(Ottawa) The Canadian Armed Forces are reducing their presence in the Middle East in order to free soldiers for missions in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
Vice Admiral Bob Auchterlonie revealed the plan in an interview with The Canadian Press, as the military grapples with personnel shortages and growing demands in other parts of the world.
The Vice-Admiral of the Navy, who heads the Joint Operations Command, says Canada will maintain a presence in the Middle East, including a logistics hub in Kuwait and military training missions in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
Mr. Auchterlonie said the Middle East is one of the few areas where he has flexibility, as he juggles Canada’s many other commitments in a context of limited resources, particularly human resources.
“Given the importance of the conflict in Ukraine, we will obviously continue to support this,” he said. Commitments to NATO-obviously we’re going to continue to support that. And with the increase in the Indo-Pacific, there is not much room left to reduce. »
Thousands of Canadian soldiers have been deployed in the Middle East since 2014, when Canada joined its allies in declaring war on Daesh (the Islamic State armed group), which at the time had captured large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Known as Operation Impact, Canada’s participation included fighter jets, transport and surveillance aircraft, special forces soldiers and helicopters, a medical hospital and hundreds of military trainers working with soldiers. Iraqis, Jordanians and Lebanese.
At the height of the operation, approximately 800 Canadian soldiers were deployed in the region, making it Canada’s largest mission since Afghanistan.
The Canadian Armed Forces began to reduce their presence after the defeat of Daesh in 2017.
The decline was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, growing tensions with Iran and political unrest in Baghdad before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put European security at the forefront, sparking new demands for the Canadian army.
Mr Auchterlonie revealed that the Liberal government had set a cap of 450 Armed Forces personnel for Operation Impact, although only around 250 are currently involved in the mission. This number should even drop further to meet other demands.
“We are looking at reducing that to allow the Canadian Army (the land component) in particular to move more people elsewhere,” he said. So we reduced this mission in numbers, and I lightened the skills and requirements of those deployed to free others in the military. »
In a December interview, the Commander of the Canadian Army, Lieutenant-General Joe Paul, said the military corps was being pressured by increasing demands at home and abroad, particularly in Europe, as even as the number of soldiers available for such missions decreases.
Paul told The Canadian Press that Canadian Army forces were cut by 1,200 soldiers last year as departures outpaced recruitment —and they could lose hundreds more unless that the situation does not change. The Canadian Armed Forces as a whole has a shortage of about 10,000 members, which means that one position in 10 is vacant.
The shortage comes as Canada doubled the number of military trainers working with their Ukrainian counterparts from 200 to 400 after the Russian invasion. The Army is also about to reinforce a Canadian-led NATO battle group in Latvia, which will require hundreds of additional soldiers.
All this coincides with the fact that the army is called upon to respond to more and more natural disasters in its country.
To illustrate the impact on Canadian troops, Auchterlonie referenced a unit in August 2021 that was assisting with flood relief efforts in the Yukon when it was sent to Kuwait to help evacuate the Afghanistan — then was deployed to Ukraine to train local forces.
There are also the army’s challenges in terms of equipment, due to the limited number of old ships and aircraft and deficiencies such as the lack of air defense capability.
And the government recently announced a plan to increase the presence of armed forces in the Indo-Pacific region.
“So the demand is up, and trying to meet that is really difficult,” Auchterlonie said. Therefore, in missions where I have the possibility to reduce (our presence), I have done so. »