Opinion: There is no peace to keep in Mali, and the UN mission there has become a deadly quagmire—one that Canada might be wise to just avoid
Ken Hansen is an independent defence and security analyst and owner of Hansen Maritime Horizons. Retired from the navy in 2009 in the rank of Commander, he is a member of the Science Advisory Committee for Atlantic Oceans Research Enterprise and a contributor to the Security Affairs Committee for the Royal United Services Institute.
“Canada is back,” Justin Trudeau said when his Liberals won the 2015 election. After years in the wilderness on peacekeeping, he said, Canada would be returning to its heritage as a leader in peacekeeping missions, promising to commit up to $400 million and 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel to UN peace operations.
In this Feb. 25, 2015 photo provided by the United Nations, UN peacekeepers from Bangladesh arrive at the Niger Battalion Base in Ansongo, in eastern Mali. (Marco Dormino/United Nations via AP)
But his Liberal government has hit a significant road bump along the way: The most recent figures from the United Nations have found that Canada’s peacekeeping commitment has reached an all-time low. The government said it was looking for a mission that would be the right fit.
In March, after the United Nations sent a formal request for a military contribution to its ongoing mission in Mali (MINUSMA)—established in April of 2013 with a mandate to “support the transitional authorities of Mali in the stabilization of the country and implementation of the transitional roadmap”—the government announced that it had found the right mission. Canada offered up six helicopters—four light utility “Griffons” and two twin-rotor “Chinook” transports—and approximately 250 military personnel (and up to 600) to MINUSMA.
But the UN was quick with its assessment. In mid-April, the UN said that the Canadian force was not robust enough to meet the increasing demands of what is being described as the UN’s most dangerous mission, saying that Canada needed more helicopters to assure a minimum of two transport aircraft and two escort helicopters at short notice. The current German contingent employs four armed utility helicopters and four transports with over 900 support personnel, while the Dutch, who the Germans replaced, used four Apache attack helicopters and three Chinook transports; both contingents lost a helicopter due to accidents Nevertheless, the helicopters and personnel were reportedly set to be deployed later this summer, though Canada now appears to be hemming and hawing as the UN calls for Canada to meet its deadlines.
But even beyond Canada’s seeming unpreparedness, and the pressure to bolster its peacekeeping efforts, there are red flags all over the mission. The situation in Mali strongly resembles the conflict in Afghanistan, a mission marked by mission creep and escalating risk. Ethnically divided, with a weak central government and borders that are not respected or controllable, Mali is confronted by a radical opponent that will use any level of violence against all manner of victims. Canada’s desire to participate in future UN peace support missions must be tempered by careful situation analysis and adequate risk mitigation, or they risk blundering into a dangerous mission like MINUSMA—a toxic situation that Canada would be wise to avoid.
The history of the violent conflict between the impoverished northern and affluent southern parts of Mali is long, with a traceable history going back to the 13th century. This most recent issue, according to the Clingendael Institute—which has charted the break-up between north and south—stems from the French period of colonization when the northern Tuareg and nomadic Arab communities were virtually excluded from plans for post-colonial rule on June 20, 1960. From that point onward, the Tuareg have had only a few seats in the Malian assembly. The first-ever Arab, Zahabi Ould Sidi Mohamed, was elected in 2013.
From 1960 to 2012, there were four Tuareg rebellions and five different peace agreements. The use of the French military to force the sides apart has been a recurring theme, and the deployment of France’s notorious Foreign Legion—whose heavy-handed use of force in this part of the world is legendary—only sharpens the resentment of the northerners.
The most recent peace accord, sponsored by Algeria, was signed in 2015, but the violence since then has been almost constant. Neither side respects the agreement. The arrival of al-Qaeda in the Sahel to bolster the northerners has provoked a significant escalation in the type of attacks being staged, while also broadening the issues at stake; indeed, the Malian situation is only part of the bigger social and economic problems that stretch across the entire region. The International Crisis Group (ICG) report for 2017 postulated the Sahel as the zone of conflict between forces from Saharan Africa and the non-Arab agrarian south.
The trend lines in Mali do not auger well for Canada’s peacekeeping aspirations. The ICG’s 2018 Watch List Report describes strengthening insurgencies in parts of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Jihadi groups are exploiting the situation to establish secure operating areas and find new recruits. The ICG maintains that the Bamako Peace agreement of June 2015 has stalled, and crop failure and food shortages are only exacerbating the ethnic tensions.
These are huge, historical issues, and if disentangling them seems like an outsize task for Canadians who still value the peacekeeping tradition, the UN’s recent history of expanding the mission mandate should be particularly worrisome. a long list of further duties, including: “ensuring security, stabilization and protection of civilians; supporting national political dialogue and reconciliation; and assisting the reestablishment of State authority, the rebuilding of the security sector, and the promotion and protection of human rights in that country.” These complicated responsibilities tasks carry a far heavier burden of responsibility for the use of force. The mission has grown, as a result, and its current strength is set at 15,425 personnel, comprising mostly 13,289 military and 1,920 police. The annual budget is USD$1.048 billion.
The biggest problem is that MINUSMA does not have the capabilities for the type of threat they face. “We are gathering the intelligence, but we lack the forces who can act on that information,” the mission’s chief of intelligence, Swedish Lt.-Colonel Per Wilson, told Sieff. And after a visit to Mali, Prof. Walter Dorn of the Royal Military College in Kingston told the CBC“the UN mission is struggling, but is making a difference on the ground… The Mali government is struggling to exert control over the wild territories in the north.” The successes, so far, have been limited—and the risks are great.
The need for more robust military capabilities led the UN to approve cooperation between the French military and the UN mission. Resolution 2364 (2017) expanded MINUSMA to its current limits and added the additional tasks of “providing operational and logistical support to the Malian Security and Defence Forces. The resolution also reinforced cooperation between the mission, the local multi-national “Group of 5” Sahel forces and French forces while respecting their respective mandates.” The escalatory nature of the UN’s move is obvious.
The tactical connection between French Foreign Legionnaires and the UN forces have only led to an inevitable comparison that has made the task even tougher for the peacekeepers on the front lines: according to Sieff’s article, Islamist extremists across the Sahel region have dubbed the whole undertaking as “Crusader occupation forces.” As a result, the militants have started targeting peacekeepers. Sieff described attacks on UN convoys with improvised explosive devices and cars driven into UN compounds carrying 1,000-pound bombs detonated in suicide attacks. The UN death toll is currently 169, and there will be more.
If Canadians think that our mission in Mali will be a return to some form of peacekeeping, they are in for a stunning shock: There is no peace to keep. The UN has already begun moving into a dangerous and violent form of operations that the UN does not formally recognize, known in military circles as “peace imposition.” The obvious demand for rapid reaction and effective logistics will put a heavy burden on the Canadian contingent. They will be in the very epicentre of the most aggressive and dangerous actions, and losses are practically a certainty. “It is a crisis that looks more like the U.S. ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the cease-fires traditionally monitored by U.N. missions,” Sieff writes—and in this, he is absolutely correct.
Former ambassador Robert Fowler, in an open letter published in the Globe and Mail, wrote of what he saw as “the importance of Canada’s mission to Mali.” “The Islamists hate everything we represent,” he argued. “They also hate the United Nations with a vicious passion.” His assessment aligns quite well with the trends identified here. However, his recommendation for a major whole-of-government commitment to the region is definitely not what the Trudeau government wants—that is, another searing Afghanistan experience.
Fowler, who spent months as a captive of the rebels, feels that the Canadian mission will not be about regime change and social re-engineering. But frankly, how he views the mission will not affect how it is actually conducted. That has already been established by the rebels who have likened all outside forces to “crusaders.” The prospects are high that this will go much as the Afghanistan debacle went; the same type of escalation and mission creep seen during our 12-year engagement there is already happening in Mali. The UN is expanding its operational aims and tactical objectives in the region, finding new allies, and some old ones, for a protracted struggle.
This type of mission against radical extremists and corrupted political systems has consistently produced very dubious results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Given the long and complicated history of the Sahel region, it feels foolish to expect anything else in Mali.
Canada has quietly paid another $54 million toward the development of the F-35 stealth fighter jets, bringing its total investment in the controversial project to roughly half a billion dollars over the last 20 years.
The government is consulting with fighter-jet builders, including U.S. aerospace giant Boeing, before launching a formal competition early next year to decide on a replacement for the air force’s aging CF-18s.
Boeing remains on the fence about whether its Super Hornet will participate in the competition because of enduring questions about how the government will run it.
One concern is a new provision the government announced last year that aims to make it more difficult for companies that are deemed to be hurting the Canadian economy to win defence contracts.
The measure was announced at the height of Boeing’s bitter dispute with Canadian rival Bombardier, which has since been tossed out by a U.S. trade tribunal.
Boeing says it made its point with the challenge, and continues to work with the government with regards to other military contracts, but wants to see how the fighter-jet competition will be run before deciding whether to join.
The Canadian Armed Forces won’t be rushing to meet any deployment deadlines in Mali or on any other future peacekeeping missions under this government, the minister of defence said Tuesday.
“I will not speed up the process just for the sake of meeting a certain timeline for any time of competitive nature. We will always make sure that when we make a decision that we will achieve the mission and that our troops will have the right training and equipment,” Harjit Sajjan told members of the House Standing Committee on National Defence.
The Canadian Forces are preparing to send two Chinook transport helicopters and four Griffon escort helicopters as part of a United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Mali. Canada is replacing German and Belgian allies in an area near Gao, where its helicopters will serve in a support role.
The Canadian Press reported last week that the helicopters and 250 military personnel are scheduled to leave in July and begin work at the start of August.
Sajjan insisted the number of troops deployed is not as important as their capabilities in modern peacekeeping missions such as Mali.
“This is not about the numbers anymore. This is about understanding what contributions that we can make that can have a substantial impact.”
He added that the number of Canadian troops deployed should be expected to fluctuate.
“We now have the flexibility, based on the plan that we have, to go up to 600 and we will make adjustments.”
Conservative defence critic James Bezan slammed the government for the amount of time it has taken to deploy troops.
“The armed forces know how to deploy, that’s what they do. Why is it taking so long to move a small helicopter task force to Mali?” Bezan questioned.
Sajjan blamed planning and safety concerns for delays in deployment.
When pressed by Conservative members on the dangers that Canadian Armed Forces members deployed in Mali will face, Sajjan admitted that the mission poses threats.
“We need to look at what the realities are on the ground and that’s what we need to discuss. Yes, those conflicts are complex, and are dangerous,” he said.
Both German and Dutch forces have lost helicopters in accidents in Mali over the last couple of years in the area where Canadian helicopters will deploy. Four peacekeepers died in those accidents, which were caused by difficulties posed by the environment.
Canadian troops are pledged to a one-year commitment to the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali.
By: Daniel Maillet, CAF Dispatch By August 2018 Canada will have "returned" to the United Nations Peacekeeping circle with some 250 members of Air Task Force Mali; which is expected to have two CH-147 Chinook helicopters and four CH-146 Griffons with door-gunner escort helicopters.
The mission is the deadliest of any United Nations peace operation, with 162 fatalities since it began in 2014.
Canada's deployment of an RCAF contingent is replacing the German Air Force's four UH-Tiger Attack helicopters and the Belgian Air Forces two NH90 medium-utility transport helicopters.
Two German UH-Tiger Attack helicopters in Mali.
The CH-147 Chinook is an upgrade for the Mali mission over the NH90. While the Chinook is slower and has a slightly shorter ranger - it can carry a much larger payload - more than double the payload of the NH90.
Canada's CH-146 Griffon Helicopters, on the other hand, are leading to questions about whether or not they can maintain the same level of security as the UH-Tigers. Prior to the Tiger's arrival in Mali; the Dutch Air Force had deployed Apache Attack helicopters as escorts. So the Griffon is a clear step-down.
Ted Campbell, a retired Senior Officer of the Canadian Armed Forces clearly expresses this concern. "[The] Griffon is a good helicopter and its crews, including the door gunners, are...much better than any aircrews anywhere on earth, but they do not have the “punch” of any attack helicopter." He goes on to say, "it is, of course, far to late to equip the Canadian Forces with attack helicopters for this mission."
Mr. Campbell is correct - here is a side-by-side comparison I compiled, as one does exist (because the Griffon is not considered by anyone except the RCAF as an "attack" helicopter)
Eurocopter UH-Tiger
Bell CH-146 Griffon
Range: 800 km
Range: 656 km
Max Speed: 290 km/h
Max Speed: 260 km/h
Ceilling: 14,000 ft
Ceilling: 20,000 ft
Max Takeoff: 13,000 lbs
Max Takeoff: 11,900 lbs
Main Armament: 2x 30 mm (1.18 in) GIAT 30
Secondary Armament: Multiple Options for
two outer hardpoint connections. This includes options for rockets and additional guns.
Main Armament: 2 x 7.62 mm M134D "Minigun";
or 2 x 7.62 mm C6 general purpose machine gun;
or 2 x .50 Cal (12.7 mm) GAU-21
Secondary Armament: None
Power Plant: 2 × MTU Turbomeca Rolls-Royce MTR390 turboshaft engines, 1.303 shp (958 kW) - Each
With the side-by-side comparison - it is clear that the Griffon, while it can operate a higher altitude, has little else in comparion to the UH-Tiger. The Eurocopter Tiger Attack helicopter is a far more versatile helicopter than the Griffon, and the twin engines make it far more powerful.
Additionally, something the Government of Canada is not highlighting is the very real risks involved in the Mali deployment. Last summer Germany lost a Tiger Helicopter, killing its crew of two. This was not due to an attack by extremists, but an error in the auto-pilot settings. This source of this error has not yet been located, but the Subsaharan climate could be to blame. RCAF Griffon pilots have experience in both Afghanistan and in Iraq, but the deserts of Mali are different than both those of Mesopotamia. Although General Vance considers the dry, dusty conditions of the terrain in Mali are similar to what the military has faced elsewhere. Only four of the 160 fatalities have been associated with helicopter incidents. All of those had to do with mechanical failure of the aircraft and not with enemy or belligerent fire” according to Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance in an interview with Global News.
Costs for the used F-18 fighter jets the government plans to purchase from Australia are still up in the air, the minister of defence revealed Tuesday when pried by opposition MPs on the topic.
“We don’t have the exact costs just yet,” Harjit Sajjan told members of the House Standing Committee on National Defence.
“We will know, but we want to make sure we have the right details. Giving you an estimated cost right now would be irresponsible. It’s better to make sure that we get you the correct information once we have the further details,” he said.
Military personnel guide a CF-18 Hornet into position at the CFB Cold Lake, in Cold Lake, Alberta on Tuesday October 21, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
The government first announced that it would be buying 18 used Boeing F-18s from the Australian government for roughly $500 million. In the Royal Canadian Air Force the model is known as the CF-18. Canadian fighters have flown the jets since 1982. Canada opted out of a plan to purchase a fleet of modern Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets from the United States and into an agreement with Australia for the more than 30-year-old planes in December.
The defence minister said the first of the planes purchased from Australia should touch down on Canadian soil in Spring 2019.
Which specific Australian F-18s to be sold to Canada has yet to be settled.
“We don’t want to take aircrafts that are at the very end of their service life,” Patrick Finn, assistant deputy minister of materiel of the Department of National Defence, told the committee. “These will be flyable assets that are in service with the Royal Australian Air Force as we see today.”
Finn said the planes that Canada is purchasing have been used more on average than the same jets currently in Canada’s air force. He asked for the committee to look beyond the hours-used of the aircraft.
“They, like us, have put a lot of investment into those air craft. I’ve sailed on 40-year-old ships that had brand new modern missiles. I think we’ve got to be careful about the age of an aircraft and saying that reflects its capability,” Finn said.
Finn said the bill of sale has not yet been signed for the jets and the acquisition is currently being reviewed by a third party. He added Canada has been given data about each of the airplanes in question and has been able to conduct their own examinations of each.
“We know exactly what shape they’re in,” Finn said. “We actually expanded that further and we have inspection points — very discreet ones — where we actually put the aircraft through a very detailed maintenance process.”
If Canada is offered an aircraft in better shape a few months later than one that can be acquired immediately, then it will choose to wait for the better model, Finn said.
Canada plans to fly the fleet of F-18 fighter jets until 2032, after which it plans to adopt the plane’s successor.
The Canadian military is moving ahead with plans to upgrade its Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopter fleet and will also examine whether to buy or lease more of the same aircraft.
The federal government notified industry Thursday morning of the sole source deal to modernize the 14 helicopters. There was no cost attached to the plan but a previous estimate on the upgrade put the price-tag anywhere between $500 million to $1.5 billion.
The deal is with Leonardo, the Italian aerospace firm whose subsidiaries originally built the CH-149 Cormorants.
Last year Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan suggested that the upgrade program for the Cormorants would be a key program for the Royal Canadian Air Force in the future.
The government will also examine a number of options to expand the search-and-rescue helicopter fleet. Those will include leasing AW-101 helicopters, a variant of the Cormorant, buying AW-101s or upgrading former U.S. presidential helicopters so they can join the search-and-rescue flight line.
Canada purchased the nine VH-71 presidential helicopters, which are similar to the Cormorant, as well as 800,000 spare parts in 2012 after then U.S. President Barack Obama shut down the multi-billion dollar program and decided that existing aircraft were good enough for his needs.
The Department of National Defence stated at the time of the purchase that the VH-71 helicopters would not be put into service but instead stripped down for parts to supply the Cormorant fleet.
Although Canada is entering into a sole-source deal with Leonardo, the government is considering holding a competition among other companies to provide in-service support for the helicopters, according to Department of National Defence officials.
The modernization project comes as the U.S. helicopter firm Sikorsky was trying to interest Canada in buying its S-92 choppers for search and rescue. The S-92 is a civilian version of the Cyclone maritime helicopter the RCAF is putting into service. Sikorsky officials have argued that buying new S-92s would cost less than upgrading the older Cormorants.
A Sikorsky S-92 in Coast Guard Colours. The Irish Coast Guard currently operates the S-92. The RCN operates the CH-148 Cyclone - the military version of the S-92.
Department of National Defence sources, however, say it was determined that it was more cost effective to stay with the Cormorant fleet as it is a proven aircraft the RCAF knows well. In addition, existing infrastructure can continue to be used.
The RCAF also hopes to purchase a simulator for the Cormorant fleet to help train crews.
The upgrade program is expected to include the latest avionic and mission systems, advanced radars and sensors, vision enhancement and tracking systems. The CH-149 Cormorant fleet entered service in the year 2000 and the modernization would allow the helicopters to operate for another 25 years at least.
Canada originally bought 15 Cormorants, but one crashed in 2006.
Powered by three engines, the Cormorants are known for their long-range capability, large cargo space and rear-ramp. The helicopter can carry up to 12 stretchers, according to the RCAF.
The decision to sole-source the deal appears to have caught some in the air force off guard. On April 20, the RCAF spokesman Maj. Scott Spurr claimed the air force was still examining options on how to proceed and that the next phase of the project wouldn’t come until 2019.
Defence sources say some inside the RCAF have argued that since seven of the nine U.S. presidential helicopters are already airworthy, it makes sense to use them. Preparing those helicopters for search-and-rescue duty would include installing a side door as well as upgrading the cockpits.
Parts obtained in the U.S. presidential helicopter deal have also played a critical role in keeping the RCAF Cormorants flying, according to documents obtained by Postmedia through the Access to Information law. The U.S. helicopters and spare parts were originally purchased for $168 million.
HUDSON ON THE HILL FrontLine Defence (Vol 15, No 3)
If all goes according to plan, two Boeing CH-147F Chinook transport helicopters and four Bell CH-146 Griffon utility tactical helicopters, supported by 200-250 personnel, will be deployed to Mali in August to augment what is arguably the most challenging mission for United Nations’ “blue berets” in recent years.
Our first major involvement in Africa since the troubled missions in Somalia and Rwanda in the early 1990s, it was described by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a re-engagement in the UN after a decade of withdrawal by the former administration. “That’s what Canadians expect,” he told the House of Commons when the plan was unveiled in mid-March after months of speculation.
Toronto Conservative MP Lisa Raitt, calling the decision “absolutely deplorable,” noted that Jean-Pierre Lacroix, a career French diplomat, had questioned the objectives in a country where 162 foreign troops have been killed since 2013. A review kick-started by Lacroix last January was, he said, “a race against time” to keep the situation in Mali from deteriorating even further.
Trudeau, reading from notes, told Raitt that Canada would be contributing “in ways that bring the most value” to the mission – mainly by transporting other countries’ personnel under the protection of Griffon crews. Having reiterated that “the safety of our men and women in uniform is paramount”, Trudeau noted that while troops have the appropriate training and equipment, “of course we cannot altogether eliminate the risk.”
It will be the most dangerous mission on the UN’s recent agenda, and there are fundamental questions about the organization’s ability to rebuild what is clearly a broken country with a government that has little effective control.
Considered a model of democracy and African stability only a decade ago, Mali was one of Canada’s “countries of focus” for development aid. Averaging more than $100 million annually and topping out at $125 million in 2016 alone, Canada ranked third on Mali’s international donor list behind France and the United States.
Two German UH -Tiger Attack Helicopters taxi in after finishing a patrol over Mali in 2017.
Canada has also sent instructor troops to Mali since 2010 as part of a US-led effort to help train the land-locked country’s army in counter-terrorism, border security and other priorities. One of the program’s graduates, Captain Amadou Sanogo, spearheaded a military coup which prompted Canada to suspend aid for nearly two years.
Sundry so-called rebel forces have since struggled for dominance, mainly in the northern Gao region, part of a sprawling desert zone declared “independent” in 2012 by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. The NMLA subsequently lost control to Islamist militias.
The “rebels” are a loose and shifting coalition of groups with different aims and motivations. This fractured and fractious environment has been a major stumbling block for the UN and its partners.
Marie-Joëlle Zahar, research director at the University of Montreal’s peace operations network and a UN-sanctioned mediation expert, highlighted the problem during an appearance in late April before the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence.
“Deployment environments […] have changed since Canada was last part of a UN mission,” Zahar noted, speaking as an individual witness rather than for the university network. “Violent conflict is on the rise, and there are at least four characteristics of violent conflicts. […] The first is that they're much more regionalized than internationalized, as they used to be.” Most current wars were not civil wars per se, but “internationalized civil wars” in which foreign states and non-state actors instigate and prolong conflict for their own interests.
“In Mali, the fragmentation of northern anti-government forces and their composition and re-composition into ever-shifting alliances and counter-alliances remains one of the main obstacles to achieving sustainable peace,” Zahar said.
On the specific issue of Canada’s upcoming Mali deployment, she said it would fill “the most serious gaps” in the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. “MINUSMA has repeatedly highlighted that this is what it needs and what it cannot get from a majority of troop-contributing countries. […] The high number of fatalities is partly due to logistical difficulties of attending to injuries in situ and providing reliable evacuation of the wounded.” The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations confirms that at least 143 of the MINUSMA fatalities came from troop-contributing countries whose militaries are deployed as part of the ground forces.
Inadvertently linking to Lisa Raitt’s impossible-to-answer question about risk, Zahar said that “not only would the Canadian Forces be helping reduce the number of casualties, but based on current trends of who is most in danger, they would not be a primary target.”
That, obviously, remains to be seen because there is a key capability gap, demonstrated graphically during Op Athena in Afghanistan. Canada’s Chinooks, considered the most advanced model of the twin-rotor platform, have a maximum speed of 170 knots (315 kilometres per hour). The single-rotor Griffons, meanwhile, max out at 140 knots (160kph). Faster just isn’t aerodynamically possible and the significant differential means that Chinooks have to be throttled back to let their Griffon escorts keep up, presenting an easier target for opponents on the ground. The geography of the most likely theatre of operations features plateaus up to 500 metres above sea level and, in the northeast, hills up to 1,000 m.
Sources with the Royal Canadian Air Force have acknowledged the challenge but, without going into detail, say they have refined tactics to take that into consideration. They also privately echo Zahar’s warning that re-engaging in peacekeeping, while not free of danger, is “a necessity to prevent trouble spots […] from becoming open sores and the source of regional and international instability.”
As one veteran Chinook pilot pointed out, “it’s what we train for, what we do, and we have the best aircraft of its kind for the job.” It helps that the Chinooks have been fitted out with the latest countermeasures.
Dutch and German forces (Canada will be replacing the latter but there will be a gap of about a month) have used their armed helicopters to support UN ground troops against ambushes, but General Jonathan Vance, the Chief of the Defence Staff, demurred when the prospect of using Griffons in that role was broached during a televised interview. “At this juncture, the planning we’re doing is armed escort,” he said, adding that his planners would be talking with their German counterparts. “It is possible […] they could be used for support to ground forces. It is possible. We’ve got to look at it. We need to get a lot more detail.”
Why Train?
Carolyn McAskie, who oversaw the 2004-2006 UN peacekeeping mission in Burundi, which involved some 5,600 troops, 120 police and 1,000 civilians, stressed the need not to “get hung up on traditional peacekeeping” because “there has been no such thing since the Cold War.”
Testifying as an individual as well, McAskie advised those on the Committee to “ignore the nervous Nellies” who fret about risk. “Of course it's dangerous; why else would we be going? It’s a war zone; of course armies have to take precautions. Of course I’m sensitive to the political and human side of casualties, absolutely, but if we want a casualty-free war, why do we have 68,000 really good, well-trained, experienced troops? Why bother? Are we then to leave the heavy lifting to others?”
She also pointed out that Canadian civilians had been in the forefront all along – with no government support. “When I joined the UN in 1999 as humanitarian relief coordinator, it was at a time when there was a pullback internationally from peacekeeping. More humanitarians died on the front lines in 1998 than peacekeepers.”
On Mali specifically, Canada’s involvement would be in our national interest. “We’ve had a development program for years of […] up to $100 million a year,” McAskie explained. “There are a dozen Canadian mining companies in Mali with an investment of $1.5 billion. In the 1990s, if you were a Canadian and walked into Bamako, you were welcomed with open arms.” She says the signs of trouble have been brewing, but ignored, in recent years.
Military involvement, however, must be matched with development investment to foster economic stability and undercut criminal and terrorist elements. “If we want to contribute to the success of the mission, we need a place at the political table. We don’t have that now. Our contribution, military or financial, has to be enough to give us a voice. Otherwise, we’re just playing around the edges.”
McAskie challenged those who don’t seem to understand that Canada has a responsibility, working with the international rules-based system that Canada helped to build over the last 70 years. Otherwise, she cautioned, “we cannot blame others it if fails.”
Peacekeeping Capacity
Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, told the committee that missions in Somalia, Bosnia, Cambodia and then Rwanda saw Canada’s military and police deployments peak at 3,300 in mid-1993. A UN hiatus for the rest of that decade saw Canada drop its numbers to the 300-500 range before a general cutback which meant that Canada currently provides no units and only 47 personnel as individuals, 23 police in Haiti, and 24 military personnel in Haiti, the Congo, Cyprus, South Sudan, and the Middle East.
“Unlike the UN’s, Canada’s capacity for peace operations has declined,” said Dorn. “With few personnel deployed over the past two decades, the Canadian Armed Forces have less experience than in previous generations and do much less training.”
Closure of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in 2013 meant there was no place where military, police and civilian personnel could be trained together and, although the new Peace Support Training Centre in Kingston does “excellent work”, it is strictly for the military and aimed mainly at tactical training with “only a small fraction” focused on the UN.
“As the only person who teaches a course on peace operations at the command and staff level, I can tell you that the number of activities in the Canadian Armed Forces has dropped to less than a quarter of what it was in 2005, with fewer exercises and almost no role-playing as UN peacekeepers, though some efforts are now being made to reinvigorate the peace operations curriculum.”
Dorn closed his testimony by pointing out that while Canada presses for more women to be involved in UN peace operations, it is failing to lead by example with only three women currently deployed. “I’ve had women in my office saying that they’ve been trying for years to get on UN operations but that the opportunities just haven’t been there.”
Sources have told FrontLine that one of the reasons for the more than four-month delay between mission announcement and deployment, other than the need to have the aircraft ready to move out of CAF Base Petawawa for transport overseas, is that there is a renewed effort within the military to significantly increase the number of women who will be eligible to wear the UN blue beret.
=== Hudson on the Hill The role of Hudson is being filled by contributing editor Ken Pole.
The battle for the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and an offensive in the Hawija pocket further south may have concluded in the summer and fall of 2017, but the whirl of Canadian helicopters continues to resound over the region.
Iraqi security forces, with the assistance of a coalition of international partners, broke the four-year siege of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in July and have continued a sporadic fight against pockets of ISIS, also known by its Arabic name, Daesh, and its supporters across Iraq’s northern provinces.
CH-146 Griffon aircrews have resumed conducting four to five missions per day, seven days a week, a pace similar to the height of the pre-Mosul campaign. Skip Robinson Photo
Though the scope of the conflict has changed, Canadian Special Operations Forces (SOF) continue to train, advise and assist the Kurdish Peshmerga as part of Operation Impact. In support of that effort, a tactical aviation detachment comprised of four CH-146 Griffon helicopters and around 50 aircrew, maintenance, logistics and headquarters personnel continue to provide tactical transport from an airbase near Erbil, carry Canadian and coalition SOF, equipment and ammunition between forward locations.
“There is really no change to that part,” said Maj Sylvain Lapierre, commanding officer of the fifth rotation of the detachment. “We still provide them with liaison, reconnaissance, and material support, and we are on standby for casualty evacuation if it were to be required.”
In the months following the ouster of Daesh from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, the aviation detachment saw what Lapierre calls a “tactical pause” in coalition SOF operations. But it was only a brief respite. As winter turned to spring, Griffon aircrews have resumed conducting four to five missions per day, seven days a week, a pace similar to the height of the pre-Mosul campaign when special forces helped Iraqi troops establish blocking positions around the city.
“We are task-tailored for 12 hours a day and we routinely do about 16,” said Lapierre of what remains, despite the disintegrating enemy force, a remarkably high operational tempo. In fiscal 2017, the detachment flew over 3,000 hours. “We would have no difficulties surging to 24 hours a day if we needed to.”
As with all commanders since the tactical aviation detachment was first deployed in October 2016, risk management remains the biggest concern.
Lapierre, a helicopter pilot with two tours in Bosnia and one in Afghanistan, as well as two years as a liaison officer with the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence in Fort Rucker, Alabama, said the threat of enemy rocket, mortar and small arms fire is still a threat. But the variable weather, which can quickly reduce visibility, and man-made obstacles, also have to be mitigated.
“Lots of towers, lots of power lines-they are everywhere,” he said. “And they are not necessarily marked to the same standards that we are used to in Canada.”
Still, “rogue actors” in the form of Daesh or their sympathizers remain the preeminent threat to both helicopters and special forces. Aircrews routinely change flight profiles and rely on well-honed tactics, techniques and procedures to transit potentially risky airspace and to protect the aircraft.
Potentially complicating matters further, Turkey, a NATO ally, has been conducting offensive operations across its southern border against Syrian Kurdish militia. While the fighting has not affected the detachment’s missions-it’s a conflict to be addressed at the political level, Lapierre noted-it nonetheless is one more issue to keep an eye on.
“We obviously monitor everything that happens in the region from an intelligence perspective,” he said. “But nothing has really changed the way we are flying or how the [detachment] is operating in the area.”
However, before granting mission acceptance and launch authority, air task force commanders routinely use a risk assessment scorecard that has its origins in the helicopter missions of Afghanistan. The evolving tool forces leaders to deliberately evaluate the level of risk they are being asked to accept by assigning a score to the nature of the mission, how it is organized, the number and type of aircraft involved, the types of passengers, the degree of reliable intelligence, the availability of supporting enablers, and the environmental conditions.
“When we are looking at communicating the aspects of flight safety, it has become a very important supervision tool,” said Lapierre.
Many of those risks are mitigated by the fact that, although most of the tactical aviation detachment are on their first operational tour, all of the aircraft commanders (AC) are veteran pilots of multiple tours.
“I find myself in a privileged situation,” Lapierre acknowledged. “It makes the risk management aspect a little easier. And they have become outstanding mentors for the newer generation of aircrew that are rotating through theatre that may not have [served] in Afghanistan or on a previous mission. There is great sharing of information, not just among the aircrews but also within the maintenance organization.”
Exercises might train and validate the competency of an air task force, but the repetition of missions on an operation can make it easier to absorb instruction in a way that isn’t always possible in complex exercise scenarios, he observed.
“Sometimes coming to a theatre where the focus is different brings new opportunities to learn. Here we have the opportunity to train our younger aircrew in a real theatre, with real tasks and real control measures, with real users. In some ways it caps everything. What you have learned before as a young aviator, this is the sum of it.”
Despite temperature swings that have ranged between 35 C and below zero since the rotation began, the CH-146 Griffon has exceeded expectations. The detachment, which slimmed down from around 60 to 50 personnel last fall, is largely self-sufficient, managing most aspects of maintenance and logistics, and yet has had little trouble keeping the almost 20-year-old helicopters flying.
“I have outstanding serviceability here,” said Lapierre. “We haven’t seen any loss of performance. Like any other helicopter, there comes a point in the very high heat of the summer where we have to get into the books, look at the performance charts and find efficiencies, which we can do by managing the missions and the timings for the tasks. I think we are doing very well with this aircraft.” Leading the way
Since the detachment was first stood up in 2016, three squadrons have assumed the leadership, beginning with 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron from Petawawa, Ont., and then 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadron (THS) from Valcartier, Quebec.
Like Lapierre, many of the current detachment are from 408 THS in Edmonton. But over the course of his more than seven-month tour, he has seen members from every tactical aviation squadron in 1 Wing, as well as 417 Combat Support Squadron from Cold Lake, Alta., deployed to Camp Erable, home to Joint Task Force-Iraq Detachment Erbil, a headquarters staff of approximately 30 personnel and a Canadian-led Coalition Role 2 medical facility.
The commander admits he wasn’t sure how well a diverse group would gel without a lot of pre-deployment training. To his surprise, the different helicopter organizations clicked together almost immediately, proving the flexibility the Royal Canadian Air Force tactical aviation detachment concept.
“It’s one of those cases where one plus one equals three,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of synergies with different units. Everybody brought something and it made the sum of everything greater.
“It proves that we have a great deal of interoperability. Regardless of which unit people were coming from, it was easy to integrate them,” he observed as he prepared to hand over command to 430 THS in late May.
“[It’s also] a testament to our level of readiness and how strong and mature our SOPs (standard operating procedures) are. That is one thing I’ll be passing on, that we maintain our solid SOPs and work practices back home-they transfer well into theater.”
If anything, he’s realized how difficult it is to deliver such a high level of service for so long a period.
“One of my challenges is going to be to go back home and maintain the 100 per cent focus people have here,” he said. “Whether it’s maintenance, flying, logistical support-everyone has worked hand-in-hand to make these missions happen.”
