The Canadian Army Journal

In the years after 1945 OR became heavily intertwined in the operational activities
and organization of the CF. In the maritime area, a large effort was based in operational
units (e.g., Atlantic Command, Maritime Air Command and their successors). OR on air
activities was conducted in operational commands (e.g., Air Defence Command, Tactical
Air Group, NORAD, 1 Air Division etc). The Canadian Army Operational Research
Establishment (CAORE) began in Kingston, but was organizationally part of the Army
headquarters. 7 Borrowing from its wartime experience, the build up of OR in the 1950s
resulted in the deployment of scientists in small units located with the various field
commands of the CF. A major benefit of dispersed field units was to expose junior
scientists to the problems, organization and procedures, and objectives of the military. 8
One of the main outcomes that emerged from the formative contributions of OR in
Canada has been the intimate cooperation between civilians and the military that has
developed.
Guideline 1: Adapt the skills of the analyst and use a multi-disciplinary approach to
problem solving
As Dr Lindsey noted, changing requirements over the years forced the skills of the
analyst to adapt. This is borne out by the fact that, over the decades since the institutionalization
of OR in the military, there has been a gradual shift in the focus of OR, which
had its roots in the technical research on equipment, until a large portion of its activities
involved systems analysis, policy analysis and eventually strategic studies. 9 A good
example of how OR was involved in high level strategic policy analysis is documented in
the “Resume of the Military Strategies in the Two World Wars.” In this report, Dr Lindsey
prophetically anticipated the impending geopolitical shifts of the modern era:
Grand strategy is the direction of all the resources of a nation towards the
attainment of the political object of the war. It includes economic and moral as
well as military resources, and it includes financial, diplomatic, commercial and
ethical as well as military pressure…the developments since World War II are
making it more and more important to remember that military strategy is a
special case of grand strategy, and that the purpose of military forces is to
further the national policy of their country rather than simply to defeat the
enemy on the battlefield. 10
Other areas, such as studies into cost effectiveness and research into management
engineering, as well as the link with the systems analysis school of thought, eventually
permeated the evolution of Canadian OR through the influence of such figures as R.J.
Sutherland. 11 Dr Lindsey recalled that in the early days of OR, the defence department
was not as concerned about acquisition cost as planners today: “When authorities
decided to buy something, they wanted to know if it did what they wanted it to do.” 12
Today, few would deny that one of the primary drivers of acquisition is cost, with the
actual capability provided by platforms or systems often being a secondary
consideration. In the old days, if the cost of maintaining a particular legacy system was
a major concern, equipment was placed in a warehouse or given to support training or
the Reserves. 13
As the problems of defence against intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted, the
relationship between the strategy and economics of intercontinental missile defence
became a major concern. National Defence planners had begun to examine strategic
alternatives for defence against missile attacks. These strategies included analysis of
the destruction of missiles in flight and passive defence such as structural hardening,
fallout protection, concealment and dispersal, which invariably involved developing the
defence community. 14 This experience taught Dr Lindsey to recognize the importance of
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