Like most NATO nations, Canada is planning a future of lighter forces, counting on U.S. carrier power and amphibious and sealift capabilities—here the Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) sails with the Canadian frigate Calgary—for multilateral operations. But considering the Canadian Navy’s growing maritime mission, it may be time to build more than just escorts.
Subjected to a blind taste test, you would be hard pressed to tell the Canadian Navy from any navy in western Europe. There is the same generic mix of frigates and destroyers, a handful of conventional submarines (or nuclear-powered boats), and a limited number of service force vessels and land-based maritime air assets.
Canada, however, is not Europe. Maritime sovereignty as it applies to Europe does not mean defending littorals and sea approaches from three oceans. It does not mean overseeing 240,000 kilometers of coastline and 10 million square kilometers of ocean claimed within national political or economic jurisdiction. And the Canadian Navy’s Herculean task must be accomplished with a force of 16 modem frigates and destroyers, 3 aging diesel-electric submarines, and 18 modified Orion maritime patrol aircraft.
With these sort of challenges in mind, Canadian defense policy underwent a comprehensive review in 1994. The result was December’s defense white paper, the work of a special House-Senate Joint Committee, and a report that subsequently was endorsed by the government.1 While this was happening, a separate joint committee was taking in hand Canada’s foreign policy future.2 The resulting documents are the building blocks for Canada’s continuing international presence.
The five-year outlook for the Canadian Armed Forces is, as with all NATO nations, one of ongoing post-Cold War adjustments. Cuts in the hundreds of million of dollars will be made to a budget that totals only C$11.6 billion as it is, just 1.9% of Canada’s gross domestic product. By 1999, today’s active regular force of 74,900 men and women—of whom 11,000 serve in the Maritime Command—will be reduced to just 60,000.
The challenge for Canada’s fleet and for European navies is maintaining preparedness for war when it is difficult to identify an enemy. Politicians and the public like their villain to have a name—the Soviet Union was fine. Without a villain, navies find their hull and aircraft numbers, capital equipment projects, and capabilities chopped.
In the Canadian Navy context, this is especially true of antisubmarine warfare (ASW). The Cold War took with it the specter of a maritime mission—and the concomitant funding—dedicated to European resupply across the Atlantic in the face of Soviet nuclear-powered attack submarines. This was a mission to which the Canadian Navy was heavily committed. Absent a palpable Cold War-style subsurface threat, some groups making presentations to the Canadian defense joint committee suggested that the new Halifax-c\ass frigates relinquish their ASW roles altogether (they are fitted with Mk 32 torpedo tubes, SQS- 505(V)6 hull-mounted and SQR-501 towed array sonars). The cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter purchase was reasoned largely on the ground that its chief mission was ASW. Without a Soviet empire, the modern subsurface threat might as well be the Loch Ness Monster for all the credibility it enjoys in Canadian nonmilitary circles.
In broader terms, both the white paper and the foreign policy review repeat where the Canadian military effort has been headed since 1991. This is toward a lighter—meaning less sophisticated and less expensive—force equipped for low-intensity and peacekeeping operations. Terms such as ASW, deep strike, and armored brigade are out. They sound expensive, requiring lots of commitment and training. In are new buzzwords such as multipurpose, rapid reaction, and stability operations.
Post-Cold War, the ability to take unilateral action means you are rich. By implication, the poor cousins in NATO have retreated to the joint checking account of multilateralism to hide their defense cuts. The Canadian white paper and the foreign policy review speak of “working increasingly within an alliance,” “multilaterally,” and in concert with other navies. One might as well tow a garbage scow up the East River outside U.N. Headquarters with a sign saying “America Leads or We’re Not Going.” That the United States has experienced the same international recession and heavy defense cuts as everyone else seems to matter little to Western nations ready to hug the United Nations as long as it is understood they are not spending the night unless the United States pays for the room. NATO’s European coalition—including Canada—speaks of multilateral force ready to be applied to any world crisis, but it owns virtually nothing of what it takes to mount a significant, sustained operation overseas: amphibious capabilities, strategic airlift and sealift, tanker aircraft, and numbers of fixed-wing aircraft at sea.
Canada remains a European nation if its security outlook is the only consideration. The foreign policy review stresses that two chief priorities for Canada should be encouraging NATO to continue to move toward collective security for all of Europe (including the former Warsaw Pact) and restructuring Canadian forces to support NATO peacekeeping operations.3 The white paper describes Canada’s naval commitment to peacekeeping by noting that it will remain prepared to deploy under U.N. aegis a maritime task group (two escorts and a tanker), with a stand-by force of one ship on each coast. Within NATO, Canada will contribute a warship to the Standing Naval Force Atlantic and occasionally rotate an escort to the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean.
Events
In 1994-95, Canada’s Navy enjoyed favorable national attention as the result of a territorial dispute over codfish and fishing quotas. At one point in April 1995, battle was nearly joined when the Canadian frigate Gatineau and destroyer Nipigon, backed up by six fishery patrol and Canadian Coast Guard vessels, went to challenge a Spanish trawler fleet—escorted by two small Spanish patrol boats—off the Atlantic Grand Banks. Peace prevailed, however, when an 11th-hour deal was brokered on 16 April between European Union (EU) ambassadors and Canada.
The dispute typifies a recurring if only occasional problem with NATO’s wide membership. Canada and Spain are members of NATO, yet they came close to shedding blood over fish. Two EU members that also are part of NATO—Great Britain and Spain—became embroiled in nasty rhetoric when Britain backed Canada in this dispute and refused to sponsor EU sanctions against Canada.
Canada’s no-nonsense stance was enormously popular at home. It also was indicative of the sort of mission that naval analysts have pegged as a growing future employment of naval assets: missions that—like antiterrorism, drug interdiction, and humanitarian aid—reflect a low-intensity, sometimes low-tech end of naval operations. They also can be long-term; this simple fishing dispute began in April 1994 and had been escalating ever since.
As with other low-intensity operations, interdepartmental cooperation proved important. In this dispute, the Canadian Navy largely was behind the scenes—a trump card deterrent also performing a surveillance mission—with Coast Guard and Department of Fisheries vessels conducting actual boardings. Royal Canadian Mounted Police took part in boardings. And probably the most well-informed militarily was the Spanish Navy back in Madrid. Canada’s Maritime Command kept its Spanish counterpart informed as to the whereabouts of all surface combatants, to avoid any accidental high-seas confrontation.
Sovereignty in Canada is a tricky question, not only as it relates to fish. Quebec continues to voice its intention to become independent, which would present a serious loss to the Navy’s infrastructure. A new C$41 million naval station and training facility opened in 1995 at Quebec City. It will serve as the shipping control center for the Gulf of St. Lawrence and beyond, carry out naval reservist and mine warfare training, and be the home port to the new maritime coastal defense vessels.
Equipment
The 12-ship Halifax Canadian Patrol Frigate (CPF) class is nearing completion. These ships will form the center- piece of the Canadian Navy well into the next century. At 4,700 tons and nearly 440 feet in length, they are armed with 16 vertically launched Sea Sparrow missiles, 8 Harpoon, and a 57-mm Bofors gun. They have been plagued with internal software problems but eventually will be fine escorts, if lacking the sort of equipment needed to carry out defense in anything more than the local environment. They do not have a modern long-range helicopter or an area air-defense system; the latter is provided by the four refitted Iroquois-class guided-missile destroyers with their Standard SM-2MR system. However, these ships are already 25 years old.
Bearing in mind the white paper’s recommendation to buy more equipment off the shelf and pay less attention to pork-barrel politics, perhaps Canada should co-build Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The fleet is in need of a modern warship with a sophisticated long-range antiaircraft, antimissile defensive system and matching radar suite. The fit is right: the lead design and build yard for the CPFs was Saint John Shipbuilding in New Brunswick, a scant few hundred miles from Bath Iron Works. In fact, Saint John looked to Bath to help manage its program, and key personnel were drafted in from Bath. A joint construction program of four Canadian Arleigh Burkes might be mutually profitable to both countries—economically and as real contributors to a U.N./NATO antiair screen.
The CPFs’ biggest disadvantage is that they lack a modern helicopter; still in use is the venerable CH-124 Sea King. More than two years after canceling the acquisition of the European EH-101 for shipborne and search-and- rescue missions, the defense white paper advocates buying new helicopters—and soon. Because the present government made a big election issue of the cost of the EH-101, any purchase now must have a much lower price tag. The lead candidate is used U.S. Navy SH-60B Seahawk LAMPS Ills. The NATO NH-90 and a shipborne version of the Sikorsky S-92 are other possibilities.
The white paper also instructed the armed forces to take any opportunity to purchase nearly new conventional submarines from another downsizing navy. Talks have been ongoing with the Royal Navy, which is keen—for economic reasons—to unload its excellent Upholder-class.
With its existing boats, the Canadian Navy developed a new mission in 1994: fishery protection. During September and October, the SSK Okanagan carried out a surveillance mission of foreign fishing vessels, patrolling at periscope depth to see what the trawlers would do when not being watched overtly by Canadian surface ships and aircraft. The effort was coordinated with government aircraft and a nearby frigate through Maritime Atlantic headquarters in Halifax. The submarine filmed vessels with a video camera fitted in the periscope and collected data with electronic support measures and acoustic recordings. Visual contacts also were made: at night, the Okanagan would close to the point that pennant numbers could be read off the fishing vessels, using an image intensifier. The Okanagan's patrol was a good sign for a submarine class that in the past has been employed almost exclusively as a “clockwork mouse” for ASW exercises.
The state of the service force is nearly as desperate as that of the helicopters—a worrying sign for a nation that claims to be committed to international operations. Three tanker/stores ships remain. The most modern is 25 years old. None displaces more than 25,000 tons fully loaded. One, the Provider, was to pay off in 1996 but now will be kept on indefinitely. The white paper’s vague language on the subject does not offer much promise that the Navy will be able to operate far from home without someone else’s hospitality: “plans for the eventual replacement of the existing fleet will be considered.”4
On the small vessel front, 1995 saw the first delivery of an eventual 12 new 55-meter maritime coastal defense vessels. They are robust little ships that are going to have to be flexible as well, being expected to carry out missions of coastal defense, maritime patrol, search and rescue, drug interdiction, and mine warfare.
Conclusion
NATO nations are faced with several options for paring defense costs. They can cut vertically, that is, eliminate entire missions. This is rarely popular—or wise. Another option is to cut horizontally: each service, role, and mission takes a proportionate cut. There is a decreased ability to do certain missions, but the pain is collective. Canada’s future defense policy is taking the latter approach, with a twist. Forces will be cut to a minimum across the board, but the missions will be changed, based on a new world order that just happens to need less expensive, less sophisticated, and less high-tech armed forces.
Protecting national sovereignty is moot, because Canada no longer faces any sworn enemies. Canadian forces will be equipped for peacekeeping, and perhaps the pinkest shade of peacemaking, provided someone else can get them there, support them while they are there, and bring in the heavy formations if it gets too hot.
The Canadian Navy escapes some of this “fiscally responsible” attention because it has in place a new class of frigate planned during the Cold War, ships that are armed and equipped to modern war-fighting—not peacekeeping—standards. The prevailing international economic climate also should make the purchase of relatively new submarines and helicopters not unrealistic. Thus, the Navy will retain for a few years the makeup of a modern navy.
But there are limits, especially if the Navy is expected to deploy overseas on projection or presence missions. If the United States doesn’t take part, the “multi” in multilateral contributions just means more general-purpose frigates. For sustained, expeditionary missions that will offer an enemy the prospect—and reality—of greater force being held in reserve, NATO’s multilateral operations need U.S. carrier power, amphibious and sealift capabilities, and Aegis long-range antiair component. True commitment to multilateralism and solidarity would have Europe and Canada building a composite fleet for NATO use that incorporates all these assets, merged in a seamless force.
As an organization, NATO agrees that the most likely role for its navies will be power projection abroad to prevent, contain, or end conflict. The trick is getting member states such as Canada to remember this when they are planning their navies’ shape into the next century. How about trimming the number of planned escorts and using the resources to build an adequate NATO carrier/amphibious force with supporting sealift and service vessels?
1 Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on Canada’s Defense Policy, 1994 Defence White Paper, Ottawa, December 1994.
2 Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy, Canada ’s Foreign Policy: Principles and Priorities for the Future, Ottawa, November 1994.
3 Canada’s Foreign Policy, p. 21.
4 1994 Defence White Paper, p. 47.