A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 6: Future War, Micro-Sats Controlled by AI "BattleStars" Supported by Fast Launching, Hypersonic Transports and Space Based Solar Power

         By Chuck Black

This series of posts is attempting to answer some of the questions surrounding the appropriate Canadian response to the recently announced US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force. 

Part one ("The Axworthy Doctrine") focused on how the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's led to a new Canadian focus on aggressive, international peacekeeping missions requiring space focused communication and surveillance capabilities of a type which Canada didn't then possess.

Part two ("The Changing Political Landscape") discussed why Canada never had a military space policy prior to 1998 by going back to the 1960's and the federal liberal party under Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. 

Part three ("Towards Northern Sovereignty") dealt with the changing focus of Canadian foreign policy from international peacekeeping towards northern sovereignty, a policy developed in the 1990's under then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien which also required a substantial space-focused component, and what happened when the Canadian government realized that it still didn't possess those capabilities.

Part four ("Funding an Appropriate Force") and part five ("The Current Liberal Government") outlined the attempts of former Conservative Prime Prime  Minister Stephen Harper and current Canadian Prime Mister Justin Trudeau to address the situation.

Here is the conclusion of this series. 

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Now that we know a little more about Canadian military capabilities and policy requirements, it's worth taking a look at the essence of the fast developing US "space force" and discussing where Canada could legitimately fit in. Hopefully, we'll fit somewhere.

For an overview of the future US space force, it's worthwhile revisiting a book first discussed in the April 2nd, 2018 post, "What George Friedman's 2009 Book "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the Next Century" Said About Space."

George Friedman, who wrote the 2009 book "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the Next Century" is the founder and chairman of Austin TX based Geopolitical Futures, an "online publication focused around analyzing and forecasting global events."

Prior to founding Geopolitical Futures in 2015, Friedman was chairman of Austin TX based Stratfor, a private intelligence publishing and consulting firm he founded with Meredith Friedman and Matthew Baker in 1996.

He is a well regarded researcher of political issues, new technologies and future possibilities with some seriously close connections to the US government, intelligence and military communities.

In his book, Friedman postulated a near future beginning in the 2040's where many nations have secretly placed weapons, surveillance and communications satellites in orbit to support various national defence activities, often in violation of signed treaties specifically forbidding such actions.

Popular movies and books have already explored this possibility. It's naive to expect the military not to have done the same.

Friedman also suggested that the next generation of huge, low Earth orbiting micro-satellite constellations will create a new era where the US can inspect and communicate with every square foot of the Earth, on land and sea at anytime.

Which makes it pretty easy to remove most of the fog of war from any future battlefield. Several hundred smaller, low-cost Earth imaging satellites parked in low-Earth orbit more effectively and at a lower cost than three or four larger satellites located in higher orbits.

The new constellations are expected to give a tremendous advantage to US combat forces in much the same way as an earlier generation of global positioning satellites (GPS) gave the advantage to US troops during the 1990 Gulf war.

The constellations will be supported and controlled by larger installations Friedman called "BattleStars" which will be both human crewed and unmanned and located on the Earth, the Moon and in orbit.

But the individual satellites in the constellations will be vulnerable to first strikes and will therefore need to be defended using both Earth and space based weaponry. Destroyed components of the constellation will be quickly replaced using the new generation of fast launching rockets currently being developed.

An example of launch on demand capabilities being developed today would be the February 12th, 2019 Geekwire post, "DARPA is zeroing in on Launch Challenge," which discussed the  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Launch Challenge, a competition with a $10Mln US ($13.4Mln CDN) grand prize "aimed at boosting America’s rapid-response launch capabilities."

As noted most recently in the March 23rd, 2019 SpaceFlightNow post, "Rocket Lab readies for launch with U.S. military satellite," the US military is also experimenting with smaller satellites able to be prepared quickly for launch on the smaller rockets.

But perhaps the most unique component of Friedman's book is the use of space solar power satellites to support the power requirements of terrestrial forces during combat operations..

As outlined in the March 16th, 2009 Power and Energy Solutions post, "Solar: the military’s secret weapon," a report released in 2008 by the (US) National Security Space Office recommended that "the US government sponsor projects to demonstrate solar-power-generating satellites and provide financial incentives for further private development of the technology."

Graphic c/o PES.

The ability to beam power through the atmosphere whenever needed would also bolster the case for a hyper-sonic delivery systems or transport (perhaps based around the Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two, which is well designed for the purpose), which can travel lighter if they don't need to carry large power generators.

A hypersonic transport could move both weapons and soldiers around the world quickly enough to take advantage of the data provided by the next generation of low Earth orbiting micro-satellites mentioned earlier in this post.

Taken together, the new technologies would revolutionize the battlefield of the future in much the same way as the US global positioning system (GPS) revolutionized combat in the early 2000's and the aircraft carrier revolutionized combat in World War 2.

The new tools are also expected to cost far less than conventional technologies while almost totally superseding the current generation of combat aircraft, missiles , shipping and armored vehicles by 2040.

The older technology ("boots on the ground" and ships at sea) would still be required to hold and control territory, but the proposed newer tools would serve an an effective deterrent, able to break up enemy attacks once begun and allowing almost total control over the battlefield environment.

So where does that leave Canada? Right now we're committed to spending $60Bln plus CDN to replace an older generation of technology with only slightly better versions of the same aircraft, ships and combat vehicles currently in service.

Both the existing forces and their expected upgrades are the sort of equipment the new space focused technology advocated by Friedman was explicitly designed to overwhelm in combat.

Certainly nothing in the current list of procurement priorities will defend against a "BattleStar" or protect against raids by hypersonic transports fully aware of every square metre of a future battlefield.

Except for some work with satellite constellations and AI, the Canadian government hasn't committed much of the new funding allocated in 2017 to the new technologies.

The pride of Canada's space assets, the upcoming $1Bln CDN Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) is based on 1990's era technology, contains only three satellites (which makes it difficult to provide real-time intelligence over the entire Earth) and would takes years of effort and another billion dollars to replace if some or all of the three satellites were lost or destroyed.

Besides, as outlined in the March 13th, 2019 Forbes post, "Delayed Satellite Radar Mission Bucks The Smallsat Trend," RCM is perceived of as being too technologically complex to distribute over a larger amount of smaller satellites, an assessment obviously not shared by the US.

Lloyd Axworthy in the 1990's. Graphic c/o Graeme Mackay.

While Canada dithers, the US is investing in new weaponry focused around Earth imaging and communications focused micro-satellites controlled by armed AI "BattleStars" supported by fast launching, hypersonic transports and orbiting space based solar power installations.

It's a far more complex mission than RCM, but the US doesn't consider the mission to be too complex.

It's a good thing we're not expected to ever go to war against the US. They'd whup us. They'd whup us good.

Thank god we can at least plug into their systems and borrow their equipment.

As noted in the August 10th, 2009 Space Review post, "The age of the great battlestars," the US Air Force Academy’s Class of 2013 began Basic Cadet Training in 2009.

Why is this significant to the readers of The Space Review? 

Because according to George Friedman in his book The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, in 2045, one of them may well be a major general of US space forces—and will be killed in orbit.

As for Canada, we won't even be in the fight. Perhaps we need to return to where we started this discussion.

As outlined originally in the January 21th, 2019 post on "Part 1, The Axworthy Doctrine" which began this series, we need to begin with something called the "1994 Canadian White Paper on Defence," which suggested that Canada needed an alternative to the existing policy of simply buying more of the same stuff that it had always purchased.

Twenty-five years later, that's still the situation we find ourselves in today. Some things never change. 

Chuck Black.

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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 








Last episode: "The Current Liberal Government," as part five of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

To Start at the Beginning,  check out part one, "The Axworthy Doctrine," in "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions."

A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 5: The Current Liberal Government

          By Chuck Black

This series of posts is attempting to answer some of the questions surrounding the appropriate Canadian response to the recently announced US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force. 

Part one ("The Axworthy Doctrine") focused on how the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's led to a new Canadian focus on aggressive, international peacekeeping missions requiring space focused communication and surveillance capabilities of a type which Canada didn't then possess.

Part two ("The Changing Political Landscape") discussed why Canada never had a military space policy prior to 1998 by going back to the 1960's and the federal liberal party under Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. 

Part three ("Towards Northern Sovereignty") dealt with the changing focus of Canadian foreign policy from international peacekeeping towards northern sovereignty, a policy developed in the 1990's under then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien which also required a substantial space-focused component, and what happened when the Canadian government realized that it still didn't possess those capabilities.

Part four ("Funding an Appropriate Force") outlined Conservative Prime Prime  Minister Stephen Harper's reaction to the policies of the previous Liberal government. It would have been a great strategy, if only the Canadian government didn't keep cutting back on the budget. 

Here is part five of this series. 

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PM Trudeau in 2019. Photo c/o CP/ Darryl Dyck.

In the run up to the 2015 Federal Election, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau (the eldest son of Canada's fifteenth PM, Pierre Trudeau) instinctively understood that the problem with the Stephen Harper Conservative government (at least when it came to defence policy) was simply that no one could find the funding for the Conservative "Canada First Defence Strategy."

As outlined on the Liberal Party website:

We will maintain current National Defence spending levels, including current planned increases. 

Under Stephen Harper, investments in the Canadian Armed Forces have been erratic, promised increases in funding have been scaled back, and more than $10 billion of approved funding was left unspent. 

This mismanagement has left Canada’s Armed Forces underfunded and ill-equipped, and the courageous members of the Forces unsupported after years of dedicated service.

It sounded good. It's just a shame the new policy took until June 2017, well after the Trudeau government had won the October 15th, 2015 Federal election, to roll out..

As well, the new policy seemed to be more of a reaction to US policy which, under current US President Donald Trump, simply wasn't prepared to let Canada have as much of a free ride as had been true in previous eras.

If Canada could borrow military assets from its allies in order to complete a mission, then it would need to build up its indigenous capabilities.

The current statement of Liberal Defence policy (at least until after the next election, scheduled for October 21st, 2019) is the June 6th, 2017 "Strong, Secure, Engaged – Canada’s Defence Policy."

As outlined by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in his July 7th, 2017 statement in the House of Commons, "Strong, Secure, Engaged" – A new defence policy for Canada," the new plan will:

... recapitalize the Royal Canadian Air Force, with a full fleet of 88 advanced fighter jets to replace the aging CF-18s. This should have been done years ago. 

The previous government planned to purchase just 65 fighters, but didn’t actually purchase any, and didn’t budget adequately even for that inadequate fleet. 88 fighters are required to fully meet our NORAD and NATO obligations simultaneously, not just risk manage them, as the RCAF has had to do for a number of years. 

This plan fully funds, for the first time, the Royal Canadian Navy’s full complement of 15 Canadian Surface Combatant ships necessary to replace the existing frigates and retired destroyers. Fifteen. Not “up to” 15 and not 12. And definitely not six, which is the number the previous government’s plan would have paid for, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported last week.

Minister Sajjan. Photo c/o Chris Wattie/ Reuters.

The minister also promised to "recapitalize much of the Canadian Army’s land combat capabilities and aging vehicle fleets" and made "new commitments to emerging domains, particularly space, cyber and remotely piloted systems" in order to "address current and looming gaps in existing capabilities."

All of which sounds well and good, except when you note that, as outlined in the October 30th, 2018 Defence News post, "Canada to accept bids for new fighter jet in May — here are the potential competitors," Canada hasn't purchased any new fighter jets yet and doesn't even plan on taking bids for the replacement aircraft until May 2019.

As for the ships, it's worth noting that, as outlined in the February 8th, 2019 CBC News post, "Ottawa makes its $60B frigate project official, even as rival's court challenge goes forward," while a contract was awarded, no money seems to have changed hands.

Military procurement is a mess, and not likely to clean itself up anytime soon.

Most importantly, and as outlined in the March 6th, 2018 MacLeans post, "What’s happening to Canada’s defence spending?," no new funding was allocated in the 2018 Federal budget for the military, which kinda suggests that the Liberal defence policy is slowly walking down the same path as the previous Conservative plan.

As for Canada's space capabilities, there has been some movement, as outlined in the February 4th, 2019 post, "UTIAS-SFL and Raytheon Canada Building Military Funded Spy Sats," which noted $46.2Mln CDN for new funding under the Department of National Defence (DND) All Domain Situational Awareness Science & Technology (ADSA S&T) program. 

Also noteworthy were the eight Canadian companies which received multiple contracts totaling $6.7Mln CDN through the Department of National Defence (DND) in late 2018 in order to develop "situational awareness" applications focused around the analysis and assessment of synthetic aperture radar(SAR) data generated through Canada's Radarsat program. 

In this case, it was the funding mechanism, not the military strategy, which was noteworthy.

As outlined in the December 17th, 2018 post, "New Radarsat R&D Funding is Mostly for Software Analytics But Includes Some Interesting Surprises," the DND contracts were structured as public private partnerships with costs split 50-50 between DND and the various private sector participants.

But dropping a few million here or there for a few new programs doesn't amount to much compared to the total Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) annual budget of approximately $25Bln CDN. 

Canada's military space strategy remains mired in ideas generated decades before and still focuses on how to more effectively gain low-cost access to civilian and military US satellite command, control, communications and space situational awareness assets.

Although the strategy remains the same, most would agree that space is a far more complex environment to operate in today, than it was when Lloyd Axworthy held public office.

Is this our only choice in the matter or are there other options? That will be the subject of our final post on this topic.

Chuck Black.

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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 









Last episode: "Funding an Appropriate Force," as part four of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

Next episode: "Future War, Micro-Sats Controlled by AI "BattleStars" Supported by Fast Launching, Hypersonic Transports and Space Based Solar Power," as part six of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," concludes.

A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 4: Funding an Appropriate Force

          By Chuck Black

This series of posts is attempting to answer some of the questions surrounding the appropriate Canadian response to the recently announced US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force. 

Part one ("The Axworthy Doctrine") focused on how the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's led to a new Canadian focus on aggressive, international peacekeeping missions requiring space focused communication and surveillance capabilities of a type which Canada did not then possess and had to borrow from the Americans.

The Northwest Passage and its challenges. Graphic c/o World Cultural Pictorial.

Part two ("The Changing Political Landscape") discussed why Canada never had a military space policy prior to 1998 by going back to the 1960's and the federal liberal party under Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau who refused to differentiate between space based military assets for communication/ surveillance and space ‘weaponization’ in order to come across as supporters of the United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) and the UN Outer Space Treaty (1967).

Part three ("Towards Northern Sovereignty") dealt with the changing focus of Canadian foreign policy from international peacekeeping towards northern sovereignty, a policy developed in the 1990's under Jean Chrétien. It's a policy which often places us at odds with traditional allies, such as the US.

Here is part four of this series.

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So what tools does the Canadian military need to acquire in order to reliably perform its missions? To answer that question, we need to know the missions.

In 2008 incoming Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper defined those missions in the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) which mandated the capability to undertake them, either separately or together. 

They included:

• Conducting daily domestic and continental operations, including the Arctic and with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

• Supporting a major international event in Canada, such as the 2010 Winter Olympics. 
• Responding to a major terrorist attack. 

• Supporting civilian authorities during a domestic crisis or natural disaster. 

• Leading and/or conducting a major international operation for an extended period. 

• Deploying forces in response to crises elsewhere in the world for shorter periods. 

Of course, the Harper government intended to make a series of equipment purchases in order to bolster the DND ability to undertake the above missions.

PM Harper in 2008. Photo c/o Britannica.

The purchases included:

• New military trucks, land combat vehicles and support systems.

• C-17 Globemaster and C-130J Hercules aircraft plus CH-47F Chinook helicopters for troop transport and additional fixed wing aircraft for maritime patrol, and search and rescue. 

• New naval vessels including at least one icebreaker (the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker), three joint support vessels (to replace the aging HMCS Protecteur and HMCS Preserver), between six to eight arctic offshore patrol ships and the Canadian single class surface combatant (which will replace the aging Iroquois class destroyers starting in 2016-2017 and the Halifax-class frigates at a later date). 

• 65 new Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II fighter jets to replace 1980s era CF-18 Hornets. 

Naturally, when purchases are contemplated a budget is needed and the budget for this program was a big one. It called for an annual increase in DND funding from $18Bln CDN in 2007-2008 to over $30Bln CDN by 2027-2028 and totaled out at around $490Bln CDN over the 20 year period covered by the strategy.

That's a lot of money.

The space component of the package was designed primarily to tie together all the big ticket ships, planes and other equipment to insure that they can communicate with each other and sense what's going on around them.

As the eyes and ears of the future Canadian Forces, the space component might also be the most important part of the program. It was certainly the least expensive.

It was wrapped around a variety of space based systems including RADARSAT, RADARSAT 2 and the follow-on RADARSAT Constellation project, which used synthetic aperture radars (SAR) designed to obtain a finer spatial resolution than is possible with conventional photography or radar scans, and their associated ground stations.

Also of note was the ship tracking capabilities of Cambridge ON based exactEarth LLP (then a subsidiary of Cambridge ON based ComDev International) and several smaller satellites such as the Sapphire Canadian space surveillance satellite (launched in 2013 and built by MDA) and the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) launched in 2013 ostensibly to track small asteroids near Earth asteroids but partially funded by the Canadian military for its ability to also track orbiting satellites.

These smaller systems allowed Canada to continue doing pretty much what it had been doing since the 1990's, which was to build smaller components which could be plugged into larger systems developed by others to gain access to those systems and help to offset some of the costs of national defence.

Of course, the key to the implementation of the complete plan was consistent policy and long term funding guarantees, a situation that wasn't entirely possible given the lack of consensus over defence spending within the various Canadian political players over the last few decades.

According to the Air Force Association of Canada 2008 position paper titled "Implementing the Canada First Defence Strategy," while it's easy enough to support the CFDS, the 'devil' was always in the details:

Indeed, the Standing Senate Committee on National Defence and Security has been openly critical of the need for the Government to redress the level of the Defence budget to ensure that the CFDS is affordable. 

Concern has also been expressed regarding the ability of DND, working with Public Works and Government Works Canada, to implement the scope of projects identified for prosecution. The involved procurement process for defence projects, coupled with the demands placed on a limited number of program staff, mitigate against timely acquisitions.

Moreover, the political imperative for attractive industrial and regional benefits to offset large offshore purchases further compounds the process and length of time to get to contract. A federal election will also present delays in government approvals or potentially a change in direction if the party in power changes.

Perhaps that's why no one held their breath waiting for the implementation of the CFDP and why no one suffocated when the Harper government failed to allocate sufficient funding to move the program forward.

By 2015, it was time for the Federal Justin Trudeau Liberal government to have a kick at the can. Their plan will be the subject our the next post 

Chuck Black.

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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 

Portions of  this multi-part overview were originally published in the January 16th, 2011 post, "Canada's Military Space Policy: Part 4, Funding an Appropriate Force."





Last episode: "Towards Northern Sovereignty," as part three of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

Next episode: "The Current Liberal Government," as part five of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

UTIAS-SFL and Raytheon Canada Building Military Funded Spy Sats

          By Brian Orlotti

The University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) has announced that it will develop three microsatellites to demonstrate ‘new’ air and maritime surveillance technology for Canada’s North.

As outlined in the February 1st, 2019 University of Toronto Engineering News post, "U of T Engineering researchers to design microsatellites for Arctic monitoring," the project, dubbed Gray Jay Pathfinder (GJP), is a partnership between UTIAS SFL, Woodbridge ON based Raytheon Canada and the Department of National Defence (DND).

Under the partnership, UTIAS SFL will build the GJP microsats while Raytheon Canada develops the onboard electronics.

The program is being funded as part of the DND’s All Domain Situational Awareness Science & Technology (ADSA S&T) program at a total of $46.2Mln CDN, with UTIAS SFL receiving $15Mln and Raytheon Canada getting $31.2Mln. The funding was allocated as part of 2018 Canadian Defence Budget, which provided a 70% increase in funding for Canada's military.

Raytheon Canada’s electronics will demonstrate a distinctly Canadian version of what most modern military knows as over-the-horizon radar (OTH). The Raytheon name for it is "Skywave radar technology" and many of the concepts surrounding it were discussed in the October 2006 Defence R&D Canada Technical Memorandum (TM 2006-285) titled, "A Canadian Perspective on High-Frequency Over-the-Horizon Radar," although the program was active in the 1980's.

Traditional radar systems are line-of-sight, meaning that they cannot detect objects beyond their horizon (typically a few hundred kilometres). Skywave radar overcomes this limitation by bouncing its signals off the ionosphere, increasing range to thousthe ands of kilometres.

OTH radar, first developed in the 1960’s, has been in use for decades by the major powers as well as smaller nations, including the US, Russia, France, China, Australia and Iran.

As outlined in the February 2nd, 2019 Canadian Defence Review post, "Canada Awards Contracts In Support of Arctic Surveillance," the Skywave/OTH radar technology will enable rapid detection and identification of surface and airborne targets, greatly enhancing the Canadian Forces’ situational awareness in the North.

In addition and as outlined in the post, "solutions achieved under the ADSA program will contribute to joint efforts between Canada and the United States to modernize elements of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)."

The need to beef up Canada’s surveillance capabilities has been made more urgent in recent years by several factors;

• Severe gaps in Canada’s surveillance capabilities due to the failure of the Canadian military’s Northern Watch program, the recent outages of the RADARSAT-2 satellite (most recently as noted in the December 21st, 2018 post, "BREAKING NEWS: RADARSAT-2 Offline for Most of the Week. RADARSAT Constellation February 2019 Launch Date in Doubt") and delays to the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM).

• Increased challenges to Canadian sovereignty as Arctic sea lanes see greater international traffic due to climate change-induced melting of polar ice.

• The increasingly hostile geopolitical environment, including renewed Cold War tensions following the US’ withdrawal from a key nuclear weapons treaty, the US/China trade war, and US belligerence towards Canada during the recent NAFTA renegotiation

Canada must overcome its peaceful complacency if it is to survive in an increasingly unstable world.

Brian Orlotti.

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Brian Orlotti is a network operator at the Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION), a not-for-profit network service provider to the education and research sectors.

A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 3: Towards Northern Sovereignty

          By Chuck Black

This series of posts is attempting to answer some of the questions surrounding the appropriate Canadian response to the recently announced US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force.

Past, present and future Liberal Prime Ministers in 1968. Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, Lester Pearson and Jean Chretian overlooked by the press and the image of Sir Wilfred Laurier. Photo c/o Wikipedia.

In part one, titled "The Axworthy Doctrine," we attempted to answer some of those questions by showing how the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's led to a Canadian reassessment of the four traditional pillars of our national defense strategy and a new focus on international peacekeeping. This new policy required space focused communication and surveillance capabilities and led directly to our first military space policy in 1998. 

Part two, titled "The Changing Political Landscape" discussed why Canada never had a military space policy prior to 1998 by going back to the 1960's and the federal liberal party under Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. 

Here is part three of this series.

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Canadian Prime Ministers Pearson and Trudeau essentially refused to differentiate between space based military assets for communication/ surveillance and space "weaponization" (placing weapons in space) in order to be perceived of as strong, international supporters of the United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) and the UN Outer Space Treaty (1967).

This led to the shutting down of most Canadian military space programs and a focus on space science, exploration and technologies with civilian applications that could be spun off into profitable companies.

Beginning in 1993, under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, the government moved to slowly address this situation by putting into place a series of military restructurings which culminated in the creation of the Directorate of Space Development (DSpaceD) in 1997.

Over the next two decades and much like any aggressive and growing bureaucracy, the Canadian government slowly acquired a series of assets to enable DSpaceD to perform a useful function.

The various RADARSAT programs, with their dual military/civilian use (culminating in RADARSAT Constellation, expected to be launched sometime in the spring of 2019) and the DND Sapphire space surveillance satellite, launched in 2013 to provide data to the United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) are current examples of useful Canadian space policy tools.

But those contributions were essentially used as keys to access larger US space surveillance and Earth imaging technology such as the SSN. Canada had no real intention of building a stand alone system mostly because it didn't have the money.

The Chrétien government spent its time in office focused on gaining control of a Federal deficit which had ballooned under both Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. As part of his program, Chrétietn tended to want to contribute to this program and not spend enough extra government money to develop an independent Canadian military space capacity.

Overall, the stuff the Canadians needed to borrow from the Americans in order to maintain their operational military capacity, simply ended up reminding the Americans that Canada was no longer capable of contributing it's "fair share" to defense without substantial assistance.

It's a state of affairs which has lasted ever since.

By 2008, James Fergusson, the Director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba and Stephen James, the Director of the Executive MBA Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba could legitimately claim in their "Report on Canada, National Security and Outer Space" that:

Canada has no overarching national space policy, and space is not addressed in either of the latest national security and defence policies. 

Space is so structurally buried and fragmented within government that voices advocating for more appropriate treatment of space security issues are marginalized, even within such departments as Industry Canada (now Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the Canadian Space Agency's parent department) and the Department of National Defence (DND).

The Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) budget, and accordingly, its interests and activities have been diminishing and narrowing around space science and exploration for the last decade (dominated by human space flight and international space station programs), leaving little investment opportunity for other space pursuits (i.e., space-based services and access to space). 

The DND, while pursuing the development of a small space-surveillance satellite (Project Sapphire), has progressively scaled back its space interests and pursuits since its mid-1990s peak. Even then, those interests and pursuits were modest, end-user focused, and highly reliant on American leadership and resources.

Fortunately for the military space advocates, by 2008 the liberals were no longer in power and the newly elected Conservative Stephen Harper government was busy developing what they called the Canada First - Defense Strategy.

Officially focused around increased funding (from $18Bln CDN in 2007-2008 to over $30Bln CDN in 2027-2028) and new equipment purchases for what is supposed to be variety of domestic and international missions, the new policy had a practical focus on protecting Canadian claims of arctic sovereignty.

Why would Canada be doing this?

According to the July 7th, 2007 New Scientist TV post, "Canada boosts military presence in the Arctic," the country:

... is in dispute with its neighbour, the US, over the ownership of the northwest passage. If sea-ice continues to shrink, this passage could knock a third off the trip from Europe to Asia. Currently, the shortest route involves crossing through the Panama Canal.

Harper's determination to show that Canada will not be booted out of the Arctic is such that he has decided to put $2.9Bln US ($3.8Bln CDN) towards building up his nation's military presence in the area. This will help buy eight new ice-breaker military patrol ships and build a new port in the north of Canada.

According to the article, our long-term allies had suddenly become our major competitors, at least in the high arctic.

If the Federal government really wanted new military purchases, expanded operations and increased infrastructure they would also require expanded communications and area surveillance capabilities of the type most effectively provided by space based assets.

Only this time, the Canadian government was supposed to have actually purchased those assets and not just borrowed them from patient allies. 

We didn't and the consequences of that decision will be discussed in our next post.

Chuck Black.

___________________________________________________________

Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 

Portions of  this  multipart overview were originally published in the January 03, 2011 post, "Canada's Military Space Policy: Part 3, The Changing Political Landscape." Towards Northern Sovereignty."






Last episode: "The Changing Political Landscape," as part two of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," begins.

Next episode: "Funding an Appropriate Force," as part four of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 2: The Changing Political Landscape

          By Chuck Black

The US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force independent of the other five branches of the US military is slowly taking form in the current Donald Trump administration, but the genesis of the concept goes back to the 1980's and Ronald Reagan's Star Wars Strategic Defence Initiative. 

Since the new plan will essentially absorb major components of existing North American defence, including the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), there is no question that Canada's current defence policy, as outlined in the January 17th, 2019 Federal government overview, "Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada's Defence Policy," will need to be revised to reconcile existing policies and partnerships with future US actions and intentions.

Below is the second part of a short history of Canadian space defence planning which would suggest that there are certain defence components which Canada might want to carry out independently of the US. 

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This series of posts is attempting to answer some of the questions surrounding the appropriate Canadian response to the recently announced US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force. 

Jean Chrétien in 2008. Photo c/o Wikipedia.

Part one, titled "The Axworthy Doctrine," highlighted how the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's led Canada to re-orient defense spending away from traditional Canadian priorities and towards international peacekeeping missions as defined by the concept of "human security."

This doctrine was initially viewed by the governing Liberal party under then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien as a great way to save money, but also created a requirement to support a far more combat capable force on lengthy international missions.

The easiest way to do that, at least according to the Summer 2000 Canadian Military Journal article "Is the Sky Falling? Canada's Defence Space Program at the Crossroads," was to develop an indigenous military space communications and surveillance capability.

Curiously enough, that capability was surprisingly similar to some of the concepts included within Ronald Reagan's 1980's era Star Wars Strategic Defence Initiative and carried over into the current Trump Space Force proposal.

According to the article:

The massive troop deployments of the 1990s highlighted the immediate requirement for adequate indigenous Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM). The increased employment of precision guided munitions demonstrated a growing dependence on accurate strategic intelligence, satellite imagery, and satellite navigation and positioning. Also, the general increase in littoral operations by naval forces placed a greater dependence on accurate meteorological and geodetic capabilities.

As the (Canadian) government continued to commit Canadian Forces across the world, more and more space support was necessary. 

Reluctantly perhaps, the Liberal government accepted that the militarization of space was a long-existing fact that had to be publicly supported if it was to meet other foreign policy goals.

Why was the Liberal government so very reluctant to accept the "militarization of space?" According to the article there was ample precedent for this reluctance:

Canada’s endorsement of the United Nation’s treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in 1963 (the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) and the United Nation’s Outer Space Treaty (UNOST) in 1967 were interpreted almost verbatim by Ottawa, and led to the removal of DRB (the Defence Research Board) control from most of Canada’s space projects.

The first Trudeau government saw no distinction between the militarization of space (placing military space assets in orbit) and the ‘weaponization’ of space (placing weapons in orbit), and moved quickly to deprive Canada’s military of any space assets or capability. 

Pierre Trudeau in 1971. Photo c/o Life Site.

In 1968, the government withdrew financial support from most defence space projects, preferring instead to concentrate its resources on the development of a domestic satellite communications system (through Ottawa ON based Telesat, which was then a newly minted government crown corporation).

In essence, the long-term Canadian government policy, starting from the 1960's and continuing at least until the middle 1990's, was to simply "withdraw financial support" from the military in favor of civilian programs wrapped around commercial concerns.

By 1994, this historic neglect of the Canadian military was no longer a reasonable option. According to the article:

As future space technologies all but eliminate Canada’s traditional geographic situational importance, Ottawa will have to rely on providing a share of the security burden rather than relying on the outdated American involuntary guarantee of protection.

These new technologies, and the potential for even more radical improvements on the horizon helped the Canadian military to push forward a plan to insure that a requirement for a Canadian communications and surveillance capability would be at least be addressed:

Despite the rapid alteration of the global strategic environment in the late 1980s, and a succession of external conflicts and internal DND strife in the early 1990s, Canada successfully formulated both a DND space policy and an organization with which to implement it. 

In July 1989, the Chief of Review Services (CRS) tabled a comprehensive report on Canada’s defence space programme that initiated a series of policy recommendations over the next several years.

A Space Defence Working Group (SDWG) was formed, and in 1992 it tabled its first comprehensive space policy. During the next four years, the SDWG developed plans and planning guidance documents, which among other items highlighted the requirement for an indigenous military space-based capability. 

In 1996, the management structure was then reviewed which resulted in the creation of the Directorate of Space Development (D Space D) in 1997 under the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (DCDS). 

But while the military had at least put in place a command structure, there were no real resources for the "indigenous military space-based capability" to command.

The Canadian military's financial position remained precarious and the situation virtually guaranteed the continued, heavy reliance on foreign, mostly US based space assistance to fulfill defense needs.

This put a considerable strain the Canada/US relationship.

As well, an evolving US strategy (ironically enough, based on core concepts quite similar to those found in the Canadian advocated Axworthy Doctrine) slowly caused the Chrétien government to back away from some of the more critical practices associated with the US "global war on terror."

This added a little extra strain to the relationship.

Of course, there has been exceptions to this continued, heavy reliance on US assets for Canadian defence.

The various RADARSAT programs, with their dual military/civilian use (culminating in RADARSAT Constellation, expected to be launched sometime this spring) and the DND Sapphire space surveillance satellite, launched in 2013 to provide data to the United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) are current examples of useful Canadian contributions.

But the long-term US conception of Canadian military capabilities remains trapped in the perception that Canada should pay more for its own defence. Besides, the Trump administration seems to have no problem with renegotiating agreements it believes are "unfair."

So we've moved away from the situation existing throughout the 1960's to the 1990's when Canadian space policy provided no support whatsoever for military activities to the point where where the federal government created the beginnings of an indigenous military space communications and surveillance capability to support Canadian troops on international missions.

This brings us to 2008 and the Harper Government's Canada First - Defense Strategy. How does the issuance of that government policy paper influence and effect the current Canadian military space policy and how does the 2008 policy fit into US space force discussions?

That will be the subject of our next post on this topic.

Chuck Black.

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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 

Portions of  this  multipart overview were originally published in the December 27th, 2010 post, "Canada's Military Space Policy: Part 2, The Changing Political Landscape."






Last episode: "The Axworthy Doctrine," as part one of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," begins.

Next episode: "Towards Northern Sovereignty," as part three of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.

A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions

Part 1: The Axworthy Doctrine

          By Chuck Black

The US plan to create an expanded United States Space Force independent of the other five branches of the US military has slowly been taking form under the current Donald Trump administration, but the genesis of the concept goes back to the 1980's and Ronald Reagan's Star Wars Strategic Defence Initiative. 

Since the new plan will essentially absorb major components of existing North American defence, including the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), there is no question that Canada's current defence policy, as outlined in the January 17th, 2019 Federal government overview, "Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada's Defence Policy," will need to reconcile existing policies and partnerships with future US intentions. 

As noted in the September 14th, 2017 Canadian Press post, "Policy says US won’t defend Canada from missile attack: Norad general," Canada might even appreciate an opportunity to revisit decisions on whether or not to accept (and assist with the implementation) or reject the new US defence policies. 

For example, the Department of National Defence (DND) Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program is currently funding the development of over two dozen new applications relating to space situational awareness and other activities which could be either adapted by the US in exchange for access to US space defence capabilities or deployed independently.

Will Canada take advantage of this opportunity to re-assess its integration into the US defensive screen. Below is the first part of a short history of Canadian space defence planning which would suggest that there are certain defence components which Canada might want to carry out independently of the US. 

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Lloyd Axworthy in the 1990's. Graphic c/o Graeme Mackay.

To learn about the origins of Canada's military space policy, we need to start with something called the "1994 Canadian White Paper on Defence."

It's a difficult to find the document these days although it was once a well respected and widely disseminated policy paper generated by incoming Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberal government which outlined their plans for the Canadian military.

Called the "Axworthy Doctrine" after incoming Liberal MP Lloyd Axworthy (who helped originate and champion many of the ideas in the document), its intent was to provide a justification to scale back military expenditures allocated by the outgoing Conservative government and take advantage of the so called "peace dividend" expected to accrue to western democracies after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980's.

Included among the cuts was Canada's traditional commitment to the "level and tempo of Canada-U.S. defense relations, particularly in NORAD, (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which) has been decreasing since the late 1980s" according to the document "Canada, Getting it Right This Time: The 1994 Defence White Paper" published by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the United States Army War College.

Canadian financial contributions to the NATO allied infrastructure program and force levels for the them new CF-18 Hornet fighter jets were also cut back.

But while military cutbacks to Canada's NATO and NORAD contributions might seem like a sane and sensible policy for some, those cutbacks also undermined two of the four traditional pillars of Canadian military policy (the other two are protection of Canadian sovereignty and international peacekeeping missions).

The current NORAD HQ in Building 2 at Peterson Air Force Base. The Cheyenne Mountain Military Complex, the traditional centre of NORAD activities is "no longer used on a daily basis" according to Wikipedia. Photo c/o Wikipedia.

Even worse, the Axworthy Doctrine suggested that direct threats to North American security were unlikely in the foreseeable future. With three of the four traditional justifications for a Canadian military seemingly under fire from an incoming government mandated to slash spending, a new rationale was needed.

This is where the Axworthy Doctrine got creative. It essentially doubled down on the final tier of Canada's military space policy, the international peace missions.

It championed a concept called "human security" which challenged traditional notions of international security by arguing that it should be focused around the individual instead of the state. It also argued that the United Nations (UN) had a "responsibility to protect" people anywhere in the world against genocide and ethnic cleansing attempts, even to the extent of invading or interfering in the internal politics of otherwise sovereign nations.

The 1994 UN mission. Graphic c/o Amazon.

Axworthy (who eventually became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Jean Chrétien government) felt this new Canadian military role could be undertaken by the existing Canadian Forces without the need for any additional military expenditures. In essence, the ruling liberal government could legitimately task the Canadian Forces with the Axworthy Doctrine and still cut military funding.

Was this a great country or what?

To be fair, the doctrine was widely considered to be a reasonable response to help prevent a repeat of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide where the Canadian commander of a UN peace keeping mission (Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire) was prevented from taking steps he felt would diffuse the situation and save lives.

But even in this area, the "Axworthy Doctrine" was a two edge sword. According to the June 9th, 2006 Canadian Encyclopedia post, "Canada's 'responsibility to protect' Doctrine Gaining Ground at the UN," it might:

... sound warm and fuzzy on the surface, but underlying that vision is the cold hard recognition that military intervention may be necessary to achieve this end. Rejecting the sanctity of national borders that has been central to the UN since its founding in 1945, the proposal would create a sort of official licence to invade.

The concept of a "license to invade" rogue regimes for the greater good found an obvious following in the United States (especially after 9/11) which initially provided much of the support infrastructure needed to send Canadian soldiers around the world.

This 2010 political cartoon about "rogue regimes" comes from a simpler age. Graphic c/o Boston Herald.

Unfortunately, the Americans soon started making noise about how Canada should build their own infrastructure, and not simply "piggyback" on existing US capabilities. Axworthy ended up being wrong about his doctrine not needing new expenditures to support combat capable troops on lengthy international missions.

In essence, its not so much different from current US policy requests for allies to pay their "fair share" of military expenditures for communal defence. Some things never change.

Oddly enough, the easiest way to support the Axworthy Doctrine was to develop an indigenous military space communications and surveillance capability to support Canadian missions abroad.

Kinda like what the US is currently looking to leverage as the core components of their proposed US Space Force and quite similar to those two dozen proposals currently being funded by the DND IDEaS program.

The early requirements for this communications and surveillance capability, which led directly to the formulation of Canada's 1998 military space policy, along with a bit of background on why there was no Canadian military space policy prior to 1998, will be the subject of our next post on this topic.

Chuck Black.

___________________________________________________________

Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog. 

Portions of  this  multipart overview were originally published in the December 27th, 2010 post, "Canada's Military Space Policy: Part 1, The Axworthy Doctrine."






Next episode: "The Changing Political Landscape," as part two of "A Short History of Canada's Military Space Policy and How it Fits into the Current US Space Force Discussions," continues.