41801. Exigencies of Future Deployments: What Canada must Exact from its Military Partners
- Author:
- Hugh Segal and Jessica McLean
- Publication Date:
- 06-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
- Abstract:
- An increase in global threats, failing states, and crisis prone regions around the world, coupled with shrinking defence budgets in the US, as well as budget cuts in Canada’s most loyal joint deployment partners – France, the UK, and The Netherlands – indicates there will be no less of a demand for Canadian deployable capacity over the next few years. In this context, understanding the ‘political’ requirements for various kinds of deployments is important and a key planning area for defence policy makers as well as military and strategic practitioners. To better understand the future of Canadian military deployments it is first necessary to examine the historical context of our post-war NATO and UN deployments as well as Prime Minister Harper’s 2006 commitment that required all significant military deployments to have parliamentary approval. Each deployment since WW II has been unique. The command structures, intelligence-sharing, mission design and assigned areas of responsibility for Canada, whether under the UN or NATO, have varied by the deployment itself and the nature of the mission. This requires our political and command requirements to adapt to the mission at hand. But whether or not Canada will participate in future deployments relies on not just being able to answer the question of “why”, but also “why us”. Reticence on the part of NATO allies will continue to be a problem in the future and so Canada must be capable to ensure it only takes part in “coalition of the willing” deployments to ensure realistic burden sharing. The pivot towards the Pacific will also require fresh and deeper intelligence cooperation with Australia, other Commonwealth partners in the region and enhanced interoperable capacity with our American allies.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Troop Deployment, and Military
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Canada, North America, and United States of America