As someone with an inside line on how the CAF operates, I want to note that none of this is new. Canada has studied asymmetric warfare for as long as Canada has studied warfare. Our forces always train around the assumption that their enemy will have superior numbers and equipment, and they learn how to systematically dismantle a superior opponent. Even when we had to reconfigure a lot of our doctrine for Afghanistan, because we found ourselves on the “superior” side of the asymmetric equation, we were able to adapt very quickly because we knew what to expect from our enemy, and we never stopped looking at everything the Taliban threw at us and thinking “How can we use this?”

Canada’s military has a reputation - in Canada, at any rate - for being slow to adapt, but the reality is that what we have is a slow procurement process. We’re not good at getting new equipment into the field quickly, at least on a large scale. But we are very, very good at getting new strategies and tactics into play quickly. None of this is reactive; we don’t wait until bad shit goes down before figuring this stuff out. We’re constantly looking at what’s happening out in the world and paying attention to how our tactics need to evolve to keep up. We’ve been learning a LOT from Ukraine, and we’ve been developing tactics and strategies that both mirror and build on everything the Ukranians are doing. This is basically a lot of what our soldiers do with their time.

When you study Canadian and US doctrines side by side you really see this difference. Americans always assume they’ll have access to resources like supporting fires, air support, long range weapon systems and so on. They always assume that in a firefight they’ll have superior numbers and firepower. Canadians assume that we won’t have those things, and then figure out strategies and tactics that allow you to be effective anyway. And the US are very hidebound in how they think about training and doctrine. They make changes from the top down, across their entire force. Canadians, on the other hand, institute doctrinal change from the bottom up. We give individual units freedom to experiment, develop new ideas, test things, and filter up what works. Literally, there are budgets set aside for “Fucking around”, more or less. Money that commanders can use to test new theories of combat. When you look at stuff like drone warfare and wonder what we’re doing about that, the answer is “Everything.” If there’s a crazy idea out there, there are at least three platoons in the CAF fucking around with that crazy idea to see if it’s worthwhile.

There’s nothing good about the idea of having to fight the US. Everything about this scenario sucks as much as it is possible for anything to suck. But the CAF have basically been preparing for a fight exactly like this for its entire existence. We’ve almost always been the underdog, and we’ve always punched far, far above our weight in spite of that.