By Ken Pole | May 7, 2014 Estimated reading time 4 minutes, 34 seconds.
Six CF-18 Hornets deployed by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in support of NATO’s mission to “reassure” Ukraine in the face of a growing Russian threat are unarmed and, as tensions rise in the region, Canada continues to wind down its long-standing involvement in NATO’s airborne early warning program. Both facts were confirmed on May 6 by Gen Tom Lawson, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and Gen Philip Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The two former fighter pilots (Lawson in CF-18s and Breedlove mostly in F-16 Fighting Falcons with the U.S. Air Force) spoke with reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Ottawa by Breedlove, during which the two officers met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
It was Lawson who disclosed that the CF-18s from 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron in Bagotville, Que., were strictly in a “training mode” for the time being. “The fighters are not armed,” he said when asked for an update on the Canadian involvement in the region.
However, he added, “they always arrive . . . ready to be armed as required.” Moreover, he said, the Hornet crews were being given a rare but useful opportunity to go up against “some very upgraded MIG-type fighters” flown by their Romanian counterparts.
Lawson also pointed out that NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control (NAEW&C) aircraft are monitoring all aircraft in the region as they orbit Romanian and Polish airspace. Breedlove told Skies that the Boeing E-3A Sentry platforms—707s with rotating radar domes and sensor suites that provide all-weather surveillance, command, control, and communications to allied forces—had proven to be “very capable every day” during the multinational mission in Afghanistan, and were proving equally invaluable during the Ukrainian crisis. “There are still Canadian aircrew flying on those,” said the Georgia native.
However, they are among the final RCAF crews to fly on the aircraft, ending nearly three decades of participation in the surveillance mission, which was a key element of the alliance’s presence during the Cold War. Canada informed NATO in late 2011 that it would be phasing out its involvement, which included the assignment of more than 100 pilots and other RCAF personnel to NATO’s 17-aircraft fleet, which operates out of Geilenkirchen, Germany. The average annual cost to Canada had been approximately $50 million, and additional Department of National Defence funds were being applied to various NAEW&C upgrades.
When then-Defence Minister Peter MacKay gave notice during a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels in 2011, the government said the Canadian pullout would be gradual, which Breedlove acknowledged. “They’ve done so in an incredibly responsible manner,” he said. “We asked them to do this in a phased approach to allow us to be able to backfill . . . and they have met every expectation.”
Lawson chuckled when asked whether he would like to see Canada’s involvement in the NATO surveillance mission restored once the federal government balances its annual budget, probably next year. “Oh, we’re doing a little spit-balling on if extra money were added to the coffers?” he replied. “I think . . . we would have to at such a time do a complete survey of the security environment and where our gaps are. And that’s a full force development discussion.”
Meanwhile, even as “the last of our aircrews are over top . . . as we speak,” the RCAF has had regular access to the E3A Sentry aircraft flown out of Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. “There are many airmen and airwomen who would have loved that we would have taken a different decision,” Lawson conceded, “but Canada remains well-served by the opportunity to leverage our aircrews in the U.S.”
