Cutting Through Chaos

Thinking About Western Mobilisation During a Conference in Eastern Canada

Over the last few days I have had the opportunity to spend time in eastern Canada, in a region known locally as The Maritimes. Specifically, I have been in the city of Fredericton as the guest of the University of New Brunswick’s Gregg Centre and the Canadian Army’s Combat Training Centre.

While Fredericton is a cold place (it got down to minus 16 degrees centigrade while I was visiting, and apparently that is warm for the locals) it has a fascinating history. It was first settled by indigenous First Nations people around 12,000 years ago. More recently, it was part of the French Acadia colony from the late 1600s, and then a British colony after the British expelled the French in the mid-1700s. There is much more history that I can’t cover here unfortunately.

I loved being able to experience this part of Canada for the first time - and hope to return. However, the main reason I was here was to attend and speak at the Gregg Centre - Combat Training Centre annual conference. This year, the theme was ‘Cutting Through Chaos’ and had a focus on how the Canadian Army might learn from the war in Ukraine and then undertake a range of adaptations to ensure its people are fit for whatever future warfighting requirements they might face.

The conference, where I spoke on trends in military affairs and how military institutions might respond, as well as what the Chinese PLA might be learning from the war Ukraine, caused me to once again to ponder how western democracies might respond to the current threat from countries like Russia and Iran, as well as the potential threat posed by China and North Korea. And despite the many issues discussed over the two days of this wonderful conference, I kept coming back to a common theme: mobilisation.

Mobilising to Deter

Mobilising national capacity is not just about building the ability to fight a war. It is first and foremost a deterrence mechanism. A nation that undertakes even a limited mobilisation, or has feasible plans to mobilise quickly, is essentially saying to potential adversaries that “we are ready, don’t try anything today”. It is a very important message to send.

And while even a partial mobilisation for military purposes might be expensive, it may end up being much cheaper than having the fight because we failed to deter aggression. And, once a conflict begins it is more difficult to mobilise. Mobilisation is possible, but is less efficient, and clearly was not able to be employed to deter conflict!

Ultimately, as I listened to different presentations at the conference, the ‘cutting through chaos’ theme kept thrusting me back into how we can build western military capacity through early planning for mobilisation, and potentially early execution of some aspects of it as well.

Building Western Capacity

For some time, western media have carried stories about the lack of capacity in the defence manufacturing sector. A legacy of military draw downs and defence industrial consolidation in the wake of fall of the Soviet Union, this lack of production capacity in military equipment and munitions has been the topic of political discourse, think tank analysis and media commentary for nearly two years.

Shortfalls have been highlighted in the disparity in supply of artillery ammunition between Russia on one side and Ukraine (and its western supporters) on the other. Russia, which began a mobilisation of its people and industry in September 2022, and also commenced importing large quantities of munitions from Iran and North Korea, has a lead in military production. And while Europe and the US are expanding their capacity, the gap between Russian and western capacity has highlighted the challenges of mobilising national capacity in the face of the threat posed by the Authoritarian Quad of Iran, Russia, North Korea and China.

But mobilisation is much more than expanding the production of given munitions. As I have written elsewhere, mobilisation is actually a trinity of concerns which are a national and not a military endeavour. The three elements are: industry; people; and, ideas.

Over the course of the conference in Canada, I pondered each of these three elements in the context of Canada’s evolving defence posture (including its Latvia deployment) as well as the challenges faced by other western nations.

Industry. Canada has a sophisticated manufacturing sector, but it still has a small military and limited capacity for producing large quantities of munitions or defence equipment. This is much the same for all of its allies and security partners. And while munitions production is beginning to expand in several countries, many other elements of defence production must do the same.

The obvious areas for production include military vehicles, including armoured vehicles, as well as missiles, ships and aircraft. None of these are quick to build and are currently produced in small lots. Expanding production would be expensive and take time. But some newer capabilities, which have demonstrated military utility in Ukraine, do not require the same level of investment.

In particular, many types of drones might be manufactured in mass quantities at much lower prices than other conventional weapons. Indeed, once artillery production is fixed by 2025, we may see shortfalls in drone production emerge. But to expand drone production, there must be a demand signal from governments and military institutions for thousands of units per year. This is not the case in most western nations at the moment, with the exception of the US Replicator program, and the large purchases by the British Ministry of Defence of drones for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Another aspect of industrial mobilisation is in the IT industry. Not only do weapon systems require multiple computer chips and clever programming, modern data processing, command and control systems and AI support systems all must be sourced from civil industry. The current scale and pace of producing these products fits a peacetime environment. Any mobilisation effort will need to scale up this aspect of industrial production in addition to production of more traditional equipment. This is likely to result in an even more competitive environment for people with IT skills in the civil sector, and exacerbate military recruitment of the same people.

Ultimately however, the Gregg Center event was about people and how the Canadian Army - and other military institutions - might mobilise the capacity of their people for future military endeavours. These endeavours encompass the full range of mission sets, from peacetime deterrence and civil support through to the array of multi domain war fighting mission sets. And given the Gregg Center and Combat Training Center have a focus on the training and education of military personnel, these were topics central to discussions.

That said, an array of issues related to the mobilisation of people and ideas were either discussed or hinted at during the conference. Other times, discussions prompted me to consider the many different strategic elements of how contemporary military institutions need to not only evolve their training and education but also to transform their force designs and war fighting concepts.

When reviewing these aspects of raising, training and sustaining military institutions, it can sometimes be difficult to untangle the people and ideas aspects of the mobilisation trinity. Ideas, encoded in doctrine and tactical manuals, are essential to the standardised training inherent in any professional military organisation. On the flip side of this equation, it is people who recognise the need to adapt in order to survive or ensure mission success of their organisation, and they then develop new or evolved ideas for their institutions.

People. It is becoming increasingly clear that the all volunteer force models, adopted by many nations in the past half century, are increasingly unreliable ways of ensuring adequate numbers of personnel in military institutions. While the shortfalls of personnel in the Canadian Army were discussed during the conference, this is a phenomenon that is also relevant in the United States, Britain, Australia and elsewhere. Military institutions are having more and more challenges in meeting their recruiting goals.

This has a flow on effect with military units running at lower personnel levels, which in turn governs capability, readiness and sustainability. Mobilisation theory becomes important in this environment because many nations may have to consider mixed forms of military service which include volunteer, reserve and national service if they are to build the forces with the mass, and more importantly, array of different skill sets required in modern and future military forces.

Another aspect of the people subject, which is linked to shortfalls in personnel and any national effort to mobilise, is the current exquisite approach to training and education. Many nations, including my own, have small, highly professionalised military institutions which put their people through exquisite, boutique training regimes which consume a lot of time. It is likely that these approaches are not survivable in an environment where mixed service categories may be required, or where they may be a need to significantly expand the size of military forces. Shorter training regimes will be needed and these will need to be focussed on the absolute basics required for operational service.

An array of different training and simulation technologies, as well as AI and big data approaches, will probably be required to realise this. Shorter training regimes will also demand a re-examination of assessment methods and how individuals are provided feedback on their performance. There will be minimal time for reflection and continuous counselling sessions that feature in current training regimes. Mobilising people will be linked to mobilising industry; new training and simulation methods will probably be sourced from commercial entities.

At the same time, closer collaboration with universities and technical colleges will be part of the solution. There are already many examples where this is occurring effectively. The Gregg Center-Combat Training Center relationship is the most proximate example, but other countries such as Australia, Britain, Sweden and others already have well-developed military-academia relationships. But there is more to be done in this regard, and academia will be crucial to the expansion of training and education capacity in any mobilisation efforts. Indeed, this collaborative effort - exploiting the centuries of knowledge possessed by universities - can play a key role in building the intellectual armour of military leaders in a more complex, ambiguous and lethal operational environment.

An important part of training regimes in military institutions - mobilising or not - is a quality workforce. Those engaged in the training and education of military personnel are the roots and trunk if a military organisation was to be represented by a tree. They are a non-discretionary element of all professional military forces, and it is they who provide the quality, standardised training and eduction for effective military organisations.

As such, the topic of quality and quantity were topics of discussion at the conference. How does a military organisation, which is short of personnel but with many operational commitments, ensure it retains sufficient numbers of quality instructors? In short, only the most senior institutional leaders, including service chiefs, can do this. It is they who direct the priorities for personnel in any institution. Therefore, just as industry needs to build new factories in any mobilisation of defence production, military services must build their training workforce if they are to have any hope of effectively expanding the size of military forces when called to do so.

The 2022 Russian partial mobilisation provides useful insights into this issue. Having hollowed out the training cadres required for military expansion, the Russian mobilisation effort struggled for months. We should be clever enough to learn from this lesson, and already be leaning into the expansion of an instructor workforce that will be critical to any mobilisation of personnel.

Military training and education systems are being driven to transform by new technologies such as autonomous systems and AI, as well as the imperative to undertake potential mobilisations in the coming years. A focus on people will be central to these efforts. But, as this transformation rolls out, new and evolving ideas about warfighting and military affairs will also be required.

Ideas. In previous articles, I have explored the need to mobilise the intellectual capacity of the west to assist Ukraine with several compelling operational problems, as well as similar challenges in western pacific scenarios. In a recent Modern War Institute article I proposed five big problems that need to be solved in 2024.

While new war fighting ideas were not central to discussions at the conference this week, it was clear to me that there is a close linkage between developing people and developing ideas in the preparation for war under modern conditions.

An important element of this mobilisation of intellectual capacity is building an excellent understanding of current and potential adversaries. Russia, a clear and present threat to all of Europe, is a nation that western nations have studied intensively in the past several decades. The decade of reforms under Shoigu and Gerasimov has been the subject of many reports and other analyses. This study was proved to be insufficiently robust as the predictions of Russian military effectiveness in the opening days of their 2022 Ukraine invasion fell woefully short.

As such, more robust studies of our current and future adversaries is central to any development of evolved or new war fighting concepts. To this end, there have been several recent publications, such as the US Army’s guides to Chinese and Russian tactics, the British Army’s threat handbook, the DATE training database and the US Air Force China Aerospace Studies Institute.

Linked to this is the capacity to continuously collect information about our adversaries so we can evolve and adapt our understanding of them. While many military organisations possess ‘lessons’ organisations, these are often understaffed or have insufficient institutional influence. Lessons collection, distribution and conversion into new capability is a strategic priority in military affairs.

We are probably going to have to invest even more in these endeavours if we are to better understand the military capabilities, warfighting concepts and supporting ideas of nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And in better understanding these adversaries, we can build better evidence-based warfighting concepts that provide a foundation for equipment and the individual and collective development of military personnel.

Several recent developments will have an influence on new war fighting and military support ideas. The Cambrian Explosion in autonomous systems across all domains is having a profound impact, particularly on tactical operations in the ground and maritime environments. They are also beginning to have an impact in longer range strike complexes as well as on air defence environments. More importantly, as the number of these systems increases, they challenge us to rethink old ideas about tactics and campaigning.

Perhaps most germane to the Gregg Center - Combat Training Center event, this technology will change the organisation of military institutions and shift the ratio of humans and autonomous systems across the deep, close and rear elements of military affairs. As this ratio of humans to autonomous, quasi-intelligent machines shifts, so too must training and education regimes evolve. Given military training and education systems are founded on humans using machines, and the new environment is one where humans partner with machines, this will necessitate a major change in the culture of military organisations, particularly their training establishments.

The investment in new warfighting ideas, underpinned by understanding the enemy, evolved cultures and better lessons processes, will be the focus of individual nations. But such efforts are rarely most effective if done this way. We will also need to engage in collective efforts as well.

International collaboration between military institutions and civilian think tanks is a vastly more effective approach. And while this happens to a degree at the moment, we are going to have to step up this collaboration. Whether this is through NATO, AUKUS or even new mechanisms, it is something that is needed now.

People, Ideas and Industry - Foundations of Mobilisation

Mobilisation is a loaded term, particularly for Western politicians who must balance diplomatic relationship, domestic populations more focussed on prosperity and inflation control than national security, as well as achieving a sustainable approach to providing social services.

Unfortunately, these same politicians have been mugged by reality over the past few years. Russia, which is an existential threat to Ukraine and a major threat to the rest of Europe, is driving different thinking in European capitals. And despite the cognitive dissonance on display by some, such as Olaf Schultz reticence to provide long range missiles to Ukraine, there is an evolution of thinking occurring in the mobilisation of national defence capacity.

Some of this is also taking place in the Indo-Pacific where countries like Japan have decided to double their percentage of GDP spent on defence and procure capabilities such as a counter-strike force. But other nations, like my own, are busily issuing a blizzard of strategic documents without any substantive increase in funding or force size.

Therefore, the discussions this week in eastern Canada, which often featured conversations about significant shortfalls in personnel, funding and equipment by the Canadian military were representative of a much wider issue in western military organisations. While we are waking up to the massive national security challenges posed by Russia and China, we are yet to make the intellectual shift and take the political steps needed to build the kinds of deterrent capabilities to ensure that Ukraine is the end of authoritarian predatory behaviour and not the beginning.

The combined wealth of Europe, North America and like minded nations in the Indo-Pacific massively outstrips that of the big, brutish authoritarian regimes in Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow. We just need to dedicate a slightly larger proportion of that wealth now to mobilise our people, industry and ideas so we might not have to commit more of it in the future because we failed to invest in deterring a larger war.