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Canadian Forces (CF) Transformation

Outside CF Transformation Looking In

by Allan English

Introduction

The Canadian Forces(CF) Transformation¹ initiated by General Rick Hillier in 2005 has been characterized by Lieutenant-General (ret’d) Michael Jeffery in his recent book, Inside Canadian Forces Transformation, as introducing “fundamental” or “real” change to the CF, as opposed to a period where the CF was “relatively stable” during the Cold War.² While not all would subscribe to this view, there is no doubt that Hillier’s Transformation has been perceived by many to be a radical initiative to remake the CF.³ The two key ideas behind his initiative have been described as: 1) transforming the capabilities and structure of the CF from a “balanced” force prepared to fight conventional wars, to one that is able to operate more effectively in non-traditional roles and in small wars; and 2) changing the culture of the CF from a management to an “operations primacy” culture.⁴

I think we owe Jeffery a debt of gratitude for both his Canadian Military Journal article and his book for providing an insider’s account of Transformation and his own insightful analysis of it, and I refer to the book extensively here.⁵I would like to offer an outsider’s account of Transformation, based upon my study of the CF and its culture, my teaching of senior officer professional military education courses, and my involvement in a number of CF strategic planning activities over the past 15 years. This account is offered, not as a judgment or final analysis of Transformation, but merely one perspective, hopefully of many to come, on a complex and important event in the evolution of the CF.

Jeffery has identified a number of factors that worked against a successful Transformation, some of them correctable in the ongoing Transformation process. However, I believe that there are at least two fundamental flaws in Transformation that call its success into question, even if other identified deficiencies are corrected. These two flaws occur in the foundation, or “critical ingredient,” of Transformation – its strategic vision.⁶ The first flaw is the basis of the vision; the second is the nature of the vision itself. I will deal with each in turn, and then offer some observations upon CF command philosophies and culture change related to transformation in general, before concluding with some possible lessons learned from the most recent Transformation.

The Basis of the Vision

Jeffery tells us that any difficulties encountered by Transformation were not caused by “the vision per se but rather in the people’s expectations of it.”⁷ He also argues that after 9/11, the nature of warfare had changed from “industrial age warfare” to “war amongst the people,” which Hillier saw as a pragmatic “rational view of the world,” and was a cornerstone of Transformation.⁸ I will argue here that this basis for the vision was problematic, and it caused many difficulties with how Transformation was perceived and implemented.

This cornerstone assumption of Transformation about changes in the nature of war, with its condemnation of “industrial warfare,” is apparently based, from a theoretical perspective, partially upon the Tofflers’ framework for understanding conflict, which depicts societies and warfare as developing through three “waves”: agrarian, industrial, and information. ⁹ Transformation’s underlying assumption also appears to contain aspects of William Lind’s model, where warfare evolves through discrete “generations,” and where we are now in a fourth generation of warfare, or 4GW age, where warfare is driven by ideas, not technology.¹⁰ However, portraying war as evolving in discrete stages has been criticized by those who point out that different ways of conducting conflict have always co-existed, and that an agile foe will use whatever methods work best to exploit the weaknesses of a competitor. In other words, a force that is overly specialized in one method, such as counterinsurgency, will be confronted by another, or by the same foe using a different method, such as more conventional means. Others argue that it is wrong to dismiss so-called “outmoded” types of warfare, like Industrial Age warfare, because they may be used in certain cases.¹¹ For example, the 2005 Defence Policy Statement (DPS), upon which Transformation was apparently based,¹² states that while “… complex peace support operations have become more common, so too have full-scale combat missions,” and it uses the 1999 Kosovo air campaign in which the Canadian Air Force made a significant contribution as an example of a “full-scale combat mission.”¹³ This is not the place to engage in this longstanding and complex debate; however, by not explicitly stating what model of war or conflict it was using, the Transformation team made it very difficult to understand precisely some of the underlying assumptions of the Transformation vision. Therefore, for outsiders looking into Transformation, especially those who were familiar with the debates surrounding the nature of conflict, it was not clear why one view of future conflict, among many, was selected to anchor Transformation.

Nevertheless, while some in the CF did cling to an Industrial Age or Cold War mentality, my experience was that, in the 15 years between the end of the Cold War and the start of Transformation, there were many forward looking people, both in and out of uniform, who grappled with ‘the new world order’ following the Cold War, and they were in no way wedded to old philosophies. Jeffery explains this in terms of Canadian Army’s transformation to meet the new challenges.¹⁴ In addition, as I shall discuss shortly, the navy, air force, and the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (DCDS) Group all took steps aimed at transforming their organizations that examined future capabilities required for national security and defence, which were not focused upon Industrial Age warfare.

The Nature of the Vision

The next fundamental problem with Hillier’s vision was that it was not one coherent vision, but really a series of evolving, and sometimes competing, visions that made it virtually impossible for outsiders to understand what the ramifications of these visions would be for the CF, during and after Transformation. Jeffery outlines some of the stages the vision went through from 2005 until it was succinctly stated in October 2007 as: “The CF was to be ‘an effective, integrated, military force valued by allies, partners and friends that stands ready to protect Canada and Canadians and, through the conduct of its missions, gives our country the strategic impact to shape and protect Canadian interests.’”¹⁵Most would agree with Jeffery’s assessment that this was a vision that inspired many, and could be accepted by virtually all CF members.¹⁶

One reason why the vision was widely accepted was that, in this form, it could be ‘all things to all people.’¹⁷ This was due in no small measure to the use of words like “integrated” and “unified,” often interchangeably, by the Transformation team, when these terms had no accepted definition in the context of the CF. For example, the term “unified” as used in the expression “unified command and control model,” which was “an essential element” of the Transformation strategy, could be interpreted a number of ways.¹⁸ It has a specific meaning in the US context, where the concept is used to guide the amalgamation of the command and control (C2) arrangements of separate American services, and yet the term “unified” had, and still has, no widely accepted and precise meaning in Canadian policy, doctrine, or practice.¹⁹ Furthermore, some found it difficult to understand how the concept could be applied to a legally unified CF, which arguably already had a unified C2 system prior to Transformation. This is just one example of where lack of precision in terminology caused confusion among many trying to decipher the details and ramifications of Transformation as it evolved.²⁰ Nevertheless, it was only with the implementation of aspects of Transformation that its army focus became clear.

Ongoing problems with the acceptance in some quarters of the Transformation vision, in my view, was due to the fact that that the ‘espoused’ or public vision of October 2007, as well as the vision of the CF outlined in the 2005 DPS, did not match the actual vision, as seen in much of Transformation’s implementation.²¹ As Transformation proceeded, it appeared as though the CF was being converted into a force structured for “land-centric missions” where the “highest value contribution” of the navy and air force would be “in support of” these army missions, as Jeffery puts it.²² The difference between the espoused and actual visions was a key reason why Hillier had trouble gaining the confidence and trust of elements of the CF’s senior leadership.²³ While it might seem obvious to some that the best way to give Canada ‘strategic impact’ was through a CF organized along land-centric ‘boots on the ground’ lines, others would disagree.

Because of its size relative to the navy and air force, and the predominance of land force combat operations post-9/11, the army has become the most influential of the CF service Environments.²⁴This influence has been exacerbated by its promotion of its vision of ‘jointness’ in the CF, which has been termed by its critics as a move towards a ‘jarmy’ approach to CF doctrine and structures, i.e., land-centric approaches covered with a veneer of jointness. The ‘boots on the ground’ vision for CF Transformation is, like many of its aspects, rooted in a US Army philosophy from which proponents of Transformation appear to have drawn heavily.²⁵ While the public vision received much support, because of its ambiguity, if the vision had been articulated as it was eventually interpreted, with a focus upon “failed and failing states” and “major operations ... expected to be on the land,”²⁶ it would not have received anywhere near the support that it did at the outset. Therefore, as Jeffery notes, Hillier was perceived by some as an army general trying to reshape the CF into a miniature version of the US Army, an institution with which he had much experience, and consistent with his view in 2003 as Chief of the Land Staff (CLS), commenting upon ongoing CF “transformation objectives” that army transformation should be funded by cuts to navy and air force capabilities.²⁷ This perception was strengthened by the fact that many of the insights provided to Hillier by his ‘trusted agents’ when he was CLS “were most influential in shaping his ideas” about Transformation when he was Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS). Aspects of the Transformation process, such as the promotion of handpicked army generals into positions of influence, further reinforced this perception.²⁸

There were, of course, alternate visions to ‘boots on the ground,’ and these were articulated in the 2005 DPS. The Canadian Navy’s vision might be summarized as maintaining a “medium global force projection navy,” ²⁹ and details for how it might be achieved are particularly well articulated in Leadmark, the navy’s strategic vision. Debates, some published, about the navy’s vision continued after Leadmark’s release in 2001, and they show that the Canadian Navy was looking beyond Industrial Age warfare.³⁰ Jeffery refers to “anecdotal evidence” that resistance to the Standing Contingency Task Force (SCTF) was strongest in the navy because it saw amphibious warfare as “… a wasteful distraction from the ‘real’ role of the navy – the protection of US carrier battle groups.”³¹ My own discussions with a number of senior naval officers during Transformation revealed no such thing. In fact, they seemed quite cognizant of how amphibious warfare might fit into the Canadian Navy’s contribution to national security. The greatest objection to the SCTF that I heard from them was that neither its role nor its equipment was well defined (aside from Hillier’s comment that Canada would buy “big honkin’ ships”), and that without a clear idea in terms of roles and resources of how an SCTF might be implemented, the concept would divert scarce resources from other critical naval capabilities, such as those required for the surveillance and protection of Canadian waters, described as the nation’s most important priority in the 2004 National Security Policy.³²

The Canadian Air Force also invested a great amount of effort in investigating required post-Cold War capabilities. It published its ideas in a number of documents that offered visions of how air forces might operate in a post-Cold War environment, many of which transcended Industrial Age warfare, and key ideas were reflected in the 2005 DPS.³³ However, as the Transformation agenda unfolded, it appeared to some observers that the air force visions had been ignored, and that the service was being changed into a ‘taxi service’ for the army.³⁴

While opposition to an army-focused Transformation by the navy and air force might be expected, there was also resistance from the army. As Jeffery reveals, it saw the creation of a large Special Operations Forces as a threat to its ability to generate Canadian Army combat capability.³⁵ Therefore, it appears as though all three Environments had serious, but different, reservations about Transformation as it evolved. However, there are also strategic reasons why Transformation might not be acceptable to those inside and outside the CF.

A characteristic of the ‘boots on the ground’ version of Transformation that diminishes its chances of acceptance in some circles is its potential impact upon foreign policy and national security policy. If the CF was converted into essentially a land force with an intervention focus, the options of Canadian governments would be limited to arguably the most risky and costly form of intervention. Other intervention options offered to governments by navies and air forces, many of which are described in the 2005 DPS, may not have the same direct effects as land-based interventions, but they are inherently less risky and less costly in terms of lives and resources expended in the intervention itself. In terms of Canadian influence on the world stage, therefore, it may be that more frequent, lower intensity but less costly interventions that could be provided by maritime and air forces might be more influential in the long run than less frequent, higher intensity but usually more costly and riskier interventions that could be provided by land forces. It is an ongoing debate among Western nations about which types of intervention capabilities are most desirable, and the 2005 DPS does not appear, at least on the surface, to favour one capability over the others.³⁶ But Transformation’s actual aim of ‘boots on the ground’ as the main CF capability reflects a clear choice of one capability over others. The criticism of the previous CF posture of maintaining a number of less-than-perfect capabilities has some validity; however, in a world of imperfect choices, this posture did offer governments more options than the one promised by a ‘boots on the ground’ Transformation. In fact, these issues, I would argue, are fundamental to making choices about Canada’s security and defence policy, and are much more than what Jeffery characterizes as “… hand-wringing … by those who would maintain the status quo.”³⁷

In summary, there is no doubt that Hillier’s vision had its rational and pragmatic aspects; however, the ‘boots on the ground’ vision that finally emerged was only one of a number of rational and pragmatic possible visions. Without any public documentation of why this one particular vision was selected, many on the outside did not understand why this radical new land-centric direction had been chosen for Transformation. This also helps to explain why those in the CF’s senior leadership who were kept outside the decision process did not embrace Hillier’s vision, and that there was “insufficient trust” among them. Unfortunately for Hillier, the conflict between the espoused and the actual Transformation visions was never satisfactorily resolved, despite his best efforts, and confusion resulted.³⁸

CF Command Philosophies

One of the key objectives of Transformation was to create “… a paradigm shift in [CF] command philosophy.” Jeffery characterizes the pre-Transformation CF command philosophy as “bureaucratic and efficiency oriented,” and that it was “largely the same between the mid-1970s and 2006.”³⁹ For those of us involved in the detailed study of CF C2 arrangements, particularly at the Canadian Forces College (CFC) from 1998-2005, these words ring true. However, they do not convey the full story. While criticism of the CF C2 situation when Hillier took over as CDS is clearly warranted, Jeffery implies that this situation was an accepted and stable state of affairs.⁴⁰ My experience was that the flaws in CF C2, especially with respect to the DCDS Group construct, were understood fairly well at senior levels of the CF, and that many changes were made to address shortcomings. ⁴¹ At many discussions at CFC, among staff, students, and visiting senior officers, and at least two DCDS Group retreats (in 2001 and 2002), various facets of these problems were discussed. In fact, when he was DCDS, then-Lieutenant-General Raymond Henault commissioned a study, which was published by the CF Leadership Institute in 2002, which specifically addressed principles for changing the C2 of the CF in the post-Cold War era.⁴² To be sure, as with Transformation, there were those who resisted discussions of change and claimed that everything was fine, but my experience was that DCDSs like Henault and Vice-Admiral Greg Maddison, as well as many of their principal advisors, were acutely aware of the deficiencies in the Group, and did all in their power to rectify them. Naturally, they faced the same institutional resistance that Hillier faced, but they made much progress in an era of severe cuts to resources. While their records will be examined by future scholars who will assess whether any of the changes they implemented were or were not ‘fundamental,’ it is my view that those in the DCDS Group, particularly leaders like Henault and Maddison, deserve much more credit than they often receive for improving an admittedly problematic CF C2 process. It now appears as though Transformation’s new C2 model has serious shortcomings of its own, and senior CF officers are now discussing in public whether the single operational-level command concept inherent in the DCDS Group should be reinstated and improved upon to replace the four existing “operational commands” that are under-resourced and spread too thin.⁴³ In fact, Jeffery notes that aspects of the former DCDS Group construct, such as using shared resources and common capabilities, were in the CDS’s “guidance,” but that, because of a lack of a coherent Transformation plan, there was “… an inability of the strategic level to maintain control of the operational commanders,” and they went off on an empire-building spree that resulted in arguably a more ‘stove-piped’ and less unified C2 system than existed prior to Transformation.⁴⁴ He goes on to say that in the absence of any master planning document to guide it, Transformation degenerated into a series of incoherent activities, where staffs “… made it up as they went along … [or] did nothing.” This situation was exacerbated by a process where “consultation was not the norm,” and many senior leaders were unaware of key decisions taken by Hillier and his confidants.⁴⁵ As more information becomes available, future scholars will build on Jeffery’s analysis and reach their own conclusions about this issue and others, such as culture change.

Culture Change

One of Transformation’s most predictable shortcomings, from my perspective, was its attempt to change CF culture, for two main reasons. First of all, as the ‘jarmy’ nature of Transformation became increasingly evident, many felt that they had been misled by the official Transformation strategic vision and that efforts billed as creating a new “integrated CF culture,” based upon a “‘Team Canada’ approach” working on a “common mission,” had become a thinly disguised attempt to impose an army culture on the CF.⁴⁶ The resistance in the CF to the perceived ‘jarmy’ nature of Transformation was entirely predictable, but, as we have seen, not adequately addressed. It will therefore remain an obstacle to Transformation.⁴⁷

Another aspect of this issue was that Hillier’s ‘trusted agents’ did not fully appreciate how the nature of warfare at sea and in the air produced separate cultures. The idea that an “… integrated CF culture ... where environmental objectives were subordinate to the greater good of the CF and the nation” seemed to ignore the fact that separate navy and air force cultures were based upon the fundamentally different approaches to warfare required by different physical environments, and were not just “objectives” or preferred ways of doing things that could be easily “subordinated.”⁴⁸ Opposition to Transformation’s culture change agenda became more vocal as it became clear that the new “integrated culture” to which other cultures were to be “subordinated” was to be a ‘jarmy’ culture, built upon the assumption that, in the future, all “major operations were expected to be on the land.”⁴⁹

The second culture-related shortcoming of Transformation was the focus upon ‘top-down’ change, based upon an ‘integrationist’ view of CF culture. As Canadian anthropologist Donna Winslow, who studied CF culture extensively, has pointed out, successful culture change in complex organizations like the CF requires taking into account the “differentiation” and “fragmentation” perspectives on culture as well, and, therefore, using a more broadly based approach to culture change than the top-down approach.⁵⁰ The visible aspects of culture change brought about by the integrationist focus of Transformation were largely in organizational and C2 structures.⁵¹ However, while changing such cultural ‘artifacts’ or symbols of culture will have some effect, long-term culture change usually requires planned and structured institutional change, especially in the professional education of the leaders of the institution, thereby influencing many future generations of leaders, not just focusing upon the next generation of leaders as was the case with Transformation. As Jeffery rightly noted, culture change cannot be a “one-time affair,” but must be “forecast and planned.”⁵² However, as we have seen, this was not a characteristic of Transformation, and the result was that factors outside of the actual Transformation initiative may have a greater effect in the long term upon CF culture than any specific Transformation activity. For example, the CF’s intense engagement in southern Afghanistan from 2005-2011, with its concomitant emphasis upon land combat roles and the creation of new capabilities associated with the purchase of significant amounts of new equipment, may do more in the long run to affect CF culture than anything done specifically as part of Transformation.

Lessons for Transformation

Since the Second World War, the CF has engaged in a number of change activities that could be characterized as transformational. It appears to me, however, that very few of the lessons that have been learned over the past half-century from these activities have been applied. The most recent Transformation is no exception.

The origins of the problems with this particular iteration of Transformation could be seen as reliance upon management-focused models of organizational change, which use terms such as “Enterprise Architecture,” and “Executive Leadership Team.” Jeffery tells us that the CF was especially “partial to” a model created by Harvard Business School professor John Kotter, and, for some, there is a certain irony that such a management model might have been used as a template for a CF Transformation initiative whose goal was to replace a management-focused CF culture.⁵³

However, Jeffery tells us that Hillier was an intuitive, operationally focused leader, whose Transformation initiative was based upon “his personal experience,” and a “manoeuvrist” or “German Blitzkreig” approach, eschewing detailed planning as potentially “jeopardizing attainment of his objective.” Therefore, Hillier’s “command-led” method does not appear to have been based upon management models and theories, but on a military philosophy of manoeuvre or Blitzkreig.⁵⁴ The Blitzkreig analogy may be taken further, however. Besides being a “manoeuvrist approach” so beloved by its modern day admirers, the German Blitzkreig has been characterized by some scholars as “an avalanche of actions,” which was only “operational opportunism” pitting “staffs and commanders against each other,” and which was not connected adequately to strategic aims. Eventually this led to “… the dissolution of the corporate professional unity of the [German] military leadership.”⁵⁵ As Jeffery documents, Transformation had many of these characteristics of Blitzkreig, which, while attempting to achieve “irreversible momentum” by creating “constructive chaos,” led to competition among commanders for scarce resources, and an increasingly fragmented, un-coordinated  process, all of which contributed to a “lack of unity amongst the [CF’s] senior leadership.”⁵⁶

Jeffery reflects well the ambivalence with which Hillier is regarded. There is no doubt that his public persona was impressive, and that his credibility with the Canadian public and CF members was unprecedented for a CDS. No doubt his legacy will include reconnecting the Canadian public with its military, and standing strong for the military against unwarranted criticisms. However, as Jeffery notes, Hillier’s Transformation efforts are clearly mixed.⁵⁷ While some parts of it may endure, the problematic nature of the process used, and the nature of the vision itself, make it difficult to know how many aspects of Transformation will survive in the long run, as the energy behind it began to wane even before Hillier left office.⁵⁸ Nevertheless, there are, I believe, some preliminary lessons to be drawn from this Transformation initiative.

There are many transformation models available to guide organizational change in the CF. One that I find useful was outlined in Brigadier-General Terry Leversedge’s 2004 study of recent transformation efforts by the US and Canadian air forces.⁵⁹ I think that Leversedge’s approach is particularly valuable because it is based upon analyses of military organizations, and there are significant differences between civilian and military organizations, not the least of which is a relatively rapid turnover in the senior leadership of military organizations, compared to their civilian counterparts. Two of Leversedge’s findings are particularly relevant to an analysis of the most recent CF Transformation. First, he identifies key reasons why some previous Canadian Air Force transformations failed – absence of a clearly defined strategic planning process, inadequate resources for transformation, and lack of rigorous analysis of the transformation concepts and organizational constructs – all failings in CF Transformation. Second, he argues that a systematic, cyclical approach to transformation, sometimes referred to as “guided incrementalism,” is often more effective than dramatic ‘surge’ type transformation efforts of the kind used in the recent CF Transformation initiative.⁶⁰ Other lessons can also be found in critiques of a previous CF transformation effort, the Management Command and Control Reengineering Team (MCCRT), and, as Jeffery notes, a number of people, including senior officers, involved in Transformation, expressed their concerns about it, based upon their experience with MCCRT.⁶¹

In my view, the main lesson to take from Transformation is that, while an intuitive, command-led process has its strengths, it also has its weaknesses - many of which can be predicted by lessons learned from previous CF transformation attempts. Perhaps future CF transformation initiatives could benefit from a process that combines the dynamism of Hillier’s Transformation with the rigour of some other transformation initiatives.

Future generations will pass judgment upon the successes and failures of Hillier’s Transformation and whether it was truly “fundamental,” or whether it was just part of the post-Second World War evolution of the CF. These judgments will be helped by the contributions of others to this debate. I hope they will join me in making their own views and experiences known.