In twenty-five words or less, what I like in Leslie's report is that it has put on the table the issue of what I call the long-standing problem of western militaries’ tooth-to-tail ratios—no one likes to use that term anymore, but I like to use it—where we've expanded, where the tail keeps expanding. This tail expansion is partially a function of the forces changing missions, doing things they traditionally have not done, where they engage with other government departments, with new technologies, etc., which then expand. It's also in response to broader government policy on—to use terms I don't like, but I'll use them because governments love to use them, and not this one but all governments—transparency and accountability, which also all grow the tail.
It's useful to put something on the table. I am very suspicious of it because I don't think it's a balanced report whatsoever. I don't think the legacy of what the Canadian military called military transformation was a good one in terms of dealing with the various issues he's arguing about in this report. I can point back to General Hillier's transformation process and his call that we were going to sort out the problems, get more people at the sharp end, into the tooth part of the forces and the tail, and instead the entire opposite occurred.
What I would suggest about that report is that it deals with one part of the problem. The second part is missing, and that is an external inquiry or examination of the military side of this equation. That's what's missing here, in my view.