KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canadian soldiers could one day face the prospect of longer rotations in Afghanistan but it won't happen anytime soon, Canada's chief of defence staff suggested Thursday.
Gen. Rick Hillier said the length of deployment is one of the many battlefield factors that's always under consideration and review by senior Canadian commanders.
The lessons learned on the battlefield are always influencing how the mission takes shape over time, Hillier said.
"We look at those things all the time, (but) we've made no decisions at this time,'' he said.
"We learn lessons in this mission as we do every other, and those lessons over six, 12 or 18 months help us change and shape things, from the vehicle suites we need to the kind of training that we need back in Canada to the lengths of the deployments.''
More than 12,000 Canadian soldiers -- regular force and reservists -- have been through Afghanistan in six-month rotations of roughly 2,500 each since the latest deployment to Kandahar began two years ago.
There are only 64,000 full-time members of all branches of the military and 23,000 primary reserve. A Conservative government election promise to expand the Canadian Forces to 75,000 regular and 30,000 part-time members has been quietly scaled back.
Now that Parliament has agreed to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan by two years to 2011, the question of whether or not the Canadian Forces have the resources and the personnel to see it through has become a burning one.
A senior military official in Ottawa said Thursday that any rotation changes would likely be driven either by a substantial change in the situation on the ground, such as a marked deterioration or improvement in the security situation, or a substantial reconfiguration of the battle group.
"It's very much driven by circumstance,'' said the official, who added: "The longer a soldier is on the ground, the tougher it becomes.''
On Wednesday, Defence Minister Peter MacKay deferred a question about longer rotations to Hillier, but added, "We're not ruling anything out.''
Retired general Lewis MacKenzie was quoted Thursday as saying longer deployments -- between nine months to a year -- may be required for the forces, which are already heavily dependent on reservists.
Canada is also expecting some degree of relief in the coming months from the recent arrival of more than 2,000 members of the U.S. Marine Corps, and from an additional 1,000 NATO troops that MacKay is actively seeking from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Word of Sarkozy's intentions isn't expected until a summit of NATO leaders in Bucharest, Romania, next month.
"I'm confident that at Bucharest or following or immediately before, a nation will step up and help NATO fill that requirement, and I wait to see the details of it,'' Hillier said.
The United States, which contributes one third of the NATO force in Afghanistan, also has about 12,000 other troops operating independently. The Pentagon says that by late summer, there will be about 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- up from about 28,000 now.
The bulk of the increase is the 3,200 marines that President George W. Bush has agreed to send. About 2,300 troops of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, have begun arriving at their sprawling new base at Kandahar Airfield.
Deployments among Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan vary widely, from as little as one month to up to 12 months for members of Canada's Strategic Advisory Team, which mentors the Afghan government in Kabul.
Front-line infantry units typically spend six-month tours in theatre, not including three weeks of leave, while headquarters staff usually work in nine-month rotations.
The battle group currently in Afghanistan, consisting primarily of soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in Shilo, Man., will be in Afghanistan for about seven months, Hillier said.
The goal, he said, is to balance the conditions for a successful mission with those that ensure the best possible safety for Canadian troops.
"We simply look at things all the time and make sure we're setting conditions for success in this mission, and at the same time setting the conditions to reduce the risk to our soldiers to the very lowest level we possibly can,'' Hillier said.
"We consider all those things, we'll continue to do it, but we have not made any decisions at this point in time to change anything.''
Canada has lost 81 soldiers and a diplomat since the mission began in 2002.
