Angry in the Great White North

Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach. Another piece of wisdom goes like this: "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."

Logistics for the Canadian forces are going to be a problem:

The president of the Union of National Defence Employees said Monday that the chief of defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, told him during recent talks that civilian support personnel on bases across the country could be called upon for extended overseas deployments.

"In turn, I put the chief of defence staff on notice that these assignments will in no case be mandatory," said John MacLennan, in a speech to union members in Halifax.

The Canadian forces depends on this union for a great number of critical functions:

The GLT [General Labour and Trades] employees are involved in many types of maintenance work and various skilled trades, such as electricity and carpentry. The group also includes machine drivers and operators, mechanics and labourers.

As for John MacLennan, his biography indicates he was never actually in the military, unless you count militant unionism:

John's involvement with the Union of National Defence Employees began in the fall of 1983. He started at the grassroots of the organization as a shop steward, eventually progressing to several positions on the National Executive, including Regional Vice-President and Executive Vice-President. Brother MacLennan was elected National President at the 1999 Triennial Convention in Victoria, BC, and acclaimed at the 2002 Triennial Convention in Montreal.

In his capacity as a national officer, he was also the union's liaison with the Department on two major programs: Operation Excelerate and Alternate Service Delivery. As the representative for the UNDE membership, he ensured they were major stakeholders and were not omitted from an equal and fair process.

Recognizing that National Defence is a 'most affected' department, John has practised a pro-active approach to secure continued employment for his members.

So what if the Department of National Defence looks to have soldiers fill in the positions? Not a popular move. Check out Resolution 186 from Triennial Convention taking place in Halifax as I write this (August 8 - 12):

WHEREAS the employer hires military reservists simply to fill vacant positions;
WHEREAS this hiring method is a form of sub-contracting;
WHEREAS this endangers the future of the UNDE;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT UNDE establish an action plan so that the Department does not abuse this method of hiring at the expense of our determinate employees;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT UNDE denounces all abuse in the hiring of military reservists.

None of this is to say that civilians workers won't go to Afghanistan, but it does mean that they'll go only if they want to, and will demand to leave as soon as they want to.

How can the Canadian government make any kind of rational plan for what the military will achieve if it can't be certain how long there will be cooks and mechanics and other logistical specialists?

What's worse is the insubordination:

Also during his speech, MacLennan also tore a strip off Hillier, accusing the country's top soldier of trying to "Americanize our Canadian military" by making it more aggressive and shifting the focus away from the country's traditional role as a peacekeeper.

"But are we American? No, we're Canadian and we do things the Canadian way."

Apparently that means that military orders will be reviewed and ratified by the union membership, but only after the union executive has studied the orders to ensure they do not contravene any collective agreement or union by-law.

And woe to any private who happens to know his way around a grill from summers working at his parents' diner who might think to step in and whip up some grub for the boys. The union doesn't like scabs (see resolutions 119, 120, and 121).

Modern wars are won by the side still standing. They are wars of attrition, where each side trades losses, and the side who runs out of resources first has to toss in the towel (assuming they haven't run out of those too). The Americans win because they invest in technology and training the minimizes their losses, maximizes the enemy's losses, and delivers massive amounts of materiel in theatre to keep their side supplied. The only thing the Americans can actually run out of is political will, which explains why America's enemies attack civilians in an attempt to use terror to sap that will.

Canada is short on all those. Political will is limited and weak. Technology is outdated and training is crippled by lack of funding. Materiel is in short supply, or worse, has to be borrowed from allies. And now this: those entrusted to keep those supplies flowing are threatening to turn off that flow unless their concerns, their non-military union concerns and grievances, are addressed.

Canadian soldiers can continue to run around Texas practicing urban combat. Now if only there was somewhere they could go to practice meeting the challenges of maintaining logistical support in a threatening environment on the other side of the world.

I mean, besides Kandahar.