A Hypothetical American Invasion and the Question of Canada's Supplementary Reserve
🇨🇦 🇺🇸 | Commentary
According to a CBC News report, the Carney government will soon review proposals from the Department of National Defence as to whether and how Canada should pursue a major expansion of the country’s military reserves to a target strength of 100,000 primary reservists and, more ambitiously and controversially, to establish a lightly trained and equipped supplementary reserve of 300,000. The latest reports follow a series of reports over the past year or so concerning what the Department of National Defence had in mind for the country. This notably included a proposal, which has since reportedly been abandoned following controversy, to target Canada’s federal public servants for recruitment into the Supplementary Reserve.
It is productive to offer a reminder of what this particular proposal reportedly entailed:
“The Supplementary or other Reserve should accommodate skilled and unskilled contributors while still differentiating those with previous CAF service from new members,” Carignan and Beck wrote in a nine-page, unclassified document obtained by the Citizen. “It should initially prioritize volunteer public servants at the federal and provincial/territorial level. The entry criteria for the Supplementary or other Reserve should be less restrictive than the Reserve Force for age limits as well as physical and fitness requirements.” [Emphasis added]
I have previously argued that there may be more to the notion of tapping into the labour pool composed of federal public servants than meets the eye.
In this post, I will explain why a hypothetical American invasion, which the Department of National Defence has been reportedly giving some thought to—a major headline in itself—is perhaps the only scenario in which there is a case for essentially sabotaging the administrative capacity of Canada’s federal government so as to arm more Canadians, not least in and around the Ottawa metropolitan area.
The Inherent Opportunity Costs of Revervist Mobilization
An expansion of military reserves can be tempting for a variety of reasons. If nothing else, a greater reliance on part-time military personnel means significantly lower military spending than would otherwise be the case if Canada were to only recruit additional full-time military personnel, not least in a context in which more than 30% of Canada’s annual military expenditures are allocated toward personnel expenses. An expansion of Canada’s military reserves also means that part-time military personnel will, at least in part, continue to contribute to the civil economy, unlike their full-time counterparts, who are, in effect, economically unproductive. In principle, an expansion of military reserves has many benefits, although there are inherent costs and trade-offs in terms of readiness, as well as the broader issue of the level of training and competency that can be attained and sustained over x years. Leaving aside a federal response to a natural disaster, for which Canada does not require uniformed part-time military personnel, let alone armed and unfiformed part-time military personnel, a military reserve that is not ready for any kind of combat-oriented deployment—without a dramatically elevated and, all things considered, politically unacceptable risk of combat losses—within several weeks or months may as well not exist, with the exception of one specific scenario: a hypothetical American invasion of Canada.
It is important to note that there are a series of approaches to non-full-time military reserves. This post—and public debate within Canada more generally—focuses on part-time all-volunteer military personnel and associated units in a manner largely pioneered by the United States, which is best understood in the context of the U.S. Army National Guard and the U.S. Air National Guard. There are, of course, other conceptions of military reserves, including the more or less universal notion of mobilizing ex-military personnel in wartime, as well as the notion of mobilizing discharged cohorts of conscripts where conscription still takes place.
The Canadian Armed Forces are composed of professional all-volunteer full-time Regular Force personnel as well as all-volunteer part-time Reserve Force personnel. There is no serious discussion about introducing (military) conscription or some kind of national service, and the proposed Supplementary Reserve force of 300,000 is expected to be nothing other than an all-volunteer part-time military force, one that will, in all likelihood, follow the American national guard model of “a weekend a month, two weeks a year” part-time military service (excluding initial training).
Discussions of military reserves often focus on what part-time reservist military personnel can offer a country, and why the approach may be preferable to an expansion of the full-time regular force (these are not, of course, mutually exclusive approaches). As with most things in life, there are, however, major trade-offs, and there exists a tendency to overlook how military reserves are fundamentally subtractive: when mobilized, the country loses something. To explain this dynamic, it is productive to offer a recent vignette from the United States.
Several years ago, schoolteachers in California went on strike. In response, the governor of California mobilized the California National Guard to help keep schools open. This resulted in a part-time enlisted national guard member who happened to work a day job as a Ph.D.-wielding physicist for one of the United States Department of Energy’s national laboratories temporarily working as a schoolteacher while dressed in a camouflage uniform. The strike affecting public schools was brief, and the physicist in question may not have missed much important work. Even so, the fact that such a difficult-to-substitute and highly skilled person working for the American federal government volunteered to join the national guard as a part-time reservist—an inherently personal choice—raised a complex and difficult-to-answer question for any democracy: was this a sensible allocation of the country’s human resources? In the event of a major war, such as a war with Russia, or a likely protracted war with China, did the United States really want to have volunteer reservists enlist as privates and serve in, for example, the infantry, even if they are neurosurgeons, food safety inspectors, air traffic controllers, or schoolteachers?
I draw attention to this vignette because it highlights something important about military reservists: unlike their full-time counterparts, which is to say the personnel who constitute the Canadian Armed Forces’ regulars, reservists are doing something on a typical workday, and often something economically productive at that. Reservists may be hairdressers, school teachers, bus drivers, medical doctors, musicians, electricians, truck drivers, carpenters, and so forth. When called to duty, whether in time of war or in response to a natural disaster, mobilized reservists naturally cannot do what they otherwise do on a typical workday, and Canadian society and Canada’s economy will feel their temporary absence. In this particular sense, military reserves are fundamentally subtractive. If, for example, a country has a reserve military field hospital of company or battalion size, it will in all likelihood be staffed by persons who work as civilian healthcare providers in peacetime. When mobilized to serve in uniform, the Canadian Armed Forces gains another field hospital at the expense of the rest of the country: healthcare systems across Canada will have to operate at a degraded capacity for as long as said reservist healthcare providers are mobilized.
Why Would Canada Mobilize Federal Public Servants For Military Service?
The above can be largely distilled into an argument that Ottawa would do well to very carefully consider who it recruits into a military reserve and whether the country benefits from having one additional person in uniform doing x at the cost of losing one civilian doing y, at least for the duration of mobilization—and perhaps forever, should the mobilized reservist in question be killed or injured—this entire debate only exists because Ottawa is concerned about a major war. All things considered, I am more understanding of the case for mobilizing, say, Canadians who work as medical doctors and school teachers that volunteer to join the Supplementary Reserve—in whatever capacity, including infantry—than I am of mobilizing federal public servants in a war that is significant enough for the mobilization of the proposed 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve to be given much consideration given the economic damage and disruption that the mobilization of so many Canadians in uniform will inherently entail.
The Covid-19 pandemic serves as an instructive recent case in which Canada’s federal government, alongside its provincial and sub-provincial counterparts, had to, in effect, mobilize for an “all hands on deck” type of emergency, notwithstanding the work-from-home provisions. Simply stated, a national emergency, whether a pandemic or a war, is not the time to deprive the machinery of government of the public servants who run it as well as it runs on any given day. A major war in which Canada’s federal government will even consider mobilizing up to 400,000 reservists—some 1% of Canada’s total population and some 1.4% of Canadians aged 18-64—will, by definition, be a very major crisis for the country, one in which the entire federal public service will have to rise to the challenge in an “all hands on deck” type of emergency.
While the Department of National Defence has backtracked on the notion of targeting federal public servants as a source of recruits for a 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve, it is important to consider that there is one very specific scenario in which it actually behooves Canada’s federal government to heavily draw upon the federal public service as a source of recruits for the Supplementary Reserve: a hypothetical American invasion of Canada. This is, in effect, the only plausible scenario in which there is a case for essentially self-sabotaging the administrative capacity of Canada’s federal government so as to bolster the country’s military capabilities. Canada may well require an expanded 100,000-strong Primary Reserve as well as a 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve to meet its NATO commitments, but the country will need its federal administrative apparatus to be working at “110%” in a major war, and simply cannot afford to, in effect, place experienced bureaucrats well-versed in running the machinery of state in uniform—supplying and sustaining up to 400,000 mobilized reservists, who will collectively outnumber the entire federal public service, will be herculean administrative undertaking.
While there are strong arguments against using federal public servants as a pool of labour for the proposed 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve, it nevertheless worth noting that some 40% of Canada’s federal public servants are based in the Ottawa area. That is to say, some 140,000 Canadians of working age, and some 9% of the total population of the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area (and an even larger percentage of the adult population, and of the adult population aged 18-64, in said metropolitan area). By virtue of geography, most Canadians—and most of the Canadian Armed Forces’ regular and primary reserve units and personnel—are nowhere near Ottawa—the nation’s capital and a likely high-priority target for the United States in an unlikely hypothetical invasion scenario—on any given day. If Canadians in the supplementary reserve are going to contribute to the defence of the nation’s capital, they will have to be in and around the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area at the start of a crisis or war.
By virtue of geography, Canada will also have little time to respond to a hypothetical American invasion. A distance of less than 75 kilometers separates Parliament Hill in Ottawa from American territory. For context, that is some sixteen minutes of flight time by helicopter from the United States (CFB Petawawa is, meanwhile, some 135 kilometers from Parliament Hill). Fort Drum, New York, which is home to the United States Army’s active duty/regular force 10th Mountain Division—some 15,000 military personnel, including two permanently assigned transport helicopter battalions, is located some 155 kilometers from Parliament Hill. In the very unlikely event that the proverbial hammer falls, it will likely fall very fast and very hard in the Ottawa area. Beyond whatever grouping of regular force and primary reserve personnel that Canada can rapidly mobilize in and around Ottawa, any Canadians, including everyday citizens not part of a lightly trained and equipped Supplementary Reserve taking up arms in the defence of the country and the nation’s capital, will have to be in and around the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area at the start of a crisis or war.
As explained, mobilizing federal public servants who volunteered to join the federal public service, some 40% of whom are based in the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area, amounts to self-sabotaging the administrative capacities of the federal government precisely when it is most needed during a major crisis or war. If, however, Canada faces the prospect of an American invasion, one that will almost certainly include rapid American movements toward Ottawa in this still unlikely scenario, Canada will face an existential struggle in which the nation’s survival as a sovereign and independent country is at stake, an existential struggle that justifies self-sabotaging the administrative capacities of the federal government as a necessary sacrifice. Canada will need additional military forces in and around the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area to deter American military action by denying Trump—and perhaps future American presidents—a low-cost and low-risk fait accompli type of scenario. Most Canadians do not live anywhere near Ottawa. Most regular force Canadian military personnel are not garrisoned anywhere near Ottawa. Around 15% of the adult population aged 18-64 in the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area works for the federal government. Federal public servants who reside in the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area are the right people to recruit for a proposed 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve if a hypothetical American invasion is the scenario motivating this proposed policy.
I am mindful that Ottawa’s motivations in expanding the country’s military capabilities are not solely motivated by concerns about the United States under Trump 2.0. I am mindful that the Canadian Armed Forces have their own institutional interests, and that civil-military relations in Canada’s constitutional order mean that it will ultimately be the incumbent prime minister and cabinet who will decide such matters, whether through acts of commission or omission. I am also mindful that there is a future for Canada-United States relations beyond the life of the mere mortal Donald John Trump, and that a hypothetical American invasion of Canada is just that—a hypothetical scenario—and a thankfully still very unlikely one at that. Even so, Canada has shifted from a very long era in which there was essentially a zero percent probability of American military action against Canada to a non-zero percent probability of American military action against Canada. Reporting suggests that Ottawa is giving this grave scenario, however unlikely, some thought at a time when the country is working on enhancing its military capabilities for reasons unrelated to Trump and the United States. Be that as it may, the very fact that Canadian federal public servants were even being considered as a recruiting pool for a proposed 300,000-strong Supplementary Reserve—at the cost of self-sabotaging Canada’s federal administrative capacity at times of mobilization—should alarm Canadians, given how there is only one scenario in which there is a case for essentially sabotaging the administrative capacity of Canada’s federal government so as to arm more Canadians, not least in an around the Ottawa metropolitan area: a hypothetical American invasion of Canada.