By Dan Middlemiss, 1 March 2023
The latest issue of the Canadian Defence Review (Vol. 29, No. 1 (2023)) has four articles with a bearing on current Canadian maritime procurement policy. (The issue can be found at http://www.canadiandefencereview.com/issues)
The first is a feature interview with Canada’s Minister of National Defence, The Honourable Anita Anand. Among several other matters, the Minister discusses defence procurement issues broadly, and she also touches upon a possible replacement for the RCN’s submarines.
A second article by Joetey Attariwala, “P-8A Poseiden,” delves into DND’s pending procurement of a replacement for the CP-140 maritime patrol aircraft.
A third article, also by Joetey Attariwala, “Building Canada’s Future Naval Fleet: Is NSS Sailing Towards an Iceberg or Bound for Success?” offers a reasonably balanced assessment of the setbacks and achievements of the NSS.
Finally, Vice-Admiral (Ret’d) Mark Norman gives a sober appraisal of the NSS and the CSC in a short aticle, “NSS: The GOOD the BAD and the CSC.”
Forum members might want to weigh-in on some of the issues raised in this interesting and topical collection.
2 thoughts on “The NSS: Good, Bad, and ?”
Greetings, Dan –
I am a bit surprised that you felt the need to draw readers’ attention to another defence publication when CNR is far better at reporting on AND deconstructing (no pun intended) naval issues. But I took up your offer anyhow, knowing that CDR is a different animal…
I found that didn’t need to read the ‘interview’ with Minister Anand to know that she would deliver the same, saccharine, boilerplate answers to the questions posed by the interviewer. But I read it anyway, just to be fair, and in the faint hope that I might learn something new. Yet the MND uttered the same talking points that have been repeated ad nauseam in countless forums. Usually it begins with “I am committed to ensuring that our CAF members are equipped with the right tools, yadda, yadda, yadda…” All well and good – it would be unusual to hear otherwise – but nothing that the semi-attentive public didn’t already know. No indication that the bureaucratic structures and processes which contribute to the procurement bottleneck are being seriously addressed. And the MND was once the Minister for PSPC! She should have a unique understanding of why things are as they are and what needs to change so that it doesn’t take 15 years to buy a fleet of trucks – or something that actually goes ‘bang’. Or for that matter, how the CAF can invest in UAVs when our processes take so long, while UAV technology leaps head every 3-5 years. What kind of commitment/imagination/risk-taking would it take to break that cycle?
This may sound overly peevish, but also I grow tired of Joetey Attariwala singing the praises of whatever corporation he interviews, or uncritically accepting claims that all’s well. Is this the price to be paid for access to CEOs and high-ranking officers?
And those typically softball questions that CDR interviewers pitch to their interlocutors. Are they incapable of asking a follow-up a question instead of moving on to the next topic? Can they press an interviewee to reveal more about, say, the problems with FWSAR and what is being done about it? Or why Canada is sending Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine when the Canadian Army had previously judged that this model was suitable only for training in Canada? (Let me answer my own rhetorical question: it’s because CDR is geared toward industry and its style is journalistic; it is not a forum in which serious defence analysis takes place.)
The closest the interview got to revealing something new was in the final question: if you could wave your ministerial wand and advance a project to near-completion, which would it be? The MND’s answer was as predictable as it was vacuous and evasive. But it was also revealing in an off-handed way. She was (unconsciously?) acknowledging that there are so many capability and capacity deficiencies across the CAF that it would be impossible to choose which was most important or impactful.
(Personally, I would vote for the installation of new sensors in the far north. Security begins at home.)
Hello Barnacle Bill & Dan. Although I do read CDR articles quite often I could not agree with you more. This really is not a Military Magazine but a magazine devoted to civilian companies that provide Canada with military equipment (or not). The only article in the CDR 29-1 issue that I found very interesting was the Admiral Norman opinion piece “NSS-The Good, Bad and the CSC”. It was refreshing to see a retired RCN Commander give his, at times honest review of the NSS and where we are headed (or not). My only problem with the piece is that CDR only gave him one page to “say his piece” when he should have had more space to really say what he thought! This was probably by design by CDR. Your comments with having more modern sensors in the far north are “bang-on” considering that Canada has recently found sensors up there and……they were not ours!