[ Music starts ]

Captain Adam Orton: Hi, I’m Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast. The Canadian Special Operations Regiment, or CSOR, is not as well known as it could be, and for good reason. Sometimes talking about your special skills means people can prepare for the big surprise. But today, we’re getting a peek behind the scenes of secrecy to talk about what CSOR does and what’s special about them. Sir, would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?

Lieutenant-Colonel Declan Ward: Yeah, my name is Lieutenant-Colonel Declan Ward. I’m the commanding officer of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. I’ve been in the job for about 18 months, and I’ve been serving in the Special Forces community for the last 15 years.

Capt Orton: Really excited to have you. Welcome to the podcast!

LCol Ward: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[ Music ends ]

Capt Orton: You know, I think there’s a certain legendary status around SF or SOF or Special Forces. You know, people make movies about them, TV shows. And when people are trying to join the military, they’re like, I want to be a part of that. What’s the deal with that?

LCol Ward: I think a lot of it has to do with the term “special”. So a lot of folks outside the military put a lot of weight on that term. It implies elite status. It implies something of interest because a lot of what we do is secret by necessity. The reality is that we are a part of the military that has a role just like any other part of the military. So we don’t view ourselves through the Hollywood lens at all. We actually find it problematic because it confers some things on us that are not conducive to the concept of quiet professionalism, which is something that we value inside the community. But the notion that we’re this elite force that operates with a different set of rules and can kind of throw authorities or guiding principles to the wind is not accurate. What we are is an instrument of the military that operates with a unique role, but under the same confines as everyone else who’s a military professional.

Capt Orton: I guess if you have this John Wick-ian legendary status, it creates some unrealistic expectations of what’s actually happening.

LCol Ward: It does. And it’s one of the reasons I’m here today. We want people to know what they’re showing up to. While it’s certainly flattering in a lot of instances to see how we’re portrayed, certainly by Hollywood, the reality is we have a job to get after. It’s important work, but it’s not remotely what’s reflected in kind of the sensationalized Hollywood image of Special Forces.

Capt Orton: So what does CSOR actually do?

LCol Ward: That’s a very broad question. Our role within CANSOFCOM is to be Canada’s expert in what we call special warfare. So that is our core mission set.

Capt Orton: And what is special warfare? What does that mean?

LCol Ward: So, in peacetime engagement, special warfare is all about stabilizing and shoring up partners against asymmetric threats. So that sees small special forces teams going out and providing training assistance, advice, defense diplomacy to partners and allies to help them address challenges associated with whether it’s transnational organized crime, whether it’s violent extremist organizations, or whether it’s malign state actors trying to use indirect warfare approaches against them, is one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum, as we move through great power competition, crisis to conflict, and what we call joint war fighting, we then use those techniques against an adversary. So it’s about working by, with, and through local partners to create problems in an adversary’s depth that force them to commit resources, to put effort into secondary lines of effort for them, to create space for larger manoeuvre elements, like, you know, the Canadian Army as an example, to carry out combined arms manoeuvre. So it’s a broad spectrum of, kind of, missions and capabilities. The common thread between them is it’s conducted by, with, and through partners. Typically partners that are not conventional military forces, so typically through either special operations elements, irregular forces, resistance networks, that type of thing. And the asymmetric approach, so trying to inflict as many costs on an adversary as possible with as little effort as possible. So that maps to a whole bunch of mindsets and capabilities that we have inside the Regiment that support that mission set. That’s the main effort for CSOR. There is a second aspect to what we do. It is complementary to special warfare and that is support to joint war fighting. And this may be of actually more interest to your audience.

Capt Orton: What does that mean?

LCol Ward: So it speaks to really, if we go back to World War II, the more traditional kind of commando SOF role in support of conventional forces.

Capt Orton: Right, of course, yeah, got it.

LCol Ward: So, a similar approach to special warfare, or what we define as special warfare, in that we’re looking to create asymmetric problems for the adversary. In this case, it would probably be more unilateral. If you think in a NATO context, responding to an Article 5 requirement, for example. We may not have the time to build a local network. We may not have special warfare options open to us. So we build the capability to do these types of operations unilaterally.

Capt Orton: That might be accomplishing objectives that are immediately enabling to conventional forces like regular Army stuff as opposed to the larger context of asymmetrical warfare.

LCol Ward: It could be. It could be a bit of both. So we look at that problem through carrying out operations in the enemy’s depth. So what we are looking to do in that joint warfighting context is we move into the enemy’s depth. Sustain ourselves and conduct our own targeting cycle to go after enemy capabilities to create space for combined arms manoeuvre. So, if you think of enemy high-value offensive platforms, potentially air defense systems, things that are going to be operating in the depth, in the enemy’s depth, I should say, that create problems for manoeuvre forces that are in the close fight. So absolutely, we will be supporting that close fight by taking enemy capabilities off the battlefield in depth. The other piece to that is one of our other roles that feeds into both special warfare and joint warfighting is the concept of special reconnaissance. So gathering intelligence in areas that are not easy to gather intelligence in and feed into that joint intelligence picture so that manoeuvre commanders can make decisions with real-time operational level intelligence that hopefully feeds into their targeting cycle and gives them access to stuff that maybe their own organic recce capabilities or their own sensors can’t pick up.

Capt Orton: Can you give me an example of a joint war fighting scenario? Like you used the example of striking in depth or behind enemy lines at air defense. Can you make it a little bit more concrete? Pretend it’s 3 RCR or an infantry battalion that’s about to conduct an attack. Can you narrow it down a little bit?

LCol Ward: Yeah, so the example that I’ll use is from an exercise we did about a year ago with NATO. We participated in Exercise NORDIC RESPONSE. And our role within that exercise was, prior to the commitment of conventional forces, was to infiltrate into an enemy-held territory. And prior to the launch of a large-scale conventional amphibious assault, in this case, was to degrade the enemy’s ability to contest that beach landing. So we were prosecuting things like air defense systems, things like high-end offensive fires, so rocket artillery, ballistic missiles, that type of thing. So, you could see a scenario where during the shaping phase, pre-decisive operations phase, special forces going in and setting conditions for conventional manoeuvre would be one example in that kind of larger joint warfighting context.

Capt Orton: How does that enable you to plan for tasks or exercises or missions?

LCol Ward: So, a lot of our planning process would look very similar to what’s taught on AOC, the Army Operations Course, that all Army officers would receive prior to promotion to major. The big difference for us is we then have to apply an additional layer of finding the right partners to achieve the right objectives. So, there is a time horizon aspect to special warfare planning that I would say is a much longer look and much longer consideration than a normal, you know, 72, 96 hour operational planning cycle. Because we’re looking at how do we find the right partner? How do we build trust with that partner, build our network with that partner, and then over time enable that partner? So an example that I’ll give is our longest enduring operation is a counter-organized crime capacity building operation in the Caribbean Basin. That’s been going on for over 15 years now. It’s partnered with Global Affairs Canada, and we have a number of different regional partners that we work with. The planning horizon for that is measured in years, not in days or even months. So there is a bit of a different lens. When we look at some other operations, it’s the same thing. Who should we be partnering with so that we can have an enduring effect and pursue our objectives over a long time horizon – years, not months?

Capt Orton: That’s really interesting because I would say, at least from my perception of what I’ve taken in, like if I think of the special forces rehearsal and training process, I’ve always perceived that as something that’s, like, a lot of meticulous and repetitive planning for like perfect execution. But I guess that plays both ways in that to have perfect execution, like, deep planning is critical as well, I guess.

LCol Ward: Yeah, and I mean, certainly at the tactical level, we expect that level of planning as much as we can try and eliminate uncertainty, especially in an asymmetric context where the odds are stacked against us, right? So we mitigate that risk through enabling individuals and small teams as much as we possibly can so that they have all of the capabilities and competencies to operate when they’re facing probably force ratios that are not in their favor. We provide intelligence support. We spend a lot of time in planning down to the lowest level. So we practice what we call bottom-up planning. So this is where even the most junior member of the team has a pretty significant role in building the tactical plan because they’re going to be the ones executing it. So that is certainly an aspect of what we do. I will say, and this is a plug to some of the other units, we are not the only unit in CANSOFCOM.

Capt Orton: Of course.

LCol Ward: And when you look at certain other missions, for example, hostage rescue, which is not something that we do in CSOR, that has a different approach and a different mindset. So you would see a lot of emphasis on that type of planning to be able to do those critical tasks.

Capt Orton: This really solidifies in my mind the concept of conventional forces as a bit of a blunt instrument or a hammer in the sense that, you know, if you’re doing offensive operations, you just want a good three-to-one or five-to-one ratio, overwhelm the enemy, make sure you have a good logistics network to feed your troops to make it all happen, probably going to succeed, aces. And what you’re describing is the idea that you have all of that stacked against you and, so, a lot of focus is on how to make sure that works out okay without that massive equipment and bodies behind you to make it all happen.

LCol Ward: Yeah, and I think something that also needs to be acknowledged with that in mind is special forces are not appropriate for every mission set, right? There are things that we can’t do, and I think you just described that. We cannot do combined arms manoeuvre, as an example. So, the principles that we operate under are we can hit small things very precisely. In CSOR, we focus on doing that through local networks with, you know, I’ll use the term “unconventional techniques” to buy down the risk for us and maximize the damage that we can do to the adversary. What we can’t do is we cannot, for any significant period of time, impose our will on a larger military force. We can cause a lot of problems for them. We can do a lot of damage. But ultimately, things like holding ground, things like manoeuvering, are not really things that we look at from a special forces perspective.

Capt Orton: Based on your description at this point, I would say the way you do impose that will on a prolonged period is through degradation, not through overwhelming action.

LCol Ward: Exactly, right. So what we are looking for are critical vulnerabilities within the adversary’s system and how do we precisely target those vulnerabilities and do the most damage with essentially an economy of force effort.

Capt Orton: I’ve been thinking about this again, like approaching it from a regular Army perspective. And it’s like, I’m thinking of mission action verbs and things like the type of actual tasks in terms of how things are written on paper. You know, again, if I think of it as the hammer approach is like “destroy” or “defend”. Does CSOR have a different approach to mission sets or is it pretty much the same thing?

LCol Ward: No, I mean, in terms of mission task verbs, we would use, kind of, the standard doctrine task verbs. What is different is the approach and the environment that we’re applying those in. So the example that you used of a “destroy” task, that “destroy” task for a special forces mission may look like a sniper operating behind enemy lines shooting out the gas tank on a generator that causes a cascading effect that shuts down an enemy air defense system, as an example. That may look like us moving out with a partner force and conducting a sabotage operation. It may not look like the large scale, tons of fires, assault on the objective. It may look like that at a very small scale. That is a competency that we train for. But, we try and look at how can we affect the target set with minimal risk to our own force and cause prolonged problems for the enemy? So how do we deny them resources? How do we shut down very low-density critical combat systems? As opposed to looking for a highly defended main defensive area or strong point and striking that. It’s something we could do. I would argue it’s probably not the best use of SF.

Capt Orton: That’s right, yeah.

LCol Ward: And frankly, nothing can put more combat power onto an objective than an Army combined arms team.

Capt Orton: We’ve touched on this a lot, but capabilities, like what would you say at the end of the day is that list of capabilities, if you had one?

LCol Ward: So I won’t go into a detailed list of capabilities.

Capt Orton: That’s okay.

LCol Ward: But what I would say is the focus of our capability is the Special Forces Detachment. So that’s a team of between four and eight operators commanded by a sergeant that is enabled, as much as we can possibly enable them, with the ability to carry out engineer tasks. So they’ve got a special forces assault engineer, they’ve got UAS operators, they’ve got a patrol medic, they have an intelligence operator, potentially bolt-ons like snipers, joint terminal attack controllers, so that we can build a cross-functional team that is really able to adapt to any kind of problem they’re going to find on the battlefield. So, I would say in my estimation, there is no small team anywhere in the CAF that has as much capability pushed down to that detachment level as we have. And it’s by necessity. We need it to service our mission sets. So that is the focus of our capability. There are some other niche capabilities that we have inside the Regiment that support not just what we do, but all of CANSOFCOM, mostly in the special air warfare domain, so enabling joint fires from whether it’s strategic air platforms or close air support. And there are some others that, yeah, it’s probably not appropriate to get into here.

Capt Orton: Yeah, fair enough. Can’t reveal all the secrets.

LCol Ward: Yeah.

Capt Orton: How does that translate to you in terms of deployments and tasks? Like what does that actually look like in terms of, you know, schedule?

LCol Ward: So, we’ve put a lot of effort into trying to stabilize our folks’ schedules.

Capt Orton: Yeah, it’s not easy.

LCol Ward: So we have an internal readiness cycle inside the Regiment. So the SF squadrons, which are our main, kind of, sub-unit of action, that’s what we build our kind of C2 and our operational deployments around. They operate on a cycle of going from high readiness, so they are on standby to provide a SOF contingency force in support of CAF objective sort of emerging problems. We look at that force through a special warfare and joint warfighting lens, which is a little bit different than some of the other high readiness elements in the command. So folks will go on that, so they’ll be on a certain notice to move for a period of time. They cycle out of that, and basically they’ll be part of one of two things: either support to core force generation. So we run our own individual training, so we run our selection in SF operator and SF officer training pipeline inside the Regiment, so operators will go to support that. As well as conduct small missions. So we have a number of enduring special warfare missions around the world. They tend to be episodic in nature, although a few of them do have a permanent presence. And so folks will go out and do those operations. So, depending on, you know, timeline, what position they’re in, that could mean you going out with your detachment and working with a partner force to build their capability to address a violent extremist organization threat in their country, a transnational organized crime threat, or potentially you could go out as a lone individual into a country to represent regimental or CANSOFCOM or even CAF equities to that country. So right now, you know, I have an enduring deployment in an allied country that’s one person. It’s one operator, NCO, and they are there on behalf of the commander of CANSOFCOM, managing all of the different inflow and outflow of different CANSOFCOM elements into that theater, as an example.

Capt Orton: How would CSOR or CANSOF, on the larger picture, link into regular Army tasks? The reason why I ask that is I was putting that in context to my experience in Afghanistan. Granted, I was a private back then, but still got to sit in on things like battle group level orders, which is hundreds, if not thousands of people that are getting tasked with things for, like, a long operation. And I was just thinking of the context of that four day operation. And it’s like, okay, well, now that I know what Special Forces does, how would I use that or how could I use that to degrade perhaps enemy capabilities as I’m going in to accomplish a specific objective or something like that? Because if you knew that existed and you wanted to use it and it’s there to be used, you probably should.

LCol Ward: Yeah, and I mean, I would say, like, if we think about joint war fighting, as an example.

Capt Orton: Yeah.

LCol Ward: SOF will be doing those things.

Capt Orton: That’s right.

LCol Ward: But that’s going to be part of a larger campaign plan.

Capt Orton: Right, yeah, of course.

LCol Ward: And, you know, it may not be visible to everybody, especially in the close fight, right?

Capt Orton: That’s right.

LCol Ward: So, if you think of the security requirements and force protection requirements to be able to operate, kind of, at reach in the enemy’s depth, where there’s no QRF coming for you, you’ve got all of the enemy systems that are trying to find you. We’re not going to be super open about what we’re getting up to or where we are, right?

Capt Orton: That’s right.

LCol Ward: So it may not actually be visible to many folks within the combined arms space in that close fight, but at the operational level, I can assure you, and I’ve been involved in multiple different campaigns, SOF is fully integrated and we are supporting the same objectives as the conventional forces. I was a task force commander working under the CJTF on Op Impact. CJTF was a conventional U.S. core Headquarters that ultimately was where my chain of command reported to.

Capt Orton: Right.

LCol Ward: Right, and we did a lot of local deconfliction. We lived with conventional forces. We ensured that we were complementing one another when we were doing operations. It was all done in pursuit of the same objectives, but it may not have looked like, okay, you’re getting an attachment of, you know, SOF to assist you with this task. It may look like that. You know, in general, we’re focused on things a little bit farther out than, say, in a Canadian context, a brigade kind of area of operations. We’d be operating beyond that, kind of in the core, the core depth, but that’s not to say that you’re never going to see SOF.

Capt Orton: Right, yeah, of course.

LCol Ward: There are, and I won’t get into all of them because some of them are quite sensitive, but there are a number of scenarios where SOF will be working with conventional forces.

Capt Orton: Yeah, and also I think discretion is a certain, like, by default state is if you’re conducting degradation operations in the background, you don’t want it to be too obvious because then otherwise you now have to deal with that problem anyway. So it’s…

LCol Ward: Yeah, you create a targeting vector into yourself.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s it.

LCol Ward: If too many people know about it, so…

Capt Orton: That’s right. All right, well, shifting gears outside of the kind of structural stuff: another thing that I’ve kind of witnessed or experienced throughout my career is tactics or even, like, drills and stuff like that, changing at the unit level in terms of, let’s say, weapons handling or small unit tactics and stuff like that, that is filtered down as a result of things that have been learned from either CSOR or SOF, in general. How does the training that is done under Special Forces get filtered down into the Army and applied as, like, let’s call it doctrine?

LCol Ward: So there are a number of ways that we do that. Most of it is done through relationships unit to unit. So, I will often get asked, and especially in 2 Brigade, just because of proximity.

Capt Orton: That’s right.

LCol Ward: Hey, you know, we know you guys have exposure to a specific TTP or a specific system. And I’ll use a really recent example. There is an anti-tank guided missile system that we’ve been using for a number of years. We’ve had some good success with it on operations. And the Army recently acquired that.

Capt Orton: Right.

LCol Ward: So we were able to share a number of lessons as we developed that capability and I was actually able to send trainers to do basically some instructor cadre buildup, pass on TTPs for employment of this system with folks getting ready to go with the EFP Brigade in Latvia, as an example. That’s the most readily apparent example. There are a number of other areas, maybe not so much in the, you know, passing on individual drills space, but we’ve hosted some senior Army leadership several times at the Regiment to showcase capability development. So, one of the unique things about CSOR, and all of the units in CANSOFCOM, is we house our own force development and force generation inside the unit.

Capt Orton: Right, yeah.

LCol Ward: So if you think of some of these larger enterprise activities in the other services, we do that at the unit level because our roles within the command are so specific. So we’re able to turn on things very, very quickly and share that with the Army. So there are a number of capability development projects. Arctic mobility is one. We’ve got a new suppressor system that we’ve showcased to the Army that I think is getting a lot of traction. I’ll use the example of the anti-tank missile. UAS is another area.

Capt Orton: Dones – everybody loves those.

LCol Ward: Yeah, so we’ve kept pace with global developments and the use of drones. I have a UAS-L within the regiment that is responsible for looking at, okay, what are emerging trends in the employment of UAS? And how do we build that capability at a small level? So, right now, if you were to walk into one of my squadron lines, you might take an FPV drone to the face because guys are flying them around inside everywhere. Because we’ve recognized, you know, you don’t need to have access to any special information. You just need to go on YouTube and you can see the proliferation of those platforms. Certainly in Eastern Europe, but we’ve seen them in the Middle East as well. So, we’re making sure that we’re keeping pace with those emerging trends and that we’re sharing what we learn with the Army. So, I’ve had a number of task force commanders from the Army come through the Regiment to showcase, hey, this is what we’re looking at from a capability development perspective. We’ve shared lessons learned, particularly in the UAS space. So, there’s a lot of collaboration happening at different levels.

Capt Orton: I’m going to talk about equipment for a second. I saw you walk in with a really cool backpack. I was, like, a little bit jealous. For sure, the Special Forces have a reputation, whether true or not, of getting some pretty cool gear. You also referenced the rocket launcher that the Army has just got. How are you equipped?

LCol Ward: So, right, and I’ve heard the same things. I’ve, you know, I came from the Army. I have lots of friends.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s right.

LCol Ward: I’ve gotten the comments. The reality is that we equip ourselves for the mission that we have. That mission is predicated on enabling individual operators, individual SOF professionals, and small teams. It’s about equipping people. I realize to an outside perspective, it may look like, oh, we’re getting extravagant kit because we put a lot of effort into soldier systems. What I would offer is two things. Number one, we are very small. So we do not have to wrestle with some of the scale issues that the other services and the CAF have to wrestle with in terms of equipping.

Capt Orton: Of course.

LCol Ward: So we can turn on things very quickly. We have a mandate to keep pace with adversary trends. And when you think about the irregular warfare space, those things turn very, very quickly, right? Because generally we’re not talking about the use of high-end combat systems. So, if you compare that scale piece to the other services, we’re not really purchasing armoured fighting vehicles, ships, complex aircraft. So that’s one aspect of it. The other is, the way that we manage risk on operations is through ensuring that our people have the best training possible to operate in those small teams and they are equipped as best as possible to operate in that environment.

Capt Orton: Right.

LCol Ward: We don’t have the ability to call on things like mass fires, like, you know, in some circumstances, a quick reaction force, all of those major end combat systems, tanks, armoured vehicles. We generally don’t have access to those platforms so the way that we manage the risk associated with that is we ensure that our individuals are very well equipped. So it’s a bit of a different mindset, and I realize that if you look at it, saying, okay, it looks like they’ve got newer equipment or better equipment, I would offer that if you step back and say, okay, well, that’s all they have.

Capt Orton: That’s right.

LCol Ward: Right? Versus like when I was a platoon commander, I had four LAV IIIs that could lay down more firepower than probably I can as a commander of a regiment now.

Capt Orton: Yeah, that’s right.

LCol Ward: You’re comparing apples and oranges, frankly. I realize it is something that comes up a lot. It’s not a question of us getting treated differently than the other elements of the CAF. It’s a question of we’re small, we need to have very specific things, so we invest in those things. They are as important as the investments that the CAF is making elsewhere in terms of capability. They’re just happening at a much smaller scale and it looks different at the individual level, but we’re not getting special treatment. We don’t have a different set of rules for procurement. We operate in the same structure as the rest of the CAF.

Capt Orton: All right, so I think we covered it, but I feel like I just want to check in with this anyways is… so why is the special forces space and CSOR in particular, like, why is it so secretive? Like, what’s with the secrecy behind it all?

LCol Ward: A lot of what we do in the Regiment is secret, and it has to be because of partner force sensitivities. So, we operate a lot in politically sensitive and discrete space based on whether it’s host nation requirements, or adversary interest, right? There are things that we do not want to reveal to potential adversaries. So there’s a balancing act between what we can reveal and what we must conceal. There’s also a deterrence aspect to it, right? And again, this is one of the reasons why I’m here today is you can’t effectively deter if you cannot demonstrate credible capability to potential adversaries.

Capt Orton: 100%.

LCol Ward: So we manage that line very, very carefully of what we publicly disclose. You know, I will tell you, we’ve got a world-class capability within the Regiment. We can certainly impose a lot of costs on any potential adversaries. Exactly what that would look like on the day of execution needs to be kept secret to a certain degree. So there are capabilities that we will only train with in a very secure setting. And there are other capabilities that we will not train with that are essentially sitting on the shelf in case we need to pull them off. So it’s really about balancing transparency with also creating ambiguity so that we’re not disclosing capabilities that then become vulnerable should we need to use them in conflict.

Capt Orton: And then that obviously translates to some of the challenges we’re talking about today, which is, you know, there’s a lot of myths that surround things like CSOR gets the best kit or operational capabilities. And then, I would guess, that probably also translates to recruitment challenges because people don’t actually know what it’s about.

LCol Ward: Yeah, there are a lot of myths around recruiting. One of the biggest ones is that if you want to come do selection, you need to be a highly skilled soldier. You’ve got to have a background in the infantry, recce, sniper, all this stuff that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’d love to get people from those communities.

Capt Orton: Yeah.

LCol Ward: But the reality is that our selection pipeline is based on assessing people’s attributes. It’s not based on assessing skills. So when we look at someone, we don’t care what their soldier skills are. We’ve got a list of 19 attributes that we look at that map to being a successful special forces operator and being successful in our training pipeline. I will say our recruiting pool is predominantly from the Army, both for operators and for SOF professionals, but it’s not exclusive, and it’s not exclusive to the combat arms. So we do get a lot of combat arms folks, but we’ve also had vehicle techs, we’ve had clerks, we’ve had cooks, we’ve had all kinds of folks from different backgrounds, and not just from the Army, be successful in our pipeline. So there is a bit of a myth of what people need to do before they come here. Our training is predicated on someone coming in with no skills. So we build people from the ground up, over the 11 month plus special forces course that gives them all of the competencies that they need to be a successful operator. They don’t need to come in with any specific skills.

Capt Orton: What are the attributes or is that…?

LCol Ward: So we do keep that pretty close hold, even inside the Regiment. The number of people that know how we assess and exactly what we’re assessing is very small to protect the integrity of the process. The directing staff that run selection don’t know them, we manage a very closely held system. It’s quite rigorous. It was put together by a whole bunch of very smart scientists and how we can collect this data without introducing bias from the directing staff. So basically folks come on to the assessment phase, they’re going to go through a bunch of different events. They may, in their own mind, think they’re getting assessed on one thing and they could be getting assessed in something completely different. And even the instructor assessing them may not know how we pull that data out. It’s pretty critical to maintaining the integrity of our process and to ensure that we’re getting the right people.

Capt Orton: Why don’t you recruit straight off the street then?

LCol Ward: So, we looked at that pretty closely as a command, not just CSOR, a few years ago. There’s a couple of reasons, and I wouldn’t rule it out if, let’s say, there was a requirement for mobilization or something like that. But there are a couple of aspects to it. The most important is culture. We want people that have been indoctrinated into CAF culture.

Capt Orton: Right.

LCol Ward: That’s kind of the main reason behind the decision to not go with an off-the-street recruiting model. The other piece is the business case is challenging. The SOF selection pipeline, it’s really hard. People need to be adequately prepared for it, and it’s really hard to do that when folks are jumping from intake into the CAF through all of their BMQ and DP1 training to then basically pause and say, okay, you need to now redirect and get ready for selection. That’s a tall order, and, right now, we’re meeting our numbers, being able to recruit from the CAF, and we see a lot of value in getting experienced CAF members into the Regiment as operators.

Capt Orton: I know it’s kind of a sensitive thing to talk about size, and we won’t dig into it too deeply, but I was curious, CSOR particularly is relatively small. Why not bigger?

LCol Ward: The reality is, we get our value from being so small. If we get too big, we lose something, right? We lose that agility, we lose that flexibility, and that’s really our value proposition to the CAF, right? So we’re pretty ruthless about, okay, what does our size need to be? What is the optimal size for CSOR and for CANSOFCOM? And be really disciplined about not going over that. An example of that is I am the authority, along with the commandant of our training center, to approve changes to our core force generation pipeline. Essentially, our Developmental Period 1 Program for operators. I’m also the task force commander for a number of our different operations. So the gap between what we’re learning on operations, getting translated into courseware in training our operators, or squadron level training, is super, super tight. So we can turn on emerging TTPs very quickly. We can acquire new capabilities very quickly. The bigger we get, the more layers that you have to have to be able to manage an organization of that size. There’s now more people making decisions, it takes longer, and we would not be able to turn on things as quickly.

Capt Orton: You know, we’ve talked a lot about the Special Forces today, but it is the Army Podcast, so I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask, what’s it in for the Army? I mean, we talked a lot about capabilities and stuff, but how are we friends?

LCol Ward: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m glad you asked it. So, believe it or not, the majority of my Regiment is made up of people from the Army. So the majority of CSOR is actually made up of SOF professionals. So, these are folks that come from the other services, primarily from the Army, come in and do very specific roles within the Regiment. The operator community is actually a minority within the Regiment. So our value proposition to the Army is that you send us great people with great experience and great training that they download to us, and we’re able to provide them with exposure to a unique environment. So, I’ll use an example: a lot of our squadron ops captains, primarily from the combat arms, they come in, they get exposed to very different types of operations and planning processes and relationships than they would get if, let’s say, they were an Army officer on ERE from their parent unit. We give them exposure to those different things. Often, in almost every case, they get a couple of deployments. So they have a unique insight into how special operations are conducted, and then we send them back to the Army, right? The same is true of any number of technical specialists that we have. So my intelligence cell, they’re almost all Army intelligence NCMs. They are responsible in real time for supporting all of our operations from the Regiment, right? So, they are, on a daily basis, handling operational issues from an intelligence perspective. When they go back to the Army, they’re coming back with a whole bunch of unique intelligence tradecraft, exposure to unique collection platforms, unique approaches to using intelligence and supportive operations. So it’s very much a mutually beneficial kind of relationship. We borrow great people from the Army for a little while, and then we send them back with a different perspective, with some unique experiences that can be put to use once they’re back in the Army.

Capt Orton :Yeah, and I’ve definitely seen it happen that there’s like some sensitivity there too, because... Like, I’ve had friends that are snipers and then they’ve gone off and maybe done selection to see what it’s about. And then they’re like, I want to go. And then you have commanders that are like, man, I can’t really afford to lose my best people. And there’s a little bit of struggle there. But the value-added proposition is, well, they might come back and also they’ll come back better.

LCol Ward: Yeah, I mean, on the operator side, it is a little bit different because it is an occupational transfer.

Capt Orton: Of course, yeah.

LCol Ward: But I would say, I mean, maybe a bit of myth busting, the numbers of people that we actually take from the Army, from an occupational transfer perspective, are very, very small. And that’s across all the units in the command. I realize, like, if you’re a battalion commander or a company commander, and you’re seeing, you know, someone that you probably have a personal relationship with, you’ve worked with for a long time, great soldier, and, you know, they go off to SOF, I realize that that’ll sting a little bit, but the reality is those numbers are very, very small. And when you compare that to the in and outflow of SOF professionals from the Army, it’s a drop in the bucket. The majority of people that come work in SOF from the Army go back, and I would argue they go back better for it.

Capt Orton: And that’s military living too. It’s the ebb and flow. Sometimes you’re working in Public Affairs, even though you’re in the infantry. Sometimes you do stuff, and that is what builds that expertise that down the road allows you to be a good, well-rounded leader, having touched a bunch of different things.

LCol Ward: Absolutely.

Capt Orton: How has your experience with CSOR kind of influenced how you perceive the military and what we do?

LCol Ward: I would say, universally, positively.

Capt Orton: That’s good.

LCol Ward: You know, I’ve gotten some great opportunities and I’ve seen not just SOF, but I’ve seen what Canadian soldiers and Canadian military professionals across the board are able to deliver on operations, and makes me quite proud to be Canadian. You know, I’ve deployed five times to Iraq and Afghanistan and then a number of other smaller missions in different theaters. And every time the feedback that I get about our people is, can we have more of you? We really wish there were more Canadians, kind of, involved in this mission. I’m proud to be a member of the CAF. I’m proud to have been a Canadian soldier for years. And I do not look back on my career with anything but pride in, kind of, what I’ve been able to see and sometimes be a part of.

[ Music starts ]

Capt Orton: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to tell us, you know, everything that I never even knew about CSOR and telling us your story. It’s a really good one.

LCol Ward: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Capt Orton: Well, that was Lieutenant-Colonel Declan Ward, the Commanding Officer of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. I’m Captain Adam Orton for the Canadian Army Podcast. Orton out.

[ Music ends ]