Canadian Military Journal [Vol. 23, No. 4, Fall 2023]
Commentary

LCol James Boddy is currently serving on Operation UNIFIER as the Commander of Joint Task Force Ukraine. He is also 2 Combat Engineer Regiment’s Commanding Officer. Prior to assuming command, he was employed as the Canadian Joint Operations Command’s (CJOC) Deputy J3 Expeditionary, J3 Middle-East/Africa/Indo-Pacific, and Capacity Building Coordinator. In these roles, he was heavily involved in supporting international capacity building missions, streamlining CJOC’s capacity building funding processes, and assisting departmental efforts to increase the tools available to enable the Canadian Armed Forces’ capacity building activities.

INTRODUCTION

As part of outlining its strategic vision for Canadian defence within Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada’s Defence Policy, the Government of Canada identified clear linkages between Canada’s defence activities and its security and prosperity.^{Footnote 1} These linkages were reinforced by the assignment of core missions to the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF). These include defending North America, leading and contributing forces to the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and contributing to international security through defence capacity building and defence institution building (hereafter collectively referred to as DCIB).^{Footnote 2} While the efforts associated with each of these tasks differs, they all require time and consume finite resources, which constrains DND/CAF’s ability to undertake other activities. This limitation necessitates considering, prioritizing, and balancing DND/CAF’s DCIB activities to ensure they best advance Canada’s strategic security interests.

This paper recommends establishing a steering committee within the Defence Governance Framework (DGF) to direct DND/CAF’s DCIB activities given:

1. the myriad of stakeholders, risks, and resources involved in these activities;
2. the limited coordination between these stakeholders; and
3. the lack of clear priorities which may hinder DND/CAF’s ability to leverage opportunities that might better secure Canadian strategic security interests.^{Footnote 3}

As part of justifying this recommendation, this paper will initially define DCIB and outline the strategic value it can bring Canada before discussing some of its associated challenges. From there, this paper will focus on governance and how governance can enable senior leaders to exercise shared leadership when working collaboratively to achieve organizational goals. It is through this shared leadership that governance can support DND/CAF’s efforts to prioritize and coordinate its DCIB activities and align them with the Department’s other important efforts. This paper will then discuss various ways DND/CAF could organize its DCIB governance. Finally, the paper will consider some of the negative repercussions associated with not exercising governance over DND/CAF’s DCIB efforts or providing such governance in a disjointed fashion by leveraging the Department’s existing DGF events.

DCIB

Defence capacity building involves “activities undertaken by the CAF to assist in the development of the operational capabilities of approved partner defence and security forces in order to increase the effectiveness and legitimacy of those forces.”^{Footnote 4} Defence capacity building complements defence institution building, which is “undertaken by the DND to assist in the development of defence and security Ministerial institutions of approved partner nations to enhance their legitimacy and effectiveness.”^{Footnote 5} DCIB supports Canadian strategic security interests by increasing the ability of Canada’s partner nations to contribute to stability and rules based international order within their territory, regions and potentially globally as their capabilities expand. DCIB also helps deepen Canada’s relationships with these partners, which affords opportunities to promote non-security-related interests, such as establishing trade pacts and advancing the Government of Canada’s Women, Peace, and Security agenda.

Canadian DCIB comprises tactical and operational-level activities that produce operational and strategic-level effects. These effects contribute to DND/CAF’s overall efforts to secure Canada’s strategic security interests. DND/CAF’s current DCIB efforts include providing tactical-level training and mentorship to members of the Ukrainian, Jordanian and Lebanese Armed Forces. They also include participating in NATO and American-led ventures to increase the Palestinian Authority Security Forces and Iraq Armed Forces’ sustainability through ministerial and institutional-level advising.

Numerous DND/CAF organizations are involved in DCIB, including the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC), the Assistant Deputy Minister (Policy) group (ADM(Pol)), and the Canadian Defence Academy.^{Footnote 6,Footnote 7,Footnote 8,Footnote 9} These stakeholders frequently conduct DCIB activities in the same countries and regions with limited awareness of the others’ undertakings. This reduces DND/CAF’s ability to create synergies that might otherwise extend the strategic and operational effects these efforts produce. This lack of awareness also dilutes DND/CAF’s ability to showcase its contributions to Canadians and Canada’s international partners.

Although the Government of Canada may direct DND/CAF to conduct DCIB for a myriad of purposes, DND/CAF’s DCIB efforts should advance Canadian interests while also supporting the partners’ identified requirements.^{Footnote 10} These requirements could range from addressing training and capability shortfalls to assisting the partner nations’ defence and security organizations with developing the knowledge, structures, policies, military education systems, and legal frameworks they require to effectively and sustainably deliver their mandates.

It is expected that the requirements of Canada’s partner nations will evolve as they address their identified shortfalls. In light of this, the Government of Canada must be prepared to adapt its DCIB efforts to maintain their relevancy to the partner nation if it believes continuing to provide this support will further Canada’s interests. Should the Government of Canada choose to continue supporting its partner nations’ development, the evolution of DND/CAF’s efforts should be based on an understanding of their relative importance to Canada and whether these efforts will remain sustainable for DND/CAF. Such an understanding will best support the government and DND/CAF’s ability to confirm the “Ends, Ways and Means” associated with maintaining Canada’s relationships with its DCIB partners. It will also help identify whether these efforts should grow to include other organizations, like other Canadian government departments, non-governmental organizations, or private sector entities.

Such expansions occurred on Canada’s mission to support Palestinian Security Sector reform and Palestinian-Israeli defence cooperation (Operation PROTEUS) in 2022. Specifically, DND/CAF’s task force in Jerusalem grew to include Canadian Border Services Agency participation. Despite the value that this participation brought Operation PROTEUS, significant effort was required from DND/CAF to secure this support. While Operation PROTEUS’ evolution highlights that other departments can and do participate in DCIB, clear governmental direction would assist efforts to secure such interdepartmental participation given that Canada’s other departments must divert resources away from their core mandates to support DCIB.

Regardless of the level of interdepartmental interest and involvement in DCIB, clear governmental authorities and direction are essential for its success. These are conveyed through a number of different means, including Memorandums to Cabinet, Treasury Board submissions, and Ministerial direction. These documents outline the strategic objectives to be met, from which departments infer governmental priorities. In some instances, these documents may also constrain how departments must deliver their mandates by imposing conditions like personnel and funding limitations. Considerable latitude is afforded to the departments and agencies in this process as they are often involved in the development of these documents and are generally responsible for determining how their assigned strategic objectives will be met. To borrow from Arthur Lykke’s “Ends — Ways — Means” strategic framework, the government identifies the “ends,” while the departments and agencies’ senior leaders determines the “ways and means” (subject to any constrains imposed by the government).

The selection of these “ways and means” is often complicated by the regionalization of policy development and mission planning within DND/CAF and the fact that numerous organizations are involved in these efforts. Each stakeholder organizations involved in these efforts may have their own opinions and preferences on the forces and the approaches used to achieve the Government’s identified objectives. The cleavages between these stakeholders become apparent when decisions must be taken to commit low-density, high-value capabilities to DCIB activities, such as senior officers and specialists.

Despite DCIB’s utility, it frequently requires a disproportionally large number of leaders and specialists in comparison to other operational defence efforts. This is due to the knowledge and experience that is required to effectively conduct DCIB. The demand for these personnel becomes even greater with defence institution building efforts as they require even greater levels of experience and knowledge. Efforts to source large numbers of suitable personnel for DCIB often face considerable resistance from other DND/CAF elements given their requirement for employing these personnel to accomplish other important tasks. Clear direction and priorities would help address this staffing challenge by confirming the extent to which CAF/DND can undertake DCIB.

Leadership across DND/CAF’s organizations is required to ensure that the effective generation and execution of DCIB occurs in a timely manner and that these activities best support the achievement of Canada’s strategic security interests. Unnecessary resources and effort may be wasted if these efforts are not coordinated and aligned with other defence initiatives. Wasting resources through avoidable inefficiency prevents DND/CAF from dedicating these resources and effort to improving the impact of on its DCIB efforts or to advancing other critical activities, including reconstitution. While the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) and Deputy Minister (DM) set DND/CAF’s overall priorities and collectively have authority over its subordinate (Level 1) organizations, the prioritization, resourcing and conduct of DCIB should generally not rise to their level. This is because such discussions would distract the CDS and DM from fulfilling their overall departmental leadership responsibilities. Rather, such discussions can and should occur at lower-levels of DND/CAF as numerous leaders across the Department are empowered to take such decisions on their organizations’ behalf. The creation of a steering committee within the DGF would bolster these leaders’ ability to collectively prioritize, resource, align and coordinate DND/CAF’s DCIB efforts. It would also provide these leaders with a clear understanding of their organization’s responsibilities in relation to these activities.

Governance

The Government of Canada defines governance as “[t]he management structures and processes that support the development, implementation and enforcement of policies, programs and activities.”^{Footnote 11} Doctors Monique Cikaliuk, Ljiljana Eraković, Chris Noonan and Susan Watson from the University of Auckland and Doctor Brad Jackson from the University of Waikato note that “[i]n terms of practice, corporate governance provides a formal structure for the relationships among organisational core constituencies, whereas leadership provides the energy and determination to make corporate governance effective in the achievement of the organisation’s purpose and goals.”^{Footnote 12} As part of extending their framework linking corporate governance and leadership, Doctors Cikaliuk, Eraković, Noonan, and Watson identified that governance forums also provide a venue for exercising shared leadership within organizations whereby the individual members of such committees “rely on skills, knowledge and expertise to exercise individual leadership among one another to meet shared goals and objectives.”^{Footnote 13}

DND/CAF executes its governance functions through the DGF, which consists of numerous committees. These committees support senior executive decision making, document strategic intent, and align functional efforts, such as policy development.^{Footnote 14} Establishing a DCIB steering committee within the DGF would enhance DND/CAF’s ability to direct and steer its DCIB efforts by providing a forum for the Department’s senior leaders to consider the relative strategic value of these efforts and establish priorities to guide future departmental efforts in relation to these activities. Considering DCIB at this level would help DND/CAF align the resourcing of its DCIB efforts with their relative value to the Government of Canada. It would also support the development and renewal of DCIB-related mandates with a global, rather than a regional, perspective. This would better ensure that DND/CAF and Government of Canada resources are best utilized to advance Canada’s strategic security interests. This includes potentially redirecting resources towards newly identified opportunities once they are authorized by the Government of Canada.

In Capacity Building: Delivering Non-Commissioned Officer Mentoring and Training, CJOC recommended basing the structure and mandate of a DCIB steering committee around what the Ukraine Steering Committee employs.^{Footnote 15} Prior to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, this committee met monthly to consider and provide direction related to key issues like the organization of Canada’s DCIB mission in Ukraine (Operation UNIFIER), the authorities required to achieve its mandate, and its Memorandum to Cabinet renewal. It was co-chaired by the Strategic Joint Staff’s Director of Staff, CJOC’s Deputy Commander, and ADM(Pol) (or Director General International Security Policy on ADM(Pol)’s behalf), and included high-level representatives from across DND/CAF.^{Footnote 16} The formation of this committee helped align the support DND/CAF provided for Ukraine when CJOC and ADM(Pol) were assigned responsibility for different parts of the mission.

While the Ukraine Steering Committee helped align and coordinate DND/CAF’s Ukrainian efforts, the breadth and number of Canada’s DCIB activities may be too expansive for a single committee. An alternative model that may better support DCIB governance needs is the Infrastructure and Environment Board (IEB). The IEB is a strategic-level board that considers and prioritizes DND/CAF’s infrastructure and environmental requirements.^{Footnote 17} It is enabled by several sub-committees that focus on different aspects of infrastructure and environment support and provide recommendations for consideration and ratification by the IEB.^{Footnote 18} Adopting a similar model for DCIB governance would free up DND/CAF’s senior leadership to focus on steering and directing the most important issues, and leveraging any sub-committees’ analysis and recommendations.

A major benefit of adopting such a structure is that DND/CAF could more fulsomely understand the implications associated with the options it develops and recommends to the Government of Canada for future DCIB mandates. This would address the currently stove-piped development of such mandates, which stems from the regionalized nature of DND/CAF’s policy development and planning. This regionalization can lead to options being developed in isolation and that do not consider the tentative resourcing or relative strategic value of other DND/CAF activities, including those under development. While the formation of a DCIB steering committee would not fully address this challenge, it would provide a centralized forum for prioritizing, aligning, and coordinating its DCIB efforts. It would also better enable DND/CAF’s senior leaders to recognize potential high-value DCIB opportunities. It is expected that earlier recognition of these opportunities by DND/CAF’s senior leaders would reduce the time required to present them to the Government of Canada for its consideration and approval.

The formation of such a committee would also not necessarily improve interdepartmental participation in DCIB; however, it would support DND/CAF’s understanding of where such support could enhance their value. This would bolster DND/CAF’s ability to showcase how these other departments’ participation in DCIB could help support efforts to secure Canadian strategic security interests. This in turn would assist DND/CAF’s efforts to secure greater involvement and support from these other departments when DCIB-related options are formulated and recommended to the Government of Canada for future mandates.

While the formation of an interdepartmental DCIB steering committee falls outside the scope of this paper, consideration should also be given to forming such a committee. This would similarly enable the departments undertaking DCIB to prioritize, coordinate, and align their activities. It is expected that this would increase the Government of Canada’s ability to identify synergies that better secure Canada’s security and non-security-related strategic interests. It would also enhance the other Canadian departments’ understanding of how they could augment these efforts and help identify areas where DCIB could support the achievement of the other departments’ mandates or where these efforts could be delivered more efficiently via other means, such as contracting.

Alternative Approaches

Given the numerous committees that already exist within the DGF, one may conclude that DND/CAF could direct its DCIB efforts by assigning additional responsibilities to its extant committees. While this may better focus aspects of DND/CAF’s DCIB and alleviate the requirement for additional governance events within the DGF, overseeing and directing DCIB via such a decentralized approach would continue to limit the overall coherence of DND/CAF’s DCIB governance. This is because individual committee efforts, insights, and understanding wouldn’t necessarily contribute to other committees’ thinking and decisions. This increases the risk of the committees creating unnecessary dissonance and diluting the strategic effect DND/CAF seeks to create through DCIB. It also increases the risk of the Department seeking authorities that are misaligned with the desired strategic effects and may lead DND/CAF to contribute unnecessary personnel and resources to lower priority activities while similarly under-resourcing more impactful initiatives.

As DND/CAF’s DCIB efforts currently meet the government’s needs, a separate argument can be made that they do not require additional governance. The principal difference between this argument and the one previously discussed is that the Department’s DCIB governance responsibilities would remain highly fragmented, with stakeholders executing their activities with unclear priorities and minimal alignment and awareness of other efforts. While the Department currently executes DCIB in this manner, failing to establish DCIB governance will continue hindering DND/CAF’s ability to more efficiently execute these activities. This is wasteful and reduces the Department’s ability to maximize its DCIB strategic effect considering DND/CAF’s limited resources. Operating in this manner also reduces the Department’s ability to support other efforts through the synergies it could create and resources it could free up by more efficiently executing DCIB activities.

Conclusion

Although DND/CAF continues to execute DCIB activities within numerous nations in spite of the previously mentioned prioritization, coordination, and resourcing challenges, it is recommended that the Department establish a steering committee to direct these efforts. The creation of such a committee would enhance DND/CAF’s understanding of the relative strategic and operational value that these activities provide. This in turn would better enable DND/CAF to explain the relative strategic and operational value these efforts would bring the Government of Canada and other Canadian departments, especially when new opportunities are identified. The formation of such a committee would also provide a forum for considering ongoing resource challenges, which in turn would better enable senior governmental leaders to focus DND/CAF’s finite resources towards activities that provide the greatest return on investment to the Government of Canada and Canadians.

Even if the Government of Canada chooses not to adopt a realist viewpoint when it takes future DCIB decisions, the formation of a DCIB steering committee would enhance DND/CAF’s ability to more efficiently deliver its DCIB efforts through the increased coordination and prioritization such a committee would provide. This would help free up resources and effort that could be used to enhance or expand DND/CAF’s DCIB efforts or to support other critical activities. While numerous options exist for directing and steering DND/CAF’s DCIB activities, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of these efforts improves Canada’s ability to support its partner nations’ ongoing requirements. Meanwhile, enhancing the ability of these partners to more meaningfully contribute to global stability and the rules based international order meanwhile directly supports Canadian security and prosperity by fostering a safer and more predictable world.