The Canadian armed forces approach to an improved readiness posture

The author asserts that because of the current problems of technological change, of increasing complexity of weapons, of tighter integration demands among the Prime Fighting Vehicle (PFV), its support systems and the defense industrial base that underpins these system elements, of rapidly escalating acquisition and in-service support costs and of the prospect of zero-growth, if not actually declining, defense budgets, novel management approaches have to be found and implemented. An attempt is made to outline the approaches being pursued by the Canadian Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces (CF) to grapple with the issues these factors raise by exploiting the advantages of novel technology and information-processing capabilities. The Canadian Defence Department´s acquisition process is shown to focus on the provision of weapons systems and equipment which will give the fighting elements of the CF as large an edge as possible over an enemy in combat