Canadian and Ukrainian soldiers conduct weapons range training at the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre in Starychi, Ukraine during Operation UNIFIER on November 25, 2015. Photo: Joint Task Force Ukraine, DND

By Scott Taylor

It has been three and a half years since Russian President Vladimir Putin did the unthinkable and formally invaded Ukraine.

It has been more than 10 years since the Maidan protests overthrew the pro-Russian regime in Ukraine, resulting in Russia's military annexation of the Crimea.

In that interim Canada has staunchly expressed support for Ukraine and soundly denounced Putin's aggression. Since 2015 Canadian military personnel have been training recruits for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). To date Canada has trained an estimated 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and following the withdrawal of Canadian personnel from Ukraine just prior to Putin's invasion, that training mission resumed in Britain and Poland.

Canada initially provided Ukraine with non-lethal military aid, but following the February 2022 invasion by Russia, the Canadian military began providing weapons, ammunition and combat vehicles to the AFU.

Since 2017 Canada has also forward deployed a battle group into Latvia as part of NATO's operation REASSURANCE to deter any future Russian aggression in the Baltic.

To a layperson, it might seem that Canada is doing its bit to keep Ukraine in the fight to protect its own sovereign territory. However, for close observers of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine it is obvious that the modern battlefield has evolved dramatically in the past 30 months.

In the very early days of the invasion, vast columns of Russian tanks were turned into heaps of scrap metal by the AFU. While Canada had provided Ukraine with a large number of Carl Gustav anti-tank recoilless launchers, there were few reported cases of these knocking out Russian armour.

Instead it was the FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin that soundly defeated Putin's armoured columns.

For the record, Canada does not have the FGM-148 Javelin system and the bulk of our Carl Gustav ammunition was donated to the AFU without yet being replaced.

Since those early clashes devolved into a slogging stalemate of trench warfare, it has been aerial autonomous drones that have become the queen of the battlefield in conjunction with heavy artillery. The First Person View (FPV) drones used by both sides have made troop movements a nightmare by day and night. The so called 'suicide drones' can disable armoured vehicles or bunkers with their explosive payload whereas observation drones can pinpoint targets for artillery. Yes Canada donated four of our Army's 37 M-777 155mm howitzers to the AFU along with over 40,000 rounds of 155mm artillery shells.

However on the modern battlefield the M-777 is the wrong weapon system. They are a towed artillery piece, without armour protection and a crew of eight gunners. In a battle with an opponent armed with artillery and a sophisticated counter-battery capability like the Russians, the M-777 is a death trap. It cannot 'shoot and scoot' and the crew have no protection. What is needed is a modern, armoured self propelled gun system such as the BAE Archer or the KNDS Caesar guns. With their automated loaders these system have crews of just 2-4 or 3-5 respectively, and most importantly they can fire and move within 20 seconds.

As for the 40,000 artillery rounds which we donated, with the AFU firing 2,000 rounds a day that amounts to three weeks worth in a war that has been raging for 130 weeks. However, since Canada has not restocked our inventory it has left our Army with at best two days worth of ammunition for these howitzers according to former Chief of Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre.

Canada's current capacity for the domestic production would be 5,000 rounds a month. there is a plan to add another production line but that is not expected to come to fruition until September 2025.

For the record Russia is currently producing 250,000 artillery shells per month. But I digress.

Canada has recognized the importance of employing low level air defence systems to counter drones. As such it was announced in January 2023 that Canada was spending $406 million to purchase a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) from Kongsberg. At time of writing the AFU have yet to receive this NASAM from Canada. Ditto for a second RBS 70 NG air defence system from Saab worth an estimated $227 million, which will be earmarked for the battle group in Latvia whenever it gets delivered.

For the record, Canada has not announced any acquisition of a fleet of FPV drones, despite their prominence on the battlefield in Ukraine.

What Canada did announce was a rush purchase of 90 Light Tactical Vehicles from General Motors Canada. These are essentially desert dune buggies with no ballistic protection and no protection from inclement weather.

In case no one in Ottawa has been watching, let me remind our generals that the Russian Army today is not the paper tiger that got destroyed before the gates of Kyiv in 2022. They are now battle-hardened veterans of the modern battlefield and the Russian defence sector is in full gear.

Meanwhile Canada has depleted the combat cupboard, we look to ramp up artillery shell production sometime next fall and our Battle Group in Latvia freezes their asses off in dune buggies during a cold damp Baltic winter.

By Scott Taylor

On May 25, NATO will host a heads of state summit in Brussels, and at the top of the agenda list will be the war in Afghanistan. The simple truth is that the NATO-trained and -equipped Afghan National Security Forces are losing the war to a resurgent Taliban.

That right folks, after 16 years of being trained, mentored and molded by NATO forces, including Canadians up until 2014, the Afghans need an urgent infusion of more NATO troops or else the Taliban is poised to regain control.

The senior NATO commanders will argue to the heads of state – including Canada’s own Prime Minister Trudeau — that if we, as member states, don’t send reinforcements to Afghanistan, then all of the progress made towards democracy will be lost.

Generals reason that we owe it to all of those NATO soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice to the Afghan cause, including 158 Canadian soldiers killed, to once again pony up more soldiers, more money and more weapons to shore up the government in Kabul.

This would of course be the pack of murderous thugs and crooks headed by the dual leadership of President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah, which is considered to be one of the most corrupt regimes on the planet. So much for our success in terms of foisting democracy upon the people of Afghanistan.

For those who care to recall, the 2014 presidential election was so rife with corruption and voter fraud that no clear winner could even be determined. Thus it was a compromise solution that led to the creation of a national CEO position, which would allow Abdullah Abdullah to share power equally with Ashraf Ghani.

Trained, equipped and paid by NATO, the Afghan forces took the lead role in the combat mission against the Taliban in 2014. However, since then they have suffered staggering losses, which have resulted in plunging morale, wide-scale desertions and even wholesale defections to the Taliban.

The Afghan National Security Forces are themselves corrupt and inefficient, with no clear-cut motivation to prop up their corrupt, inefficient West- installed leaders.

One of the biggest problems Afghan commanders are facing is what are known as ‘ghost soldiers.’ These are not sinister unearthly spectres, but Afghan soldiers which are on the books collecting pay and rations but who simply do not exist. There have been occasions when Afghan forces were called upon to resist a Taliban attack and, instead of the paper strength Kandak (a battalion of approximately 900 soldiers), only a handful of demoralized troops were actually available for combat.

It is estimated that the resurgent Taliban have reclaimed approximately 40 per cent of Afghan territory and one can only imagine what the situation would be like were it not for the continued presence of 9,000 U.S. troops and an additional 4,000 NATO soldiers.

Despite their so-called ‘train and assist’ mandate, U.S. Special Forces have often been called in to bolster the Afghan National Security Forces to prevent their complete collapse in combat. One must also add to this mix the overwhelming air armada the U.S. has on station to support operations as well as their extensive fleet of armed unmanned aerial vehicles.

At the upcoming summit in Brussels, the NATO commanders will claim that they need member states to pony up more resources, with the excuse that creating an Afghan army that is self-sufficient takes time.

Folks, a reality check will show that we have been training Afghans for longer than the First and Second World War combined. It is not about training more recruits, it is about motivating them to fight. The Taliban are drawn from the same talent pool as the Afghan Security Forces and, without the benefit of international monitoring and the provision of modern weaponry, have shown themselves to be formidable fighters.

As such, unless there is a sweeping proposal to remove the current Kabul regime and install an interim administration with a clearly defined anti-corruption mandate, Canada should flatly refuse NATO’s request to return to Afghanistan. Remember that Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result.

Let’s stop the insanity.