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What the Admiral said: The Business of the Royal Canadian Navy
Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, Commander, Royal Canadian Navy, spoke of the enduring relationship
between seapower and how the world works as a political, economic and legal system, in his address
to the 2011 Supply Chain and Logistics Association Conference.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be here today to share with you the navy’s story.
The business of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic era is very much the business of Canada’s navy today. This image speaks to the enduring relationship between seapower and how the world works as a political, economic and legal system. That relationship is at the heart of my message to you today.
I wish to stress from the start that yours is an exceptionally important audience to Canada’s navy. I intend to demonstrate to you today that the work of your navy is very closely linked to the essential work of your industry: the intricate, massively complex and delicately-timed choreography of goods from centres of production all over the world to centres of consumption here in Canada, and the sophisticated integrated logistics systems that make it all possible. What I propose to show you today is how the work of the navy connects to your industry, not in some vague or indirect manner, but rather in an essential – indeed existential – way.
I am also here today because those who wear a naval uniform are but today’s custodians of a cherished national institution that this year began its second century of service to this country – a naval institution that in this great democracy belongs to all Canadians – to you.
Ultimately, the tools our men and women employ for their always difficult and often dangerous work – the ships, aircraft and submarines of our fleet at sea – come from the wealth industries such as yours generate. I believe that this places upon us an obligation to ensure that you understand the essential functions that we fulfill on your behalf.
I am here to tell you the story of your navy: of our purpose (why we exist), our platforms (or our ships and submarines) and our people (who are the heart of the service). But I really want to do more than that. I want to deputize you – all of you – so that each of you can tell this story to other Canadians yourselves.
A Tale of Two Photographs
There is no doubt, particularly as a result of the knowledge that Canadians have gained of the men and women we have deployed to Afghanistan now over many years – knowledge of their skill, determination, sense of purpose and compassion in executing a complex and dangerous mission and wanting to make the world a better place, at a cost we know only too well from every ceremony at Trenton to receive home our fallen, that Canadians today overwhelmingly admire their military and understand much about what it can do.
But most Canadians have neither an understanding of their nation’s relationship with the sea nor a sense of how the work of their navy relates directly to their daily lives. There are plenty of good reasons for this. People more naturally identify with their geography than their oceanography. Much of Canada’s history has been viewed through the lens of surmounting the natural challenges of a beautiful, rugged and massive territory and an unforgiving northern climate.
Our geography also dominates in other ways. For example, Canadians tend understandably to think of their prosperity in terms of Canada’s access to the world’s richest economy – the United States – and to the networks of bridges, roads and rail that move goods within North America. But as this audience knows only too well, North America’s uniquely integrated economy is but part of a much larger globalized economy that sustains continental trade much like the hidden part of an iceberg, a global economy with which Canadians interact with every purchase they make, whether at a big box store, at the neighbourhood grocery or the local gas station.
But whatever the reasons, many Canadians find it hard to visualize what life is like for the professional sailor and understand only partially what navies do and why.
Let me try to bring these issues, and the challenges they present, to life by recounting for you what I like to refer to as a tale of two photographs.
Consider this first photo. A caring soldier takes time from her patrol to speak to a girl holding a young child. In the background the remainder of her combat team is clearly evident – all highly vigilant and professional.
Is there anyone in this country who wouldn’t know what that soldier was doing or why it needed the likes of him or her in that far-distant place of need, or whose heart would not swell with pride in the fact that a maple leaf was on their shoulders? Who wouldn’t know immediately what an army can be used for, and how well that army is today being used?
Now look at this second photo, of a sleek warship at sea with little else than the horizon as her constant companion. What Canadian – other than someone like me who thinks the image of a ship underway with a bone in her teeth is pretty sexy – what ordinary citizen from the Greater Toronto Area would understand from that photo why this country has and needs a navy, and what that navy does?
The difference between the perceptions these two images evoke is at the heart of what is meant by maritime blindness – a lack of understanding of Canada’s deep and comprehensive relationship with the sea, and thus insufficient interest in how critically it supports not only our prosperity but our very way of life. Too many, leading busy lives of their own, don’t know why they even need to care.
The events of last year’s naval centennial afforded sailors like me an opportunity to help address that. This talk to you, and I hope your talk to others, is part of that continuing effort.
So let’s return to our warship. Imagine changing our perspective and zooming back to include a merchantman under close escort, one that was chartered by the United Nations to bring relief supplies to East Africa.
In the fall of 2008, HMCS Ville de Québec was operating in the Mediterranean with NATO, when a letter arrived on the Prime Minister’s desk from the United Nations’ World Food Program.
Ship’s owners and masters were refusing to make deliveries because the approaches to Somalia had become too dangerous for their lucrative cargoes and yet the World Food Program was counting on supply by sea to meet a rapidly increasing demand.
Canada’s navy, forward deployed, provided options to the Prime Minister. So although tasked to a NATO mission, Ville de Québec was reassigned and proceeded at speed via the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. No reassignment of personnel occurred; no additional stores or equipment were embarked. There was no delay to prepare for a fundamentally new mission. Within days she was on station.
On escorting the first shipment into Mogadishu, the Commanding Officer observed firefights underway in the distance. He didn’t need to read the latest intelligence files to understand the threat of shore-launched missiles, but the frigate he commanded was designed to defend itself against such a threat. Ville de Québec was ready for operations in a tough neighbourhood.
Over a two month period, more than 150,000 tons of food supplies were successfully delivered into Somalia: enough to feed over a million people. Most of the ship’s company considered it to be the most satisfying mission of their careers – using skills and tools that had been honed for combat, placed in service to humanity.
The navy’s been back to that region twice since Ville de Québec deployed there, most recently with Winnipeg in 2009 and then Fredericton last year. But why has Canada been in that part of the world since 1991, having deployed task groups or individual frigates nearly three dozen times since the First Gulf War?
Let me answer that question by taking you in an entirely different direction – towards Canada’s High North.
A Parable for Change
Just as all lines of longitude meet at the North Pole, many of the drivers and trends shaping our 21st century also converge in the Arctic. In fact, we are likely to see more change in the coming three decades in our high North than has occurred since Europeans first arrived in Greenland.
Climate change will open up the high North as a commercially viable sea-route between Europe and Asia for the first time in recorded history, much sooner than many thought possible even a few years ago. In all likelihood, the northern sea route will emerge across the Arctic Basin well before the fabled Northwest Passage.
Such are the advantages of this long-sought northern passage that shipping patterns world-wide are likely to be altered significantly. The Suez and Panama Canals, as well as major ports as far away as the equator, will all see significant changes and potential losses of revenue as a result.
Indeed, the region is being propelled towards the center of global affairs, as the five Arctic coastal states – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States – establish their claims to the vast energy and mineral reserves that have already been discovered, or are believed to lie, in the Arctic Basin and its periphery.
Climate change and improvements in extraction technologies are likely to make these resources commercially exploitable perhaps decades sooner than was thought possible, again only a few years ago, bringing with them a host of economic opportunities, but also accelerating social change and risks to the delicate Arctic environment from unprecedented levels of human activity.
It is this future for which the Canadian Forces is preparing itself, and, as I will touch upon a little later, we will hasten the delivery of the maritime, enabling joint and other CF capabilities that will safeguard our northern sovereignty and security, as well as to underwrite the Government’s peaceful development of our high North.
As a recent maritime boundary delineation agreement between Russia and Norway attests, we have every confidence that oceanic competition in the Arctic will be moderated by cooperation and disputes reconciled by law. However, there are many other parts of the world where such competition will yield to confrontation and perhaps eventually to conflict.
Ocean Politics are Intensifying
Regardless of the rapidity with which these circumstances occur, or their frequency, what is beyond doubt is that ocean politics will make for a global maritime order of unprecedented strategic complexity, with a latent but rising potential of conflict among states over oceanic resources and assured access to strategic materials by sea.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Indo-Pacific region, where ocean politics already occupy centre-stage. In the last year alone, for example, we have witnessed the unprovoked attack and sinking of a patrol corvette off the Korean peninsula, which in any other part of the world would have been regarded as an act of war.
We also witnessed the world’s 2nd and 3rd largest economies become embroiled in a dispute over a small group of islands in the East China sea, in which Japan was forced to acquiesce to China’s demands when the latter reportedly threatened sharp reductions in the export of rare earth oxides to the former – in effect using its globally dominant position in the production of rare earth metals and oxides to hold at risk entire sectors of the Japanese economy.
China – fastest growing and among the most important of this century’s emerging maritime powers – recently asserted that its principal vulnerabilities and threats come not from the land but from the sea.
This was not only a remarkable statement from a state that has for millennia focussed on protecting its territories from threats originating inland. I would contend that it was also inevitable, as China has come to acknowledge an enduring reality about the way the world works – a reality eloquently expressed some 500 years ago by the Portuguese traveler Tomé Pires in the powerful language that was characteristic of the early 16th century when he said: “Whoever is Lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice.” In today’s globalized era, this applies as much to Singapore or Vancouver, Mumbai or Halifax, as it once did to the trading empire of the Venetians.
Maritime Commerce and the Global System
Many Canadians conceive of the world’s oceans as vast empty spaces, as portrayed in this slide, which nonetheless also demonstrates a crucial strategic fact: that over 80 percent of humanity lives within just 200 kilometres of an ocean coastline. Most of these people live in states where the effects of massive change in all its dimensions –social, demographic, political, technological and climatological – will play out in the coming decades, as we’re witnessing today in the Arab world.
But turn your attention again to those seemingly empty spaces at sea…and look at them again through my eyes – the eyes of a professional mariner. Today, over 90 percent of all global commerce travels by sea, including two-thirds of the world’s oil. Shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy.
Ours is not the first era of globalization, but what makes today’s era unique is the extent to which the information revolution has allowed modern firms to leverage economies of scale and economic competitive advantage on a global scale. Thanks to the skills you employ daily and the tools at your disposal, your firms are able to operate on razor-thin margins of inventory, thanks to a transportation revolution that was sparked by the invention of the multi-modal container, but also because you have unprecedented visibility into your global supply chains and integrated logistics systems.
You use instantaneous global communications systems to transmit production orders, literally from the cash register to the factory floor, as well as to conduct all associated transactions with your suppliers. These orders pass between the continents along transoceanic seabed cables that serve as the Internet’s principal data highways. Moreover, you are able to keep track of goods in transit, down to the level of individual container, thanks to satellites. Finally you are able to organize precisely choreographed transfers of goods between your maritime, rail, air and road networks to ensure an unprecedented flow of goods through their manufacturing and distribution systems.
And it all works because the oceans are free for all to lawfully use – a basic fact that is enshrined in international law – the same treaty that has endowed Canada with a vast ocean estate in three of the world’s great oceans: two, to the east and west, that have played a crucial role in our history; and the third, to the north, that will increasingly and profoundly shape our future.
The world’s oceans once isolated Canadians from far away events. Today, they connect us through a vast and intricate web of relationships – social, political, legal, economic and financial – that have made us neighbours with all the world’s peoples.
But not just neighbours. Canada is one of the world’s most globalized countries by virtually any measure. Our economy has not only merged seamlessly into the global economy, but more pervasively, Canadian society itself has been transformed as a result of unprecedented flows of wealth, goods, services, ideas, peoples and cultures.
In short, our prosperity and security is thoroughly enmeshed in a global system that transcends all national boundaries: a system that depends to varying degrees on regulated air, space and cyber commons, but a system that would not function at all without a regulated ocean commons.
In fact, I would contend that a regulated ocean commons is among the most essential public goods in this 21st century: where the oceans are open for all to use freely and lawfully; where the bounty of the seas is safeguarded and exploited in a sustainable manner; where the oceans themselves are protected from pollution; where waters at home and abroad are protected against the increasingly troubling range of illegal and criminal activities that are being drawn seawards; and where the global system itself is defended against those who would threaten the pillars upon which good order at sea depends.
Defending that rules-based global system is not a matter of choice for Canada. Defending that system is essential to your industry and the wealth you create. Defending that system is central to the values and norms Canadians believe in. Defending that system is essential to our very way of life.
Purpose
Ladies and gentleman, the navy defends Canada by defending the global system at home and abroad, both at sea and from the sea. That is our essential purpose, our unique contribution to Canada’s prosperity, security and national interests.
I expect you’ve heard the expression of “home” and “away” games as a sports metaphor for our business. While it describes land operations, it doesn’t really apply to the maritime environment.
For any navy there is but one game, one interconnected surface covering 70 percent of the globe. Your navy operates simultaneously on offence and defence:
- By acting as force for good in the national interest, by relieving distress and rendering assistance following natural disasters;
- By making the oceans safe for maritime commerce and other lawful purposes, both at home and abroad;
- By contributing to international security, by leading international operations, building trust and confidence among nations, assisting others to build their own capacities for maritime security, preventing conflict where we can, and containing its effects, much as we’re doing today with HMCS Charlottetown off Libya, but always prepared to prevail in combat as the nation’s last resort, in collaboration with our partners and allies;
- And, finally, by remaining ever watchful and vigilant in our home waters, where we must – as a sovereign nation – have the capacity to act alone in our three ocean approaches to respond to the kinds of threats and challenges that 9/11 brusquely reminded us are possible in this globalized era.
Platforms
Canada has, and will continue to require, a navy that can deploy globally, control events at sea and influence events ashore. But the tools of our craft are ships, aircraft and submarines, so let me tell you a little of what is happening to move this fleet into the future.
Beginning with our Victoria class submarines. We have four. Corner Brook is operational in the Pacific, having just completed a transit from Halifax, during which she conducted the full range of missions we expect of these naval “special forces” as depicted on this slide – and demonstrated that the class is among the world’s most capable conventional submarines.
Victoria on the west coast will be operational in 2012, when she will prove the heavyweight torpedo firing capability for the class, and Windsor will follow shortly thereafter on the east coast.
Meanwhile, Chicoutimi has been delivered to a civilian yard on the west coast, beginning an important strategic transfer to industry of the knowledge and work related to the deep maintenance of our submarines.
Soon the Victoria class will achieve full operational capability – a capability unlike anything else in the Canadian Forces arsenal for at least two decades to come: a strategic “game-changer” that changes everything in any theatre of operations simply by being there, or believed by others to be there.
Work to deliver the Government’s Canada First Defence Strategy is also well underway. The first frigate, Halifax, has already been removed from operational assignment in the Atlantic Fleet and is undergoing her mid-life modernization. She will be followed next month by Calgary, the first frigate from our Pacific fleet.
Three other Canada First projects – the Joint Support Ship, the Arctic Offshore Patrol ship and the Canadian Surface Combatant – are all progressing steadily, as part of the roadmap laid out in the Canada First Defence Strategy.
That roadmap is crucial to the navy, because the next class of warships we build in Canada are likely to still be in service in 2050. In fact, building a navy is a series of fifty-year decisions, any one of which is among the most substantial a government will ever make, not only for the size of the investment involved, but also because it will determine for decades to come the options future Prime Ministers will have at their disposal to respond to events.
But no plan, no matter how good, can be implemented without the necessary machinery of national policy, industrial infrastructure and ‘know-how’ in the public and private sectors.
For this reason, I can’t stress enough the importance of the Government’s National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Shipbuilding is not just about the cutting of steel. It is one of the largest and most complex public-private enterprises in Canada, which delivers among the most complex machines on the planet to the navy. Doing so on time and on budget is not just a science. It’s an art. And we’re not only talking about an investment in the navy. We’re talking about an investment in the nation itself.
But getting from that effective but aging fleet we operate today to that highly capable fleet of tomorrow in an increasingly congested and complex maritime operating environment is going to require hard work. Simply put, while individual ships or submarines must periodically enter refit to conduct the deep maintenance that is needed to keep them in the order of battle, a navy cannot do so.
The challenge we face in the next few years is to refit the navy by implementing the Canada First Defence Strategy – among the most comprehensive programs of naval modernization and renewal ever in our history – while remaining in the order of battle to defend Canada at home and abroad, both at sea and from the sea.
People
Now, no review of your navy would be complete without mention of our people. And I can’t speak about people without bragging about them a little bit. As trite as it may sound, our sailors prove every day that they are our most priceless asset.
As mariners, they perfect their craft in the most daunting waters to be found anywhere on earth – Canada’s three oceans.
As warfighting professionals, they are second to none, their knowledge and competence is sought after in leadership of international operations, most recently of the Combined Task Force 150, in which Canada led a multinational counter-terrorism mission in the Indian Ocean.
As ambassadors, they remind the world of what Canada stands for, not in words but in deeds. As citizen-volunteers they accept prolonged absence from loved ones in arduous duty because they believe that they are making a difference.
They understand that they belong to something that’s bigger than anyone of us – a national institution that brings citizens together from every walk of life and every part of Canada, and that connects them together in a higher purpose of commitment: to shipmates, to Service, to nation and to the values that we not only espouse but for which we stand, for which we are prepared to risk our life and limb, and for which we are prepared to fight.
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
The future of the navy is both bright and meaningful. Even though we find ourselves under strength today, a vigorous effort to restore the navy’s numbers is well underway, whose success and momentum will be maintained until our strength is fully restored. Decisions to replace elements of an aging fleet, deferred for many years, are now made. And we have started, as a whole-of-government effort, to advance the shipbuilding program that this country has long needed.
We have our eyes firmly set on the future, but last year’s navy centennial also afforded us the opportunity to check astern from whence we came.
And when I look back at our recently completed first century of naval service, what truly stands out for me is how closely the story of your navy parallels the story of the nation itself.
Certainly, the sovereign decision to establish a national naval service was a defining moment for the still young dominion of Canada – when it decided to create an independent capacity to see to its own maritime defence, however modest it was initially, but clearly aspiring to contribute beyond its shores.
Both country and navy came of age in the crucible of war. It is said that the young nation first gained a true sense of its own capacity, character and identity as a result of its national sacrifice and victory achieved at Vimy Ridge during the Great War.
Her navy certainly acquired that same sense of capacity, essential purpose and identity in the long struggle of the Battle of the Atlantic, against a determined adversary, at the moment of Canada’s most urgent peril.
Of course, the navy was standing watch long before the Second World War, and has ever since been, as our motto proudly claims, “ready, aye ready”:
- Patrolling the coasts of Korea during the first conflict fought under the banner of the United Nations;
- Maintaining a ceaseless vigil at sea throughout the course of a long Cold War;
- To the present day, where the navy maintains an even more vigilant watch over our own waters and upon the world’s oceans stands ready to respond to aggression in all its forms, from piracy to terrorism;
- While also acting as a force for good around the world, as was so recently the case in responding to the terrible earthquake in Haiti.
This is a story of service, of a long and ceaseless watch in which we who wear “Canada” on our uniforms take great pride, because we know that Canada’s place in the world was secured in part through the contributions and sacrifices of sailors and maritime aviators who preceded us, just as the men and women who serve at sea today strive to maintain that position at home and abroad.
Ladies and gentlemen, the story of your navy’s second century has begun. I can’t pretend to foresee all the challenges that await us in the decades to come. But then neither could Sir Wilfrid Laurier looking forward from 1910, when, as Prime Minister of Canada, he guided the Naval Service Act towards Royal Assent.
But he held an abiding faith in what Canada stood for, even then, and a vision of the country as a leading member of the community of nations – a vision that our navy helped to secure in peace and war, and that we continue to sustain today.
That alone gives me great confidence for this new second century, because Laurier’s vision remains undiminished: that Canadians will continue to strive to make a difference, knowing that the world will not be as we wish but rather as we are prepared to help make it.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. If you wish, I am prepared to take your questions.
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