How the war in Ukraine showed that Canada is ill-equipped to fight a modern army

Ukraine's claim that its forces have destroyed more than 300 Russian tanks and more than 1,000 armoured personnel carriers should be taken — like all wartime estimates — with a grain of salt.

But Ukrainian forces have surprised the Kremlin and the world with the ferocity of their resistance. One major factor in that success has been the FGM-148 Javelin shoulder-launched anti-tank missile, being supplied to Ukraine by the U.S. and the U.K.

U.S. President Joe Biden this week announced the shipment of 9,000 more of the anti-tank systems, which he described as "portable, high-accuracy, shoulder-mounted missiles that Ukrainian forces have been using with great effect to destroy invading tanks and armoured vehicles."

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have found the weapons particularly irritating. Last week, he ordered his defence minister Sergei Shoigu to deliver any captured Javelins to pro-Moscow separatist forces in the Donbas.

This is the first major war between developed countries in a long time, and war planners everywhere are studying it closely.

For Canada, one lesson stands out. Canadian forces possess very few guided anti-tank missiles and none of the shoulder-fired variety that have been used so successfully by small mobile teams of infantry hunting and ambushing Russian armour in Ukraine.

Canada also lacks the shoulder-launched Stinger missiles that have been used to down Russian aircraft.

Once, Canada possessed more guided anti-tank missiles and had stocks of shoulder-launched guided anti-aircraft missiles.

Canada's last portable surface-to-air missile was retired in 2005. It wasn't replaced in part because the Taliban didn't have an air force.

"Many countries, Canada included, saw a change in the kind of conflict they would be involved in from the mid-90s through to the mid-2010s," says retired vice-admiral Darrel Hawco, who was head of force development for the Canadian Armed Forces.

It was the era of asymmetrical warfare, of fighting groups like the Taliban which lacked aircraft and heavy armour and had few beyond-line-of-sight weapons.

"Countries like Canada said that the likelihood of massed armour-on-armour Cold War-type warfare is extremely low, and so many countries de-prioritized these kinds of weapons in favour of enhancing self-protection measures," said Hawco.

Canada's military planners preferred instead to invest in armoured vehicles that can withstand roadside bomb attacks, or counter-battery radar that can pinpoint the source of incoming mortar rounds. Blowing up Russian tanks wasn't a priority.

The result, said Hawco, is that Canada lacks "a sufficient quantity of modern anti-tank weapons today."