Showing posts with label Arctic Warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arctic Warfare. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Military Confrontation Over Arctic...Unlikely says SIPRI Report
By: Daniel Maillet, CAF Dispatch Author
October 20, 2016
In it's most recent publication the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an independent resource on global security, has examined the military capabilities of five of the most prominent arctic nations and posed the question, A New Cold War in the High North?
In its executive summary, the publication says, "Climate change is making the Arctic region—and its expected natural resources—more accessible. Overlapping claims by the fi ve Arctic littoral states—Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States (all of which are members of NATO) and Russia—have raised concerns about future conflict in the region and have stimulated new thinking about the security situation in the Arctic. All fi ve states started to strengthen their military presence and capabilities in the Arctic even before the rise in tensions between Russia and NATO members observed since 2014. This increase in tensions has fuelled fears of the onset of a new ‘cold war’ and possible conflict in Europe. It has also resulted in a further build-up of military capabilities in the Arctic region."
"However, the actions taken by the five Arctic littoral states in the region and the offi cial documents released by those states in the past few years seem to suggest that the focus remains solely on the defence of current national territories. While this relatively restrained approach to overlapping maritime claims is to be welcomed, the increases in military forces provide cause for concern, and military confi dence measures and expanded cooperation should be high on the agenda for all five states."
The SIPRI report clearly states that while there are numerous who believe that the Arctic is headed towards conflict, most notably over natural resources; the actuality of military confrontation between any of the five states is unlikely.
The report clearly indicates that Canada is not alone in it's exhaustively slow military rebuild of its Arctic capabilities. The United States, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Russia while all are heavily investing in a resurgence of military capabilities in the Arctic, all are doing so very slowly (much slower than planned) and are mainly doing so to protect their own borders, sovereignty, and secure a region that is becoming more and more accessible to non-Arctic nations. Therefore, an actual military confrontation over the Arctic in the near future is unlikely. Especially as the five Arctic nations (despite the state of Russian-West Relations) are still working diplomatically together on Arctic issues.
You can read the full report below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxqdoHflB6JNUzRjUnAwdmkyeWM/view?usp=sharing
Monday, July 25, 2016
Canadian troops headed to Alaska for Exercise Arctic Anvil
By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch
Over 100 members from the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry will take part in Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL at Fort Greely and Fort Wainwright training areas in Alaska, from July 23 to August 3, the Canadian Army says.
Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL is a joint, multi-national effort and will consist of live-fire and force-on-force training.
More details from the Army:
As of July 2016, 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG) has been the Canadian Army’s High Readiness Brigade, and is ready to respond to emergencies and situations as directed by the Government of Canada.
Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL will prepare and confirm the U.S. 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team for its rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, in early 2017, where they will focus on finalizing readiness capabilities. This exercise will include approximately 8,000 participants from U.S. Army Alaska, Alaska National Guard, Iowa National Guard, and the U.S. Air Force.
Over 100 members from the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry will take part in Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL at Fort Greely and Fort Wainwright training areas in Alaska, from July 23 to August 3, the Canadian Army says.
Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL is a joint, multi-national effort and will consist of live-fire and force-on-force training.
More details from the Army:
As of July 2016, 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG) has been the Canadian Army’s High Readiness Brigade, and is ready to respond to emergencies and situations as directed by the Government of Canada.
Exercise ARCTIC ANVIL will prepare and confirm the U.S. 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team for its rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, in early 2017, where they will focus on finalizing readiness capabilities. This exercise will include approximately 8,000 participants from U.S. Army Alaska, Alaska National Guard, Iowa National Guard, and the U.S. Air Force.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Reviewing Canada’s Arctic Capability: Suggestions for the Defence Policy Review
By: Adam Lajeuness, CDA Institute.
CDA Institute guest contributor Adam Lajeunesse, a post-doctoral fellow at St. Jerome University, offers suggestions on how the government can approach the Arctic in the context of the Defence Policy Review.
As the Liberal government undertakes its comprehensive defence review, eyes are inevitably turning to the Arctic, a region that held such a personal interest for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and one which he so often used to burnish his nationalistic credentials. At first glance, Arctic defence policy would seem ripe for radical revision. The ‘use it or lose it’ mentality that Harper introduced early in his term often manifested in grandiose (by Canadian standards) displays of military power and rhetoric, sometimes presupposing foreign threats to Canadian sovereignty and Russian military threats to its security. For a Liberal government seeking a new détente with Russia as part of a broader push towards cooperation and dialogue over confrontation, there would seem to be room to swing away from the old Conservative defence philosophy that has defined the past ten years of Arctic military operations.
The reality of Canada’s Arctic security philosophy is, however, far more complicated than the broad brush depictions often used in the media. Despite the sometimes hawkish feelings generated by Harper’s statements on the North, and the frequent photoshoots of the prime minister and other VIPs in the Northwest Passage surrounded by warships, Canada’s Arctic security policy has been level-headed, thoughtful, and restrained. Behind the headlines, CAF strategy and doctrine has repeatedly emphasised the absence of any military threat to the region, preparing instead for a wide range of unconventional scenarios – such as pollution prevention and support to civilian departments and agencies. What the Liberals will likely discover as they move forward is that they have little choice but to continue the Conservative approach to Arctic defence.
That assessment is based on the assumption that the geopolitical situation in the region will not deteriorate over the next decade. Such predictions are impossible to make with absolute confidence but the evidence suggests that it’s a safe bet. Russia, so often held up as a potential aggressor, has certainly been building its Arctic military capability, however that build-up has mostly taken the form of ground force expansion, SAR, and local area defence – not power projection. Moscow is also the principal beneficiary of circumpolar stability as it seeks to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese and Indian (and perhaps if sanctions are lifted, Western) investment to the region. Russian military posturing is necessary for domestic consumption and for maintaining the siege mentality that keeps Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings high, but there is little that Russia can achieve through aggressive expansion into the Arctic Basin or anywhere beyond its own Arctic territory.
China is likewise unlikely to present any real military threat to the region. It has long sought a cooperative relationship with Arctic powers and, only recently, released a shipping guide instructing its vessel operators to respect Canadian law and regulation when in Canadian waters. China also lacks the technology and military platforms to operate safely in ice-covered waters and appears to be in no hurry to spend the small fortune required to achieve that inessential capability.
Regardless of Russian or Chinese intentions or capabilities, conventional security is well in hand. NORAD provides adequate monitoring and fighter coverage of the North American Arctic and the US Navy maintains a subsurface capability and presence which began neatly sixty years ago. If Arctic defence policy is productively changed, it must be at the operational and tactical level, and here there is much that still needs to be adjusted. The Harper government’s great success was in defining the Forces’ direction and requirements – moving it away from its traditional warfighting role and into a support position. Implementation has, however, been slow, painful, and incomplete.
To begin with, the CAF’s Arctic forces require a more coherent training program, better communication, faster procurement, and a clearer sense of mission. The Arctic Response Company Groups (ARCG) were stood up in 2007 to provide the Army with a force that it could confidently deploy in response to a variety of Arctic scenarios. In the years since, the ARCG have suffered from inconsistent training standards, poor harmonization of operating requirements, and a lack of higher-level direction – with training and equipping having been delegated to the ARCG host divisions.
Equipping these forces has proven more challenging than should have been the case. Certain Arctic clothing and basic equipment still needs to be developed or purchased, while the Forces’ lack of light and heavy over-snow vehicles (and its inability to maintain what it currently owns) can be attributed to bureaucratic inertia and a poor understanding within the Army of what its Arctic purpose and requirements really are. The distribution of the Army snowmobiles provide a perfect case in point. Rather than being concentrated in the hands of the ARCGs, the machines were parcelled out to the divisions in small groups, making large scale training impossible.
The Army has also shown an inability to learn many of the lessons observed during its annual Arctic exercises, something that can in part be chalked up to a lack of communication. Arctic deployed forces rarely communicate after the fact and there has been a general failure to compare notes between these units on what has worked and what has not. Siloed within different divisions, ARCG training is often undertaken in isolation where lessons are learned and relearned repeatedly.
The operational role of the Army’s Arctic forces , likewise, needs to be clarified. The ARCG, for instance, were described in their Master Implementation Directive as a rapid response force that could be assembled and deployed in the event of an emergency. The reality is that these reserve units could never be deployed quickly enough or sustained as a formed unit without extensive planning. Rather, these groups represent a reserve of basic Arctic capability that can be tapped when needed to provide perhaps half a dozen soldiers with the skills needed to provide mass to an Immediate Reaction Unit or another government agency. Their call out procedure should be refined and false planning assumptions purged from expectations of how the Army might use its forces outside of a planned exercise.
These are only a few examples of the CAF’s Arctic growing pains – indeed, there are many more issues of supply, training, and operational doctrine that still need to be addressed. None of these problems are really surprising however. Similar problems became apparent in the 1950s and again in the 1970s-80s when the CAF undertook a similar expansion of its Arctic presence. It is understandable how an organization as large and complex as the Canadian military might move slowly to embrace a new and unfamiliar set of responsibilities.
Yet, in spite of these shortfalls, the government should recognize that the CAF’s overarching concept for Arctic operations is good and should be maintained. What is required is not a fundamental rethink but a renewed focus on turning the Forces’ existing high-level strategic direction into something that is achievable, practical, and exercised on a regular basis.
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Dr. Adam Lajeunesse is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at St. Jerome’s University. He is currently working on a research program examining the history of Canadian military operations in the Arctic and the history of northern development, with a focus on hydrocarbon exploration from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. (Image courtesy of the Canadian Army.)
CDA Institute guest contributor Adam Lajeunesse, a post-doctoral fellow at St. Jerome University, offers suggestions on how the government can approach the Arctic in the context of the Defence Policy Review.
As the Liberal government undertakes its comprehensive defence review, eyes are inevitably turning to the Arctic, a region that held such a personal interest for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and one which he so often used to burnish his nationalistic credentials. At first glance, Arctic defence policy would seem ripe for radical revision. The ‘use it or lose it’ mentality that Harper introduced early in his term often manifested in grandiose (by Canadian standards) displays of military power and rhetoric, sometimes presupposing foreign threats to Canadian sovereignty and Russian military threats to its security. For a Liberal government seeking a new détente with Russia as part of a broader push towards cooperation and dialogue over confrontation, there would seem to be room to swing away from the old Conservative defence philosophy that has defined the past ten years of Arctic military operations.
The reality of Canada’s Arctic security philosophy is, however, far more complicated than the broad brush depictions often used in the media. Despite the sometimes hawkish feelings generated by Harper’s statements on the North, and the frequent photoshoots of the prime minister and other VIPs in the Northwest Passage surrounded by warships, Canada’s Arctic security policy has been level-headed, thoughtful, and restrained. Behind the headlines, CAF strategy and doctrine has repeatedly emphasised the absence of any military threat to the region, preparing instead for a wide range of unconventional scenarios – such as pollution prevention and support to civilian departments and agencies. What the Liberals will likely discover as they move forward is that they have little choice but to continue the Conservative approach to Arctic defence.
That assessment is based on the assumption that the geopolitical situation in the region will not deteriorate over the next decade. Such predictions are impossible to make with absolute confidence but the evidence suggests that it’s a safe bet. Russia, so often held up as a potential aggressor, has certainly been building its Arctic military capability, however that build-up has mostly taken the form of ground force expansion, SAR, and local area defence – not power projection. Moscow is also the principal beneficiary of circumpolar stability as it seeks to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese and Indian (and perhaps if sanctions are lifted, Western) investment to the region. Russian military posturing is necessary for domestic consumption and for maintaining the siege mentality that keeps Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings high, but there is little that Russia can achieve through aggressive expansion into the Arctic Basin or anywhere beyond its own Arctic territory.
China is likewise unlikely to present any real military threat to the region. It has long sought a cooperative relationship with Arctic powers and, only recently, released a shipping guide instructing its vessel operators to respect Canadian law and regulation when in Canadian waters. China also lacks the technology and military platforms to operate safely in ice-covered waters and appears to be in no hurry to spend the small fortune required to achieve that inessential capability.
Regardless of Russian or Chinese intentions or capabilities, conventional security is well in hand. NORAD provides adequate monitoring and fighter coverage of the North American Arctic and the US Navy maintains a subsurface capability and presence which began neatly sixty years ago. If Arctic defence policy is productively changed, it must be at the operational and tactical level, and here there is much that still needs to be adjusted. The Harper government’s great success was in defining the Forces’ direction and requirements – moving it away from its traditional warfighting role and into a support position. Implementation has, however, been slow, painful, and incomplete.
To begin with, the CAF’s Arctic forces require a more coherent training program, better communication, faster procurement, and a clearer sense of mission. The Arctic Response Company Groups (ARCG) were stood up in 2007 to provide the Army with a force that it could confidently deploy in response to a variety of Arctic scenarios. In the years since, the ARCG have suffered from inconsistent training standards, poor harmonization of operating requirements, and a lack of higher-level direction – with training and equipping having been delegated to the ARCG host divisions.
Equipping these forces has proven more challenging than should have been the case. Certain Arctic clothing and basic equipment still needs to be developed or purchased, while the Forces’ lack of light and heavy over-snow vehicles (and its inability to maintain what it currently owns) can be attributed to bureaucratic inertia and a poor understanding within the Army of what its Arctic purpose and requirements really are. The distribution of the Army snowmobiles provide a perfect case in point. Rather than being concentrated in the hands of the ARCGs, the machines were parcelled out to the divisions in small groups, making large scale training impossible.
The Army has also shown an inability to learn many of the lessons observed during its annual Arctic exercises, something that can in part be chalked up to a lack of communication. Arctic deployed forces rarely communicate after the fact and there has been a general failure to compare notes between these units on what has worked and what has not. Siloed within different divisions, ARCG training is often undertaken in isolation where lessons are learned and relearned repeatedly.
The operational role of the Army’s Arctic forces , likewise, needs to be clarified. The ARCG, for instance, were described in their Master Implementation Directive as a rapid response force that could be assembled and deployed in the event of an emergency. The reality is that these reserve units could never be deployed quickly enough or sustained as a formed unit without extensive planning. Rather, these groups represent a reserve of basic Arctic capability that can be tapped when needed to provide perhaps half a dozen soldiers with the skills needed to provide mass to an Immediate Reaction Unit or another government agency. Their call out procedure should be refined and false planning assumptions purged from expectations of how the Army might use its forces outside of a planned exercise.
These are only a few examples of the CAF’s Arctic growing pains – indeed, there are many more issues of supply, training, and operational doctrine that still need to be addressed. None of these problems are really surprising however. Similar problems became apparent in the 1950s and again in the 1970s-80s when the CAF undertook a similar expansion of its Arctic presence. It is understandable how an organization as large and complex as the Canadian military might move slowly to embrace a new and unfamiliar set of responsibilities.
Yet, in spite of these shortfalls, the government should recognize that the CAF’s overarching concept for Arctic operations is good and should be maintained. What is required is not a fundamental rethink but a renewed focus on turning the Forces’ existing high-level strategic direction into something that is achievable, practical, and exercised on a regular basis.
---
Dr. Adam Lajeunesse is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at St. Jerome’s University. He is currently working on a research program examining the history of Canadian military operations in the Arctic and the history of northern development, with a focus on hydrocarbon exploration from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. (Image courtesy of the Canadian Army.)
Monday, May 30, 2016
The CAF and the Arctic: Maintaining a Suitable and Sustainable Role
Published by the CDA Institute
In this new CDA Institute Analysis, Adam MacDonald looks at the military requirements for Canada in the Arctic, concluding that the capabilities need to be suitable for the security environment and financially sustainable given other defence commitments. The following is an excerpt of the Analysis.
Due to its increasing accessibility resulting from climate change, the Arctic could become a contested and militarized arena in which states within the region and beyond attempt to secure and gain access to lucrative shipping routes and resources. Such an eventuality poses particular challenges to Canadian sovereignty and security. Stemming from such a characterization, the Harper government had long prioritized the Arctic as a defence issue, raising the spectre that Canadian sovereignty in the North could be irrevocably compromised – we either ‘use it or lose it.’
While silent on which potential adversaries were threatening to usurp Canadian ownership, the Harper government sought to restore a military presence in the Arctic by “placing more boots on the Arctic tundra, more ships in the icy water and a better eye-in-the-sky.” In his 2005 campaign, in particular, Harper promised a litany of Arctic-specific defence projects to rectify the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) dearth of presence and operational experience in the region. The promotion of the ‘sovereignty at risk’ narrative seemed to justify the construction of a robust and permanent military presence in the Arctic. In reality, however, Canada requires a different type of military presence and capability suite than commonly perceived (or advocated).
Canada’s security challenges in the North do not emanate from a military threat but are rather largely constabulary in nature. Defending sovereignty is the perennial duty of the military but in the Arctic there is no credible, state-based threat capable of challenging Canadian ownership of its waters and territories, with a few exceptions which are well managed. Despite its sometimes fiery rhetoric, the former Conservative government’s various Arctic policy documents reflected such an appreciation of the threat environment. With the near absence of state-based threats, military requirement in the Arctic need to be suitable for this particular security environment and sustainable given the operating challenges of the region, as well as other competing military priorities.
At present, the military is focusing their Arctic efforts on increasing domain awareness via surveillance and maintaining a light regional footprint to facilitate Northern operations and, when required, support the deployment of southern based-units which are increasingly training in the North, often in conjunction with other security agencies and regional partners. Deploying large contingents of combat capable forces is ill-advised given the nature of the threat, prohibitively expensive given the harsh operating environment (especially the High Arctic), and potentially compromising other missions and mandates by drawing resources away.
The Arctic Security Environment
With the end of the Cold War, the strategic importance of the Arctic diminished significantly allowing for the construction of regional forums dedicated towards common interests, specifically climate research. Rapidly changing environmental conditions, however, are transforming the Arctic landscape by increasing accessibility to human activity to an unprecedented level. Amongst this uncertainty, issues of ownership and access have fueled the development of a narrative of the Arctic as moving away from a politically stable region to one of high geopolitical importance characterized by growing complexity, competition, and perhaps even rivalry. In such a narrative, the current regional architecture is simply unable to adjust and accommodate the expected scramble for resources and political influence.
Not surprisingly, a popular theme has been the growing ‘militarization’ of the Arctic over the past decade. There is no denying that all Arctic states are augmenting their military capabilities in their northern territories, including the stationing of combat-capable units. As one commentator has remarked, “we may be entering the first stages of an Arctic arms race, in which competition and conflict may overwhelm our desires and rhetoric to have a cooperative régime for the developing circumpolar world.” The augmenting presence, capability development, and employment of military forces in the Arctic is an emerging reality, but their use is, by and large, within recognized national borders and waters.
Moreover, they are largely focused on exercising sovereign control to ensure compliance with state laws, border control, and search and rescue. Retaining combat forces to defend against state-based threats in the Arctic is a marginal requirement at this time. Arctic countries are more concerned about increasing their domain awareness in parts of their jurisdictions characterized by large geographic areas, small and sparse populations, and a lack of infrastructure, surveillance, and response capacities.
The flurry of recent Russian military projects in the Arctic, including icebreaker construction and the re-activation of air and army bases on their northern islands, are in part aimed at establishing unquestioned ownership of the Northern Sea Route, regardless of legal objections by the US that the waters constitute an international strait. This is not to suggest that developing a war-fighting capacity in the Arctic is not an objective of Moscow. However, domestic political calculations and constabulary requirements have heavily shaped the makeup and operational nature of military developments thus far in the region. Some military developments in the Arctic, furthermore, are based on larger, extra-regional factors. Modernization of the Russian Northern Fleet, for instance, is designed to upgrade their nuclear submarine deterrent and for global operations. Similarly, the US ground-based interceptors in Alaska are meant to counter a missile attack from a rogue state, specifically North Korea.
Most commentators are quick to assert that militarization is becoming a dominant force driving regional politics, but are at a loss in not only providing an operational definition (e.g., what does ‘militarization’ mean?) but also in explaining how this process will contribute to the destabilization of the region beyond simplistic narratives (Russia versus NATO; non-Arctic states versus Arctic states). There are no territorial disputes in the Arctic, with the exception of the relatively benign dispute over Hans Island between Canada and Denmark, and there is no evidence to suggest Russia or any other Arctic nation is moving to employ military forces over contested Extended Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) or to gain unobstructed access to polar shipping routes.
Click here to read the rest of the CDA Institute Analysis.
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Adam P. MacDonald is an academic based in Halifax, Nova Scotia specializing in geopolitical developments in the Arctic and East Asia. He is a regular contributor to the Canadian Naval Review, East Asia Forum and Frontline Defence.
Monday, April 4, 2016
Operation NUNALIVUT 2016 begins
DND Press Release:
April 1, 2016 – Yellowknife, Northwest Territories – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces
Operation NUNALIVUT 2016 (Op NU 16) will take place in and around Resolute Bay and Alert, Nunavut from 1-22 April.
Commanded by Joint Task Force (North) (JTFN) and involving more than 230 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel from across Canada; Op NU 16 incorporates soldiers from 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2 RCR), Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) divers from Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic, and personnel from across the Royal Canadian Air Force, including Yellowknife-based 440 (Transport) Squadron.
Op NU 16 will consist of two distinct activities. RCN divers will conduct ice dives near Alert, Nunavut, and Canadian Army personnel will conduct patrols and Arctic survival training on the sea ice near Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Throughout this operation, Canadian Rangers from 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group will guide and mentor participating troops. All activities will be commanded and controlled by the Task Force NUNALIVUT headquarters element, based in Resolute Bay, Nunavut.
“Operation NUNALIVUT is one of our most austere and challenging operations in the High Arctic. It enables all three elements to polish their Arctic skills in a collaborative operation. I am proud that our men and women in uniform deployed on Operation NUNALIVUT have the opportunity to experience the unique environment found only in the High Arctic, while demonstrating northern sovereignty.” Brigadier-General Mike Nixon, Commander, Joint Task Force (North).
April 1, 2016 – Yellowknife, Northwest Territories – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces
Operation NUNALIVUT 2016 (Op NU 16) will take place in and around Resolute Bay and Alert, Nunavut from 1-22 April.
Commanded by Joint Task Force (North) (JTFN) and involving more than 230 Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel from across Canada; Op NU 16 incorporates soldiers from 2nd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (2 RCR), Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) divers from Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic, and personnel from across the Royal Canadian Air Force, including Yellowknife-based 440 (Transport) Squadron.
Op NU 16 will consist of two distinct activities. RCN divers will conduct ice dives near Alert, Nunavut, and Canadian Army personnel will conduct patrols and Arctic survival training on the sea ice near Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Throughout this operation, Canadian Rangers from 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group will guide and mentor participating troops. All activities will be commanded and controlled by the Task Force NUNALIVUT headquarters element, based in Resolute Bay, Nunavut.
“Operation NUNALIVUT is one of our most austere and challenging operations in the High Arctic. It enables all three elements to polish their Arctic skills in a collaborative operation. I am proud that our men and women in uniform deployed on Operation NUNALIVUT have the opportunity to experience the unique environment found only in the High Arctic, while demonstrating northern sovereignty.” Brigadier-General Mike Nixon, Commander, Joint Task Force (North).
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Canadian Army to train in Norway with NATO partners
Published by: Frontline Defence
Several hundred Canadian Army soldiers from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (2 CMBG) and 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (3 RCR) from Petawawa, Ontario, will conduct winter warfighting training in Norway with 13 NATO Allies and partners during Exercise COLD RESPONSE 2016 (Ex CR 16) from March 1-9, 2016. In order to ensure successful training, numerous soldiers have already deployed overseas in preparation for this multinational exercise.
“Exercise COLD RESPONSE presents a great opportunity for Canada to engage with our NATO Allies and closest partners and further supports our excellent relations with Norway," said Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan. "It also allows the Canadian Armed Forces to enhance its operational effectiveness in challenging winter conditions.”
This Norway-led exercise includes approximately 15 000 soldiers from various countries including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and Norway. The aim of Ex CR 16 is to retain and further develop military capabilities in high-intensity, joint and combined ops in a challenging environment.
The Canadian Army is contributing an Infantry Battalion Headquarters, a Company Group as well as staff officers to the Swedish Multi-National Brigade Headquarters. Canadian soldiers will exercise joint and combined operations under an extremely challenging cold-weather scenario, with the goal of developing their ability to operate with international partners in arctic conditions.
Ex CR 16 is a multi-national, joint and combined exercise featuring land, air and sea elements.
It provides an arena for participating forces to enhance warfighting skills and exercise all aspects of winter warfighting, including offensive and defensive operations, patrols, surveillance, reconnaissance, and battlespace management.
Ex CR 16 is taking place in the Trondheim region in Norway, approximately 500 kilometres north of the capital, Oslo.
Canada and Norway enjoy a long tradition of cooperation on regional and global security issues.
Several hundred Canadian Army soldiers from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (2 CMBG) and 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (3 RCR) from Petawawa, Ontario, will conduct winter warfighting training in Norway with 13 NATO Allies and partners during Exercise COLD RESPONSE 2016 (Ex CR 16) from March 1-9, 2016. In order to ensure successful training, numerous soldiers have already deployed overseas in preparation for this multinational exercise.
“Exercise COLD RESPONSE presents a great opportunity for Canada to engage with our NATO Allies and closest partners and further supports our excellent relations with Norway," said Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan. "It also allows the Canadian Armed Forces to enhance its operational effectiveness in challenging winter conditions.”
This Norway-led exercise includes approximately 15 000 soldiers from various countries including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and Norway. The aim of Ex CR 16 is to retain and further develop military capabilities in high-intensity, joint and combined ops in a challenging environment.
The Canadian Army is contributing an Infantry Battalion Headquarters, a Company Group as well as staff officers to the Swedish Multi-National Brigade Headquarters. Canadian soldiers will exercise joint and combined operations under an extremely challenging cold-weather scenario, with the goal of developing their ability to operate with international partners in arctic conditions.
Ex CR 16 is a multi-national, joint and combined exercise featuring land, air and sea elements.
It provides an arena for participating forces to enhance warfighting skills and exercise all aspects of winter warfighting, including offensive and defensive operations, patrols, surveillance, reconnaissance, and battlespace management.
Ex CR 16 is taking place in the Trondheim region in Norway, approximately 500 kilometres north of the capital, Oslo.
Canada and Norway enjoy a long tradition of cooperation on regional and global security issues.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
ARCTIC RAM: CAF expanded Northern Presence
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| Members of the CAF during part of ARCTIC RAM-16. Photo: CAF Combat Camera |
Less than a decade ago, the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP) compound northwest of Resolute on Cornwallis Island, Nu. could support about 62 people—today it can handle as many as 240 people.
“We’ve expanded four-fold in a very, very short time,” said acting PCSP Chief of Arctic Logistics Tim McCagherty.
Rapid expansion came thanks to cooperation integral to all operations in the high Arctic.
“If you’re not all working together, nothing happens,” McCagherty said. “Nobody stands alone in the Arctic.”
In this case, the cooperation is between his the PCSP—backed by Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans—and the Canadian Forces Arctic Training Centre (CFATC), via the Department of National Defence (DND).
In 2007, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) received “the Canada First Defence strategy,” which mandated an increase in CAF Arctic presence and sovereignty defence.
“When (that) came up… the military turned around and said, ‘Okay, we’ve got to do an assessment of where we should place (a base of operations), and what should this facility do,” said Lt.Col Luc St. Denis.
The PCSP was established—albeit smaller—conveniently in the middle of the Canadian Arctic, and has one of the longest runways this far North, bar few, allowing for the kind of air projection vital to responding to sovereign threats almost anywhere North of Churchill.
McCagherty and company also offered 53 years of experience and an extensive network of contacts, pre-negotiated agreements, an established HF radio network and fuel caches.
“When we looked at all the factors, we needed mobility, we needed reach back to the south, we needed a central location and we needed good contacts,” St. Denis said of why CAF partnered the PCSP. “It was a win-win.”
He also said “training capability” was a primary need, hence the facility plan.
A planned expansion to the PCSP compound around 2009 allowed St. Denis an opportunity to propose the partnership, when he had his mandate and a $60 million budget to achieve his goals.
“I said… ‘I’ve got money, you’ve got the blueprint, what if we did a cut and paste, flipped it over and doubled the capacity to respond to my need?” St. Denis said.
He took the plan to DND in September 2010, it was approved by April 2011. Construction began the following summer and the ribbon was cut for the multi-departmental facility in 2013.
“That is something else,” St. Denis said. “The reason it worked is because of the partnership.”
McCagherty agreed with that sentiment.
“It’s kind of the case (of), ‘if you don’t bail and I don’t row, the both of us are going to sink in the boat,” he said. “So everybody has to work together and that relationship has been spectacular with the CFATC.”
From research to logistics
Today, the PCSP functions as a logistics provider. Originally founded in 1958, it was a base of operations for scientific research in the Canadian Arctic.
Now it provides support to more than 140 camps from the Resolute base, and has operated in more than 2,000 locations in the Canadian Arctic, touching every island there is.
It plans 18 months in advance by accepting submissions from researchers, public and government departments needing logistics support to work in their back yard. It provides flights, guides, accommodations and supplies to suit needs, and finds synergies between different operations to reduce costs.
The CFATC is managed by the Army, supports northern training to Army, Navy and Air Force members, and stages the CAF Arctic operations.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Canadian Army Begins Arctic Warfare Training
DND Press Release:
February 8, 2016
OTTAWA — Starting today until early March, approximately 2,500 Canadian Army soldiers from the Regular Force, Primary Reserve and the Canadian Rangers, will be training in several areas of Canada’s North. The Canadian Army aims to maintain and sharpen its operational capabilities in austere Arctic environments.
The Canadian Army maintains readiness and continues to enhance its ability to operate in the North by training in highly challenging conditions in some of Canada’s most isolated regions. Troops will develop and test their advanced cold-weather survival skills, as well as prepare for quick responses to simulated threats and domestic emergencies, such as natural disasters, extreme weather events and other hazards. Highlights of the exercises will include parachute jumps and engagement involving remote First Nations communities.
The exercises offer soldiers a valuable opportunity to collaborate with the Canadian Rangers, local communities, as well as other government departments and agencies. Soldiers from the United States Army National Guard, the New Zealand and Polish Armed Forces have also been invited to take part in the training in an effort to strengthen interoperability between Canada and these nations.
Ex UR 16 is a key step in the Canadian Army’s preparation for Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 16 and the Road to High Readiness training program. Approximately half of the participating soldiers will come from 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, while the remainder will be made up of other Canadian Army units from around the country.
The Road to High Readiness is the Canadian Army’s flagship training regime that prepares soldiers for national or expeditionary deployments, as mandated by the Government of Canada. The goal of the training is to generate a competent, confident and integrated Army brigade that can provide scalable, mission-tailored and responsive forces for full spectrum operations.
Ex UR 16 provides a simulated environment making it possible to virtually represent the movements and manoeuvres of units and troops, without the participants actually deploying to a training area.
February 8, 2016
OTTAWA — Starting today until early March, approximately 2,500 Canadian Army soldiers from the Regular Force, Primary Reserve and the Canadian Rangers, will be training in several areas of Canada’s North. The Canadian Army aims to maintain and sharpen its operational capabilities in austere Arctic environments.
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| CAF Members during Arctic Warfare Training. Undated Photo (CAF Combat Camera) |
The exercises offer soldiers a valuable opportunity to collaborate with the Canadian Rangers, local communities, as well as other government departments and agencies. Soldiers from the United States Army National Guard, the New Zealand and Polish Armed Forces have also been invited to take part in the training in an effort to strengthen interoperability between Canada and these nations.
At the same time:
Close to 900 soldiers will be participating in Exercise UNIFIED RESOLVE 1601 (Ex UR 16) in Edmonton, Alberta, from February 8 to 12, 2016.
Ex UR 16 is a key step in the Canadian Army’s preparation for Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE 16 and the Road to High Readiness training program. Approximately half of the participating soldiers will come from 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, while the remainder will be made up of other Canadian Army units from around the country.
The Road to High Readiness is the Canadian Army’s flagship training regime that prepares soldiers for national or expeditionary deployments, as mandated by the Government of Canada. The goal of the training is to generate a competent, confident and integrated Army brigade that can provide scalable, mission-tailored and responsive forces for full spectrum operations.
Ex UR 16 provides a simulated environment making it possible to virtually represent the movements and manoeuvres of units and troops, without the participants actually deploying to a training area.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
CAF to Conduct Arctic Warfare Training
DND Press Release
Soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division will take part in Exercise ARCTIC RAM 2016, in Resolute Bay, Nunavut next month. Troops from 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry will parachute into Resolute Bay on Feb. 11. Soldiers from 38 Canadian Brigade Group will also take place in the exercise.
Meanwhile, Exercise RAFALE BLANCHE 2016 is also underway. It will end on February 19 and is being held in the Valcartier training areas and in the municipalities of Nicolet and Bécancour, Que. 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (5 CMBG) units based in Valcartier are taking part. The exercise will enable 5 CMBG members to conduct military manoeuvres in winter conditions, the Canadian Forces noted in a news release.
More details from the news release:
Foreign troops and numerous reservists will also contribute to the training. About 20 Polish soldiers will take part in the exercise with their counterparts from 3 Battalion Royal 22e Régiment (3 R22eR).
A portion of Exercise RAFALE BLANCHE 2016 will take place in the municipalities of Nicolet and Bécancour from February 4 to 7, where the members of 12e Régiment blindé du Canada (12 RBC) will perform manoeuvres in civilian areas in partnership with Primary Reserve units, 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadron and 5 Field Ambulance.
Many Reserve units will participate in Exercise RAFALE BLANCHE. To name a few, units from Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, Montreal and Gatineau will support 12 RBC in Nicolet from February 5 to 7.
Soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division will take part in Exercise ARCTIC RAM 2016, in Resolute Bay, Nunavut next month. Troops from 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry will parachute into Resolute Bay on Feb. 11. Soldiers from 38 Canadian Brigade Group will also take place in the exercise.
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| A CAF member from Charlie Company of 1 PPCLI keeps watch during a platoon attack during ARTIC RAM 2012: Photo: DND - Combat Camera: RE2012-0007-026 |
More details from the news release:
Foreign troops and numerous reservists will also contribute to the training. About 20 Polish soldiers will take part in the exercise with their counterparts from 3 Battalion Royal 22e Régiment (3 R22eR).
A portion of Exercise RAFALE BLANCHE 2016 will take place in the municipalities of Nicolet and Bécancour from February 4 to 7, where the members of 12e Régiment blindé du Canada (12 RBC) will perform manoeuvres in civilian areas in partnership with Primary Reserve units, 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadron and 5 Field Ambulance.
Many Reserve units will participate in Exercise RAFALE BLANCHE. To name a few, units from Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, Montreal and Gatineau will support 12 RBC in Nicolet from February 5 to 7.
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