The Paul Wells Show - Wayne Eyre on warcraft in a time of crisis

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Canada's retired Chief of the Defence Staff has a new memoir out, describing a military career that lasted 40 years, from Army Cadets to wars in Afghanistan and Ukraine. He's got choice words for the office of his former boss, Justin Trudeau. He vividly describes a life in war zones and trouble spots. And he laments the long decline of Canada's military. Go to paulwells.substack.com for more of Paul Wells's journalism.

This week, General Wayne Eyre on 40 years in the military, including the slightly difficult final years. I found the military was seen as an easy button. I'm Paul Wells. Welcome to the Paul Wells Show. Not enough soldiers write books in Canada. Not enough people in senior management roles of any kind write enough books about what it's like to handle the pressures of the top jobs. Fortunately, we have a new example of someone who's done just that. It's Wayne Eyre, who's been on the show before. He was the chief of the defense staff, largely for the last few years that Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada. And he had a long and illustrious and really fascinating career in the military for many, many years before that.

He's got a new book. It's called Into the Breach. And he's making the rounds. I've seen him give interviews to some other folks, but I think we got some fresh stuff from him in our conversation. He does talk about the challenges of being a chief of defense staff for a prime minister who was much less interested than the current prime minister is in building out our military. But his story begins many years before that. He spends a few years talking about what was like to be an army cadet. And since Pete Hegseth, the American War Secretary, has said some oafish things about Canadian Army cadets.

We spend a little bit of time talking about that. He was in former Yugoslavia in the early 90s, and the chapter on that in his book is called The Death of Peacekeeping. And so we talk a little bit about the death of peacekeeping. And then there's an absolutely harrowing chunk of the book where he talks about the immediate prelude to the full Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He saw that coming. He said he went to Ukraine just before the invasion.

He says the big question on his mind was whether Ukraine would even fight because the Russian crushing weight of a full Russian invasion, it wasn't clear that anyone could resist that. And he talks about all of that in our conversation and in this book. And he shares some valuable insights from a life fighting for Canada. Here's Wayne Air. While Welsho was presented by the Transition Accelerator, the energy transition is disrupting global power, and Canada needs to act now to secure its place in the emerging clean economy.

With its rigorous, independent analysis and uniquely strategic approach, the Transition Accelerator is putting Canada on a path to win, economically and geopolitically. Visit Transitionaccelerator.ca.ca.a.com to learn more. While Wells Show is presented by Camaco, a nuclear energy company proudly operating in Saskatchewan and Ontario for nearly four decades. Energy security, national security, and climate security are driving increased demand for safe, carbon-free nuclear energy. With Tier 1 uranium assets, critical fuel manufacturing capabilities, and best-in-class reactor technologies like the AP-1000 reactor, Camico plays a large role across the nuclear value chain to deliver power to the grid. Camico is thriving as a global leader and Canadian nuclear champion.

It's meeting the moment for nuclear new builds at home and around the world. From ground to grid, Camaco is powering Canada forward. Wayne Eyre, thanks for joining me again. Thanks for coming back on the show. Well, thanks for having me, Paul. Now, you've got a new book, Into the Breach, A Soldier's Journey. I'm wondering, because I've written a couple of books myself, are you nervous? It's a different thing putting a book out into the market.

No, it is. And especially when you talk about yourself and talk about many of your experiences and your feelings during those experiences. But I will tell you, the writing process itself was a journey and a cathartic one. It was my own form of post-retirement therapy as you relived 40 years of service, the ups and downs, the highs and lows, the good times, and the bad times. Do you think old soldiers write enough books in Canada? No. No.

And I've been trying to amass a list. And to the best of my understanding, since Confederation, there are maybe between 12 and 15, maybe 20. Canadian generals and admirals who have written books about their experiences. And you compare that with other countries. It is far lower. Yeah, there's a striking moment, which I hope we'll get to when you quote from a recently retired senior military commander from the United States who, I mean, just as a reporter in my own experience, calling the Pentagon to get someone.

to talk is usually a much more rewarding experience than calling National Defense headquarters to get someone to talk. There's a cultural reticence. And historians have lamented this fact as they try to piece together what happened in certain events and a number of talk to me saying, hey, you've got a right. was there ever point of which you consider writing but not publishing well I think

I would have written regardless had I not published just for my own my own sense of closure and how did the talks it's also this can be a slightly unfriendly market

for for nonfiction How did this become a book? Who did you talk to? Who had to convince you that it would be okay to do this sort of thing? Well, about three weeks before retirement, I get an email out of the blue from a guy claiming to be a book agent. And he lists the books or the authors he's represented. And sure enough, I just happen to have one on my nightstand.

And I go to the acknowledgments. Yes, this guy is legit. So we had a chat about a month after my report. retirement and left out that. Six months after I retired, I started writing. And three months after that, I contacted them again. I said, hey, I've got 50,000 words. Wow, we should talk. And it went from there. We were chatting and you said that you left an awful lot of this book on the, on the floor. Like, in its original version, it was quite a bit longer. Well, the first round of editing, I cut out at least 100 pages, plus I had material for probably another 100 above that.

It was capturing the history. I've kept notes in journals throughout my, especially once I became a major, daily journal on operations. And so there was a lot of material there that I was able to pull from. However, I've come to realize, that one of the tricks of being an author is writing what people will read. Yeah, I'm still trying to crack that one. So let us start at the beginning. I was intrigued by how you spend, I mean, and like I should flag to the listeners that you get

into some medium, juicy stuff about your relations with the Trudeau government as chief of defense staff, and we are absolutely going to get to that. But your story begins in Army cadets. you didn't come from, you came from, almost all of us come from military families. There's military work in almost all of our family histories. Your parents weren't in the Canadian forces. And so it was the Army cadets that got you in the door. And because there have been some recent headlines about Army cadets,

I thought I'd ask you about your experience. So my experience with cadets was absolutely formative. I joined at 12. I tried at 11. They wouldn't let me in. I joined it 12 and stayed in it throughout my high school years. And it was really the activity that set me up for future success. In my view, it continues to be the best youth program in our country.

My own daughter went through it, spent a couple of summers at Borden, a couple of summers in Vernon, and really thrived in it. But when you can take, you know, for example, as a 15-year-old, I went through, spent a summer in Vernon. As a 16-year-old, I spent a summer at the Baff National Army Cadet Camp, climbing mountains, whitewater, kayaking, and canoeing, hiking. I climbed three mountains over 10,000 feet that summer as a 16-year-old. And today, what that program offers in terms of the leadership, the citizenship,

the practical skills, the development of self-reveillance. confidence. And it's not just Army cadets, sea cadets with the sailing skills, air cadets, where you can actually get your private pilots license. There's nothing else like it in Canada. Later in your career, incidentally, it's just striking how much of a senior military's officer career is taking time out from day-to-day duty and going back, into training. And later in your career, almost all of your training takes place. The big significant moments are in U.S. military institutions.

There's often one place for one Canadian. You managed to get it. Tell me about that sort of ethic of constant training. And tell me about these experiences training as often the only Canadian in the room. First of all, I was a bit of an anomaly in the amount of time I spent on training and education courses down in the U.S. A lot of its right place at the right time, but it just offers a different perspective on the world. And the network that you make is fantastic. So I did two years at the Marine Corps University, both their command of staff college and school of advanced

warfighting. I was down there at the end of July. They've invited me down for a special ceremony to acknowledge some of their alumni, and just being able to reconnect with that network. Likewise at the U.S. Army War College, being the student vice president for 67 international fellows from around the world. I was just in touch with my classmate from Mongolia. We were chiefs defense at the same time, which made for a trusted international network. The US Army Special Forces qualification course is another example. I was just in touch last week with a classmate from that. So that international network that you form from these experiences is invaluable, especially

when you embark on coalition operations. Let's put a name on things. So Pete Hagseth has been spending part of the year making in front of the Canadian military and of the Canadian cadet organization. And a product of that upbringing spent a lot of time training with people at a higher level in the U.S. military than Pete Higgseth ever saw. There's a certain irony there. Yeah, I am embarrassed for them.

You know, there's been enough said about his lack of dignity, maturity, and professionalism. But what this incident has done on a positive side is highlighted the cadet program in Canada. And I think we need to celebrate just what a great program we have. So going back to the states to hang out with some of your American colleagues must have been a little interesting this summer. Did the subject of cross-border relations come up? Oh, yeah. I've maintained contact with former colleagues. Many of them are dismayed, but the challenge that we're going to face is how do we maintain

relations even if they become more transactional while standing up for our national interest. So that is the statecraft, the political issue. From a military perspective, my advice has been let's continue to maintain these personal relationships because we face such an uncertain future that a decade, two decades from now, senior leaders on both side of the border may find cause to pick up the phone and have a sensitive discussion about an issue at hand and being able to rectify it. And you could say the same for many other nations as well. There's this constant tension between the military and the political level, which at

some level I think you just can't ever make good. go away. And one expression of it is that in Europe, right now, today, there are going to be American and Canadian soldiers doing exercises in those battle groups on the eastern front of NATO, on the assumption that they might someday be called to fight together, even as their political masters do the kind of strange dance that we've all been following at home. Is that just part of the environment within which a soldier works? I mean, do you ever get better at navigating those weird conflicts? No, it's inherently messy. And that's what I try to capture in the book, is that messiness of political military relations. At the end of the day, the military is subservient

to duly elected political leadership. But it's got to be a dialogue. And In the book, I talk about the unequal dialogue that author Elliot Cohen has put out in one of his books. And it's discussing the ends, ways, and means of addressing an issue. But it's got to be that dialogue. But at the end of the day, you follow as a military officer the direction of the civilian government. And you say that some of the tensest moments are when there's some possibility that the Army is going to be called to operate within the home population. The Army is going to be called to exercise essentially a policing function. That happened at Oka when you were a young officer, and it happened.

It was one of the solutions that was discussed during the Freedom Convoy many years. later. You're not at all a fan of the notion that the Army should be sent in to do work among the population to some extent against elements of the population. No, not at all. It's with great distaste that a democracy's military should be used against its own population. But that being said, there may be a time where it's necessary. One of the roles of government is to maintain order. In fact, here in Canada, we're We're based on a tradition of peace order and good governance. But it has to be in the most extreme of circumstances.

I became very interested in this. In fact, I was approached last year by a group of academics to write a chapter on domestic operations for a forthcoming textbook, Volume 3 of Canadian Defense Policy and Theory and Practice. And I necked that down to civil disorder operations. And it was great learning for me. After Confederation, Canada had a history, a strong history of using the military to intervene, especially in labor unrest, but at times religious and racial unrest, and it became less and less frequent as police developed capability.

But that being said, there are still robust laws on the books through the National Defense Act, where the military can be employed in civil disorder operations, but it's got to meet the national interest test, which is pretty broad, and it's got to be that force of last resort when everything else is exhausted. And so as distasteful as it is, you know, I view the role of military advice is to lay out those risks, not just in the short term, but long term as well. Because as we saw with the FLS,

acute crisis. As we saw with OCA, there is long-term harm to the relationship with the affected populations. So then there you are, as the senior military commander in the room, during the Freedom Convoy in the beginning of 2022, the Ottawa police, a bunch of folks came from around the country that it sounded like they'd be there for a weekend. They were there for three weeks. The Ottawa police seemed paralyzed. The Premier of Ontario was washing his hands of the whole affair and some people turn to you. And there's an extraordinary moment in your book where you tell them what exactly they have in mind when they have you in mind. How did that, how did that meeting go? I think it went well because at the end of the day, we were not employed. But I had to explain

the differences between a police force and a military. The military does not have the nuanced escalation of force measures that a police force does. And so, confronted with an incident, chances are higher that the military would resort to deadly force, having to shoot. And unless you have that lengthy training, not just on rules of engagement and various scenarios, but also the equipment, the risk goes up exponentially. And so I laid it out to our political leadership about these are the risks. in the short term. You know, long-term risks are that alienation from the population. The potential of being seen as a partisan tool, and we're seeing that happen in the U.S.

now with soldiers on the streets of democratic cities. And so there's, there may be a time where it's required, but the government has to be very clear-eyed about the implications. What you describe it in the book, you go through? that sort of prelude that you mentioned where you say we're essentially we're a lot better at fighting than we are at talking. And then you say, if we are called on to intervene, this is in the context of a bunch of trucks in downtown Ottawa, if we are called in to intervene, we will win. Who was in the room and how did they react? Yeah. So it was a prime minister and a number of cabinet ministers, and any enthusiasm for the use of the military disappeared after that.

Not that there was great enthusiasm to begin with, but in the context of increasing public dialogue, public pressure to do something, there were some who were discussing the idea. Now? One of your really ambitious early assignments as a military officer was at the Madak pocket in the former Yugoslavia in 1993, 9293 in about there, which was when a peacekeeping mission turned out to be, you know, for a short time, open shooting and and a really dangerous environment for the Canadian soldiers to be operating in. You have called that chapter of your book,

the chapter about former Yugoslavia in the early 90s, the death of peacekeeping. Why did you give that chapter that title? And is that something that became clear to you in hindsight, or was it obvious to you while it was happening that you had an impossible assignment? So it was a real eye-opener for us. So we were with 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Three years before, with that battalion, we were in Cyprus.

Many of the same people, traditional interpositional peacekeeping. Right out of Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, we had the acquiescence of both sides to the conflict. Fast forward three years, and we're in the middle of a shooting war. And even though we are probably the best equipped force with the United Nations Protection Force, and that's not saying much, we were well outguned with both sides having artillery, tanks, aircraft. And the light bulb went off for me. This is not the previous generation of peacekeeping, where you had a lightly armed force keeping two sides apart. No, this is high-intensity combat. And if we take a look that since then, the nature of peacekeeping has changed.

You don't normally have two sides. You have multiple actors in many of the conflicts we see around the world. And getting their buy-in, all of them, is very, very difficult. Peacekeeping forces, if they're lightly armed now, they are at incredible risk. A big takeaway for me, and it formed the basis of some of my advice to government later on, was let's not put our people in harm's way without all of the requisite capabilities, the intelligence gathering, the medical evacuation, the overhead surveillance, the firepower, the logistics in place, the command and control in place, because we didn't have that.

And it could have gone very, very bad for us in Croatia in 93. And if we take a look at where peacekeeping missions are most prevalent in the world today, mostly in Africa, you see a very strong reluctance for those nations to welcome in large Western forces. And so where is it viable? You know, not many places in the world today. We still here today, especially because Mark Carney is presiding over a substantial increase in military spending. Let's not get into all of that heavy, ugly military stuff. Let's go back to the Golden Age of Peacekeeping.

And so, I mean, I've written about this recently, but I was really struck that your chapter on the Golden Age of Peacekeeping is called The Death of Peacekeeping. Yes, and I read your piece on it, and I quite enjoyed it, and I thought it was very very, very accurate. Yeah, it is a bit idealistic to wish that we could go back to that golden age of peacekeeping, but we're in a different age and show us a mission where you can apply that same sort of lightly armed intervention force or intervening or or separating two sides who've agreed to a ceasefire. Not many places in the world are like that today. Let's look at a very different kind of conflict, and one that I think really dominated your career, which is Afghanistan. You begin that sort of section of the book by quoting from Sun Suu.

I was really struck because I'd never read this quote from Sun Su before. He says, for there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited. I assume you had Afghanistan in mind when you picked that quote. Well, it goes beyond Afghanistan. And if you take a look at the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Army in particular, from the end of the Cold War until arguably today, but the end of our time in Afghanistan, it was on a war footing with constant deployments. And a lot of our young troops, that's what they joined for.

That's what I joined for. You know, that adventure overseas. But over time, especially as the demand signal went up and the resourcing went down, that chewed up the army. Afghanistan broke the army. And hopefully you get that sense reading about my command rules, both as a battalion commander and a brigade commander, generating multiple rotations for Afghanistan, having to combine numerous units because they were all under strength to be able to form. a viable force to go overseas. It was a case of overstretch, and particularly for Canada in Kandahar province,

we just did not have enough force to do what was being asked of us. While Welsha was presented by the Transition Accelerator, the energy transition is disrupting global power, and Canada needs to act now to secure its place in the emerging clean economy. With its rigorous, independent analysis and uniquely strategic approach, the Transition Accelerator is putting Canada on a path to win, economically and geopolitically. Visit Transitionaccelerator.ca.a to learn more.

All Well's show is presented by Camaco, a nuclear energy company proudly operating in Saskatchewan and Ontario for nearly four decades. Energy security, national security, and climate security are driving increased demand for safe, carbon-free nuclear energy. With Tier 1 uranium assets, critical fuel manufacturing capabilities, and best-in-class reactor technologies like the AP-1000 reactor, Camaco plays a large role across the nuclear value chain to deliver power to the grid. Camico is thriving as a global leader and Canadian nuclear champion. It's meeting the moment for nuclear new builds at home and around the world.

From ground to grid, Camaco is powering Canada forward. It's funny, I feel kind of dumb because I made three trips to Afghanistan, 2007, 2008, in the beginning of 2010. And it was obvious that it was a challenging environment. It was obvious that the sort of annual cycle of fighting season and then retrench for winter and then go back out for fighting season essentially was built on the assumption that there was going to be another fighting season next spring. And and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and the way you describe it, like, guys down there were barely hanging on for the most, like, you know, stretch too thin is a term that comes up a few times. Um, was deploying South Dakota Har a political mistake? Was it something that, uh, the, uh, the, uh, correct, you, Martin government at the time shouldn't have done or, or, or, or was it just hard work and, and, and, and, and you, and you make the best of it. Yeah, that's a great question.

And I think we need to have a full reckoning with what happened in Afghanistan and use it to inform future deployments. I've been thinking about this recently in the context of the American Powell slash Weinberger doctrine. And what are the criteria for deploying Canadian military force to other parts in the world? One, we need a full understanding of what we're getting into. And arguably in the early 2000s, leading up to 2005, 2006, we had a poor understanding of Afghan history, culture, the nature of the threat, how a foreign force could be rapidly seen as an army of occupation. the Afghans themselves in their history with foreign forces. The, and I mentioned this in the book, the inappropriateness of the federal government political structure

that was imposed as part of the bond agreement in December 2001 on Afghanistan, a very centralized government on a historically very fragmented and decentralized country. So there is a whole bunch of factors that we could have better understand we the West before going in there. Afghanistan sees almost a tragic moment to me because it wasn't a war of choice in a lot of

ways. It was a hayness attack in downtown Manhattan, killed Canadians. NATO has to exist for something. This seems like the sort of thing that NATO exists for. And yet, it was the graveyard where optimism went to die in global affairs. Like I watched a generation of the brightest military leaders, the brightest civilian public servants, academic expertise. And you can't take one of the poorest countries in the world in one of the most tempting and dangerous intersections of power and money and influence in the world and make it better just because you wish you could. I mean, is that, again, at what point is that, I mean, you were responsible for delivering that result?

At what point along that continuum did it start to feel like a lost cause? Well, my own feelings are pretty complex, and they went up and down over my various deployments there and work back here in Canada supporting the mission. But I thought the surge in the, about the 2010 time frame was wrong. I thought we should be surging Afghans. And it speaks to an important lesson that I've taken away. It's about local ownership of the problem. The political elites of the country in question must take ownership, have a sense of ownership,

and work to make their country a better place. As we put many forces into Afghanistan, we the West, many local Afghan forces were happy to stand by and have Western forces do the heavy lifting. You contrast that with Ukraine. And my takeaway from Ukraine before this large-scale invasion in 2022 were that Ukrainian political and military elites did not want Western military forces. They wanted our stuff. In fact, they quite clearly told me, we don't want you to shed one drop of blood for us.

We just need your equipment and training. And you could see the power of them taking ownership, even today, as they've withstood Russian brutality. Part of the book where you talk about the run-up to the full Russian invalienable, invasion of Ukraine is fascinating. There was an awful lot of activity that and it's funny, parts of a report at the time. You flew to Kiev.

You had dinner at the ambassador's house. That trip was reported, but the impetus for it and the increasing sort of panic behind it was probably less widely reported at the time. Tell me about those couple of months really before February of 22.

That trip was in December of 2021, and I went over there with one question. Will a Ukrainians fight? And of course, engaging with their senior leadership, yeah, it was, for them was no-brainer. Yes, we were going to fight. But what really did it for me was convinced me they were going to fight. We're getting the same response from our trainers who were embedded in their officer academies and their NCO schools and training them really across the country. And we had troops as far east as Harkeith. And every one of them said, yes, Ukrainians will fight. We don't need to worry about that.

So that led me to believe, yes, they're going to stand up from themselves. Now, are they going to be ready enough? You know, hard to say. And many of us, overestimates, the capability of the Russian military. Even Putin overestimated the ability of the Russian military. Because of the rampant corruption in their system, they were reporting, they were just sending up good news, not the bad news, logistics state of the military, training state of the military,

inability to integrate combined arms. So it was a fascinating time. So this is more than two months before the invasion. you go over asking, will they fight? The assumption there is they're going to have to fight or they're going to have to decide that it's not worth the fight? I mean, you were that convinced at the end of 21 that this was going to be real.

Well, there were still off-ramps at that point, but the tremendous amount of expenditure that Russia was putting in to deploy forces, even from their eastern military district by the Pacific. Moving forces right across the country to position them, that was a tremendous undertaking. And there's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy

when you start moving that many forces into place to justify the cost if intimidation fails. At that moment, just before the invasion, you send in two plainloads of lethal aid. weapons to the Ukrainians, you're able to get those two flights in. But then again and again and again, really for the rest of your career, you have to keep scrounging around, and your successors have had to keep scrounging around for stuff that we can send that would help the Ukrainians.

And we didn't have a lot. What were your talks with the civilian government like when you were scrounging around for something that we could send to Ukraine? Well, there was a tremendous appetite to send whatever we could. But I had to continually remind them that the shelves were bare. This is a manifestation of decades of underinvestment. I raised the flag about ammunition stockpiles. In fact, as we take a look at today, as we record this,

it was exactly four years and four months ago. Today, that same problem exists. Think back to the First World War, which was the same time period, four years, four months, and Canada emerged from that conflict as one of the largest munitions producers in the world. So it's a case of will and sense of urgency. And hopefully we have that sense of urgency now, but we certainly didn't at that point in terms of rearm ourselves, getting the necessary capabilities and readiness to face a very dangerous world. Back up just a little bit. When did you become commander of the Army?

Summer, August of 2019. Okay, so basically two or three years before the time frame that we've been discussing. And I ask because when you become commander of the Army, you have your first Army Council, which is a, you meet with the senior officers under your command. And you put seven questions to them about what's the state of the operation and, you know, what are the, what's the top of our to-do list going forward? And there's a, there's an account of that meeting in your book. And phrases like missing middle, hollow army, task overload, and capability gaps feature in those questions. It's 2019. When did, when did, when did the Army have to start looking for six or seven different ways to say the cupboard is bare? And how did it get to that point?

So this is a theme throughout the book of lack of readiness. And I remember as a brand new officer getting to the battalion in Winnipeg. And And this is at the end of the Cold War. Cold War is still on, and we are significantly under strength. I go to the field for my first exercise with my platoon. I should have 35 troops in a platoon. I've got 14. And the vehicles we are in were older than every soldier in the platoon, except my platoon warrant officer. And so that theme of lack of readiness was continuous throughout my career. I mentioned having to smash battalions together, combine them so we have a sufficiently sized unit for overseas operations. That continued throughout Afghanistan,

that continued before that during our time in the former Yugoslavia. But if you take a look at Canadian military history, it is almost a history of unpreparedness. 1914, 1939, 1950, 2001, never were we ready for the conflict that came. We can see the dark clouds on the horizon now, and that should provide us motivation. to increase that level of readiness. I was once going to write a book about post-war Canada, and then I realized that I don't know enough history. But it was fascinating to read about the period directly after the Second World War,

because for perfectly understandable reasons, the government at the time was super eager to cash a peace dividend. And they brought the soldiers home from, essentially Germany, just as fast as they possibly could, only to have to send them back almost immediately to lay in for the Cold War, and then to have to send nearly an equivalent force to Korea on short notice. As you say, it's a history throughout as long as there's been a Canada. We keep hoping we won't have to fight and then discovering that we sure will.

Yeah, and that post-war period is, fascinating, especially in the lead-up in the first year of the Korean War. I'd recommend Bill Johnson's book, The War of Patrols, in which he talks about the forced generation challenges for the Canadian Army in sending a brigade or three brigades, well, four, really, if you look at the post-armistice period, to fight in the Korean War. It was a massive challenge. The further you rise in the ranks, the more often you run into politicians. It must have been maddening because I'm sure they didn't just say this sort of thing to me, but they would say it to you or near you that when military commanders ask for Kit,

it's just more toys for the boys. That it's essentially an ego and testosterone thing and the military will be fine. Plus, Canadians are really into all that shooting stuff anyway. That must have been frustrating. Well, very frustrating, especially after I've seen the results of not having the right equipment, seeing the casualties that can occur. And it would be nice if we didn't have to use it. But they need to realize that the world is a dangerous place.

And the old saying goes, the enemy gets a vote. And Canada can say that this moment of time, we're never going to go to war. But how do you know? Now, it's 2021 when you become Chief of the Defense Staff. And first on an interim basis and then, yeah. And Harjit Sejan gives you the call and then the prime minister makes the announcement. And your early relations with Justin Trudeau struck me were quite cordial. And but I get the strong impression that it's, I get the strong impression that it

deteriorated. First of all, that your number of conversations with the prime minister were kind of being throttled over time and that a lot of the people around the prime minister were essentially trying to run interference for him. So let me characterize that differently. My relations with him throughout were always cordial and he was always respectful. And I would leave meetings thinking, okay, we're going to get some momentum on this. And I'm talking about defense investment, and then something else would happen. And we wouldn't get the answer, we wouldn't get the decision, or the decision was delayed. So very, very frustrating.

And I do write about that. But I also write that military advice is but one component of the decision-making process that political leaders need to make. And as frustrating as it may be, you can't take it personally. even if it puts the country at greater risk. And that's one of the challenges of being a senior military leader in a democracy is your advice may not always be taken. You talk about those two years as an exasperating two-year odyssey of strategic indecision and procrastination on the political side. There's a surreal moment where you think, look, meetings are not materializing.

Maybe I'll just write the guy a letter. And then over what sounds like a protracted period of time, people around the prime minister say, look, don't send the letter. If you can't even, as you point out, the prime minister's top military advisor, you can't even write to him or you're told we really hope you won't. That's not an ideal situation. Yeah, that was quite surreal. After my staff tried to deliver that letter and were rebuffed, I received the advice to back off. And very quickly afterwards, we had a fairly small group meeting with the prime minister to talk about the upcoming policy, why it was so important and what needed to be done. because throughout, you know, we remember the backdrop to this.

Russia's War of Aggression in Ukraine was continuing. We were continuing to scour and send everything, scour our shelves and send everything we could. And our readiness was deteriorating. During that time, you talk about being at an announcement of military funding with the minister, Anita Anand. While her staff is on the phone to finance, trying to nail down exactly what it is that they're going to be announcing that day.

So that was the 2022, June 22 announcement. And I remember that date because it was my 30th wedding anniversary, which I got called off of to be at this announcement. It was for NORAD modernization. And we were pretty sure it was going to be a larger package than what was finally decided on. But nobody knew what the decision was. And there we are in Trenton, 15 minutes after the decision or after the announcement should have started with media, with members of the base in attendance waiting as the two minister's offices were trying to determine exactly what was being announced.

It was not our brightest moment. You go even a little further than that in that general context. NATO decided in 2008 that countries should dedicate 2% of their GDP to defense. So that was the policy. That was Canadian policy on paper through the rest of the Obama presidency, through the Biden presidency. Trump, one, came and went. And then it took Trump two to come in and kind of huff and puff and finally. convince a bunch of countries, including Canada, that that was a real commitment that they had made,

and they'd better meet that commitment. You say that we as Canadians should feel shame that it took Donald Trump to make that, to force that decision rather than us making it on a calculation of our own interests. Well, there is very real threats before Trump came to power. In fact, other administrations before him, Biden, Obama, all in a much different fashion, but all were taking us to task for defense underinvestment. Especially after February of 2022 with Russia's large-scale invasion, the threats were very apparent, but they were growing before that. China's increased assertiveness both in the Pacific and in the Arctic. You know, Russia's overlapping territorial claims with us and their continued hybrid warfare

in different places around the world. The threats were very apparent, and it was clear that we needed to do something. The whole concept of territorial sovereignty, of the sanctity of borders, was coming under increased threat. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was an example of that. And so Canada, to assure its own sovereignty from a position of strength, should have acted sooner. Well, now we've got a new prime minister. We've got a majority government.

We've got sort of a can-do attitude across NATO that was lacking before. Is everything fine? I mean, now that we're roaring past 2% to 3.5% of GDP on military and military-related expense, is this finally the sort of promised land that you'd been hoping for all of your career? Like any political announcement, the truth is in implementation. And so what has been announced needs to be implemented with a real sense of urgency. and increased defense investment, while on one hand it is excellent for the defense industry, and we need to look at that as a strategic capability itself.

The proof in the pudding will be the delivery of capabilities and increased readiness to the armed forces. Things like increased serviceability of our equipment, so being able to pay for spare parts and maintenance, increased ammunition stockpiles, more relevant capabilities, to the threat environment that we are seeing. And because insecurity is accelerating, our readiness to address it needs to be accelerated at the same time. And so, yeah, we're on a right, we're on a good path. But having a system that will deliver is absolutely critical now.

What are you hearing from former colleagues, from people in the defense sector, about how well that's going? A lot of good intention in terms of streamlining procurement, centralizing it with a defense investment agency, but a lot of growing pains. As you try and change a culture of risk aversion to one of risk tolerance of making decisions in a timely fashion, of getting things done rapidly, it's not there yet, despite the intent. One last kind of general question. I guess the best person asks a general question too as a general. But in reading this, as is often the case when I read books by soldiers,

there's a kind of ambivalence about the work at the heart of I mean, there's pride in the work and there's extraordinary dedication to doing it. And again and again and again, you say to the political level, don't use us. You hope that you can avoid full-time, like going all in on a military assignment. It's work that to some extent you'd rather not have to do. No, absolutely. And, you know, despite the deployment aspirations of many of the younger generation, join, who want to travel the world to these exotic distant locations, as you become more senior

and have lived those experiences, you want to make sure they are set up for success, not just the members themselves, but the mission is set up for success. It's one that can actually be accomplished, and it's one that's going to be in the national interest. And too often, I found the military was seen as an easy button to manage the situation, to get it off the radar, to be seen to be doing something. You know, the old adage, something must be done in a crisis, was often on the lips of many, and lacking operational capacity elsewhere, the default solution became the military at times. So the book is called Into the Breach, a Soldier's Journey.

The author is General Wayne Eyre. I got to ask, do you have another book in you? Do you have thoughts about another book? No, not at this point. As I mentioned, my writing project this summer was a chapter for that textbook. But we'll see. Let's take a few years, try different things. This is all part of trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

Yeah, well, you and me both. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it. No, thank you, Paul. Thank you to my presenting sponsor, the Transition Accelerator. Visit transition accelerator.cah to learn more. Thank you to my presenting sponsor, Camaco, a global leader and Canadian champion in nuclear energy

here at home and around the world. Camaco is powering Canada forward. And that's the Paul Welles show for this week. Remember to tell your friends about this podcast. Like and subscribe this show on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch these interviews on my YouTube channel, and you can find all of my writing, including new articles and a complete archive at Paul Wells.substack.com. Thank you to my presenting sponsors, Camaco and the Transition Accelerator, for making all of this possible.

And thanks to you for listening. Have a good week.