How can we fight? – Framing the problem

Brigadier General Louis Lapointe, OMM, MMV, MSM, CD - August 25th, 2025

Reading Time: 15 min

The major powers of the world are in a state of competition, and in certain cases a state of crisis, through proxy actions or even in some form of open conflict.² Well-informed citizens should have no doubt that Western democracies are on a trajectory toward confrontation and open conflict with Russia and China. A pessimist, and to some extent a realist, would agree to say that by the end of this decade, the conditions will be set for an inevitable collision.

Unfortunately, Canadian sentiment towards national security is today reminiscent of the national perspective of 1924, when Canadian senator and member of cabinet Raoul Dandurand (1861-1942) encapsulated these feelings when he outlined to the League of Nations that a Canadian aim to live in “a fireproof house, far from inflammable materials.”³ The oceans separating us from the European and Asian continents may have been historic challenges to commerce and economic prosperity, but they have insulated us and engendered a practical indifference toward an increasingly volatile world. Reaping the benefits of winning the Cold War, Western nations – and most particularly Canada – have felt the absence of a direct state-on-state threat. Even the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001, have done little to spark our sense of urgency toward the new security paradox that prompts re-evaluation and strategic adaptation for national defence.

Mobilization: Old assumptions and new realities

Compounding the challenges presented by national attitudes to defence and security threats is the Canadian Armed Forces’ relationship with the concept of mobilization and the reserves since the Cold War. Lessons learned from WWII and prior conflicts accustomed us to assume, and thus rely on, a significant period of time to execute a mass mobilization plan to meet the nation’s needs of war. This assumption was shattered when the intercontinental bomber threat emerged.⁴ From that point on, any conflict would be virtually instantaneous and require large standing forces to narrow the gap between peacetime and wartime security needs.

Observing the conflict in Ukraine, it is fair to assume that even with all the sophistication and lethality of modern battlefield sensors and weaponry, any major combat operations involving the major powers of the world will require additional personnel from a nation’s reserve forces. In the late 1970s, the Primary Reserve was intended to be fully integrated to address a critical shortfall of personnel required to field a Canadian Army Corps to meet NATO’s deterrent requirements against the Soviet Union. This plan was coined as the “Total Force concept” in the 1987 White Paper on Defence.⁵ Unfortunately, the Reserve was never fully integrated and their role in mobilization regarding capability fielding, self-sufficient training for augmentation, and reinforcement was dissipated.

Canadian military history of mobilization for war is rife with “re-observed” lessons. The need for a mobilization plan which integrates the Reserves was well-explained in 1983 by the Defence Minister of the time, Mr. Gilles Lamontagne, when he addressed the ineptness of the Canadian Armed Forces during his mandate to organize for mobilization:

Any wartime commitment of significant size or duration would obviously require additional personnel from the Reserves… [T]he force must have the necessary plans and preparations which would enable it … to carry out even further expansion… I am talking about the need for plans and preparations which would enable the Canadian Forces, in a crisis, to immediately activate its full war establishment, made up of both its Regular force and substantially improved Reserve counterparts.⁶

Today’s senior CAF tacticians should find it worrying to see that our nation’s plans and preparations for war are almost absent from most professional military and academic dialogue. This is embodied in our training institution where, at the rank of senior majors, we instruct the students on the Joint Command and Staff Program to think beyond the “tactical” realm to focus solely on the operational art. The professional development of the CAF senior officers is focussed on addressing National Defence strategic challenges rather than prioritizing on the preparation of practitioners for warfighting at joint echelons. When warfighting enters echelons above the brigade, it is most often seen as the unthinkable, unsustainable, and too demanding for a middle power nation like Canada and we tend to revert almost exclusively to our soft power attributes to advance our national interests.

The CAF’s pivot towards armed forces at the battalion level is also the outcome of the CAF’s almost exclusive concentration for the last three decades on peacekeeping and counter insurgency missions. This resulted in an organizational culture that moved away from warfighting and major combat operations at echelons above brigade. The perception of safety and distant threats of a near peer adversary has atrophied our paradigm towards the need for actionable mobilization plans and preparations. The emergence of a new and battle tested Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the rapid armament of the People Liberation’s Army are the defining geo-political consequential threats of our time. The status quo of a force structure built to address peacekeeping and counter-insurgency missions must be reviewed. Today’s armed forces must be structured to deter and be ready to fight and win our nation’s wars if needed.

Since the end of the Cold War, exacerbated by periods of unfavorable national socio-economic conditions and increasing recruiting challenges, Canada has been unable to maintain a sufficiently large Regular Force to meet all its national defence imperatives and meet the expectations of our partners and allies. How do we address this serious shortfall in capability? Without mobilization plans and given that national emergency conscription would be an unacceptable solution, how do we establish and maintain credible national defence capabilities and contribute to global deterrence efforts? If our aspiration is to be considered a serious and reliable ally for the collective security framework, should Canada, as a minimum, plan and task-organize itself to be capable of delivering combat power at the size and scale commensurate to our national economic and demographic capabilities? The following section of this opinion paper will provide a “within our means” solution space for organizing our forces for warfighting in a coherent manner to meet the current geopolitical threat environment with our allies and partners.

What can be generated?

For those unfamiliar with the requirements of a division, it is certainly daunting to consider the herculean task of force generating one when the Canadian Army is “all in” to generate a multi-national brigade for the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence task of Operation REASSURANCE in Latvia. In addition to the significant number of troops required for this Brigade level task, there are massive gaps in many of the capabilities inherent to a warfighting division. Unfortunately, the CAF even lacks the structure upon which the organization of those capabilities could be nested to potentially grow in the case of an “all out” maximum contribution effort to a major conflict in Europe or Asia.

The history of Canadian mobilization provides us with valuable examples on our capacity to rapidly assemble and force generate formation level combat forces up to the Division level. For example, in 1914, with a regular army of only 3110 men, Canada recruited, trained, and equipped a force of 32,000 personnel at the purpose-built mobilization camp in Valcartier. In October 1914, only two months after mobilization, that contingent sailed to England as the First Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.⁷ World War II also offers an astonishing example of mobilization under the leadership of Major-General A.G.L. McNaughton. The mobilization of the Canadian Active Service Force was ordered by the government on 1 September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. McNaughton took charge of the mobilization and command of 1^st Canadian Division in October 1939 and sailed to England on the 17 December 1939 with 12,543 soldiers.⁸ In both World Wars, the members of the 1^st Canadian Division saw action within months of arriving in Europe. That feat is even more impressive when we consider that Canada did not have a regular armed forces to rely on to generate its combat power.

The Reserves as an element of the solution

Throughout its history, Canada relied on the Militia to generate its forces for operations overseas. All the way back from the birth of our nation to the late 1980’s, the backbone of Canada’s mobilization plans was centered on the Militia. The White Paper on Defence of 1964 acknowledged the role of reserve beyond simply being reinforcement for the regular forces. The critical capability gaps of the time in case of general mobilization were identified as logistical, and at echelons above brigade, units, and training:

The primary role of the militia is to support the Regular Army. The Emergency Defence Plan calls for the withdrawal of Regular Army personnel from the Defence of Canada Forces in static installations to bring the field force up to establishment. The militia would be required to form the framework for logistics and special units which are not provided in peace time. Secondary roles include the provision of a training force which would be required in an emergency to support the field forces; internal security including the provision of trained officers and men for guarding key points; and assisting the Regular Army in its national survival responsibilities.⁹

As explained earlier, generating a response force primarily out of the reserve (militia) was an acceptable solution before the introduction of intercontinental threats and after Canada’s awakening to its neo-liberalism global peace efforts. The decades of Canada’s peacekeeping efforts following Lester B. Pearson’s leadership during the 1956 Suez crisis, created a reliance on rotational active-duty forces that could be generated for United Nations or NATO missions bi-annually through a carefully crafted Managed Readiness Plan. That model endured all the way through the combat mission in Afghanistan. The downside of this force generation model was the atrophy of our mental agility to think and plan for the mobilization of much greater forces for missions that have become essential for our national security in the emerging new world order. Thus, the CAF now risks being unable to fulfill its primary function – the defence of Canada and Canadian interests.

Unfortunately, even with today’s force generation models and complex “Managed Readiness Plans,” the primary force generators still struggle to fulfill all their tasks and must consistently juggle between the competing priorities of training and employing the force. Simply said, there are more operational task requirements than there are troops or resources to execute them. To compound the problem, currently, the generation of forces is more strenuous than ever due to the rapid evolution of battlefield innovations and technologies, new legislations, higher public scrutiny, appetite for transparency, and a consequential aversion to risk.

Divisions are once again the Units of action

“The Team that we build and prepare is the team that will fight together”

Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson, Commanding General US I Corps, 17 April 2024

Evolving the force at the speed of technological relevance has pressed the development of new combat capabilities in silos without a proper overarching force employment concept. Being a small military, the CAF are very preoccupied with keeping pace with the development of very niche strategic and operational capabilities. Still, we fall short of determining how to deliver basic warfighting capabilities at the tactical level. Too often, the provision of critical warfighting capabilities and enablers has been relegated to the assumption that it could be filled by allies and partners (air defence, sustainment, etc). As we know from the current situation in Ukraine, all warfighting capabilities that are short or inexistent in Canada’s military arsenal, have proven vital on the modern battlefield. No allied forces will have an excess capacity of those enablers to share when a large-scale conflict breaks out.

Based on the resurgence of Large-Scale Combat Operations in Europe and the growing competition in the Indo-Pacific region, there is a consensus amongst Canada’s allies, partners, and even possible adversaries that the division has once again became the unit of action. The US Army has transitioned to the divisional warfighting model, away from the Infantry Brigade Combat Teams force generation model that was adapted to meet the demands of multiple rotations imposed by the Global War on Terror. Concurrent to the challenge we face in providing the warfighting battalions and brigades with all the required enablers on the battlefield, there is a recognition that some of the battle shaping enablers, such as Multi-Domain assets and weapons, are capable of interdicting access or denying areas to an adversary with ranges and effects exceeding the reach and control of brigades.¹⁰ Today, the brigades will be completely consumed by the close fight, and their proximity to enemy fire and uncrewed aerial systems observation will make every massing of troops and critical equipment an easy target for precision long range weapons. General James Rainey, Commanding General of the US Army Futures Command explained this challenge at a conference in 2023:

Brigade Combat Team commanders are going to be wholly consumed in that close flight. And they are going to have to get their good intel reads, joint fires and Army fires from their higher headquarters. And higher headquarters is going to have to protect them. And they are going to have to push logistics. And there is nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to set up big brigade assembly areas. That will be a cultural shift.¹¹

There is a consensus across allied armies that the division is the level where the majority of combat enablers are aligned and packaged to optimize their utilization, hence why the division is considered the decisive tactical formation or otherwise named the “Unit of action.”¹² One of the main reasons is that the division is the lowest level at which the integration of combat multiplier capabilities like long range fire, air defence, cyber, space and others can be coordinated. The division is the first level where the deep fight is executed, and shaping is the decisive action on the battlefield. Even with today’s economic and personnel recruitment and retention challenges facing most western armies, countries are building new divisions to be the cornerstone of their defence capabilities. From the reactivation of the 11^th Airborne Division in the US in 2022 and the 1^st UK Division in 2023, other countries like Denmark, Australia, Poland, and Sweden are in the process of getting back in the divisional warfighting business. They all recognize that, in modern major combat operations against a near peer adversary, the brigades and battalions will be so invested in the close fight, that they will not have the capacity to effectively plan and coordinate anything beyond it. This recognition is also identified amongst our adversaries like Russia who, after the epic failures of their independent Battalion Tactical Groups and Brigades during the initial months of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have reorganized under divisions operating as part of Combined Arms Armies.¹³

Maintaining large conventional armies is expensive and many countries are opting for lighter divisions. With personnel and resource constraints in mind, headquarters are reduced, and reach-back capabilities are created, which improves protection. Limited capabilities like indirect fires, aviation, heavy engineers, cyber and influence activities are grouped at higher echelons, which improves their ability to conduct shaping operations, mass forces, integrate joint enablers and tackle more complex tasks. Sustainment and maintenance are also streamlined when integrated at higher echelons to enhance power projection. In short, numbers are not always growing but the precision of the employment of the force is improved.

Considering the division is the optimal level for integration of combat functions, the lowest tactical level where shaping action is coordinated, and where low-density capabilities reside and survive, could Canada also embrace the same turn towards divisions as the units of action as our allies and partners? The more poignant question is likely: “can we afford not to?”. In the past, and until the end of the Cold War, Canada’s warfighting capabilities were centered around the division. Until now, we have seen some episodic attempts to re-create those divisional warfighting synergies, only to see them stall due to the demands of generating rotations of troops for current military commitments as well as the constant pull to support institutional and domestic priorities.¹⁴

When it comes to generating a credible warfighting division, what Canada requires most is a supporting pre-crisis divisional framework that includes a force structure, costed resource allocations, training, and doctrine. A proper framework would enable an organizational culture capable of preparing the CAF for the future wars that are closer than we think.¹⁵ The greatest advantage of building a division warfighting structure is that it provides an anchor for the development of new capabilities against doctrine. As well, it brings in joint enablers to support land-centric operations and offers a basis of comparison with allies and partners.

There have been multiple initiatives in the past to analyze the operationalization of the Land and Joint forces. In 2011, the Report on Transformation led by Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie addressed the need to rationalize the number of headquarters in the CAF and to achieve a more balanced ratio of headquarters versus field forces. The report advocated for the replacement of the geographical Army “Area” command structure for a structure comprised of two divisions. The concept was to create one division for the Regular Force brigades and its enablers reinforced with reservists and a second division of reserves reinforced by the Regular Force. 1st Canadian Division would have been responsible for the Force Generation and employment of its elements for standing high readiness tasks worldwide for limited surge durations of nine months. Meanwhile, 2nd Division would command tactical Army Reserve forces focussed on domestic response, connectivity to local communities, and augmentation of Regular Force units and formations for international operations.¹⁶

In 2020, a study was conducted in the CAF to seek ways to harmonize the accountabilities, responsibilities and authorities (ARAs) between the Canadian Army and the Canadian Joint Operation Command to achieve the same synergy as that achieved by the Royal Canadian Navy’s Maritime Component Command (MCC) and the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Joint Forces Air Component Command (JFACC). The Land Component Study mandated by Commander Canadian Joint Operation Command, Lieutenant General Michael Rouleau and Commander Canadian Army, Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre, concluded that the geographical division of Canada for domestic operations under Regional Joint Task Forces was functioning well and should be maintained and a Canadian Army Liaison Office within the Joint Operation Command would achieve the desired effect.¹⁷

In the end, none of the studies or initiatives resulted in structural changes toward a greater operationalization of the CAF. The resurgence of an existential threat to Western democracies post February 2022 is a watershed moment that demands a re-think of the post Cold War and Afghanistan campaign era mindset. Therefore, it is worth asking if re-examining the divisional warfighting capability of Canada is a worthy endeavour or another inconclusive staff effort.

Conclusion

Recently, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been able to regain the initiative and pose multiple dilemmas to the Russian government by executing an incursion in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation territory. Where previous recent attempts to execute offensive operations by the Ukrainian have failed, this time the tactical successes have been attributed to the Ukrainian military’s ability to conduct combined arms operations and to coordinate the manoeuvre of up five brigades (two additional brigades in reserve). The integration of deep fires, heavy engineers to execute a breach supported by fire and air defence have been key to achieve overwhelming advantage and break the gridlock on the front.¹⁸ Elsewhere along the front, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are conducting positional defence, and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are executing an attritional warfare for marginal tactical gain. This recent Ukrainian offensive has proven that the manoeuvre of combined arms elements above brigades are still critical to a war winning strategy for the modern battlefield.

The main operational challenge of the Canadian Armed Forces is how to bring all the instruments of military power to bear in mutual support of each other, at a national scale, to contribute to global deterrence and, if required, to fight and win our nation’s wars.

Every military capability should ask themselves how they contribute to the integrated global deterrence apparatus of our nation. A divisional structure provides a framework to contextualize that contribution. For example, the urgent need for long range fires can be doctrinally associated to a division or above. The Australian Army have justified the acquisition of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS)¹⁹ and Medium Range Ground Based Air Defence project to be part of the newly created division’s Fires Brigade. Divisions are sufficiently detached from the close fight to be agile and capable of integrating emerging capabilities. The divisions have just enough span to be the lowest tactical integrator for supporting the force generation and employment of Close Air Support, Cyber warfare, Space, and even Naval power. The requirements of coordinating and integrating such capabilities at echelons below the division, who are fully committed to winning the very complex and challenging close battle characterised by the proximity of the near peer adversary, would make those joint, unique, and deep strike assets a liability and would hinder their agility.

Understanding the number of troops available to fill the rank and file of our current battalions and headquarters is seriously lacking; the divisional warfighting analysis must rely on and limit itself to creating a skeleton structure that can be the blueprint of a mobilization plan. Such a plan must harness all elements of national power (all branches and components of the military, industry, diplomatic and economic). From a military perspective, every soldier in uniform and every unit should know where they fit into the delivery of cohesive national combat power. To be an instrument of credible deterrence, a mobilization plan needs to be achievable and based on realistic expectations.

If Canada re-engages in creating divisional warfighting capabilities, there will be multiple gaps and shortages that will require (re)investment. However, when it comes to divisional capabilities, we are more capable than we think; we already have many of the enablers and we have the essential competencies to build some missing capabilities rapidly. Resources are distributed across the CAF, and we are often only missing the critical integrator – the structure.

Finally, 1st Canadian Division HQ has the current structure and capabilities to train at the divisional warfighting level under an Allied Corps. There needs to be a stronger dialogue and commitment by all force generators about how we task organize our combat power for war. Analysis and resulting plans must stay rational in their force employment examination. The warfighting framework must be informed by current realities and anchored on doctrine and lessons learned from conflict. The mindset of being a nation capable of delivering divisional warfighting capabilities must always prevail. In today’s security environment, we cannot falter and there is no other national entity that can win our nation’s wars on our behalf. Therefore, let us focus on establishing a divisional warfighting framework before our potential adversaries decide to force this requirement upon us by initiating a large-scale conflict at a time and place of their choosing. Failure to prepare and plan effectively pre-crisis will result in an ad hoc and rushed force generation process that will not adequately prepare our forces for war. Our nation, our allies, and our soldiers deserve better.

End Notes

1. Temnycky, Mark, Putin’s dream of a new Russian Empire are unraveling in Ukraine, Atlantic Council, 25 April 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-dreams-of-a-new-russian-empire-are-unraveling-in-ukraine/
2. United States Department of Defence, Joint Doctrine Note 1-19, Competition Continuum, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/jdn_jg/jdn1_19.pdf , “The Competition Continuum and Deterrence”, 3 June 2019, p. 10-11.
3. Gibson, Sarah Katherine, Dreams of a 'fireproof house', https://www.thewhig.com/2013/09/16/dreams-of-a-fireproof-house , 16 Sep 2013
4. Dawson, Peter F., Canadian Military Mobilization, Armed Forces and Society, Vol 16, No 1, Fall 1989, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, p. 51.
5. Government of Canada, Whiter Paper on Defence, “Challenge and Commitment – A Defence Policy for Canada”, 1987, p. 65.
6. Dawson, Peter F., Canadian Military Mobilization, Armed Forces and Society, Vol 16, No 1, Fall 1989, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, p. 49.
7. Colonel G. W. L. Nicholson (1962). Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919. Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationary. https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2014/08/canada-beginning-first-world-war.html
8. Government of Canada, The Old Red Patch, p. 14.
9. Government of Canada, White Paper on Defence, March 1964, p. 25.
10. Skates, Jesse L., Major, US Army, Multi-Domain Operations at Division and Below, Military Review, January-February 2021, p. 68-70.
11. Underwood, Kimberly, The U.S. Army Turns Focus to the Division Level, Signal, 26th May 2023.
12. United States Army, White Paper, How the Army 2030 Divisions Fight, Version 3.5, 02 February 2023.
13. Peck, Michael, Russian failures in Ukraine are forcing Moscow to give up on one of the biggest Putin-era military reforms, Business Insider, 11 October 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-failures-force-russia-to-end-putin-era-military-reforms-2023-10.
14. 1^st Canadian Division was re-activated in 2010. Since then, the divisional warfighting capability of the headquarters was analyzed through multiple command post exercises and analyses but the table of organization and equipment (TO&E) was never resourced. In October 2020, Canada offered 1^st Canadian Division to NATO to fulfill the Enhanced NATO Response Force (eNRF). The Force Employment Concept was drafted but the CAF withdrew its offer in 2022 to focus on providing a Canada-led multinational enhanced Forward Presence Brigade in Latvia by 2024.
15. Even if a divisional structure is hollow in parts like 1^st Australian Division, 1^st UK Division and 11th Airborne Division, it creates the foundation to anchor all the Force development of capabilities above brigade and provides realistic training to the subordinate formations.
16. Government of Canada, Report on Transformation 2011, https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/report-on-transformation-2011.html
17. Government of Canada, Minister of National Defense, Record of Decisions (ROD): Land Component Command (LCC) Study Brief, 29 May 2020, https://collaboration-cjoc.forces.mil.ca/sites/1CdnDiv_HQ/CR/20200505-U-3350-CJOCHQ_LCC_Study_RoD.Final.pdf
18. Maisaia, Vakhtang, The Current Ukrainian Blitzkrieg in Kursk and Its Geopolitical Missions, The Georgian Times, 19 Aug 2024, https://geotimes.ge/en/the-current-ukrainian-blitzkrieg-in-kursk-and-its-geopolitical-missions/
19. The Australian Defence Force is building its long-range fire capability through two regiments of 36 HIMARS launchers each, without diminishing their cannon artillery capability. They are considering their rocket and cannon artillery to be complementary capabilities to support the close fight, the divisional deep fires, and the theater very deep fires.