The Decibel - The Canadian military is preparing for major conflicts

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

The Canadian Armed Forces is undergoing a generational change. From record investment and spending, to its most extensive re-organization in decades – military officials say this is Canada’s preparation for a “future battlefield.”Gavin John, journalist and photographer for The Globe, has covered the Canadian Armed Forces extensively. He joins The Decibel to discuss why the military is moving with such urgency, what it says about future conflicts and how the nature of warfare has changed.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the first time in decades, the Canadian military has undergone major changes. As of last week, there is now a dedicated combat division. That hasn't been the case since the Second World War. And there's now also a division called the Defense of Canada. These changes tell us a lot about the threats that the military sees for the country. An increasingly hostile neighbor across the Arctic, a crumbling relationship with the U.S. administration. and a change in the nature of warfare.

So today, I've got Gavin John with me in studio. He's a journalist and photographer for the globe who's written extensively about the military. He's also a graduate student of strategic studies at the University of Calgary. Gavin will explain how the Canadian armed forces have changed and what it says about the possibility of future conflicts. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms,

and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Gavin, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. So we are going to get into the details of the military's restructuring, but I first just want to get a sense from you. How significant are these changes with the Canadian Armed Forces? I think it's an understatement to say that it's generational and something we haven't seen for decades.

And to me, when I look at it, it's fundamentally changing how Canada both sees its armed forces, what role it sees its armed forces. in a sense that like up until September 10th, Canada has engaged in conflict in what's called contribution forces. So we usually, since World War II, we've offered our forces whatever size, strength, capabilities contributing to other countries' wars in the form of alliance. So in Korea, we were under British command, Afghanistan, the Balkans, all of these wars, we have been contributing forces. And this is now changing. This is now changing. What we see

now is that Canada is building a army and an armed forces capable of fighting wars as a sovereign force. Okay. So as you say, a generational change. This sounds quite significant here. Of course, there has been a lot of attention since Mark Carney came to be prime minister, right? He's put a lot more money into military. We see our spending go up to meet that NATO goal. Is this all part of the new focus, I guess, on the military? Yeah. And that's something that's to contextualize too, this is a change that that has. hasn't just happened overnight. This reevaluation of the role that the armed forces are playing in Canada's security and both security with the alliance of NATO as well, this predates Kearney.

So when we look at the modernization efforts and the restructuring efforts, the process started around 2024. When we start looking at what we want, we as in Canada and the Canadian Air Force, and the Navy to do. Okay, Gavin, let's actually look now at what's changed with the military. us through, how was the military organized before this change, and how is that different now? Right, yeah. And this is, I guess, on face value, probably the most, I guess, stark difference, where previously our army, let's talk about the army. Army is, was divided into divisions, so the largest structure within an army. And previously before this reorganization, they were geographically based. So you would have divisions based on the West, based in the East. And the way I

would contextualize it as more administrative. So you would have geographical administration, rather than role-based. And how it worked is each one of those divisions would have regular forces. So these are professional soldiers. So people who, that is their full-time job. And each division would also have associated reserve units. So people on the reserves. So this is each division. So in Edmonton, Halifax, Val Cartier, Toronto, that's what would be going on each of those places then before. Yeah. So it would be both regular force, reservists, and then they're support and logistics, also with self-contained in those geographical units. It works really well when it comes to administrative. So you have a regional, but when it comes to actually putting together

forces, all of a sudden you now are working with multiple divisions. If you have a deployment either to Afghanistan or to Latvia, you're pulling from multiple divisions and pulling regular forces from different administrative structures. And as you can probably imagine, get a little complicated. Okay, so instead of this geographical division, then, what are we looking at now? Right. So what they've now moved towards is, I guess the best way I can describe it is more role-based divisions. So you mentioned one division, which is our warfighting division. Its name is the maneuver division. So all regular force army units are now under the one division. So that is across the board. And it's going to be based and is based in Emmetton. So this is the new what you just called the war fighting division. So everything that is going to be needed for fighting essentially is going to be under that. Yeah. And regular forces. So there are no reserve forces. in one division, the maneuvered division. So it consolidates all of those assets across the country.

So Major General Rutland, who is now the commander of one division, has at his capability forces across Canada. And he has the authority to pull whatever he needs. Rather than coordinating with other divisions, he is the division now for Canada's war fighting. And then on top of that, we have the second division. So this is the Defense of Canada division. So all of our reserves will be under the defense of Canada.

So this is where then the primary reserves, secondary reserves, also Arctic security, so the Canadian Rangers, a lot of my work has been focused on them. They get moved into the defense of Canada. So then that becomes the continental defense, Arctic security. They are the primary secondary continental defense force. And then third is the support division. So logistics, institutional support. and it might seem, I don't want to say, less significant, but to me it's really important to have a dedicated support division because then as the army has room to grow, and the CAF has and the Canadian Army has said to me that if we need another division, if we need another warfighting division, if we need another reserve division, you would be able to grow the support division to support whatever other divisions are there. So it is a model based on growth. This is one of the things that has been repeated. to me, by Canadian Army officials, is that this is just the start. And this is a beginning of

a new structure of the Canadian Army. Fascinating. Okay. So let's dig into this a little bit here then, Gavin. So you mentioned three divisions, right? Meneuveur division. This is the warfighting division, defense of Canada division, and then this Army Support Division. Let's start with the maneuver division. So this is based in Edmonton, as you said, the fighting force. How does this work? And how is this different from what it was before? Considering what we've talked about where now General Rutland has the capabilities across Canada to pull from, rather than coordinating with other divisions, he has sole authority to pull regular forces into whatever combat capabilities is being asked of them. So in theory, if we have to deploy troops, additional troops to Latvia, regular force troops, that would go through General Rutland. That would go through his authority.

And within one division, there's new regiments that have been set up. One significantly, I believe it's called the third infantry regiment. And one of the things that specifically that new regiment, it's a rapid response force. And so they're standing up within the maneuvered division, an ability for Canada to have a force at high readiness, meaning ready to go very quick timeframes to deploy anywhere in the world outside of Canada and even inside of Canada. It's that idea of they're the ones that are going to be the first into the fight, wherever the fight is. And does this process going to make it easier for Canada? to engage in conflict then if we need to, like the way that this is designed? Yeah, and the way I've seen it is, well, in theory, and hopefully in practice too.

Obviously, I'll say, like, hopefully we don't go to war. But in the case of when we look at what's happening in Ukraine, the pace of war and pace of adaptation is now measured in weeks, where either a Russian or Ukrainian advancement in either drone technology or artillery is almost immediately countered by the opposing side. Canada looks at this and I'm encouraged to see that they're taking those lessons to heart in that there are styles of war that haven't held up in Ukraine. And this is a story that I've been following for many months now about the development and the process of modernization and the process of this restructuring where back in May I reported that I had seen a organizational chart of what was planned to be the first division. And what Canada has been doing, and I had a good chance to speak with

General Messon, Major General Mason, and he's the Director General for Army Strategy and Modernization. And he had mentioned that my initial reporting in May, things have changed since then because they've war-gamed it. They've looked at the structure and say, okay, let's war game scenarios where Canada goes to war with this structure. And when he said from the time that I had reported to now, things have changed in the sense that it's less rigid. It's this ability for they see that this flexibility and what he calls plug-in play, being able to look at a conflict, look at a scenario, look at a deployment, and say, what do I need for this? Rather than deploying everything, it's a very flexible system that takes into account how we would fight a major peer adversary. So it's changing. And they're structuring it in a way that, I believe he said,

two war games a year, at least, to test these structures over and over and over again. And I think that that's something that's a smart way of approaching modernization. Gavin, I know that you actually spoke to a number of military leaders. You actually referenced a couple of conversations. that you'd had there. Why did they feel that these changes in the military were necessary at this time? A lot of the statements really focus on the changing nature of they call the threat environment. I think that's a very sanitized way of saying that the nature of both conflict, war, that line between what conflict and war is and peacetime is starting to become grade. and the threats that face Canada aren't as clear as the decades that preceded this, meaning when we were fighting insurgents in Afghanistan or counterterrorism.

These are defined threats that require a very defined way of engaging them, where we look at the, like I say, the threat environment, meaning the various degrees of threats that face both Canada and our allies is wide. So the changing nature of geopolitics today requires a changing nature of how Canada responds to those threats. And that to me came across as chief motivating factor of all these modernizations, the restructuring, to be able to address all of them simultaneously, which is a daunting task. We'll be right back. Okay, so Gavin, we've talked through the restructuring of the military and how that's being done.

But let's dive further into now what these changes tell us about what Canada and what the military is actually worried about here. What are the threats that the Canadian military is preparing for? That seems like a simple question, but I guess it's a difficult answer in the sense that it's the word threat really implies, you know, a danger. Like a defined, you can point to something and say, that's a threat. That's a danger. But the problem is is that that line, as I had mentioned before, is that, is becoming increasingly gray. And if the problem that Canada faces, and honestly, like NATO as well, faces is that, what's the phrase, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, where right now the problem is, is there's more than just nails.

And we have to be more than just a hammer. Where, let's take, for example, the type of threat, say Russia poses to us. Russia. Yeah, we've talked a little bit about NATO and this is, of course, what NATO is largely focused on these days, too, is, of course, Russia. as Russia's war in Ukraine. Absolutely. And Russia's threat to the alliance as well. And this is where when you look at the documents on modernization, they refer to a peer

adversary. They're referring to Russia. And the threat that Russia poses isn't even that, that's not even that simple to explain, where, yes, a kinetic war, and they call it major combat operations, MCOs, military sure loves their initialisms. So MCOs imply a peer-to-peer conflict, so what we're seeing in Ukraine and Russia. So if the NATO alliance was to go to war defending the Baltics against Russian aggression, what does that look like?

So the idea of Russian threat is usually like tanks rolling across a border and like what we saw in Ukraine. Well, what about a drone flying to a unknown drone flying to a German airport? Is that a declaration of war? What about jamming cell phone services? Is that a declaration of war? Undersea cables. It's called gray zone and hybrid warfare, where that threat, from the Russians isn't as cut and dry as, of course, if they roll tanks into Estonia or Latvia,

like that is a clear violation of sovereignty. But Canada has to have the forces able to respond to all forms of threats. And one division in the Canadian forces is just one of those options, one of those hammers. When you spoke to those military leaders in the Canadian military, how likely is it, do they think that we will end up in a conflict or at war with Russia? Well, they won't, they obviously won't give me a percentage number or a definitive statement of saying, yeah, we're preparing for war with Russia. I think that that would be maybe irresponsible from their side. But do they seem worried about it? I wouldn't say they seem worried about.

I see they are being pragmatic about it. They're being pragmatic about the threat environment that faces Canada. And their job is to prepare for threats, however likely and unlikely they are in whatever forms they come with. And to me, there is a sense of urgency, though. urgency shows something. What they're asking for shows something. So put those things together and then in the context of geopolitical environment that we live in, it becomes a whole picture of it's not so much they're worried.

It's so much the likelihood of conflict, major combat operations, is higher than it's ever been. Wow. You mentioned also the threats of drones, changing nature of warfare. How is the military addressing this? And what can we glean, I guess, from how they're restructuring and responding to things now? Well, flexibility, I would say. And flexibility and adaptation.

And one of the things that when I spoke to the commander of the Canadian Army, General Wright, he mentioned that one of the challenges is what we need in 2027 might not be what we need in 2033. So his job is to look at and say, okay, what platforms am I going to be looking for? Is it going to be crude or uncrewed? That's not just drones in the sky, but it's drones on the ground, drones on. undersea, what emerging technologies are we seeing now that will be relevant in five years? What technologies do we see now that might not be relevant in five years? And that's a question that nobody really knows the answer to, but it's that you have to bake in this idea of flexibility and adaptation within your restructuring, within your organization,

to recognize what those are and to make the appropriate changes as quickly as possible. What about cyber warfare? This is something else we hear about, right? Cyber attacks. Do we have a group dedicated to that? Yeah, with my question mark, attach that to a degree. And this is one thing, too, that cyber and gray zone warfare, Canada is very vulnerable to. We have limited infrastructure.

For the size of the country we have, there's limited infrastructure, which makes it vulnerable, particularly in the Arctic. And the Army does have dedicated cyber warfare units and electronic warfare units, signals units. But that's a very Army specific for Army operations. When it comes to Canada as a whole, that is a vulnerability that I believe that Canada does have to address. We're talking civil infrastructure. Those are targets. It's a vulnerability that we don't really have answers to, both from a policy perspective as well as a response perspective. I have to, of course, ask you about the United States.

I think this is on a lot of Canadians' minds here, right? With the talk from the U.S. administration, the talk of potentially annexing Canada, of course, and the trade war, the other things that are being targeted against us right now. Is that a potential threat that the military is focused on, a threat from the United States? Short answer, no. But that's not to say that's not a threat. And this is why when I said earlier, I think Canadians, I believe Canadians really need to take a moment and really think about what that word means. So when I talk about Russia, Russia is potentially a kinetic threat.

That's a military threat where we have obligations to the NATO alliance. If Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are attacked, Canada has an obligation to defend our allies against a military threat. When we look at the United States, this becomes a political and an economic threat, where you have someone like Donald Trump and the administration making aggressive rhetoric against Canadian sovereignty. That is a political threat. Tariffs and the conversations around basically tariffing Canada and to submit. mission. That's an economic threat. Military threat? Less so. However, I'm absolutely, I recognize that the intersection of a military threat, a political threat, and an economic threat is very unclear. And that's one thing that I can say that the Canadian Army isn't planning to defend

against the American tanks rolling over the border. I have to ask you, I wanted to talk to you specifically about this, though, because I know earlier this year, you and our colleague, Bob, Fife did break some news that the Canadian military was modeling scenarios of what would happen if the U.S. invaded Canada. So it sounds like they're, you know, they are thinking it is a very small likelihood, but they are thinking about it. Well, it's one of those things that I, just because something is a potential, it doesn't have the same probability. And even the word model, maybe not entirely accurate in the sense that model within the context of the Canadian forces mean something, meaning that they're taking a threat and then they're putting it through things like war games. They're definitely not at that stage. Maybe conversations are happening.

Maybe the acknowledgement that those political and economic threats and maybe some point in time, and this is just me hypothetically, if I looking at those threats, the political and economic threat, you know, at what point does that cross into, you know, a military threat? It's not to say that they are doing that. But this is why I'm saying that Canadians need to understand that the political economic threats aren't completely divorced from the military threats. the military threats aren't necessarily divorced from this, the political and economic. So there's that interaction between all of them. The reality is, is that Canada is going through decoupling with the United States strategically. I've described it as Canada and the United States are going through a bad divorce and the military are the kids, where Canada, the United States have the most integrated armed forces on the planet. There was no other two countries that have the degree of cooperation and coordination,

than Canada in the United States. We've got a bilateral agreement with NORAD, sharing continental defense. We are integrated so deeply with the United States and not necessarily. Like that was the choice for decades. I think that's what does worry a lot of Canadians, though, is because we are dependent on the U.S. for a lot of those things, right? Absolutely. And I'm not going to fault previous decades of Canadian leadership for making that choice

because that was the smart choice. But the consideration is that once that political relationship sours, we do realize the vulnerability of having all of our eggs in one basket. So then it becomes that question about how do we still keep a military-to-military relationship that, for all intents and purposes, is still strong, even though as the political, they're fighting. It's that the Carney, Trump, that conversation. military to military, we still coordinate, we still collaborate, we still work together. We just were in Rimpack, which was a Pacific Indo-Pacific exercise in Hawaii. Our navies were there. We worked together up in the north, Operation Anuk.

There's always American units involved there. We have that interaction. And I don't see that, I don't see any indications that the relationship between militaries is fracturing yet. But once again, that political threat very well could move into the military. realm. And when we start looking at how Donald Trump is firing generals that disagree with him, how he's looking at restructuring and reorganizing generals around loyalty to him, that concerns me because it will get to a point where then the U.S. military does become political. And that would, when we're so integrated, that absolutely would influence Canada's

relationship between the two. Before I let you go here, Gavin, I guess I want to look at the broad picture here. How should Canadians understand these changes to our military? What does it signal to us about the prospect of Canada being in conflicts or even being at war? That's a tough last question. I appreciate that. I think Canadians need to be honest. And the way I look at it is all of these things considered, all of these things we've talked about.

I believe that if Canadians, and that's the government, the armed forces, that's you and me, every Canadian needs to realize that regardless of the direction where the world goes for us to do nothing I think is unconscionable

something we have to do something and at the same time I don't believe Canadians should panic we have to be realistic we have to look at the world and say huh

maybe things aren't as as good as they were 20 years ago like that's not a controversial statement at the same time Canadians need to look at the world and say okay well we have commitments to our allies. What does that actually mean? That means if Estonia and Latvia and

Lithuania have their sovereignty violated by Russia and they make the decision that they want to call on their friends and allies, we have made a commitment. And that does mean Canada would go to war. And I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or I'm not trying to be alarmist. I'm being realistic. And I think Canadians need to then take that context and say, okay, well, we are clearly rearming. We are clearly structurally preparing for these type of scenarios. What does that mean for me? And that's things like resiliency. That's things like, you know, what happens if my cell phone goes out for a week? What happens if I don't have internet for a week? What happens if the price of food and cost of living goes up, which is very well? And this is where I'm not saying Canadians should

all go off, march to Estonia. Like the army is absolutely preparing for any contingencies, whether it's peace, war, anything in between. But the way Canadians should contextualize this is in the world that we live in. And I think we need to be really realistic and honest with each other. Gavin, a very sobering and important conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. That was Gavin John, a journalist and photographer for the globe.

That's it for today. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms. This episode was mixed by Rachel Levy McLaughlin. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, Rachel Levy McLaughlin, and Michal Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon.