By Scott Taylor
I must admit that when I retrieved my Ottawa Citizen from my front porch last Friday morning my heart literally skipped a beat when I read the headline “Russia and China at war with Canada, says General Wayne Eyre.”
For the past twenty months I have been closely following the conflict in Ukraine, and since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, I have also been monitoring the conflagration in the Middle East.
However, I had no idea that two major superpowers – Russia and China – were presently at war with Canada.
Yet in a document obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff claimed that such a state of war actually exists. “We must remember that Russia and China do not differentiate between peace and war,” wrote General Eyre in his introduction of a paper entitled the Pan-Domain Force Employment Concept. “The hostile intentions and actions of our adversaries show they consider themselves to be at war with the West: We must accept this reality and respond accordingly,” the concept document added.
First of all, I’m pretty certain that both Russia and China clearly differentiate between peace and war.
Russia has been bogged down in a bloody stalemate since they invaded Ukraine more than 600 days ago. The failure of the once vaunted Russian military machine to achieve a quick victory over Ukraine has no doubt given China second thoughts as to any military aggression towards a U.S.-backed Taiwan. However, if we are to take General Eyre’s assessment to heart and “accept this reality” that we are already at war with China and Russia, we must also take stock of Canada’s current state of military readiness. Sad to say folks but the situation is not good.
To begin with, according to General Eyre, the Canadian Armed Forces are presently 16,500 personnel short of an authorized combined regular and reserve strength of 115,000 service members. This personnel gap is only expected to grow in the months to come as the CAF continues to face an existential threat in the form of a combined recruiting and retention crisis.
Despite sweeping reforms to the regulations on dress and deportment – including the allowance of various hairstyles, beards, piercings and tattoos – recruiters are still failing to meet their quotas.
For many of those already in uniform, a recent study showed that personnel are increasingly leaving the ranks rather than move to another military base where their housing will be unaffordable.
As for the morale of our combat troops, this is being steadily eroded as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.
To date Canada has provided some $8.5 billion in financial and military aid to the Ukraine war effort.
Much of the military aid came from the existing arsenal of the Canadian Army.
In addition to 10 Leopard 2 main battle tanks, Canada has stripped its munitions stocks of anti-tank rockets and artillery shells to send them to the frontlines in Ukraine.
While Canada is heavily engaged in training Ukrainian recruits in the U.K our soldiers realize that the more kit weapons and ammo that we supply means the less likely that Canadian soldiers will be able to engage in a combat role themselves.
One of the aid packages Canada is providing to Ukraine is that of a sophisticated air defence system. When the $33 million purchase was announced by Defence Minister Bill Blair, critics were quick to point out that the Canadian forward based battle group in Latvia does not possess such an air defence capability. Even though their proximity to Russia puts them at risk of an airstrike.
As a result, there are now plans to hold a competition to acquire low level air defence missile systems for the Canadian military. But with the complexity of the Canadian procurement system that means it will be many months before such a capability can be fielded.
It would seem that only General Eyre understands that we are already at war with China and Russia. Given the sorry state of our military, we can only hope that the good general is wrong.
