the Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services (CFMWS) to support Canada’s forward deployed battle group in Latvia. On December 3, 2022 she was working at the Commons canteen on Camp Adazi, which is open to all the NATO contingents stationed there. According to Adams, she greeted an Albanian soldier whom she knew and he proceeded to grab her left breast without her consent. Following this action, the Albanian reportedly commented to Adams “Oh, you are very strong.”

Shortly thereafter, Adams reported the incident to Canadian military police who promptly told her that under NATO rules, they had no jurisdiction to investigate. As a result, Latvian Military Police were brought in to examine the case.

After interviewing only Adams and the accused, on December 14th, 2022, the Latvians notified the Canadian Military Police that the investigation was ‘concluded’, without providing any further details. 

While it was outside their jurisdiction, the Canadian MP’s created a “shadow file” of Adams' case which did not dispute Adams' version of the events.

“On Dec 3, 2022, the victim was working as a civilian employee when a military member from another nation touched them inappropriately and without consent” the shadow file concluded.

No charges were laid against the Albanian and on February 3, 2023, CFMWS informed Adams that her contract was being terminated two months early “In order to ensure there is no further risk to [Adams] health.” 

The real kicker came three months later when Ben Ouellette, a Vice President of CFMWS wrote a letter to Adams. It read in part: “As you were made aware during pre-deployment training which occurred from 6 to 15 September 2022, there are risks involved in deploying to a theatre of operations where numerous countries work and live together and of the cultural differences that exist. In accepting to deploy, you [were] taking on a certain risk of working in this environment.”
My question for Vice President Ouellette would be, in what universe is it considered culturally acceptable to simply grab a woman’s breast? 

All the soldiers at Camp Adazi are members of NATO and therefore they are considered to be the enforcers of the ‘rules based international order.’

Adams told the Ottawa Citizen that she felt her case was swept under the rug to protect the Latvia mission.

If so, it would not be the first time the Canadian military kept mum about sexual impropriety to keep the Canadian public from questioning a foreign mission.

From 2002 until 2014 approximately 40,000 Canadian soldiers were deployed to fight the war in Afghanistan. During that time many Canadian soldiers bore witness to what is known as “Bacha bazi” which literally translates to “boy play”. 

This is a custom involving child sexual abuse by older men of young adolescent males or boys, called ‘dancing boys’. The practice involves sexual slavery and child prostitution. 

From 1996 until 2001, Bacha bazi  was banned by the Taliban under punishment of death.

However following the U.S. invasion and subsequent NATO occupation, the practice once again flourished. Many Afghan police officers and warlords allied with NATO against the Taliban were the primary perpetrators of this practice and as such many Canadian soldiers questioned their superiors as to why they were to tolerate such blatant pedophilia.

The official response was to simply note this was a ‘cultural difference’ and our troops, along with American and NATO forces were to simply turn a blind eye. 

Certainly if such news had been widespread at the time, many a Canadian might have questioned just what the hell we were doing in Afghanistan. 

ON TARGET: Canada's Defence Budget Boondoggle

By Scott Taylor

Last week the Department of National Defence was once again in the public spotlight. First it was the news that the Liberal government is trying to cut up to $1 billion from the defence budget as part of the government’s overall goal to trim federal spending.

Then, during an appearance before the House of Commons defence committee, Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre admitted that a cut of that magnitude would have an impact on operations. 

At the same time, he used the occasion to remind parliamentarians that the Canadian Armed forces have an authorized strength of 115,000 personnel and that the CAF currently has roughly 16,000 positions that are vacant.

For those doing the math this means that National Defence has already been saving more than the $1 billion the government is seeking in cuts. To wit: the current budget for National Defence is $26.5 billion with the majority of that money spent on personnel and benefits.

If one were to pay just the salaries of the 16,000 unfilled jobs at a median estimate of $50,000 this amounts to roughly $800,000,000. Throw in benefits, the cost of uniforms etc, and you are saving well over $1 billion already off the bottom line.

Interestingly, some pundits chose to link the threatened budget cut with Canada's recent pledge to work towards meeting the NATO proposed goal of spending two per cent of Gross Domestic Product on defence.

Canada currently spends roughly 1.3 per cent of GDP on National Defence.

Rather than simply parroting the "two per cent of GDP" message like many other defence analysts, I have long argued that a nation's defence commitment be measured as a tangible combat capability based on a percentage of population and regional circumstances.

Canada is blessed with sharing a single border with the world's most powerful super power. This means we have the luxury of choosing the conflicts to which we commit resources. 

The notion of simply spending an arbitrary amount as being reflective of a nation's commitment to defence was well illustrated in a recent column by the National Post's John Ivison. 

The target of his piece was the Canadian Surface Combatant program to build 15 new frigates to replace the Royal Canadian Navy's current 12 aging Halifax-class frigates. The gist of Ivison’s argument was that this massive program has been plodding along with a steady stream of delays and cost overruns, before the shipyard has even begun to cut steel. 

The title and subtitle of the article summed it up thus: "The uncontrolled military program plundering the public purse, desperate for adult attention: Canada's defence spending is an embarrassment, yet the massively expensive Canadian Surface Combatant program appears to have next to no cost controls."

To illustrate his point, Ivison compared a recent U.S. Navy frigate acquisition wherein they paid $1.66 billion per ship, to the now estimated price tag of $5.6 billion per ship, under the Canadian Surface Combatant program.

Once again we need to be clear that since no construction has started yet, that price tag is expected to climb even higher. 

Which brings us to the question of why those analysts pushing the two per cent of GDP message aren’t highlighting the problems with the CSC program.

For just the CSC project on its own, Canadian taxpayers are forking out 300 per cent more than the U.S. Navy to acquire the same level of combat capability. Spending ridiculous amounts of money in cost overruns for long delayed equipment purchases is certainly not what NATO had in mind with their target goal of two percent of GDP.

ON TARGET: Putting Canada's NAZI-Gate into Perspective

By Scott Taylor

The dust has yet to settle on Canada’s blunder of honouring a Second World War Ukrainian Nazi soldier with two standing ovations in the House of Commons.

Described by Australian media as a ‘Catastrophically Stupid” mistake, what made this incident worthy of international headlines was the fact that the salute to Yaroslav Hunka was made on the occasion of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s official visit to Canada.

Zenlenskyy is Jewish and a number of his relatives were killed by Nazis during the Holocaust, and yet he dutifully rose to his feet for both standing ovations to thank Hunka “for his service.”

When recognizing Hunka as his special guest in the gallery, House Speaker Anthony Rota identified him as a Canadian veteran “who fought for Ukraine independence during WWII, against the Russians.”

To anyone with even a basic understanding of Second World War history, this should have set off alarm bells immediately. If Hunka was fighting against the Russians, that means he was fighting for Hitler’s Nazis.

Canada was allied with the Soviet Union during those dark days to liberate Europe from the Nazis. If some members of Parliament were indeed that ignorant of this chapter in our history, they can be forgiven for being unwittingly doped into applauding a man described by Rota as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero.”

To be fair, the mainstream media covering this event also collectively failed to grasp what it meant for Hunka to “fight against the Russians” and they reported the standing ovations to 98-year-old Hunka as a ‘moving moment.’

That bubble was burst shortly thereafter by Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian Professor of Political Science at the University of Ottawa.

Within hours Katchanovski was tweeting out photos and translated text that clearly identified Hunka as a member of the 14 SS Waffen-Grenadier (Galicia) Division. This was a volunteer SS unit stood up in 1943 with members taking an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Once that shocking detail began to circulate, Members of Parliament could not distance themselves fast enough from the honour they had bestowed upon Hunka.

House Speaker Rota claimed to have not known of Hunka’s SS service, but the fact that the official recognition was bereft of any rank or unit mention suggests otherwise.

However, as the howls of indignation magnified, Rota took full responsibility for this colossal failure of judgement and he resigned as Speaker of the House.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dodged the issue for three days and then made a formal apology on behalf of all members of the House of Commons.

To date there has been no official apology to Ukraine President Zelenskyy, specifically and very few of the Members of Parliament in attendance at that event have personally apologized to their constituents for inadvertently paying respect to a Nazi.

Without a doubt, the true nature of Hunka’s war time service would not have come as a shock to all MP’s present for the ovations. In particular Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland is of Ukrainian descent and she has long prided herself on her detailed knowledge of Ukraine’s history.

Also present for the ovation was Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre.

As Canada’ top soldier, Eyre represents every serving member and veteran in the country. It is unthinkable that a career officer of Eyre’s rank would be so ignorant of military history as to not realize that Hunka must be a Nazi soldier. However, even if one gives Eyre the benefit of the doubt – perhaps he was distracted by an important text message when Rota read the citation – once the story broke it became incumbent upon the CDS to apologize for his misplaced tribute to a Waffen SS soldier.

Eyre recently did an interview with CBC wherein he reflected upon his experience as a young officer in Croatia. It was in reference to the 30-year anniversary of the Battle of the Medak Pocket.

Eyre was still emotional at having witnessed the ethnic cleansing committed by Croatian soldiers against Serbian civilians during that battle.

For him to rise to salute Hunka, whose SS formation committed similar slaughter in Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, can be forgiven as an error.

However now that the truth is out, Eyre needs to retract his tribute publicly and officially.

ON TARGET: The CBC's Exclusive 'Non-Story' About an Encounter in the China Sea

By Scott Taylor

Last Thursday, the CBC National had an ‘exclusive’ lead story which was billed as a ‘tense encounter’ between a Royal Canadian Navy frigate and the Chinese Navy.

As a close follower of all thing’s Canadian military, I was naturally spellbound to discover the nature of this armed showdown in the East China Sea.

The news anchor assured viewers that this being a CBC exclusive, I could only get this story via Canada’s national state broadcaster.

The story starts on the flight deck of HMCS Ottawa wherein the reporter assures Canadians that the ‘moment of tension’ has not passed as two Chinese warships continue to ‘flank’ the Canadian vessel.

We are informed that the Chinese navy has grown increasingly assertive in recent months.

As the imagery cuts to grainy footage of a relatively distant Chinese naval vessel, the reporter tells us, “This is what China pushing back against other powers looks like.” Although the journalist torques the tale by claiming that such Chinese aggression runs the risk of collision, at no point does it appear that the Chinese vessels came anywhere near the convoy of allied warships.

That little detail was seemingly omitted from CBC’s ‘exclusive’ teaser which painted this ‘tense encounter’ as a Canada versus China standoff.

No, it turns out that the diminutive HMCS Ottawa was actually part of a joint U.S. Navy and Japanese Self-Defence Force flotilla that comprised everything from submarines to a massive U.S. amphibious ship.

There may have been two Chinese ships on the scene, but they were dwarfed in both size and numbers by the allied battle group.

Which brings us to the reporter’s breathless question to the captain of HMCS Ottawa wherein he asked the skipper why these Chinese warships would be present when the Canadian frigate had yet to enter the disputed Taiwan Strait.

To his credit, Commander Sam Patchell could not keep a straight face when he calmly replied “they are operating in their own waters, we are operating in open ocean.” Hatchell further explained “They’re as curious about our behavior as we are of their behavior.”

Undeterred by Patchell’s common sense reply, the reporter tried to further torque this non-story by claiming, “This is an example of China seeking control around its neighbours … sending what is now the world’s largest Navy further from its shores.”

First of all it needs to be remembered that this ‘tense encounter’ took place in the East China Sea. That is hardly to be considered far from China’s shores when their country is literally in the name of the waterway.

Secondly, the ridiculous notion that China’s navy is now ‘the largest in the world’ needs some clarification. While technically China may indeed possess the most number of ships painted in warship grey, this is no way reflects the relative ‘strength’ of that fleet.

In terms of sheer numbers, the USA ranks fourth in the world behind China, Russia and North Korea. However, no one disputes the fact that the U.S. Navy is leap years ahead of all three of those combined in terms of actual combat capability.

When one uses the number-of-hulls to assess the size of a country’s navy, an antiquated, 60 meter, Chinese Patrol Vessel counts the same as a 130,000 tonne U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

This discrepancy was well illustrated in the CBC’s ‘exclusive’ coverage of the ‘tense encounter’ when it concluded with a shot of the distant Chinese warship photo-bombing a group photo of the U.S. led battle group.

The only ‘drama’ included in this CBC piece was old video footage from last June when a Chinese frigate crossed the path of a U.S. warship in the Taiwan Strait.

No doubt the CBC producers and the Public Affairs branch at the Department of National Defence hoped that by putting a camera crew from Canada’s state broadcaster abroad HMCS Ottawa they would indeed capture an actual ‘tense encounter.’

However given that the Chinese warships simply monitored the allied battle group in the East China Sea it is hard to define what transpired as an ‘encounter’ let along ‘tense.’

It may have been ‘exclusive’ but it just wasn’t a story.

ON TARGET: Inside the CFB Trenton fiasco

Colonel Leif Dahl is the commander of 8 Wing and CFB Trenton in Ontario. (Department of National Defence)

By Scott Taylor

There was a truly bizarre story out of Belleville, Ontario last week which involved the commander of the Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the largest operational military base in Canada.

Initial reports of the incident were often contradictory and clouded with the usual fog of social media commentary.

However, now that the dust has somewhat settled, I offer what I hope to be a concise summary of the sequence of events as they unfolded.

On Friday August 25th, Col. Leif Dahl the Commander of the RCAF’s 8 Wing and by extension the Commander of CFB Trenton was on leave and enjoying his summer vacation.

Col. Dahl was apparently boating on the Murray Canal, a narrow waterway that connects the Bay of Quinte to Presqu’ile Bay on Lake Ontario.

The channel is close to where Dahl resides in the city of Belleville.

A complaint was filed with the Ontario Provincial Police to the effect that Col. Dahl was allegedly observed shooting at wildlife from his boat. For those familiar with the Murray Canal, it is not surprising that the shooting would be reported to the police as this is not a remote stretch of woodland. It is a public waterway with residential properties lining the banks.

Furthermore, those that hunt will know that August is not duck season in Ontario and apparently the ducks which Col. Dahl was allegedly targeting are a protected species in this area.

When the O.P.P dutifully appeared on the scene, it seems to have donned on Col. Dahl that he may be in a bit of trouble as he was spotted allegedly disposing of a firearm in the Murray Canal.

The O.P.P dive team subsequently retrieved the weapon. On Monday August 28th, Col. Dahl was formally charged with the following; obstructing a peace officer, careless use of a firearm while hunting, hunting birds without a license, and unlawfully having a loaded firearm in a conveyance (his boat).

Two days later, the RCAF issued a statement which acknowledged Col. Dahl’s charges and announced that he had been relieved of command pending the results of the civilian court proceedings. In his statement announcing Col. Dahl’s suspension, Commander of 1 Canadian Air Division, Maj. Gen. Iain Huddleston stated, “It is my responsibility to ensure that the members of 8 wing have full confidence in their leadership and chain-of-command.”

However, the very next day, the OPP laid another set of charges against Col. Dahl.

After executing a search warrant of Col. Dahl’s Belleville residence and following the O.P.P dive team recovering a second firearm from the Murray Canal, Dahl now faces charges of; possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, careless storage of a firearm and, breach of firearms regulations – transporting a firearm or restricted weapon.

None of the charges against Col. Dahl have been proven in court. The officer is scheduled to appear in court in Belleville on Sept. 28.

For the men and women of 8 Wing, the charges against Dahl are the second time the trust in their leadership and chain-of-command have been challenged in recent memory..

In January 2010, the world was shocked when then 8 Wing commander Col. Russ Williams was charged and convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and rape along with 82 counts of break-and-enter.

The crimes committed by the cold-blooded psychopath Russ Williams are nowhere near the same ‘Homer-Simpson-esque’ semi-comical hi-jinks which Col. Dahl is alleged to have committed.

However if convicted it will be difficult for the RCAF senior leadership to re-instate Col. Dahl to any position of trust which is commensurate with his current rank.

Those who closely follow the history of the Canadian Armed Forces will note that this is not the first time a senior officer has faced hunting related charges.

Back in 1989 allegations arose that Brig.-Gen. Ian Douglas, the base commander of CFB Petawawa was using a military helicopter to hunt moose. The good Brigadier was eventually found guilty and given a light fine. His lack of sound judgement in this instance in no way hampered his career trajectory. In fact Douglas was subsequently named Canada’s military attaché to Washington D.C. to finish out his career.

Trust in the leadership and chain-of-command indeed.

ON TARGET: Yevgeny Progozhin: A Fallen Warlord?

By Scott Taylor

The startling news out of Russia last week was that a private jet carrying the notorious Oligarch-Warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin had plummeted from the sky just north of Moscow.

According to Russian state news, Progozhin’s name was on the passenger list of that flight along with seven top commanders of his Wagner Group mercenary force and three crew members. All are presumed dead.

Amateur video footage captured the stricken plane, minus one wing, plunging into the ground. Immediate speculation was that Progozhin’s plane had been downed by an anti-aircraft missile, but that theory was subsequently debunked by none other than the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Analysts now believe that the private jet was downed by an internal explosion.

The one thing which virtually every western media outlet seems certain is that whatever happened to Progozhin, Russian President Vladimir Putin was directly responsible for his death.

Just two months ago Progozhin had leapt into the international spotlight when he staged a violent march on Moscow with a handful of his Wagner mercenaries.

Virtually unopposed by regular Russian troops, Progozhin’s Wagner renegades were halfway to Moscow when an unexpected deal was brokered by Belarus President Alexander Lukaschenko.

Under the terms of this deal Progozhin and the Wagner mercenaries would be granted a full pardon, so long as they agreed to be exiled to Belarus indefinitely.

Western pundits were shocked at Progozhin’s armed powerplay and even more stunned by Putin’s benevolent gesture of forgiveness to what he himself had described as an act of ‘treason’ against the motherland.

Even more surprising was that in the immediate aftermath of what western media described as an ‘attempted coup’ Progozhin openly flaunted the conditions of his so called ‘exile’ to Belarus.

During a recent summit of African nations, the notorious warlord was publicly seen in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. Just days before his apparent death, Progozhin released a video of himself somewhere in Africa encouraging volunteers to join his Wagner group. This could hardly be considered the actions of a man fearing Putin’s revenge for having challenged the Russian President’s authority.

Progozhin very much owes his career success to none other than Putin. From a humble upbringing, young Progozhin chose a life of crime that resulted in him serving a nine-year prison sentence in a Soviet penal colony.

Following his release, Progozhin entered the business world as a hot dog vendor. In the post-Soviet collapse, Progozhin saw an opportunity to cater to Russia’s newly minted billionaire oligarchs by opening several upscale restaurants in St. Petersburg.

He soon befriended ex KGB agent Vladimir Putin and the rest is history.

Often dubbed ‘Putin’s Chef’ Progozhin landed the catering contract for the Russian Armed Forces and said goodbye to his hot dog cart for good. 

In 2014, when Russia needed an arm’s length private military contractor to conduct covert operations in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine, Progozhin was the loyal ally to whom Putin turned.

The fledgling Wagner group flourished and expanded its operations from Ukraine into Libya, Syria, Mali, Sudan and Niger.

This arrangement proved mutually lucrative as the Wagner mercenaries received hefty paycheques and the Kremlin received profitable deals on oil and mineral resources from these African client states.

However, it was only during the recent Russian offensive to capture the Ukraine city of Bakhmut that Progozhin and his Wagner mercenaries really caught the attention of western media.

Although Progozhin had avoided his conscripted military service, given that he was in prison, the former hot dog vendor developed a tough guy warrior image for the benefit of his YouTube channel followers. As the Wagner group fought a bloody urban warfare struggle in Bakhmut, Progozhin became a very vocal critic of the senior Russian military leadership.

His ‘cannonball run’ demonstration last June was targeting Defence minister Sergey Shoiqu and Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov.

It is important to note that Progozhin was always extremely careful to avoid including his mentor Putin in his televised diatribes.

Many in Russia actually believe that Putin sanctioned Progozhin’s abortive armed protest in order to gauge the loyalty of the senior military leadership.

All of which brings us back to the question of what really happened to Progozhin? Why stage an elaborate execution involving a bomb aboard a private jet which could easily have resulted in additional civilian casualties. Would a man as cunning as Progozhin, if he truly thought he had run afoul of Putin, fly on the same plane with all of Wagner’s top officials?

Almost nothing in Russian politics is exactly as it seems, and this may be another case of ‘maskirovka’ – or deliberate deception.

With Progozhin pronounced dead, the hotdog vendor turned warlord can once again easily disappear from the international public spotlight.

In the meantime, his Wagner forces are publicly mourning the death of their charismatic leader, but no one is vowing to avenge his alleged murder. It is also true that the Wagner contracts in Africa remain a boom to Russia’ treasury and therefore it is unlikely that this private mercenary army will cease to exist.

ON TARGET: Russia and Ukraine Frozen In Conflict

By Scott Taylor

We are now well into the second year since Russia invaded Ukraine and it appears that a costly stalemate has resulted, with no short term end in sight.

In February 2022 Russian President Vladimir Putin shocked many military pundits – myself admittedly included – when he made good on his long standing threat to invade Ukraine.

It was believed by the Russian strategists that a formidable show of strength would collapse the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s will to resist.

After a victory parade through the streets of Kiev, Putin would install a pro-Russian regime to replace a deposed President Zelenskyy.

As with the David versus Goliath fable what looked to be a one-sided contest suddenly took an unexpected turn.

Wherein diminutive David used a slingshot to fell the giant, Ukraine used a barrage of NATO supplied anti-tank missiles to destroy Putin’s massed armoured columns.

To be fair, close observers of this conflict would not have been surprised at this embarrassing setback for the Russian military.

A fact that most western military analysts choose to omit from their commentaries is the fact that armed hostilities broke out in Ukraine in February 2014.

At that juncture, shortly after pro-western protesters had driven pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power following the Maidan riots, the ethnic Russian population of Donbass declared their own independence from Ukraine.

While Putin staged a referendum and annexed the Crimea, the two self--proclaimed independent Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk were not absorbed into Russia.

Both Donetsk and Luhansk formed their own militias with the covert assistance of the notorious Wagner private military company.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces of 2014 were disunified and demoralized by the dissolution of their state into two armed camps.

In the initial clashes against the Russian backed separatists forces in the Donbass, the Ukraine military fared poorly and they too turned to privately funded militias such as the notorious neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

The fighting was intense, and while the Minsk peace accords were signed, first in September 2014 and a second Minsk II agreement in February 2015, combat on the demarcation line subsided but never ceased.

This frozen conflict between Ukrainian troops loyal to the pro-western administration in Kyiv and those Russian-Ukrainian separatists in the Donbass was the genesis for the Canadian government to commit to Operation UNIFIER in 2015.

This operation is ongoing to this day and involves hundreds of Canadian military trainers. This is part of the much larger NATO Operation REASSURANCE.

It is estimated that Canadian trainers had developed 30,000 Ukrainian recruits into first class combat soldiers by the time Russia invaded in February 2022.

With seven years of NATO training, the extensive provision of sophisticated NATO weaponry and the formal absorption of battle tested units like Azov, the Ukraine military was no longer the demoralized rabble they were back in 2014.

On the flip side, the Russian military relied on it’s own propaganda, amplified by the NATO fearmongers, to portray themselves as an invincible fighting force.

That discrepancy in expectations versus reality led to Russia’s initial assaults columns being destroyed. Thousands of shattered Russian tanks and armoured columns littered the routes of advance, providing stark evidence of the severity of Russia’s defeat.

Putin then settled for the much reduced objective of simply securing the Donbass. Reversing his earlier decision to keep the Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent autonomous regions within a unified Ukraine, Putin formally incorporated both of these republics, plus the Ukrainian Oblasts of Kherson and Zaporzhiaca into the Russian Federation on September 30, 2022.

Shortly thereafter the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a blitzkrieg counter-offensive that successfully recaptured vast swaths of Russian controlled territory.

The success of last fall’s offensive, along with a major increase in NATO’s provisions of additional modern armoured vehicles including 10 Canadian Leopard II tanks, had Western defence pundits eagerly anticipating major gains for Ukraine with their next big push.

This long awaited major Ukraine counter-attack began in early June, but after two months of bitter fighting and huge casualties, very little ground has been gained.

The reason for this is that the Russian military has learned from its painful lessons in the early clashes. With the winter months lull in fighting, the Russians were able to dig extensive fortifications and more importantly, lay a deeply layered series of minefields. Although casualties among Russians to date have been staggering, those who survived are now battle hardened veterans. They are no longer the parade square paper tigers that rolled across the Ukraine border in February 2022.

Unfortunately for all involved it appears that neither Russia nor the NATO supplied and trained Armed Forces of Ukraine have the capability to deliver a heavy enough knock-out blow that would end this war any time soon.

ON TARGET: Military Executives' Big Bonuses

By Scott Taylor

To even the most casual observer it is readily apparent that the Canadian military is in a woeful state. For months now it has been reported that the Canadian Armed Forces are in the midst of both a recruiting and retention crisis.

This double whammy has resulted in a shortfall of 16,500 personnel from an authorized Regular and Reserve Force strength of 105,000.

In terms of procurement there has been a steady drum beat of news reports detailing lengthy delays and massive cost overruns involving most, if not all, the major equipment purchase programs currently in progress.

Then there has been the relentless crap storm of sexual misconduct cases – many involving the most senior positions in the military.

If Canada’s Defence Department were a private sector company one would expect to see much of the senior leadership being escorted to the elevator with their personal belongings in a box.

Which is what made the recent headline in the Ottawa Citizen all the more shocking. It read “National Defence executives take in almost $3.5 million in bonuses.” According to documents released under the Access to Information law, some 252 executives at DND received a performance bonus between April 2021 and March 2022.

This equates to virtually every senior civil servant getting this extra boost to their pay package.

To put this in perspective, during the time frame that they earned these bonuses, the lowest-paid executives received salaries ranging from $103,000 to $131,000. More senior executives made between $195,000 to $230,000, while Deputy Minister level executives pulled in between $219,000 to a potential maximum of $371,000.

It should be also noted that not all bonuses are created equal, as one civil servant performed so well that they were rewarded with a staggering $101,000 bonus.

The documents outlining these bonuses were obtained originally by Ottawa-based lawyer, Colonel (ret’d) Michel Drapeau. He questioned the need for any such bonuses, given that these executives are already well remunerated and they receive additional benefits. In particular Drapeau took exception to the $101,000 bonus. “You have someone that was supposedly so good at their job that they were worth an extra $101,000?” Drapeau told the Citizen. “Let’s hear all about their deeds.”

While Drapeau may have made that quip somewhat facetiously, I would like to echo that sentiment.

These were taxpayers dollars, and given that the individual was rewarded with such a hefty sum, then their exploits also deserve to be heralded in public. If either the recipient or those who awarded this massive bonus wish to contact me, I will be happy to detail the rationale behind the reward.

On the uniformed side of the Defence Department, the manpower shortage has not been felt at the highest levels. At time of writing the CAF has a total of 138 Regular and Reserve General Officers and Flag Officers (GOFO’s).

With the current depleted forces numbering just 88,500 this adds up to a ratio of one general for every 635 servicemembers. This is without a doubt one of the most ridiculously over ranked militaries in the world.

Admittedly rank creep has kept pace with the changing face of warfare itself. A military’s effectiveness is no longer gauged by massed ranks of soldiers, but rather the employment of cutting edge technology. However, Canada still outpaces our allies in the ratio of generals to soldiers.

During World War 2, the United States military had 2000 Generals for a military force of 12 million personnel which amounts to a roughly one senior ranked officer for every 6,000 soldiers. That ratio currently stands at roughly one general level officer for every 1,400 servicemembers. Which is still more than double Canada’s ratio.

Back in 1996 when media reports of Canada’s bloated senior ranks embarrassed the Liberal government of the day, Defence minister David Collenette vowed to bring that ratio down to one general per thousand serving soldiers. There was to be no immediate purge, just a slow methodical reduction through attrition.

Twenty seven years later, it is clear that no such reduction took place. By that 1996 yardstick, Canada would have 105 General Officers if our ranks were fully manned, and just 89 at the current troop strength. Instead we have 138.

ON TARGET: Canada's Defence Spending Under Fire

By Scott Taylor

In last week’s major cabinet shuffle, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau puzzled many with his decision to move Minister Anita Anand out of the Defence portfolio.

Anand was viewed by many in the Defence community as an effective and efficient politician.

The man selected to replace Anand is former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair who will be moving from his current post as Emergency Preparedness minister.

Avid political observers speculated that the appointment of Blair to Defence is an indication that the Trudeau Liberals intend to focus on domestic issues rather than foreign policy, in the run up to the next election.

The consensus is that Blair will be more of a caretaker than a crusader and defence will not be high on the government’s priority list.

The problem with that scenario is that the Canadian military is already in a crisis mode. The institution remains reeling from the string of sexual misconduct scandals which have led to calls for sweeping cultural reforms. Added to this, or perhaps as a result of the sexual misconduct revelations, the Canadian Armed Forces are presently facing a recruitment and retention crisis that has reached the tipping point.

With a current shortfall of 16,500 personnel out of a combined Regular and Reserve authorized strength of 105,000, the CAF will soon be unable to train the necessary replacements while still fulfilling our international commitments.

Coming into his new job, Blair will also be faced with warding off pressure from our NATO allies, the U.S. in particular, to spend more money on defence.

The magic number bandied about by the usual defence industry-funded military analysts is the NATO stated goal of two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Canada currently spends just 1.3 percent of GDP on National Defence. That’s the supposed bad news. However, thanks to Canada’s relatively massive GDP that amounts to $36 billion in actual defence spending.

To meet that magical two percent of GDP NATO goal, Canada would need to spend an additional $20 billion on the military every year.

I think I can safely say that whether our Minister of Defence’s name is Bill Blair or Anita Anand, that is not going to happen.

In terms of real dollars spent, Canada ranks 6th out of the 31 member NATO alliance. Most Canadians would also be shocked to learn that we rank 14th in defence spending out of the 193 United Nations members. That’s well inside the top 10 percent of big defence spenders.

To illustrate the arbitrariness of the GDP percentage formula one need only examine the disparity between Canada and Greece.

With an expenditure of 3.87 percent of their GDP on defence one would think that Greece would be the darling of the alliance.

That is a higher percentage of GDP spent on defence than what the U.S. spends.

However, Greece’s GDP is one tenth that of Canada’s so in terms of actual dollars spent, Canada spends four times more than Greece.

Surprisingly, none of the two percent of GDP cheerleaders ever think to link defence spending to actual military capability. By this I mean that Canada could simply spend that extra $20 billion required to hit the two percent of GDP goal by giving serving members a massive pay raise.

If you paid each soldier an additional $400,000 a year that would spend that $20 billion and I daresay end the recruiting and retention crisis overnight.

Yet it would not add a lick to our existing defence capability.

Ditto for boosting spending on things like munitions. In theory, Canada could meet the two percent of GDP mark by simply purchasing huge quantities of munitions for soldiers to simply blast away on live fire ranges.

Which is why the NATO objective for member states should be rooted in the actual capability that countries bring to the alliance.

In theory this could be based on a per capita of population.

For instance, for every one million citizens, a NATO member would be required to maintain 1500 regular servicemembers, trained and equipped to an alliance standards.

Not every country in NATO is blessed with the same minimal national security threat levels as we are in Canada. Hence come countries, like Turkiye, by virtue of their geo-political circumstance would require a far different security footprint. Thus they would maintain far larger standing militaries than the NATO minimum.

The per capita yardstick would level the playing field in a manner that actual military contribution could be assessed on a practical basis.

Canada punched above its weight for over 10 years as part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, and by maintaining a forward deployed battle group in Latvia to deter Russian aggression, we are delivering real capability to the NATO alliance.

That should count for more than meeting an arbitrary percentage of our GDP.

ON TARGET: A Canadian Foreign Legion...Eh?

Photo credit: Combat Camera

By Scott Taylor

The recent NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania proved the genesis for a number of promises by the Trudeau Liberals to make significant increases to Canada’s military participation in the alliance. 

In a whirlwind photo-op, pit-stop to the forward deployed Canadian contingent in Latvia, Trudeau re-announced Canada’s plans to increase the size of that force to a full brigade.
While the other NATO allies that contribute to this multinational force in Latvia would also be increasing their contingents. For Canada this would mean expanding from 800 to 2200 troops deployed on a rotating, but continuous basis.

Trudeau also re-affirmed that Canada will continue to endeavour to raise defence spending to meet the NATO goal of 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). At present Canada spends about 1.3% of GDP on defence.

Caught up in the NATO Summit spirit of pledging continued support for embattled Ukraine in their war against Russia, Trudeau also reiterated that the RCAF would be participating in the NATO program to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 fighter jets. 
Somehow this particular statement was simply parroted by Trudeau’s attendant media posse without anyone pointing out that our RCAF fighter pilots fly CF-18’s not F-16’s. Before Canadian pilots could train Ukrainians they would first need to learn to fly F-16’s themselves. If that is the case, then why not simply cut out the middle man – i.e. Canada – and teach the Ukrainian pilots directly? 

The last time I looked the RCAF were so woefully short of trained pilots that we were unable to participate in recent joint NATO international exercises. 

It is the chronic personnel shortage across the entire Canadian Armed Forces that will pose an almost insurmountable challenge for the Army to staff and maintain such a significant increase to the Battle Group in Latvia. 

Yes, the money spent to outfit this force with capabilities such as low level air defence, armed drones and anti-tank weapon systems will help push defence spending towards that arbitrary figure of 2% of GDP. 

However, the question begs as to where our understrength army units are going to find and train the pre-requisite number of personnel to keep that many soldiers forward deployed in Latvia.

The current tour length for troops based in Latvia is six months to one year. These postings are considered operational, so no spouses or dependants accompany the member.
That length of separation is a challenge for most couples and families and given the size of the army and the scale of the commitment, our soldiers will soon be in a constant cycle of preparing for Latvia, deploying to Latvia and returning from Latvia. 

There is an answer to this problem which might be considered extreme, but it is not without some successful precedents.

By this I mean the creation of a Canadian Foreign Legion. Based on the formula for the French and Spanish Foreign Legions, recruits would sign contracts for a three year tour of duty. At the successful completion of that contract they would be granted full citizenship.
This legion would be like the Spanish Legion in that recruits would need to be 18 years of age and not be older than 29 on the day they enlist. All recruits would be single and enrolled on a priority basis based upon physical fitness, mental aptitude, with previous military service being a bonus. 

Should a member of the Canadian Legion become injured or wounded prior to the three year commitment they would follow in the French example and automatically be granted full citizenship. The French call it “Francais par le sang verse’ or ‘French through spilled blood.” 

Recruits could be trained by Canadian officers and NCO’s at bases in Canada, but they would know in advance that their three years of service would be spent on overseas missions such as the brigade in Latvia or future UN peacekeeping operations. 
The question of retention for Legionnaires is a simple matter of withholding the bulk of their pay package. For instance, if the base pay rate was $60,000 then $40,000 would be held in trust until the contract is complete. 

At the end of the three year contract the legionnaire would be released as a full citizen with a starting nest egg of $120,000.

Both the French and Spanish foreign Legions have evolved into highly respected military formations which have earned their respective countries glory and respect on global battlefields. 

The original rationale for France and Spain to create such Legions was to avoid conscripting their own citizens to police the remnants of their far flung empires. 
In Canada’s case, it would be a means of bringing in a high level of immigrant to solve a manpower shortage within our military that has reached a critical tipping point.
It would be a win-win for Canada.  

ON TARGET: Biden's Clusterf**k in Ukraine

Photo: atlanticcouncil.org

By Scott Taylor

Last week’s NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania was billed as the ‘most significant’ such summit since the end of the Cold War. It was certainly the largest such gathering with the NATO alliance membership standing at 31, with Sweden’s admission still pending.

It is worth remembering that during the Cold War there were just 16 NATO members aligned against the Warsaw Pact.

That communist alliance included the 15 Republics of the Soviet Union along with the seven satellite states of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

In the 32 years since the Warsaw pact was dissolved and the Soviet Union broke apart, NATO has added seven former Warsaw Pact nations plus the three former Soviet Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

For those closely following the math, East Germany re-unified with NATO member West Germany, and the unified Republic of Czechoslovakia has since become the two separate NATO members of Czechia and Slovakia.

All of this clearly illustrates that the playing field has significantly shifted in the past three decades to the point that Russia stands alone against an alliance of 31, soon to be 32, NATO countries.

Perhaps even more revealing has been the poor performance of the once vaunted Russian military machine through the first 500 plus days of their invasion of Ukraine. No one ever expected Ukraine to withstand Putin’s initial onslaught, yet the combination of NATO supplied weapons, NATO supplied training and NATO supplied real-time intelligence has allowed Ukraine’s military to battle Russian forces to a standstill.

As Russian generals publicly berate their superiors at the Kremlin for failing to support the frontline troops, Ukraine is steadily making battlefield gains to reclaim captured territory in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.

At the NATO Summit, U.S. President Joe Biden confidently quipped to reporters that Putin has ‘lost the war’ in Ukraine.

This comes close on the heels of the same Biden administration explaining their rationale for supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions.

These controversial munitions are banned by the rules-based international order because of the threat they pose to innocent civilians. By their very nature cluster bombs break apart above the ground to scatter lethal bomblets over an area the size of a football field.

The problem is that not all of these bomblets detonate on impact. While the U.S. spokesperson claims there is just a 2.5 per cent failure rate, battlefield evidence suggests that number is far higher.

It is also not speculative to conclude that such unexploded ordnance poses a risk to innocent civilians for decades to come.

One need only visit those countries wherein the U.S. military has employed such munitions to see the legions of limbless survivors.

It was for that reason that Canada expanded the global landmine ban which we first spearheaded to also include cluster bombs.

For the record, the U.S. did not sign onto the landmine treaty and they certainly did not agree to ban cluster bombs.

To their credit, both Canada and the UK strongly voiced their opposition to this decision by the U.S. to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions.

In one of the most idiotic statements I’ve heard to date, NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg justified the U.S. decision thus “The difference is that Russia is using cluster munitions to attack Ukraine, while Ukraine will be using cluster munitions to protect itself against an aggressor.”

This echoes that famous quote by a U.S. major during the Vietnam war when he told a reporter “it was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Another argument used to justify providing Ukraine with a banned weapon is that Russia has been using cluster bombs in the war. Again, whenever the Russians have done so, and it has been admittedly sparingly, the western pundits have been quick to cry “War crime!”

Alarmingly, the Russian Defence Ministry has vowed to increase their use of cluster munitions should Ukraine employ them.

This is a dangerous escalation with harmful implications for innocent Ukrainian civilians on both sides of the battle lines for decades to come.

Let us not forget that this current conflict is taking place entirely on Ukrainian soil.

The destruction caused by all of the munitions supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine have virtually all been expended on Ukrainian infrastructure. If Biden is correct and Putin has already lost the war, then why supply Ukraine with controversial banned weapons?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was present at the NATO Summit requesting accelerated membership into the alliance.

Given that such an admission of Ukraine would put NATO at war with Russian immediately, that was never going to happen.

Instead NATO placated Zelenskyy with the promise of additional weaponry to win a war in which Biden has already proclaimed him the victor.

It is too bad that the NATO leaders did not use this summit to discuss some sort of modern Marshall Plan to finance the eventual reconstruction of Ukraine. That would have been productive.

ON TARGET: Wagner Group Not the First Private Army

By Scott Taylor

With the recent crisis in Russia, wherein the private mercenary army called the Wagner Group mutinied and threatened to topple the regime of Vladimir Putin, casual observers were shocked at the concept of Russia employing a privately owned military force.

The usual suspects in the world of western military punditry were quick to hold up Wagner Group’s existence as further proof of Russian evilness and ineptitude. The sad truth is that privately owned mercenary armies have long been employed by global super powers to extend their martial authority without having to endanger the lives of their own citizenry. 

In fact, if one simply looks across the current battleline in Ukraine, it was a collection of privately owned militias that initially bore the brunt of the fighting against the Russian-backed separatists. 

In 2014, following the Maidan revolution which had forced the expulsion of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian residents of the Donbas took up arms and proclaimed their own independence from the new administration in Kyiv. At that juncture, the existing Armed Forces of Ukraine were in disarray with many soldiers themselves having mixed loyalties based on the division within the country. 

Thus it fell to organizations like the Azov battalion to carry the fight against the pro-Russian separatists. The Azov battalion was privately funded and its ranks were filled with many international volunteers with links to neo-Nazi organizations. The unit's founder – Andriy Biletsky reportedly claimed it was his mission to “lead the white races of the world in the final crusade against Semite-led untermenschen.”

Despite the Nazi overtones, Azov proved to be an effective fighting force and they were soon incorporated into Ukraine’s official armed forces, albeit with a large degree of autonomy within that organization. 

Following their defiant defence of the steel plant in Mariupol against overwhelming Russian forces, the members of Azov were elevated to the level of heroes in the western media, and their previously reported neo-Nazi origins have been all but forgotten. 

Closer to home, the United States have made extensive use of private armies during their recent failed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the largest of these is a group called Constellis which is better known by it’s original name Blackwater. 

Founded in December 1996 by former Navy Seal officer Erik Prince, Blackwater at it’s zenith employed over 10,000 mercenaries and carried out the heavy lifting in counter insurgency operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

From 2003 onwards they were directly employed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to wage black ops on the enemies of the USA. 

As a private entity, Blackwater was not bound by the ‘rules based international order’ which constrains the conventional U.S. forces.

In 2007, Blackwater went a step too far over the line when their employees unleashed what became known as the Nisour Square Massacre. In that incident, Blackwater mercenaries killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured another 20.

Four Blackwater employees were tried and convicted of the murders in a U.S. court but those convictions were pardoned on December 22, 2020 by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump. 

During Canada’s participation in the failed occupation of Afghanistan, in addition to the regular force battle group deployed by the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian government also employed a number of privately owned militias. 
Many of these contracts were with local warlords-turned-democratically-elected officials.

The payments were essentially a form of ‘protection money’ to keep these fighters ostensibly on our side. 

These fighters were also able to operate outside the constraints of any ‘rules based international order’ and they often used that status to prey upon the local citizenry in the name of NATO. This of course only further defeated the purpose of Canada deploying troops to make a better, more secure life for the people of Afghanistan.

​​​​​​​Historically, the employment of mercenaries has rarely, if ever, resulted in a positive long-lasting result. 

When the U.S. colonies rose up in revolt in 1776, Britain opted to counter the military threat by deploying a large force of German mercenaries.
The bulk of this 30,000 strong force war supplied by the German state of Hesse-Kassel and they thus became known as the Hessians.

While they were excellent fighters they also earned a reputation for their ruthless conduct towards civilians whether they were loyalists to the British crown or supporters of independence. 

Having just celebrated the 4th of July with our American neighbours, we all know the Hessians may have won some battles, but they did not win the war. Ditto for Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The insurgents never defeated them in an actual military clash. They simply wore down the American will to maintain their illegal occupations.

It will be very interesting to observe what happens in the wake of the Wagner Group’s aborted mutiny. Perhaps they can take a leaf out of Blackwater’s playbook and simply change their name.

ON TARGET: Prigozhin's Cannon Ball Run on Moscow

The Times and The Sunday Times/Youtube

By Scott Taylor

The war in Ukraine took a bizarre and alarming twist with the armed showdown between the Wagner Group mercenaries and Vladimir Putin’s regime. When the news first broke on Saturday June 24 that Wagner troops were driving on Moscow, western media outlets scrambled to make sense of the unfolding drama.

Thrust into the international spotlight was Wagner’s founder, the outspoken Yevgeny Prigozhin, who proclaimed his soldiers were targeting the Russian military’s senior leadership: namely Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and top General Valery Gerasimov.

For those who closely follow global security issues, Prigozhin and his Wagner group are well known entities. However for casual observers the apparent open revolt by a private army inside Russia came as a bit of a shock.

Prigozhin began his career as a petty criminal and spent some time in jail. As a result he avoided conscripted service in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.

Prigozhin became a hot dog vendor before elevating himself into a proprietorship of several fine dining establishments in Saint Petersburg.

In this post-Soviet era Prigozhin hitched his wagon to a former KGB Chief turned politician named Vladimir Putin.

Soon nicknamed ‘Putin’s Chef’ Prigozhin expanded his enterprise with a catering contract to feed Russia’s massive military.

In 2014, Russia wanted to create a private military force that they could employ to do their bidding without formal involvement by the state.

Although he had no military experience, Prigozhin was a ruthless businessman and a loyal ally of Putin.

Thus, the Russian state funded and equipped what was called the Wagner Group.

It was Prigozhin’s employees who were described as “the little green men” when they entered and occupied the Crimea in 2014.

By employing Wagner mercenaries, Russia could dubiously claim that their military was not actively engaged in the pro-Russian separatist movement in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

We now know from public admissions by Putin, that Wagner was paid billions of dollars to wage Russia’s proxy wars around the globe.

Earlier this year a video surfaced showing Prigozhin recruiting volunteers at a Russian prison with the promise of a pardon for those who complete a six month tour of duty on the frontlines of Ukraine.

There is no doubt that many of those convicts failed to earn that pardon as the Wagner group suffered horrific casualties in the meat grinder battle for the city of Bakhmut.

In that months-long struggle, Prigozhin made a name for himself by publicly calling out the senior military leadership of Russia for failing to properly support his fighters.

In one graphic video rant a visibly enraged Prigozhin points at the dead bodies of scores of Wagner soldiers and shouts “Shoigu, Gerasimou, where the f*ck is our ammo.”

Many analysts were shocked at the amount of vocal independence that Prigozhin was allowed in totalitarian Russia. However, Prigozhin avoided singling out Putin for criticism, and kept his sights set on Russia’s inept military commanders.

That public spat had resulted in the decision by the generals to formally disband Wagner Group in Ukraine.

As of July 1 those mercenaries were to make a choice of either enlisting in the regular Russian Army, or simply heading home.

One has to imagine that Prigozhin saw this as a massive blow to his empire, and would go a long way to explain why he staged an armed protest with his drive on Moscow.

In the end, we are to believe that cooler heads prevailed.

Belarus President Victor Lukashenko is said to have negotiated a deal with Prigozhin whereby the mutiny leader and his rebel army will not face prosecution for their actions.

Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus and Wagner soldiers can choose to follow him there, or take the original deal to enlist in the Russian military.

There is still the question of what will happen to Wagners’ other ongoing operations in Syria, Libya, Central African Republic, Mali and Sudan. It is believed that at its zenith, Wagner had some 50,000 mercenaries on the payroll worldwide.

Whatever happens it will not be a quick fix.

However, in the wake of Prigozhin’s ill-fated, cannon ball run on Moscow, western analysts are gleefully predicting this could be the beginning of the end for strongman Putin at Russia’s helm.

However, it does not take much imagination to ponder what would have happened if Prigozhin had succeeded in ousting Putin.

Putin may be a madman, but Prigozhin is a ruthless lunatic. He was never advocating for a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine. He simply wanted it waged with less regard for human suffering. He didn’t want an olive branch. He wanted more ammo.

We may think we want Putin ousted, but he remains the devil we know.

Prigozhin came within a hairs breath of obtaining Russia’s nuclear codes. Imagine that scenario.

ON TARGET: RCAF Chinook Tragedy Badly Mishandled

By Scott Taylor

In the early morning hours of Tuesday June 20 a Royal Canadian Air Force CH-147F Chinook helicopter from Garrison Petawawa crashed into the Ottawa River. The initial reports in the media stated that four crewmembers had been onboard the Chinook: Two were injured and two were missing. 

As per the RCAF official statements the military were working with civilian agencies to conduct a search-and-rescue operation. 

Obviously there was a communication breakdown at the uppermost levels as later that same day; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau contradicted the official military talking points. “I was happy to speak with Chief of the Defence Staff last night to express my condolences to the families and colleagues of the members who have been killed,” Trudeau said to shocked journalists who were still reporting this as an ongoing ‘rescue’ mission. 

While some critics took umbrage with Trudeau’s use of the word ‘happy’ to describe his expression of condolences, I will trust it was simply uttered in error. 

To keep apace with Trudeau’s revelation, the RCAF began reporting their operation as that of ‘search-and-recovery.’

On the morning of Wednesday June 21, the RCAF tweeted out what they titled ‘RCAF Incident Final Update, Petawawa ON.’ It stated “The two missing air crew members from the RCAF CH-147F Chinook that crashed in the Ottawa River on Tuesday June 20, were found last evening. Tragically neither member survived. The names of the deceased individuals are not being released at the request of the families.”

In response to journalists questions, the RCAF further explained that they were not going to reveal the specific trade qualifications of the deceased air crew members. 

Again, someone failed to ensure that Canada’s senior elected officials were singing from the same song sheet. Former Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan – currently the minister of International Development of Canada, retweeted the RCAF ‘Final Update’ and added “My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of the two pilots who lost their lives in this tragic helicopter crash. No words can describe a loss as tragic as this. Their service and sacrifice will always be remembered and honoured.”

Somebody in the DND comms office noticed Sajjan’s slip up as he hastily took down the tweet. 

However, keen-eyed defence reporter David Pugliese had already screen saved the tweets, and he re-posted them.

The initial decision to not release the names of the deceased was without precedent. These individuals were killed in the line of duty. While I understand this was at the request of the families, they were both killed in the service of Canada and should be honoured as such. It was subsequently announced that the two deceased were in fact Capt. David Domagala, and Capt. Marc Larouche

We know from media reports that the tight-knit Chinook helicopter community is mourning, as is the entire Garrison Petawawa. 

The Canadian Armed Forces is a tiny sub section of Canadian society: One in five service-members is married to a fellow service-member and one in three new recruits has either one or both parents in uniform. 

This recent tragic loss will reverberate throughout the entire defence community.

Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that the communication gaffs in this incident were eerily reminiscent of DND’s handling of the April 29, 2020 CH-148 Cyclone helicopter crash which claimed the lives of six service-members. Within hours of that crash in the Ionian Sea, Greek news outlets began reporting the downing of a Canadian Sea King helicopter. 

As this circulated on social media, Canadian newsrooms were sceptical that this might be Russian disinformation as Canada no longer flew Sea Kings. 

On April 30, 2020 more than 30 hours after the crash occurred the DND issued a formal statement that a CH-148 Cyclone helicopter had crashed: one member of the CAF had been killed and five others remained missing.

The official version was that the Cyclone had lost contact while returning to HMCS Fredericton. The scenario DND painted was that of a mysterious crash which had sparked an ongoing search-and-rescue mission by the entire NATO squadron. 

The following day on May 1, the DND reported that this was now a search-and-recovery mission with all the five ‘missing’ aircrew members presumed dead. 

It was at this juncture that CBC was tipped off to the fact that the Cyclone was conducting a low level pass right beside HMCS Fredericton when it nose dived and crashed into the waves.

To date no one has ever been able to explain how or why the initial reports claimed the ship had lost contact with the helicopter, and why for more than 48 hours, Canadians were filled with the false hope that the ‘missing’ would be found safe. 

I offer my condolences to the family friends and comrades of the two deceased aircrew and full and speedy recovery to the two injured survivors.