One,
but only one of the problems that faces the CF today, but which has its roots in the 1950s and ‘60s – the times of
Paul T Hellyer –is the relationship of the soldier to society. What can and should each expect of the other?
In the late 1950s the noted political scientist Samuel P Huntington fuelled the current debate with his seminal work,
The Soldier and the State. Huntington argued for “objective” civilian control of the military which was made possible by a highly
professional military; essentially, the more professional the military the
easier it is to control “objectively.” Huntington noted that
Western militaries, on the one hand, and
Western states and societies, on the other, diverge in their
cultures. Societies (and states) were and remain essentially
liberal – focused on the rights and productivity of individuals, while militaries are, perhaps increasingly,
conservative – concerned with the
collective. There was, and still is, a
culture war between soldiers and the societies they serve. Huntington reckoned it (the clash of cultures) was harmless, perhaps even healthy and, given highly professional militaries and “objective” bureaucracies and governments/political institutions, easily managed.
(Please not that there is
no correlation between liberal <-> conservative and political left <-> political right; liberal ≠ left and conservative ≠ right. There are many, many people, especially in the USA, who believe liberal = left etc but they, despite their PhDs and positions at the top of the media and
blogosphere, are wrong, very wrong. )
Hellyer and his
integration/unification project were, relatively, unconcerned with the
culture wars but, in that, they were offside because society, at large, and Pierre Trudeau, in particular, were deeply invested in the issue. Trudeau replaced "objective" management with a highly "subjective" variant and management of defence was amongst the files most subjectively
managed during his tenure.
DND and the CF was seen by
social activists as a vital tool in “moving” government – the rationale was, “If the CF are on board then no one else will have an excuse not to cooperate.” Some
activists were, but should not have been, surprised by the relative ‘enthusiasm’ with which the CF embraced social change – be it official languages, gender equality or gay rights. In fact the highly professional CF took, and still takes, great pride in being subservient to the civil power, to political control. If the government of the day says, “get on with it,” then the CF does just that, with vigor.
Some social change was necessary and desirable – for the whole country, including the CF.
But some changes, particularly in
attitudes or the
military culture were made
”en passant”, almost without any rationale simply because they could be made and because they seemed to make the military more reflective of the society it serves – even though no one has ever established that “reflecting society” is desirable or even necessary.
It
appears to me that most social scientists (I hate that term) agree that most attitudinal and cultural issues can be measured on the famous bell curve.
Most Canadians and most Canadian socio-cultural values and attitudes are,
probably, distributed pretty much as predicted under that curve. But it is not clear that good, much less the best, soldiers are found at or near the middle of the curve. Some observers have suggested, over the years, that
most of the career, professional CF come from under the “shoulders” of the bell curve – not from the extreme ends but not from the middle, either. If that is the case, and
my personal observations over about a half century (some of it spent ‘observing’ from retirement) suggest that it is, then
some (many? most?) of the socio-cultural changes imposed on the CF since, say, 1965, have had deleterious effects and may need to be reconsidered.
Thus, in my
opinion, Paul Hellyer and his
integration/unification exercise, which did considerable damage to our national defence capabilities, is not the only, perhaps not even the main
bête noir; the
integration/unification exercise was coincidental with an era of social change and made it easier for
activists to impose ‘foreign,’ liberal-individualistic, socio-cultural values on a previously healthily
conservative military society. Some of the problem to which
Old Sweat and
pbi refer were not caused by Mr. Hellyer’s policy vandalism, but they were made easier by the C
2 chaos that Helllyer and his minions and supporters created.
The ‘solution,’ such as there might be one, rests, I
believe, on something that has been missing from Canadian politics and society for about 45 years:
respect for the military.
Respect does not equal affection, yellow ribbons or red T-shirts. Respect is rooted in an understanding of
why we need and have a military and
why it needs to have its own norms and standards. I
think Canadians began to lose ‘contact’ with the
whys and wherefores of the military in 1960 – ten years after Korea and 15 years after the 2
nd World War – when the nihilistic doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) became popular (see e.g. SLBMs and Robert McNamara, again, which/who made MAD possible and popular) replaced the popularly comprehensible
trip wire and
massive retaliation strategies. Nuclear fear replaced an understanding of what the Canadian and allied military forces were doing and why they were doing it. The fear made people ignore, even denigrate their own military forces – “we” became part of the problem, not part of the solution. Of course popular
reaction to Viet Nam and Trudeau’s anti-nationalist leadership made matters worse and worse.
Two more cents …
Edit: typo
