Beyond the Movies

Although Canadians served with SOF since the Second World War, Canada only established a dedicated SOF capability in 1993 with the creation of Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2).2 Canadian Special Operations Command (CANSOFCOM) was created in 2006 as part of then-Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier’s expansion of operational-level headquarters and a more general effort to return a unified comm [...] This is evident in the way SOF has been used and when it has been deployed: the political authority appears to have an inchoate understanding of how and when best to use and deploy this capabil- ity. [...] More needs to be done to improve political decision-makers’ understanding of SOF, to deploy SOF in a more timely fashion, and to shorten the decision-making processes and feedback loops to authorize SOF deployment. [...] Policy-makers require a better understanding of what SOF is and what it can do; they should be cautious about expanding SOF per se and focus instead on emerging capabilities in support of SOF, such as air transport, fire support, and co-operation with conventional forces; and they need better and quicker decision-making for deploying SOF so it can be used to the full extent of its capabilities. [...] With large-scale deployments of conventional combat forces improbable in the foreseeable future,4 SOF has emerged as the force of choice to achieve kinetic and non-kinetic strategic effects – the former associated with the application of lethal force, the latter encompassing a much wider range of non-lethal effects (e.g., military training, cyberwarfare, psychological operations).