The Head of the Royal Canadian Navy Says There’s No Need To Deploy More Ships to the Pacific

March 12, 2012. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

The U.S. Navy, and military is focusing more of its attention towards the Pacific, noting the shift of economic power and, some would argue military power, to the region, particularly with China.

During a recent Senate defence committee meeting Conservative Senator Don Plett noted that the U.S. Strategic Defence Review placed greater emphasis on Asia-Pacific operations as a counter to China’s growing power and influence. Plett wondered whether the Royal Canadian Navy should be making a similar shift and put that question to Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison, head of the RCN. (This is certainly a recommendation that naval officers such as now retired Rear Admiral Tyrone Pile and Rear Admiral Roger Girouard have argued for a long time)

But Maddison doesn’t see it that way. He argued that the “Canadian navy has been as present as we could be in the Indo-Pacific, specifically Southeast and Southwest Asia, for many years, decades.”

He went on to detail a number of deployments, such as HMCS Ottawa operating off the coast of Australia last year. In addition, he pointed out that the navy’s largest exercise will be at the upcoming RIMPAC exercise scheduled this summer in Hawaii.

“That is a long way of saying that I believe we have balanced – to the best of our ability – the ships that we have and the sea days that we have with the opportunities to work alongside our allies in the Pacific, in the European NATO area and, of course, in other areas of the world, such as, increasingly in the past 20 years, the Persian Gulf; the Indian Ocean; the Caribbean, especially in the counter-narcotics mission; and in the Arctic,” he explained.  “It is a question of balancing all of these priorities to get maximum strategic effect for Canada.”

Is he right? Or should there be more of a shift of naval assets on the East Coast over to the West Coast?