Sea Control - Sea Control 235 - Canada's Role in the 4th Battle of the Atlantic

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

Links1. "Canada and the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic," by Cdr Peter Sproule, Canadian Naval Review, Vol 16, Number 3, 2021.

Hey folks, Jared here. One note on the podcast feed. We are still working through the issue of having two existing C-Control feeds out there. So the legacy feed, that's the old one, is labeled C-Control-SimSec. It's run through something called FeedBurner, and we have no control over what's populated in that feed. The current feed is labeled simply C-Control, and it includes the phrase SimSec's flagship podcast in its description. I'd encourage you to follow the current C-Control feed. If you're following the Legacy feed, you may have noticed episodes 233 and 234 have not populated in that Legacy feed, and there's nothing that we can do about it. So go back, give those episodes a listen, and remember to switch over to SimSec's flagship podcast version of the Sea

Control feed. As you transition over as well, I'd like to encourage you to rate and review the new feed. So this week we have Commander Peter Sproul, Royal Canadian Navy officer and author of the article, Canada and the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic, and Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia, and they're going to discuss Peter's article and some other questions surrounding a potential conflict in the North Atlantic. This episode was produced and edited by David Suhida. As always, I want to thank those who have donated to SimSec, whether during our Right Fight Win holiday campaign or afterwards. If you haven't donated yet and you'd like to, you can still donate on the website or add us as your preferred non-profit on Amazon Smile so you can support us

while you shop. Finally, I want to take the opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec Podcast Network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Drack, and a pile of iron brew bottles wherever you download your podcasts. And on that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Aloha, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. My guests today are a pair of Canadian Navy officers, Commander Peter Sproul, author of the article, Canada and the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic, which won the 2020 Canadian Naval Memorial Trust Essay Competition.

Also joining us is Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia, Commander of Maritime Forces Atlantic and Joint Task Force Atlantic, who participated in the war game upon which the article was based. So gentlemen, welcome and thank you for coming on. To begin, Admiral, would you mind telling the listeners a little bit about your background? I'm a Naval Warfare Officer in the Royal Canadian Navy for the last 34 years. Like most naval warfare officers in Canada, most of my experience has been involved in frigates, which is the bulk of our fleet. Lots of time in smaller ships and in frigates until I was the commanding officer of HBCS St. John's, and then I went on to command RC Training Group, the base here in Halifax, a multinational task group out of Bahrain,

Task Force 150, most recently some staff jobs in our joint headquarters and our joint staff in Ottawa before assuming command here of the formation. Thanks, sir. And could you tell us a little bit more about your job as Commander of Maritime Forces Atlantic and Joint Task Force Atlantic? What does that job actually entail? Yeah, like many commanders, I think, in all of our allied forces, there's an awful lot of hats involved in it.

And so those are the two titles that get tossed at me. As Commander of Maritime Forces Atlantic, I'm responsible for the fourth generation of the eastern, east coast part of our Navy. And so really that's about getting ships capable of deploying on operations anywhere in the world. The other part of the job that comes through that, so I also work for our joint headquarters as what we consider them the maritime component commander.

And so unlike the United States with its multiple COCOMs, we have one joint operations commander responsible for commanding operations all around the world, and I'm his maritime component commander. So whether the forces are generated from the West or East Coast, if they're chopped over to the Joint Command, then I act as his own commander, give him the advice. And the team here does all of the sort of command and control and support of those forces around the world. And then in the Joint Force Atlantic, that's really a domestic response role. We have six regions across the country, our region, including the four Atlantic provinces here. I have a team that does the command and control and the planning for all domestic responses here in this region.

And again, I report to the Joint Force Commander on that. Well, thanks again for joining us, sir. Peter, could you tell the listeners a bit about yourself, please? I also am a naval warfare officer. I've served for 28 years. The last 20 off and on, I've worked in anti-submarine warfare. I was an anti-submarine warfare director on one of our ships. And about a decade ago, I served as the CEO of the Canadian detachment down at the Naval Ocean Processing Facility in Whidbey Island doing undersea surveillance in the Pacific.

Before I took command of HMCS St. John's, best ship in the fleet, I think the Admiral will agree. In 2018, I spent two years as the commander of operations at the Maritime Component Command, so I was responsible for day-to-day operations to the Admiral's predecessors for a few years, doing all sorts of operations, including our submarines deploying worldwide during that time. Now, having completed my commanding officer tour, I am one of the directing staff at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, responsible for our Lieutenant Commander Major PME. Well, thank you, Peter, and thank you both again for agreeing to join me today. As a reminder for listeners, all opinions are our own and not representative of any of the institutions with which we might otherwise be associated. Peter,

I'm going to start with a nomenclature origin question for you. So where does the phrase Fourth Battle of the Atlantic come from, and how did this article come about? So the phrase the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic comes from a U.S. Admiral, at the time Vice Admiral James Fogo III, who wrote an article in Proceedings stating that with the return of the Russians to an active operational posture in the Atlantic, we were entering into what he described as the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic. The first being the latter half of the First World War, the second being the battle against the Germans in the Second World War. And he described the Cold War conflict between the Soviet submarines and NATO as the third battle of the Atlantic. So he described in his article, with the return of Russia from the ops pause that they went through for almost 15 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, as a fourth battle of the Atlantic. I got the idea for the title when I was doing some research, and I found out that just as I was writing this, the exercise, the 4th Battle of the Atlantic exercise was being held by U.S. Navy 2nd Fleet and NATO's Joint Force Command Norfolk. So I thought it was a good tie-in to the article.

But actually, I've been thinking about this article since I worked in the Maritime Component Command, having read an article by Kathleen Hicks called Undersea Warfare in Northern Europe, in which she described the challenges that came from the return of Russians, mainly in the Baltic, but also in the North Atlantic. And she made a few recommendations that I wanted to carry forward, and I thought that this article was a good venue. Thanks. And for the listeners, we'll go and find that article and post that in the show notes so you can read it as part of the background materials here. Peter, another history question here. What role did Canada's Navy play in the First and Second Battles of the Atlantic? The First Battle of the Atlantic started in 1917 with the return of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, which started initially at the beginning of the war, but after the thinking of Lusitania, stepped back from that plan. And to be honest, Canada's Navy at the time was fairly nascent and was mostly a coastal defense force.

So other than providing some training and potentially officers and sailors to the Royal Navy, we didn't have a very active role in that first Battle of the Atlantic. However, in the second Battle of the Atlantic, Canada's Navy, although extremely small at the beginning of World War II and went through significant growing pains, to be honest, I shouldn't just say the Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force as well, were strong participants in the Second Battle of the Atlantic. Near the end of the war, about 50% of convoys were escorted by Canadian ships. Canada's Navy had grown to be the third largest Navy in the world. And Canada commanded one of the theaters of war in the Atlantic. And that was the only theater in the

Second World War in which a Canadian was in command. So we played a fairly significant role in the Second Battle of the Atlantic. Thanks. And as you mentioned, the third battle is a little bit of a misnomer, given that there were no shots, at least that we're aware of, fired. So what role did the Canadian Navy adopt then post-World War II? I won't say it was fortunate for the Canadian Navy that the Cold War happened, because obviously there were tremendous sacrifices made during the Cold War, and privations that went on

in Eastern Europe obviously were huge hardships for that region. But as far as giving the Canadian Navy a raison d'être, the Cold War and the protection of the Atlantic Bridge allowed the Canadian Navy to provide a role, to continue to provide a role. So we came out of the war, like I said, with the world's third largest navy. We didn't keep that for very long. A lot of those, if you sail on the west coast of Canada, are now block ships in various harbors and the corvettes were rapidly sold off. But needing to maintain an anti-submarine warfare capable fleet to provide that escort ensured that Canada both had a role within NATO, but also the Navy could go to the government and say, we have this mission, we need these platforms, and we were able to justify and maintain a fleet, primarily ASW capable fleet, throughout the entirety of the Cold War. Thanks. Admiral, I'm going to come to you now because the paper references the war game that Peter mentioned held June 2020 at the U.S. Second Fleet and NATO's Joint Force Command. And you looked at fighting the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic. You participated in the game. So what was your role there, sir? And what types of problems were you trying to solve? Yeah, you know, I think, you know, to take it back just one step that the idea of a fourth battle of the Atlantic, I think, is really important.

And I think Admiral Fogel was, you know, he did us all a real service to draw attention to this. I think at the time that he brought that out, it wasn't commonly understood, even by allies who should have been paying close attention, that Russia really was reinvigorating their capabilities at the time. And I think that, you know, the annexation of Crimea sort of led us to understand, but it wasn't instant. And we didn't all agree instantly that Russia had become a revisionist power and that they were going to take advantage where they could. That this, you know, reinvigoration of their Navy and their submarine force in particular was an important manage to us. And so Admiral Lewis, who commands Second Fleet, he and his team, you know, wanted to advance the thinking about this. And so that exercise was really a tabletop classified exercise where we, because of COVID, we couldn't get together, but we did it all remotely where, you know, we had allies from NATO participating in this discussion about what this threat means and how we could collectively get after the threat, how we might restructure things, how we might, the processes we would get involved in. And so it's a pretty high level discussion between commanders.

And it was a really very fruitful to be able to have this discussion because I completely agree that that threat exists. Now, you know, I think the reason for NATO as strong as it ever was, the importance of that transatlantic link. You know, if we go back to the question of the second battle of the Atlantic, that Churchill is often quoted, you know, and I'll paraphrase it. The only thing he was really worried about in the war, really worried about, was that the Germans would be able to cut off America from Britain, and then Britain would be starved out. And so the Battle of the Atlantic was his biggest worry throughout the war. It was the only battle that lasted the entire war. And I think even today, that link, for NATO to be strong, that the North Atlantic is the link, it's the most important part of NATO. It's no accident that it's called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. the alliance is only going to survive if that link stays strong and if the united states in

particular can continue to link on and that russian threat i think is important not only is it about sea lines of communication as it always was but it's also about as it was during the third battle of the atlantic it's about um russian ability to hide and protect their nuclear attack capability in their submarines can they get them out of the the bastion out into the atlantic where it's wider open and more easy to uh to remain hidden and can they use that threat and we all understand i think the people who watch this closely about sod said you know about uh as the it's a russian doctrine that says that they could conduct strategic operations to destroy critically important targets the idea of that as you know a hybrid warfare in order to uh in order

to menace certain parts of the alliance and the idea that we could split the alliance apart if they were to do that because uh because perhaps uh the calculation would be it's not worth risking uh our own populations to defend the alliance and so i think it's really important that as a as an alliance we have the capacity to track and if necessary engage those submarines anywhere they are in the atlantic and that's going to take an incredible effort everybody knows what asw understands that to find one submarine uh you really need an incredible number of sensors platforms aircraft intelligence there's a whole lot that goes to it in order to in order to be confident that you can you can track those submarines and be ready to engage

them at the right moment if that threat arises and so that's really what that war game was about recognizing that that threat is is back discussing how as an alliance we would get after that threat as we all know second fleet is a new construct and what was old is new again and and the other hat that Admiral Lewis is wearing as the Joint Force Commander out of Norfolk. Is that the old sack plant? Well, not exactly. But many of the same sort of reasons that we had a sack plant are the reasons we now have a Joint Force Commander at Norfolk. And so we really had a very fruitful conversation about that. Yes, sir. And if you'll permit me a follow-up, I just want to ask, to what extent did the command and control arrangements come up?

Because if you look at what NATO had in place near the end of the Cold War, there's multiple commanders all across the North Atlantic for the different zones, much the same way that you had that set up in the Second World War. But that structure has not been reestablished as yet. The Second Fleet is really kind of the first step in that direction. Did that come up? Or are you allowed to have that conversation? No, absolutely. It did come up. And it's difficult. It's political. So Admiral Blount was in on the call, UK commander of Northwood. And so he was on the call. And so what's what's his organization's role in this what's second fleet's role in this be um sixth fleet uh as the as the u.s commander in in europe has a role to play and that's the job that admiral

fogo was in at the time that he brought the concept forward as i understand how does second and sixth fleet fit together they're not they're both dual-hatted as uh as nato commanders how do they fit in with with northwood do we fit all of the uh all of the various navies into this You know, I would think that if we were to, if a crisis situation were to come up, we wouldn't expect every NATO nation's NAVYs to be involved in this. Some of them would be very focused on a much closer fight to Europe, the Littoral Peace, the Baltic and the North Sea. And they wouldn't have assets left over to be involved in the middle of the Atlantic and so on. So there's an awful lot of choices there for NATO countries. And so while we haven't nailed down the full structure of that yet, and I think there's more work to do,

that more conversation to be had, and it'll go to a much higher level than my own. I think that that conversation, we did have that conversation. We did advance the thinking around it, but I think it'll be brought up again in the near future in NATO chains. Thanks, Sir. Peter, back to the paper a little bit. So how was Canada able to maintain its ASW-focused Navy in the years after the Cold War ended? Canada was a bit fortunate at that time because we had just coming online as the cold war was ending the halifax class frigates which continued today but they had although they were really canada's first foray into an aaw capability and an anti-ship capability at least over the horizon anti-ship capability they still maintained a very strong asw capability

and we have modernized that in the midlife or we are in the process of modernizing that because although we did the midlife for the combat suite, the anti-submarine warfare side of the house is just going through its midlife as well. And since we're going to be sailing these ships for at least another decade until we get the Type 26s coming online, we have a capable platform in the Halifax-class ship. We have a strong legacy within ASW, as I talked about earlier, and that hasn't really gone away. I obviously have a bias. I think we were distracted for a while, especially as the submarine threat went down and we were getting missiles and missiles are cool and easy sorry that's uh probably not true but uh from my perspective the warfares are very different

there's a reason asw is called the sport of kings so we'll just as one former asw officer to another we'll just leave it at that we maintain that uh that training and that capability through that period as well in in the late 90s we acquired the victoria class submarines from the british which are, although maligned to a degree within the press in Canada because of some growing pains as we brought them over, are a very capable class of submarine. And we've been able to deploy those to the Western Pacific and to the Mediterranean in recent years, showing their capability and working with our allies. Our P-3 fleet, the Auroras, are very capable and they've been going through upgrade after upgrade and are very effective and have returned to an ASW

roll although they never really left they spent some some years in the wilderness if you will flying over land but more and more we see them operating back where i believe they belong which is over the water doing asw and surface picture compilation additionally we as i say in the article we are one of very few countries that are still involved in undersea surveillance in IUSS, Canada, the British, and obviously the United States Navy are the three partners that still work under Commander Undersea Surveillance. So we've maintained that skill set because our operators are all in Whidbey Island, which means that even when the Russians weren't operating, the Chinese Navy was building more and more capability and Canada was involved

in that aspect of ASW as well. So as I say in the article, and I'm going to take a controversial stance here and this is no way a plug for this this platform but because we delayed our anti submarine warfare helicopter purchase for about 20 years due to political decisions we now have coming online in 2020 a new platform asw helicopter with modern systems so we were flying the sea king I think 50 some years and maintaining that skill set. But now in 2020, as we're going forward, we have new modern cyclone helicopters, which bring their own challenges because they are a one of bespoke for the Canadian Navy helicopter, but they also bring a very capable ASW suite.

So with the modernization of the frigates, the upgrades to the Auroras, the new helicopters and the type 26s that we will be getting in the future, Canada has maintained an ASW skill almost by accident, I would argue. We had it and we didn't get rid of it. And now we need it again and it's there. But we are in a good position in NATO, at least. Thanks. So you can have this in the paper and some of the answers to touch on this a little bit. I'm going to give you the opportunity to go a little bit more in depth. How is the Russian Navy's submarine fleet fair in the years since the Cold War? Well, through the 90s and the odds, there wasn't really much that we saw of the Russian submarine fleet, and that allowed NATO to shift focus. It was focused

on Bosnia, and then it was focused on Afghanistan. And Russia was sort of the sick man of Europe for a few years in that time. And NATO was looking for missions. They were doing anti-piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, but they weren't focused on that ASW threat. But at the time, Russia got rid of dozens of older class submarines that they just couldn't maintain. They were expensive and they were older models that really were not competitive in any way. But what they were left with, although a much smaller fleet, were the sort of the peak Soviet submarines that still were competitive as an ASW, as a submarine platform. And since the late aughts and into the last decade, the Russians have been bringing new platforms on and as much as i want to say it i will horribly butcher

the new submarine but this severed events thank you very much yes we'll say that's correct which is an extremely capable ssgn they've also modernized the kilo class and they've deployed a whole series of those to the black sea which due to their very loose interpretation of the convention has allowed them to operate within the Mediterranean and against Syria. And possibly most importantly, along with these new platforms, the introduction of the Caliber cruise missile with both a land attack and anti-ship capability and a Russian bragged range of 300 plus nautical miles certainly gives them a different reach and a different capability than the submarines they had before. In the Cold War, they could threaten infrastructure destruction through nuclear

annihilation, but that brings you into the whole MAD construct and everything else. But it's a different paradigm if you're striking infrastructure in Washington or New York from three, if they're accurate, 300 miles out, and then getting away from that launch site long before any kind of response can arrive. So it proposes a new challenge to NATO on both sides of the Atlantic. Thanks, Peter. One more question related to the article. What's been the NATO response to Russian investment in subforce? I think the Admiral's answer has covered some of this, but you had some of it in your article as well. Well, the standing up of Joint Force Command Norfolk is perhaps the most obvious, and I won't say extreme, but the most obvious example of how

they're taking this threat seriously. But certainly ComSubNATO in Northwood is very aware of this challenge. I can say that when the Russians deploy submarines into the Mediterranean, Komsom NATO is very seized with that. And when they're firing strikes against Syria, NATO has tasked ships in the past to find these ships and aircraft, to find these submarines and track them so that we can maintain situational awareness. NATO's role in the Norwegian Sea is still an ongoing discussion, as Admiral Santarpia indicated, because there are also national players. But within NATO, there are communities of community that work together, maybe not under the total NATO umbrella, but are partners in ASW within the organization as smaller groups that are very fixed with these problems. I think that's safe to say. Thanks.

Admiral, Peter asserts here that anti-submarine warfare is a theater-level activity. I was going to ask you if you agree with that stance. I'm fairly certain at this point that you agree with that stance. Could you explain, though, why that's the case, sir? Yeah, I absolutely do agree with that stance, and it's been that way for a long time. And as Peter mentioned, that was the single theater of operations, the Western North Atlantic that Canada commanded during World War II. Admiral Murray back in the war commanded it.

And so it's a real case study for Canadians on how theaters are commanded. So nothing's really changed. There is still that sort of piece where it's worthwhile to simplify the task, to geographically bound responsibilities, and then set up a construct where you can share resources where they're needed in whatever theater. And so there's a construct that would allow us, if the threat was in the Northwestern Atlantic, where Canadians could do the coordination and do the command and control of an allied response to a threat. And that exists all over the Atlantic, and it's divided up in that way that allows us all to contribute to each other. But the hard question for a country like Canada, and I imagine for other countries, for all other countries, is do you hold back your resources so that you can cover your responsibility ahead of when the threat is actually in that area? Or do you chop forward your resources to where the threat is now, knowing that no country, Canada in particular, has the resources to spread out around the world to handle all those threats? And even a country like the United States has to make hard choices about where to put its anti-submarine warfare resources in the event of a crisis. It's hard to imagine that if there was a crisis with one country, one threat in the world, that it wouldn't become a crisis all over the world.

We often make the argument to NATO allies that NATO doesn't end in Europe. NATO includes where if the threat, for instance, was Russia. If Russia decided to menace any part of NATO, the threat to NATO exists everywhere, including the North Pacific. So we look at our relationship with the United States in NORAD as the northern flank of NATO. We look at things we do out of a swamalt towards the west as the western flank of NATO, and we've got to make smart choices about that. So it is very useful to think of it as a theater-level activity. in my opinion, that's the only way to get the number of resources required from allied nations to counter a threat like that. Thanks, sir. And then a final question for you is where does Canada

fit in the NATO solution set now? Yeah, I think Pete did a really great job of describing the sort of capabilities that Canada has maintained. I would be a little less humble. It wasn't completely by accident. We've always understood that Canada benefits from the international rules-based order and that uh and that there's no way that canada wants to live in a world that doesn't have that international rules-based order as a medium-sized power dependent highly dependent on international trade the country is more prosperous all countries uh our rules and political rules we're just going to be much more secure and much more prosperous and knowing that we can't ensure that order ourselves our strategy has always been to ban with like-minded nations

in maintaining that order throughout all of our lifetime. You know, ever since the end of the Second World War, it's been clear that that order is led by like-minded, democratic, open nations, the leader of which has throughout my whole life been the United States. So we see NATO as the way that many of those like-minded nations in our world,

in the North Atlantic, gather together to reach common objectives. So Canada sees NATO as a cornerstone of our collective defense, sees that our ability to contribute to those challenging places where we have the best capabilities that we have as just part of our contribution to maintaining that order. We'll always be involved in NATO.

We'll always look to fit our contributions in as best we can. It's why we've had a ship constantly in the NATO Standing Maritime Group since 2014. And I think we're probably the only nation that has not missed any time since 2014 in that group. So it's really important to us. And we'll always consider how we can play a part in securing that transatlantic link that's so important. We see it as important because we're on the other side of that transatlantic link. So we recognize it before some European countries recognize the importance of it. But I think when you stop and talk about it, they realize the importance of North America to their collective defense.

They would agree with it, too. We'll always advocate for that, maintaining that link and maintaining our capabilities to maintain that link and contributing whatever we can afford. while we still have interests around the world, just like many countries. And so we'll, at the same time we're doing that, we'll seek a similar sort of less formal collective defense in the Pacific and look to contribute to maintenance of international rule of base order in the Pacific in the same way. It's just less formal than it is in NATO.

We really benefit from that alliance, that formalized alliance here. Thank you, sir. Peter, final question to you then. What are your proposals for Canada and NATO moving forward? As I outlined in the article, I put forward two proposals, at least for Canada. I think NATO is on the right track. They need to continue, ComSubNATO, Second Fleet, they need to continue working on developing the command and control relationships

in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. But the steps that various countries are taking, Norway's potential reopening of their submarine base up near Tromso is a good sign. the reopening of Keflavik is another good sign that NATO is taking this very seriously. The P-8 purchases by the UK and Norway is, again, an acknowledgement that ASW has a serious role in the future of NATO navies. Canada, I think, because of our knowledge and our experience and the skill set we've maintained, has an opportunity to take a leading role. And there's two options. One of them is not actually my suggestion, although I Canadianize it. Again,

it comes from Kathleen Hicks' paper, Undersea Warfare in Northern Europe, that was written for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in that she proposes that NATO establish a center of excellence for anti-submarine warfare. Now, there are centers of excellence across NATO for a wide variety of things, including shallow water warfare, simulation, war gaming, medicine, but there isn't one for anti-submarine warfare, perhaps because it wasn't seen as a niche capability, but it's certainly a specialization that needs building upon. And I think Canada is well positioned to build and host that center of excellence. In Halifax, we have all three communities. We have our surface fleet there. We have our Auroras nearby. We have our

Canadian Forces Maritime Warfare Centre, which does our tactical and operational development. There's a lot of synergies that could be built upon there. And it could also be a reminder to our NATO allies that Canada is, as the Admiral said, NATO doesn't stop in Europe, it crosses the Atlantic. And it would allow us to get some of the best ASW mines in NATO together in Halifax to continue to develop that capability. The second proposal I make is more of a continue to do what we were hoping to, which is Canada has a biannual exercise, Exercise Cutlass Fury. I've been out of the Navy now in our Defense Academy lines for just over a year or eight months. So I'm not sure what the status of Exercise Cutlass Fury 2021 is. But when Cutlass Fury was initially

established in 2016. It was designed as an anti-submarine warfare exercise, and there were submarines from Europe, from France, the UK, United States, and HMCS Windsor participating, and it was very much an ASW-focused exercise. Although you play the cards you dealt in 2019, when we did the second iteration, we weren't able to focus on ASW because the platforms weren't there. Windsor was in a refit. The Americans sent a submarine, but it was the only one there. Yet lots of people provided aircraft. So it became more of an AAW exercise. I think we need to really push our allies and push the marketing, if you will, of Cutlass Fury as well, a total spectrum warfare, focus on ASW, get back to that roots and incorporate on top of that aspects of theater ASW, which I believe could be done even in the early stages as submarines are coming into the exercise area. you could build on layers of theatre ASW, which is very challenging to exercise. And in my years at the MCC and coming up as an ASW officer,

I have not seen a lot of theatre-level exercises. I've seen theatre-level operations, but I haven't seen the exercises. And I think that we would benefit from that as well. Hey, if I could just jump in there, Jerry. Absolutely, sir. Yeah, I think Pete would be happy to hear. So actually, just this week, I took a briefing on the planning for that next exercise, Compass Theory 21, and it's looking great.

We've got some commitments for contribution from the U.K., from the U.S., from France. So it's looking really good. It'll be a decent-sized exercise, you know, just off the coast here, off of Nova Scotia. And to his point, you know, I think the big drawing point is Windsor's cycle is looking great. So yesterday I just went through the licensing process to make sure Windsor is ready for her next period at sea. And so she will be, and she'll be part of that exercise. And it's a real big draw because modern, quiet diesel submarines are challenging for anyone to find, including submariners. And so I think Windsor's participation is drawing in a bunch of allied participation in surface air and submarine forces.

And so Peach Vision is coming to fruition. I think it looks good for this year. That's excellent. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, that's all the time that we have for today. I'd like to thank my guests, Admiral Brian Santarpia and Commander Peter Sproul. emerald where can we find you online and what are you working on next and so uh online i'm a bit of a dinosaur i gotta say i've been in this navy for 35 years now so my online presence is on twitter at brian stardew and i regularly tweet out about what we're doing here in the formation

and follow a bunch of people and i spend a lot of my own time i'm looking for professional development articles and podcasts like like your own that's a big chunk of what i'm doing online to get word out i really think you know what i'm really focused on here in this job is making sure that not only setting all the other things that draw on a professional military officer or sailor's time, the maintenance and the strengthening of combat capabilities is really my focus. This article that Pete wrote is just a great sign

that officers in the Canadian Navy and operators in the Canadian Navy are focused on the right thing on warfare. Well, thank you very much, Admiral. And Peter, same questions to you. Where can we find you and what's your next project? To be honest, Admiral Santarpia is years ahead of me in his online presence, although I had to reach out to your wife to get a hold of you. Yes, my wife's a political scientist here at the Canadian Forces College and is very active on Twitter at AP underscore Lane in defense and gender issues, and I do follow Twitter through her vicariously. But what I'm working on, I recently spent the fall developing some lectures for the college students on naval theorists.

But now that that's done, I'm looking at some potential future papers for the Canadian Naval Review. I'm not a very quick producer of these. It took me four years of prodding and a posting to an academic institution to get this article written. But I am looking at writing a study on sort of a historical use of anti-ship cruise missiles because I haven't seen really a study of their use in Israel and the Indo-Pakistani War and the Gulf Wars. And I think that would be useful for our junior operators. And additionally, I'm looking at writing something on the rise of the Chinese Navy and what we as a partnership of navies and nations in the Pacific Rim can do to counter that continued rise. So I don't have a timeline for all of these papers, but my position here as directing staff at the college means I really have no excuse to not produce academic work. We'll look forward to both of those and maybe we'll get the opportunity to speak with you about them when they get published.

Thank you both again for joining us. To the listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021