No umbrella for the rain: Canadian implications following the global revolution in reconnaissance–strike technologies

On 8 January 2020, Iran launched ballistic missile attacks at American military bases in Iraq in retaliation for the targeted killing via drone strike of Major General Qasem Soleimani five days earlier. Eleven missiles hit the Al-Asad airbase, inflicting light damage and minor injuries. An additional missile hit the Erbil International Airport, since 2014 the hub for 200 Canadian soldiers involved in Canada’s counter–Islamic State of Iraq and Syria mission in Iraq. Canada's military was thus caught in the blast radius of a struggle between an established global hegemon and an aspiring regional power. Thankfully, the Qiam-2 short-range ballistic missile failed to explode and caused no reported injuries. ¹ In response, the Canadian military announced temporary troop redeployments until the security situation stabilized. It appears that Ottawa assumed the threat posed to Canadian expeditionary operations would be resolved along with the political tensions. Such an assumption is unwise. Rather than interpreting the experience as an isolated incident, this event should serve as a dire warning to the Government of Canada about the proliferation of advanced military technologies around the world and the rapid ascension of peer-powers that threaten the security of Canada’s expeditionary forces.

The line drawn directly from a drone strike to a ballistic missile attack underscores an idea only beginning to emerge in Canadian military thinking: that the revolution in military affairs (RMA) that began in earnest in 1991 with Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War did not apply only to Western states. ² While the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) were consumed by a decade of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, potential adversaries were undergoing their own military revolutions, with the benefit of observing exactly how Western militaries intended to fight future battles. Starting from a unique second-turn advantage, these adversaries began an effort to counter and copy the tenets and technologies of the West. Although the Western RMA included elements of both weapons and information technology, it is the combination of precision guided weapons and surveillance systems that have begun to proliferate widely and rapidly around the world. This paper will demonstrate that competitor reactions to the RMA have liberalized the employment of precision-guided weapons, creating significant capability gaps that undermine the CAF’s ability to conduct major combat operations while dramatically increasing risk to all expeditionary activities. Reviewing the efforts of competitors to both counter and copy this RMA will highlight the Canadian capability deficiencies that must be resolved to ensure success in future operations.

The birth of the reconnaissance–strike complex

The RMA was not a singular and unique event, but rather the most recent example of a phenomenon that has occurred repeatedly throughout the history of warfare. Canadian defence expert Elinor Sloan has argued that an RMA occurs when “advances in technology […] lead to significant changes in how military forces are organized, trained, and equipped for war, thereby reshaping the way in which wars are fought.” ³ This recent RMA has its roots in a strategic dilemma faced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the middle of the Cold War. By the late 1970s, a nuclear stalemate had been achieved between Eastern and Western alliances, and the options for conflict in Europe were limited to conventional warfare or Armageddon. ⁴ NATO was at a distinct disadvantage, however, as the Soviet Union held overwhelming conventional superiority. Moscow could offer up 58 divisions in contrast to the 23 NATO divisions deployed in Central Europe in 1975. ⁵ The US was determined to apply technology to resolve its relative weakness and invested significantly in electronics and computer technologies to identify and destroy Soviet forces deep in the rear before they could be brought to bear against frontline NATO forces. The effort resulted in a combination of doctrine and weaponry that the Soviets defined as the reconnaissance–strike complex (RSC). ⁶

As military technology and theory developed together, the doctrine of AirLand Battle was established, expounding the potential of mobile land units supported by deep air strikes into the depths of enemy territory. ⁷ This doctrine was put to the test in the Gulf War in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, demonstrating the first significant use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the first widespread use of precision-guided munitions in a major conflict. Enamoured of the ability to dismantle their enemy from the air with minimal casualties, America aggressively pursued precision weapons and UAV technologies. Rapid development led to advanced designs employed in greater numbers in the air campaign in Kosovo in 1999, culminating in the first use of an armed UAV, the Predator, to strike Taliban leadership in Afghanistan in October 2001. ⁸ America and its Western allies established a clear operational template: initial waves of air power would penetrate and destroy enemy air defence capabilities, allowing for successive waves of attack aircraft to destroy military equipment and installations, before turning to persistent drone coverage to protect and support ground forces that would secure and hold terrain.

Countering the RSC

Not surprisingly, global competitors were watching the development of Western warfare techniques closely. Chinese military journals discussed the RMA in the late 1980s and 1990s and closely followed military operations in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia. ⁹ Earlier, in 1985, strategists had declared the threat of war against a major Western power to be minimal and, instead, focused on conflicts at state borders and over contested seas and islands; however, the ease with which Western air power had overcome Iraqi forces sent “shockwaves” through the similarly equipped Chinese military and necessitated efforts to prevent a future invasion that was all too easy to imagine. ¹⁰ Chinese military modernization projects included significant investments in “the capability to attack, at long ranges, military forces that might deploy (anti-access) or operate (area-denial) within the Western Pacific.” ¹¹ The American military has defined this complex of tactics and technology as an “Anti Access/Area Denial (A2AD)” weapon system and recognizes it as a military strategy to protect Chinese territory from air attack through advanced long-range surface-to-air missiles, to destroy opposing naval forces and aircraft carriers through advanced anti-ship weapons, and to deny forward staging areas that would enable Western forces to mount attacks with their own precision strike capabilities. ¹² The Chinese now possess an array of conventional missiles with ranges from 300 to over 2000 km, allowing them to destroy potential bases for Western air power and project power across the Indo-Pacific region.

If the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was concerned by the potential of the RSC, then Iran was terrified. Iranian leaders have long believed that the US intends to overthrow their regime and have struggled to build sufficient military power to defend their state while subject to US economic sanctions. ¹³ Unable to compete in conventional terms, Iran has pursued asymmetric strategies, including significant investment in ballistic and cruise missile development. ¹⁴ The intent of the Iranian missile program is not to defeat Western forces directly, but rather to deter Western attacks by dramatically increasing the cost of any military action. Iranian missiles can strike any target in the Middle East, including numerous American and allied military bases from which conventional air attacks could be mounted. The Iranian actions on 8 January 2020 served as a practical demonstration that this capability had matured. While not a flawless attack, the missile strikes on Al-Assad made clear that Iran can deliberately select and strike targets chosen, for now, to send a message without inflicting real damage. ¹⁵

Russia’s response to the RSC has been to revive its arms race with the West. Despite the strategic parity ensured by their nuclear forces, Russia has remained wary of the American conventional strike complex, and with legitimate reasons. Amid Soviet angst over the American embrace of advanced weapons technologies beginning in the late 1970s, the US announced in 1983 that it would create a ballistic missile defence system, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. Fearing that American invulnerability to strategic nuclear weapons would leave their nuclear forces vulnerable to precision conventional strikes, the Soviets developed a new class of weapons to penetrate potential defences, known as hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). ¹⁶ Ballistic missiles are launched by rockets and travel out of the atmosphere into space before returning to Earth on a predictable ballistic trajectory to their target. The predictability of ballistic missiles allows them to be detected, tracked, and intercepted by modern defensive systems. In contrast, a hypersonic weapon is launched with the same rocket technology designed for ballistic missiles but briefly enters space before deploying an HGV that travels through the upper atmosphere at speeds over 1.6 km per second. While the initial rocket launch can be detected easily, it is much more difficult to track the glide vehicles with radar and impossible to accurately predict their target as they can manoeuvre in flight. Hypersonic cruise missiles are a more recent development that use advanced jets engines, called scramjets, to launch a hypersonic projectile directly from an aircraft, ship, or ground-based launcher. ¹⁷ Hypersonic weapons can carry either nuclear or conventional warheads.

While the fall of the Soviet Union and the cancellation of the Strategic Defense Initiative in the early 1990s delayed the development of these weapons, the US withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002 led the Russian military to accelerate development, with the PRC following. ¹⁸ The then US President George W. Bush declared the nuclear ambitions of rogue states, such as North Korea, to be the strategic imperative for the establishment of a ground-based anti-ballistic missile system. From the Russian perspective, however, the deployment of a potentially global missile defence system was a direct attack on the balance of power ensured by strategic nuclear deterrence; the development of hypersonic weapons became the only practical way for them to restore it. ¹⁹ As of 2020, the PRC has tested intercontinental and theatre-level hypersonic weapons, ²⁰ while the Russians have publicly displayed their Avangard intercontinental HGVs and hinted at air-launched hypersonic cruise missiles capable of a 2000 km range. ²¹ While not operationally proven yet, these new classes of weapons would allow Russia or the PRC to rapidly strike at Western military targets, denying NATO or US forces the opportunity to deploy their advanced conventional weapon systems against Sino–Russian territory, forces, or strategic interests.

Russia, the PRC, and Iran have all reacted to the emergence of the RSC by investing in weapons that aim to nullify the ability of the West to employ its advantage against their homelands. Long-range conventional and hypersonic weapons offer a means to deny Western use of forward staging bases across Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific Ocean, and eventually to strike at air bases in North America directly without resorting to nuclear weapons.

Copying the RSC

Despite the strategic imperative to counter Western technology, both established and aspiring competitors have copied the military doctrine and technology pioneered by America. In his influential Theory of International Politics, Kenneth Waltz noted that, following the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), European powers were quick to imitate the organization of the victorious Prussian military. As Waltz explained, “Contending states imitate the military innovations contrived by the country of greatest capability and ingenuity. Thus, the weapons of major contenders, and even their strategies, begin to look much the same all over the world.” ²² This theory has held true with the proliferation of precision strike and surveillance weaponry; the RSC is no longer the exclusive capability of advanced Western militaries but an increasingly common weapon of war across the world.

The first warning sign that the Western monopoly on advanced reconnaissance and strike technologies had ended came with the Russia-sponsored insurrection in the Donbas region of Ukraine in April 2014. Russian-backed forces quickly developed expertise in employing an array of UAVs to direct ground-based precision fires against Ukrainian forces with devastating effects.

Russian Army doctrine has long emphasized the employment of massed indirect fires. Russian formations typically field up to three times the number of artillery systems as their Western counterparts, including rocket artillery with over three times the range of conventional howitzers. ²³ The use of UAVs to identify targets for destruction by massed fires is thus simply an evolution of Russian doctrine; however, the incredible speed with which targets were identified and struck combined with the destructive power unleashed by providing precision targeting data gave the appearance of a sudden revolution in warfare.

The Russian use of RSC technologies to increase the effectiveness of existing artillery systems has complemented investments in precision munitions. Russia realized that it was overly dependent on nuclear responses that “were not credible responses to the security threats and challenges pressing in on Russia in the immediate post-Cold War era.” ²⁴ Seeking to balance strategic and tactical capabilities, the Russians developed their own precision strike weapons to support a doctrine of applying graduated levels of violence upon an adversary to impose “deterrent damage.” ²⁵ A leading example of this program is the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile, first used operationally in support of the Syrian regime in 2015. This conventional missile is believed to have a 4000 km range, which would allow a Russian aircraft “to remain deep within Russian airspace and still be able to strike any target in Europe.” ²⁶ The Russian Kh-49MK2 stand-off missile is another modern development designed to copy the best of American weaponry. It can reliably strike within three to five metres of its intended target at a maximum firing range of 285 km, bypassing adversary anti-air defences oriented to defeat aircraft rather than the munitions they carry. ²⁷

While modern attack aircraft remain prohibitively expensive for many states, new actors have also expanded the suite of affordable armed UAVs available on the international arms market. Iraq’s campaign against the Islamic State brought attention to the weaponization of small commercial drones, and the Syrian Civil War marked the arrival of Turkey as a leading manufacturer of armed medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAVs. Although both improvised and purpose-built military drones present a legitimate threat to land forces, MALE UAVs far eclipse them in their range, persistence, and payload. Turkey initially purchased unarmed US drones in 1996 to support its operations against Kurdish separatists, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, along their borders with Iraq and Syria. After the US government denied requests to purchase armed drones in 2010 out of concern that the weapons would be used against Kurdish civilians or Israel, Turkey decided to manufacture them domestically. ²⁸ Modelled after the Predator, the Bayraktar TB2 can stay in the air for up to 27 hours, has an operational altitude of 18,000 to 27,000 feet, and can carry four laser-guided missiles. ²⁹

As late as 2016, theorists viewed armed drones primarily as tools for internal security and counterterrorist campaigns, unlikely to widely proliferate or impact conventional interstate warfare. An article in International Security claimed that “current-generation drones offer little utility for coercion against other governments.” ³⁰ An adjacent claim denies their relevance in interstate conflict because modern air defences are so effective. Yet, in its brief operational history, the TB2 has had a revolutionary effect. On 1 March 2020, Turkey began retaliatory strikes against Syrian forces in Idlib province, following an air-strike that killed 33 Turkish soldiers. ³¹ The TB2 and another domestic Turkish drone, the Anka-2, featured prominently in the campaign, with Turkey releasing onboard video showing the destruction of dozens of artillery pieces and tanks, as well as two Russian supplied Pantsir-S1 and one Buk-M1 air defence systems. ³² Turkish interventions in Libya in May 2020 resulted in a further nine Pantsir systems being destroyed, confirming the ability of UAVs to penetrate current air defence systems designed to counter traditional air threats. ³³

The impact of UAVs in interstate conflict was demonstrated again in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2020. Azerbaijan, along with Ukraine, Qatar, Tunisia, and Libya purchased TB2 drones from Turkey ³⁴ and employed them decisively against Armenian Forces. While precise figures are unavailable, drone footage posted to social media showed Azerbaijani TB2s destroying dozens of Armenian tanks and artillery pieces, with Baku claiming total kills of over 380 military vehicles, 250 artillery pieces, and 38 air-defence systems, including the destruction of at least four Russian S-300 air defence systems. ³⁵ The TB2 represents more than a technical success; Turkish and Azerbaijani tacticians have transcended the Western employment of UAVs as precision terrorist hunters and embraced them as decisive weapons in conventional land combat.

Turkey faces stiff competition on the international drone market. The PRC has sold armed versions of its CH-3 and CH-4 UAVs to Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabi, Serbia, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Zambia. ³⁶ While the US was the net leader in global exports between 2008 and 2018, the PRC came in third place behind Israel. ³⁷ The Israelis have made significant use of armed UAVs for their own military purposes, and evidence from Nagorno-Karabakh has shown that they have sold loitering munitions, better known as suicide drones, to Azerbaijan. ³⁸ Not to be overshadowed by their international competitor, in October 2020 the Chinese military released video footage of its own suicide drone system, which appears to feature the ability to launch up to forty-eight attack vehicles that can travel up to 15 km and remain in the air for up to an hour. ³⁹

While major global powers have incrementally improved the capabilities of their existing weapons platforms, new global UAV users have embraced the promise of low-cost, low-risk engagements and begun to employ UAVs at scale in conventional warfare. In the process, they have identified weaknesses in the current generation of air defence systems that allow them to outperform traditional manned aircraft. Thirty-nine countries now maintain armed UAVs, increasingly employing these remote platforms over traditional manned attack aviation and ultimately achieving devastating effects in unpredicted conflicts around the world. ⁴⁰

Canadian considerations

Canadian soldiers have already been targeted by advanced precision weapons, and with a unit cost of less than USD5 million it seems inevitable that Canada’s foreign policy objectives will eventually place its troops within the range of hostile UAVs. The threshold of state power (or legitimacy) required to own and operate these weapons is being reduced rapidly. It is no longer unimaginable to anticipate a future CAF peacekeeping mission in Africa suffering the loss of an armoured vehicle to an attack executed by a Turkish or Chinese built UAV operated by a neighbouring state that objects to Canada’s presence in the region. As of 2020, however, the CAF has neither its own armed UAVs nor any defensive system against them in its inventory. The Canadian Military has made difficult choices over the last twenty-five years, balancing limited resources in a world defined by Western technological supremacy. The Canadian White Paper on Defence, 1994, articulated Canada’s defence policy a few short years after the revolutionary technological changes in warfare, demonstrated in Operation Desert Storm. As the US marked the combat debut of its expensive modern arsenal, Canadian policy recognized the need to balance defence objectives and affordability:

Canada needs armed forces that are able to operate with the modern forces maintained by our allies and like-minded nations against a capable opponent—that is, able to fight ‘alongside the best, against the best.’ To maintain this general capability, we have had to make some difficult choices. We will continue to assess the relative costs and benefits of various capabilities in order to make trade-offs which, while difficult, will be essential if the Forces are to contribute to a broader range of Canadian objectives. ⁴¹

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the success of the Gulf War, Canadian military leaders were convinced that they would enjoy air superiority in future conflicts, justifying the retirement of ground-based air defence systems. Successive defence policies in 2005 and 2008 focused on counterterrorism and stability operations, making the investments required to succeed in a future dominated by asymmetric conflict, not conventional warfare. The 2008 release of the Canada First Defence Strategy is notable for the single sentence it devoted to the buildup of conventional forces in “Asia Pacific countries” as a future trend that may need to be considered. ⁴² The release of Canada’s current defence policy in 2017 acknowledged that greater attention should have been paid to those conventional threats. Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) recognized that both the pace of technological development and the re-emergence of state competition necessitated reinvestment in combat capabilities. SSE established the commitment to acquire a new ground-based air defence system (GBAD) that could “defeat threats posed by airborne weapons such as remotely piloted vehicles and aircraft,” but fell short of clarifying the scope and specificity of these threats. ⁴³

It is reasonable to assume that SSE is a response to Russian and Islamic State use of improvised UAVs, but the defence policy predated the successful use of Iranian precision missiles, the successful tests of hypersonic weapons, and the sudden advancement of non-Western MALE UAVs into major weapons of conventional warfare. The CAF leadership acknowledged these developing threats twice: first following the Iranian drone and cruise missile attacks against Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure in September 2019, ⁴⁴ and, again, following the missile attack on Erbil. ⁴⁵ In each case, the army referred to the ongoing GBAD project as the solution to these threats. A review of the GBAD project documentation, however, first begs the question as to how one system could possibly respond to this range of adversarial weapons and, second, raises the broader concern of what threats Canada’s land forces need to defend against.

Moving from policy to capability

With the need for a GBAD system now established in Canadian defence policy, it has become the responsibility of the CAF and Department of National Defence staff to successfully procure the capability. To procure a simple weapon system, such as a pistol, staff would simply determine the required technical characteristics and performance objectives of the desired weapon and release a Request for Proposals (RFP) to industry. The GBAD is anything but simple, however, and the Canadian Army took the additional step to issue a Letter of Interest (LOI) for the project. An LOI is a procurement tool that allows industry to preview the initial conceptualization of a required good or service and provide feedback on technical issues as well as potential challenges or alternate solutions. In essence, an LOI allows the defence industry to confirm if the proposed technical and performance objectives for a desired capability can be achieved, validate initial cost and timeline estimates, and help shape the final RFP to ensure that a successful procurement may be executed. The GBAD LOI was released to industry in August 2018, defining the system as a tactically mobile short-range air defence (SHORAD) capability, designed to address the primary threats of rocket, artillery, and mortar projectiles (RAM); air-to-surface missiles and bombs; and UAVs up to Class 1 and Class 2 under the NATO classification rubric. Secondary threats were identified as rotary and fixed wing aircraft and cruise missiles. ⁴⁶ The discord between the LOI and the modern threat environment is stark. Rather than being focused on the theatre ballistic missile threat, or MALE UAVs, the army’s project director admitted in a 2019 interview that the requirements were equally backward and forward looking: “experiences with mortars and surface-to-surface fire in Afghanistan, along with recent conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere, have led to a reappraisal of air defence.” ⁴⁷ The conception of the GBAD outlined in the 2018 LOI misses its targets when considering both the technological solutions available in the near term and the nature of the threats posed to Canadian soldiers.

The Canadian Army has been defending against rockets, artillery, and mortars, throughout its entire existence. Remaining mobile when conducting offensive operations and building protective field fortifications when in a defensive posture remain the basic tactics employed to protect soldiers from these threats. Countermeasures, known as C-RAM systems, only became a critical requirement for Western forces when they deployed to sprawling forward operating bases and combat outposts in Afghanistan and Iraq. These bases proved to be irresistible targets for insurgent indirect fires. In response, the American military rapidly repurposed the Phalanx system from the Navy, where it had been designed to use its 20mm Gatling guns to defeat anti-ship missiles and other small threats in a last line of defence. ⁴⁸ The Phalanx system is effective against RAM threats but has a heavy sustainment tail for ammunition and power. The system is relocatable, but not mobile, and it cannot fire on the move. A second combat-proven system on the international defence marketplace is the Israeli Iron Dome (ID). Designed to defeat Hezbollah rockets, the ID differs from the Phalanx by firing interceptor missiles to defeat RAM projectiles instead of large calibre bullets. The ID has a proven track record of defending Israel’s cities against rocket and mortar attacks but was designed for static employment to protect civilian populations. A mobile variant of the ID has been proposed but currently only exists in marketing brochures. While both systems have proven their effectiveness in operations, neither the Phalanx nor the ID can operate on the move and thus cannot meet the GBAD requirement to be tactically mobile.

The US military has identified that neither bullet-based nor missile-based systems alone will be able to provide the necessary C-RAM effect in a tactically mobile platform. It is thus pursing the development of laser weapons as its primary RAM and small UAV protection system. Current US planning anticipates High Energy Laser weapons to be integrated into a tactical vehicle and ready for fielding between 2022 and 2025, although this timeline will be challenging to achieve. ⁴⁹ The US Army claims that prototype weapons have the ability to defeat RAM and UAV threats in all weather, including fog, rain, and dust. However, testing of the power generation and heat dissipation systems required to mount a 50 kilowatt laser on an armoured fighting vehicle will not be completed until mid-2021. ⁵⁰ Current CAF planning calls for a GBAD initial operating capability to be achieved by 2025. There is simply no combination of mature weapon systems available that will allow the CAF to field a tactically mobile C-RAM solution within this timeline. The choices are most likely mutually exclusive; if the GBAD is to be fielded on schedule, then the C-RAM requirement must be dropped. If the C-RAM requirement must be retained, then the GBAD must be delayed until laser weapons have matured.

The GBAD approach to unmanned and remote threats is equally deficient. As currently defined, the GBAD system will be capable only of engaging UAVs weighing from 2kg up to 500 kg, operating at altitudes from 200 feet above ground level up to 10,000 feet. ⁵¹ Although the LOI is agnostic to the specific weapons technology required, there are effective cannon-based and missile-based weapons on the defence market today that can defeat these threats. Future laser weapons will also be capable of engaging small drones, although up to what altitude limit is unknown. While these requirements technically capture the small and suicide drone threat, they overlook the issue of tactics.

Small drones are advantageous because they are easy to operate and affordable enough to employ in large numbers—characteristics that will inevitably drive their employment both at scale and in mass across the battlespace. While larger and more capable MALE UAVs pose a more potent threat, dedicated air defence systems can create bubbles of protection for friendly forces. Military commanders will use art and science to position systems such as the GBAD to provide the best protection possible to the most critical forces, but every soldier, every vehicle, and every outpost across an expeditionary force will remain at risk to small drone attacks. Small UAV defence must be an organic capability of every element on the future battlefield. The army cannot rely on a high-demand, low-density asset to defend everything. A suite of counter-UAV weapons must be deployed across the force, with advanced capabilities nested in the GBAD system. A distributed counter-UAV weapon may take the form of an electronic warfare system or a modernized man-portable air defence missile, but some degree of capability must eventually be fielded to at least the platoon/troop level.

Beyond tactics, the target set identified in the LOI ignores a growing and serious threat. As currently envisioned, the GBAD ignores MALE UAVs such as the TB2 that can fly well above and launch weapons from well outside the SHORAD ceiling of 10,000 feet. Instead of procuring a counter to these medium-altitude threats, the army’s approach is to hope for a better equipped coalition partner to which it can abdicate this responsibility. ⁵² As currently conceived, the GBAD not only will be unable to counter the full range of armed UAVs operating today, but also will be completely impotent to ballistic missile deployments—threats, the Canadian Army has claimed, the GBAD needs to counter.

A review of the doctrine and equipment of both Canada’s allies and enemies, makes clear that a layered system of complementary air defence components is the only solution to defend against the full breadth of air-delivered threats coming into service across the world today. ⁵³ The US currently fields the Patriot high to medium-range (HIMAD) system to counter a range of aerial threats, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to defeat ballistic missiles. To provide intimate support to land forces, the US Army is pursuing a six-layer full-spectrum air defence capability meant to protect everything from individual vehicles up to large land formations from the full suite of unmanned threats, from mortars and micro-UAVs to cruise missiles and large UAVs. ⁵⁴ Yet, defeating hypersonic weapons remains a challenge; THAAD is technically capable of kinetic defeat, but it lacks the sensors to accurately track hypersonic weapons. The US is balancing this deficiency with an initial USD13 million investment in tracking research, ⁵⁵ while allocating USD9.2 billion over the next five years to develop its own hypersonic weapons under the Conventional Prompt Global Strike program. ⁵⁶

The US program is designed to provide their forces with the ability to strike any target on Earth within one hour—either a fleeting target or a surgical attack on a critical enemy capability in the first salvo of a broader conflict. In many ways, this latest program is an evolution in American capabilities rather than a revolution, and the same logic applies to the Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapon programs. The world’s three largest military powers already have enough conventional and nuclear armaments to destroy each other, regardless of the speed at which they can achieve it. Hypersonic weapons will inevitably be used in regional and proxy conflicts. Yet, by the same logic of strategic deterrence that governed nuclear weapons for decades, these three powers will hold back from directly using the weapons against each other.

So what should Canada do with its GBAD project? Unlike its US ally, Canada cannot afford to field a full suite of complementary systems. The GBAD project was assigned a funding range of between USD250 and USD499 million in the 2018 Defence Investment Plan. In the same year, the price of a US Patriot PAC-2 battery was estimated at USD1 billion, while a THAAD battery was valued at USD3 billion. Cost aside, the utility of expeditionary ballistic missile defence is limited for the CAF. The near miss in Erbil provided an important lesson; moving forward, the CAF is perfectly capable of assessing the regional strategic situation for future missions and making appropriate expeditionary basing choices to either mitigate the threats posed by ballistic missiles or to co-locate with an ally’s defensive systems. The enduring challenge is defence against the full range of both UAV and stand-off threats that have proliferated around the world.

Despite the single GBAD solution proposed in SSE, the capabilities required to protect Canadian expeditionary forces necessitates a broader spectrum of air defence capability than currently specified in the GBAD LOI, but without the cost of the current suite of HIMAD systems available on the defence market. Thankfully, the US military had anticipated the inevitable mismatch of Patriot interceptors and low-cost drones, lamenting that using USD3.5 million missiles to defeat USD200 drones would be an unsustainable practice. ⁵⁷ Efforts to develop a low-cost missile were initiated in 2012 under the low-cost, extended range air defence system (LOWER-AD) with a targeted cost of less than USD150,000 per kill while maintaining 25 km of effective range. In November 2020, the US demonstrated the first successful flight test of this capability, which will form the final layer of their land force protection suite. ⁵⁸ The technologies developed by the US military under the LOWER-AD program will offer an affordable pathway for Canada to acquire a two-system GBAD envelope in the near future that offers protection from both precision guided munitions and the advanced UAVs that will deliver them.

Ultimately, the CAF should proceed with the current short-range air defence procurement under the GBAD program, but it must identify funds over the next ten years to acquire a complementary medium range system to address the very real threats developing from a wide array of actors. The procurement and distribution of platoon or even section level counter-UAV systems across the army must also be examined. In the meantime, the CAF must carefully examine the future operating environment into which it imagines deploying the GBAD. Until laser weapons have matured, a missile-based GBAD system focused on defeating UAVs and cruise missiles is achievable within the project timeline, but the prioritization of legacy Afghan-era threats adds an immense technical complication without a compelling tactical narrative as justification. Abandoning this requirement and focusing on a missile-based solution may even allow the CAF to stretch its GBAD dollar and field a weapon that can reach towards the critical 18,000 foot altitude where affordable and deadly foreign UAVs have begun to operate.

The CAF may find the answer to this dilemma by asking what role it wants the Canadian Army to play among its NATO allies. A GBAD capability focused on countering rockets, artillery, mortars, and small UAVs provides self-defence and reduces the risks posed to Canadian soldiers deployed abroad but provides no benefit to a broader coalition force. Alternatively, a GBAD capability that offers point or area defence against medium altitude UAVs fills a critical gap in Western military capability while defending Canadian soldiers against the modern precision strike weapons being fielded by both major and minor global adversaries. The ideal Canadian GBAD capability would combine either a cannon-based or laser-based effector to target Class 1 and 2 UAV systems with a missile system capable of engaging larger MALE threats up to 27,000 feet. Although it would sacrifice C-RAM defence, it would offer Canada a unique kinetic counter-UAV capability in high demand for coalition operations, with the additional benefit of leveraging the air surveillance capabilities of the army’s AN/MPQ-504 Medium Range Radar that was procured in 2018.

Conclusion

Canada benefited greatly from the exclusive Western franchise on RSC complex technologies in an uncontested era. Canada was able to project military power without significant investments in blood or treasure while shedding legacy land capabilities in an era of fiscal restraint. Technological advantage, however, is not enduring, and it is time to revisit the tough calculus imposed by the 1994 White Paper. Canada’s traditional competitors now match its capabilities in stand-off munitions and cruise missiles. More urgently, foreign powers have begun to export armed drones in ever increasing quantities to a rapidly enlarging pool of unexpected operators. The capabilities of these UAVs in conventional interstate conflicts has been proven across three major theatres of operation in 2020, destroying hundreds of pieces of armour while eliminating dozens of modern air-defence systems. These modern drones are capable enough to inflict significant losses on modern land weaponry, small enough to exploit gaps between short and medium range air defence systems, and inexpensive enough to allow tactical gambits or swarm tactics to destroy any target deemed sufficiently valuable by their employers. The Government of Canada acknowledged in SSE that the CAF needs an air defence capability but failed to fully anticipate the threat profile and appropriately fund the requirement. The CAF must carefully manage its GBAD procurement to acquire the best technology possible within its funding envelope; however, if Canada is to remain engaged in the world it is imperative that, as quickly as possible, the Government funds the capability to defend its forces against the full spectrum of threats.