In 2022, a task force on national security at the University of Ottawa brought together experts to assess Canada’s ability to address the threats confronting it. Their conclusion was blunt: Canada is “simply not ready” to deal with a range of threats to its national security. Since then, Canada has released its first Defence Industrial Strategy and committed $81.8 billion to rebuilding its armed forces –  significant steps in the pursuit of national security, but ones that leave the civilian readiness gap this article examines largely unaddressed.

The threats are real and varied: climate-driven natural disasters, transnational crime, foreign interference, cyberattacks, pandemics, the opioid crisis. Many of these intersect with one another, and most are not military in nature, which means the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), for all their expertise, cannot be the primary responder. Yet the military remains the institution with the most developed thinking about how to prepare for the unpredictable. Civilian agencies, therefore, have much to learn from it.

“Military readiness” means ensuring that forces are properly educated, equipped, and trained for the full range of missions they may face: the goal is that, when called upon to act, they are successful. Canada’s Our North, Strong and Free defence policy uses the phrase “ready, resilient, and relevant” throughout. In addition, the 2024 military doctrine Fighting Spirit lists readiness as one of eight professional expectations for those in the profession of arms.

Military readiness has been historically built around three questions. “Readiness for what?” identifies the adversaries, conditions, and scenarios that forces must prepare for. “Readiness for when?” asks how much time is available to respond, recognizing that some threats arrive without warning. “Readiness of what?” determines which parts of the force must be ready now and which can wait. More recently, a fourth question has been added, asking “How should we achieve readiness?”.  This is a tactical question, focusing on how best to use the resources the military has at its disposal. Together, these four questions create a baseline for strategic planning.

Once the strategic assessment is done, military organizations move to generating readiness through what G. James Herrera describes as a production line model with three stages: building initial readiness through recruitment and initiation,  increasing readiness through advanced training and testing, and sustaining readiness through ongoing preparation for future assignments.

None of this is inherently exclusive to warfighting. Every one of these questions and stages can be translated into the civilian........

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