Plus ca Change

I’m seeing a therapist . . . again.  It seems that mental health needs a bit of a tune up every now and then.  It all goes back to the same thing, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that I suffered from the explosion and fire aboard HMCS Kootenay in October 1969.  It did not really show up for about 20 years, and then I became depressed.  I was treated for that for many years and still take medication to prevent a recurrence.  It was not until the winter of 2012 that the depression was attributed to PTSD and hence the Kootenay fire.  But every now and again, I have problems that require further evaluation and therapy.  Thanks to the nice folks at Veterans’ Affairs, I get the treatment at their expense. So I have to admit – I suffer a mental illness.

The other day, I asked this therapist, who has done some study of PTSD, to tell me about it.  He confirmed that it was primarily the symptoms of PTSD that get treated, and in this way, it was hoped that the anxiety that is the heart of PTSD would be alleviated.  So, I asked him if early intervention, such as counselling right after the event, and before any symptoms show up, would help.  He said that such intervention could help to reduce the anxiety underlying the PTSD and thereby lessen the possibility of more serious symptoms showing up later.  Why is this relevant?

The fact is that the symptoms of PTSD; depression, excessive drinking or drug use, marital problems, work problems and suicide; can show up at any time.  It can first show up days or weeks after the trauma, or as in my case, many years later.  After the Kootenay fire, when the term PTSD had not yet been coined, there was no counselling or similar help offered to the men.  No one came to us and said that such help was available.  Mind you, we were in England right after the event, and were there for differing amounts of time, from a couple of weeks to over a month.  But even when back in Halifax, no such help was offered.  And of course, there was the stigma.  The fear that seeking any kind of mental help would lead to release from the military, as happened to at least a few of the survivors.  In one case the release was within a couple of months of him reaching 20 years of service when he would have been eligible for a pension.  Sound familiar?  There is no question that at that time there was a significant stigma against mental illness.

Jump forward more than 40 years to the present.  We are now supposed to know much more about this thing called PTSD.  It has been one of the key findings coming out of recent wars.  The Canadian Forces, along with many of its allies, have tried to come up with strategies to come to grips with this thing and to rehabilitate the sufferers.  But there are too many signs that these strategies are not being too successful.  The number of military and ex-military suicides in Canada this winter is one such sign.  A story in Time Magazine a few weeks ago about a retired (because of the symptoms of PTSD) Sergeant from the US Marines who went on a shooting spree and is now serving 16 years in prison is a sign that Canada is not alone in this problem.  What was interesting about the Time story was that, although the ex-marine had been a marksman and could have easily killed several people, he did not, deliberately aiming to avoid injury to others.  What he really wanted was death by confrontation.

But the thing that really disturbs me is the fact that the stigma of mental illness still persists, most significantly in the armed forces.  Although I have been stigmatized by management in at least one of my civilian jobs.  Everything I read or hear about it only confirms this sad fact.  People have suffered symptoms of what we now call PTSD for as long as people have experienced trauma.  My grandmother used to suffer falls, once down a log stairway, when she heard thunder or a sharp noise because of the trauma of watching her own house being bombed during the Second World War.  Men, who had been heroes in earlier battles, were shot for being cowards when they broke down and could no longer face one more trauma in the First World War.  PTSD has always been with us.  PTSD and its symptoms are not a weakness.  They do not reflect, as it was described in WW2, a “lack of moral fibre”. Why can we not accept this and end the stigma of mental illness.  

Excuse my bad French, but I think the phrase is, “Plus ca change; plus la meme chose”.

The Challenge

This is the second part of two outlining my ideas for what the Royal Canadian Navy should strive for and the challenges of getting there.

“There are no problems, there are only challenges.”

Gordon Forbes

Whether the need is 27 ships or seven, the challenge is to get them and to get the right ones to meet the Navy’s challenges.  The truth is that the present government has been singularly unsuccessful in pulling off a major military buy.  The only ones that they are able to point to were all sole-source procurements.  Now they are falling back to what they accused the previous government of doing – cutting promised defence spending to meet other fiscal goals.  The defence budget is just too big a target for governments to resist the urge to cut it when they want to do other things – the defence budget being the largest discretionary item in the government’s portfolio.  The sad thing about this round of cuts is the harm it is doing to ongoing defence initiatives based on the government’s promises.  Only this week, another defence project, the replacement of the CP-140 Aurora, has been shelved in favour of an upgrade and an extension of these airframes until 2030 (hopefully).  

But budgetary woes are not the primary problems with defence procurement (and procurement in other departments as well).  Based on over 30 years of involvement in defence procurement, I offer the following points that hinder military procurement.

Requirements – The starting point for any procurement project is a requirement.  This requirement must be clearly articulated in a Statement of Operational Requirement (SOR) (or whatever you want to call it these days).  The SOR must define the problem that must be solved by the new or updated product, whether it is by describing the threat to be faced or by the scenarios that must be fulfilled.  It is not a shopping list.  It does not define the solution to the problem.  But the truth is that we have been singularly bad at articulating the requirements.  This tendency has got more projects off on the wrong foot that can be imagined. Some years ago, I gave a presentation to the local Project Management Institute conference called “The Requirement for Requirements” outlining the many problems I had encountered in requirements documents.  The number of heads nodding in agreement indicated that I was not the only one to have experienced this issue.  Of the recently announced changes to defence procurement, the only measure that may have a chance of improving things is the idea of independent review of requirements.  However, it will only be effective if it is done right, and not become just an exercise in bureaucratic ass clearing.  Unless the review group is knowledgeable, and independent of government, military and industrial influence, it will be useless.

Design and Development – There is some degree of design and development in almost every significant military procurement, whether it is the design of a new ship, or the alteration of an off-the-shelf product to meet unique Canadian requirements.  Other countries, when faced with this situation separate design and development from straight procurement.  In other words, the design and development phase is considered a separate project and is funded and contracted differently from the actual procurement of the final product.  Whereas the procurement phase can be fixed price and low risk after the design is finalized, the design and development phase recognizes the inherent risk in any such endeavor.  Contracts for this phase can be cost plus or incentivized to cater to this risk.  Once we get to the procurement cost, schedule and performance goals can be accomplished with very little risk.  It even becomes possible to compete the procurement to ensure that the lowest cost and benefits are achieved.

Staffing – When I was part of a team of consultants evaluating DND capital projects, one of the biggest weaknesses we found was the staffing of project offices.  Many were short of key people, but more often it was the knowledge and experience of the staff that was wanting.  The truth was that in too many projects, the staff consisted of people who had no prior experience in project management and were not getting the requisite training in a timely manner.  No wonder there was so much reliance on outside consultants to fill in the numbers and experience gaps. Too many of the military staff was there for only a short time (one or two years) and only to get their “ticket punched”.  At that time, only the Army Electrical and Mechanical Engineering branch seemed to have sufficient people with extensive experience.  Once many military were posted into a project office, they would have to wait their turn to get the basic PM course which often came near the end of their tour.  So what about civilian employees?  Again, many came into a project as a stepping stone to other things.  Many considered it a chancy position because of perceived uncertainty about what would await them when the project ended.  

But the biggest weakness of both the military and civilian staff was their total inability to relate to industry. Most project offices had nobody who had any experience in industry.  In one project office where I worked as a consultant, I was only one of two out of a staff of over 140 who had spent any time working in the defence industry before coming to the project.  The result was a total misunderstanding and mistrust of industry, both its capabilities and motivation.  

A Thought – As much as we think that Conservative governments are the only real friend that the military has, remember this – all of the major weapons systems that are the current mainstay of our military, CF 18s, CPFs, CP 140 Auroras, Tribal Class destroyers, MCDVs, were initiated and pushed forward by a Liberal government.  Conservative governments have promised nuclear submarines, fixed wing search and rescue aircraft, and F 35s, none of which have come to pass.

Summary – The current proposal for a reorganization of defence procurement is only a rehashing of the way the thing is supposed to be handled.  The difference seems to be an opportunity for another layer of bureaucracy comprising some high level civil servants and a no-doubt bloated “secretariat” to serve them.  If it cuts out military participation in the decision making process, it will never serve the real needs of that military.  Unless the problems I have identified above are addressed, the challenge of getting the best product to meet their needs will never be overcome.

The Need

As most of you know, I spent half of my working life in the Navy.  These next two posts will give my ideas about what we in Canada need for a Navy and the problems of getting there.  But first, the need.

Canada is a maritime nation.  We have the longest coastline in the world with oceans on three sides.  A great deal of our trade travels by ship and we extract a significant amount of treasures from in and below the sea.  Sea power is necessary to protect this situation of our home country.  Sea power is also the best way to project our image and support to other parts of the world.  Sea power is the only way of projecting our presence overseas independent from the need to have friendly countries nearby to host our Army or Air Force units.  We need a Navy.

It is fair to ask what our Navy has done and continues to do for us today.  Even with the much diminished fleet we have right now, we are providing presence in the Caribbean to assist the US war on drugs; we are providing presence in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa and the Middle East where we have, among other things, made massive drug hauls and brought Somali piracy almost to a standstill.  The Navy provides units to the collective defence with the US and NATO allies, and ships to “show the flag” to highlight Canada.

But what kind and size of a Navy do we need?  We need a Navy that is big enough to provide both the defence of our own coastlines and the overseas presence needed to play our role as a world player, and to do it on two coasts.  We must also be able to show our sovereignty of the Arctic.  We must also cater to regular ship maintenance schedules plus the working up and training of ships’ crews. So what does that add up to?

The primary requirement is for four task groups, two on each coast.  One task group on each coast would be assigned to overseas deployments to the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean/ Western Pacific/ Mediterranean/ Northern Europe areas wherever the need arises.  The second task group on each coast would be assigned to more local duties including the Caribbean operations and joint operations with the US Navy.  For Arctic operations, the AOPS is the assigned class, but its capability in this regard is still to be proven.  Although the main operating base for these ships is meant to be the Halifax, consideration should be given to basing a couple of operational AOPS where they can serve the Bering Sea area.

With respect to the make-up of the task groups, each should be a self-contained group capable of extended deployments.  Each group should include one task force command capable ship, ideally with area air defence capability, such as the current Tribal Class destroyers, plus at least two more general purpose ships such as the current frigates.  In addition, each group should have its own replenishment capability.  This does not have to be in the nature of the envisioned Joint Support Ship, but a replacement for the current AORs providing fuel, food, ammunition, spare parts and one or two spare helicopters.  This would require four destroyers, eight frigates and four AORs.  However, to include the maintenance and training requirements, a minimum of at least an additional one third of each class would be necessary, thus a total of six destroyers, twelve frigates and six AORs.   This is the bare minimum for a truly capable Canadian Navy, but for contingencies where more powerful or split groups are required, consideration should be given to bolstering even this number with, for example, one additional destroyer and two more frigates.  These two classes could be built with a lot of commonality in hull and machinery, but different weapon and sensor suites, and levels of complexity.  Thus, the real need is for seven destroyers, fourteen frigates and six AORs.  I have not added a contingency AOR because we can sometimes rely on allied resources to fill gaps. 

 

A total of 27 new ships . . . that is a lot and will cost probably more money than current governments are ready to give.  However, if this level of fleet can be seen as the actual requirement, even if a lesser number of ships are acquired, this proposed level can be viewed as an unfulfilled requirement which is an unspoken promise to be filled when resources and the will allow.  This is the kind of case that must be made by the Navy using the desired level of commitment as the primary argument. 

The next post will discuss the acquisition process – its successes and failures.

(M)ad Campaigns

The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.
  - Edith Sitwell

There are a few ads that are entertaining; but only a few.  Most of them do not entertain and leave you wondering why you should buy that particular product.  You’ve seen them on television, on-line or in print.  Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.

“Whether you suffer from high blood pressure, acne, the heartbreak of psoriasis, arthritis, halitosis (bad breath), depression, gingivitis, dandruff, hang nails, dry skin, we have the remedy for you.  Just apply our product for 97 days straight and your troubles will be over.  We offer a 21 day money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.  Our product will be mailed to you direct from our secret lab in Honduras.  Order now!”

Of course, any remedy worth its salt must have a secret ingredient, usually with a name you cannot pronounce, starting with an “x”.  It is an ingredient so secret that no scientist has ever heard of it, but it sounds good.  Then, of course, there is “BL Regularis”.  How can you argue with that to keep you regular?

Then of course there is the fine print, or in the case of TV ads, the part spoken in a hushed voice and so fast the speaker never even takes a breath. “I know I am at risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, male pattern baldness, early dementia, various kinds of cancer, loss of libido, fainting spells and sweaty palms from taking this product, but it sure has cleared up my skin rash.”  

How about the ones which promise, if you drive the right kind of car or use the right deodorant, that you will be sought after by the most beautiful women in the world, make CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the time you’re 23, let you retire at 40, and have the most handsome family in the neighborhood.  What would happen if everyone drove that same car and used that deodorant?  There wouldn’t be enough companies or beautiful women to go around.  Now what?

Then there are the TV ads where the directors seem to believe that their announcer must yell as loud as he can, and speak as fast as possible.  They get more words in that way, even if you, the listener, can’t keep up. Or maybe that’s the point.

And then there are beer commercials.  In the real world, when you drink as much beer as the people in the ad, you would weigh about 300 pounds.  But, no, in the ads, the more you drink the skinnier and more muscular you become.  How about those ads which talk about how cold their beer is?  Anyone who actually savours the taste of beer knows that at that cold temperature you can’t taste a thing, among other reasons being that you lips get numb and your larynx freezes.  It’s like telling someone to freeze whisky and then savour the aroma.  

Ads today seem to, not so much inform, but confuse.  The play to “lifestyle” is one of the favourite themes.  You can change your whole lifestyle by using our product.  I don’t know what my lifestyle is, or is supposed to be.  I’m too busy living life to even worry about it. There is no question that the average ad is designed to reduce your IQ.  Do they really expect you to believe most of what they say, or are the pretty pictures supposed to suffice.  Those scantily clad babes and hunks are not there to demonstrate the product; they are there to distract you so you won’t spend too much time thinking about the inane things they are saying.

The best thing to do with ads is to make fun of them; to reveal the stupid things most of them are talking about; laugh at the irrelevant images that they show.  In other words, have fun with ads.  They may be the most humorous things you see on television or social media.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
  - George Bernard Shaw