A few additional points and thoughts on the recent University of Ottawa symposium on
Peacebuilding in Afghanistan:
Points:
• Despite the (relative) efficiency of the US policy development system, politicians, including the US president appear congenitally unable to manage more than one crisis at a time. In the case of Afghanistan, where America is the undisputed “leader,” everything is filtered through President Bush’s
Iraq policy. That the two problems are quite different is beside the point; almost every foreign and defence policy decision taken by President Bush is based on what it means to Iraq. Canada, especially in a minority government situation, is worse –
almost every policy position is based on how it may effect the next election.
• Canadian politicians, academics and journalists, almost universally, are ill informed and lazy. They hate policy because it is hard to craft and even harder to implement. Bureaucrats, on the other hand, love policy but too many, especially in DFAIT, are inept. The problem is that politicians, journalists and academics “inform” the public which,
ipso facto, must be even less well informed than the ill-informed louts in parliament, the media and academe.
• DFAIT has been “hollowed out” over the past (take your pick) year, decade, forty years.
• Aid agencies, like CIDA, are good things and need to be strengthened. Especially, their “arms length” relationship with the executive/centre must be, at least, retained.
or Aid agencies are inefficient and ineffective. They have too few controls because they are too far from the
centre and they do not understand that they
must coordinate development/aid with political and military programmes.
• The UN is the only, at least best hope for managing the crises which will confront us for the next half century ±.
or The UN is quite hopeless and NATO has,
as Ruxted said, gone from being the cornerstone of our foreign policy to a stumbling block. Thus, there is a either a pressing need to reform the UN or a pressing need to find a replacement for it (and NATO) as the “security/military sub-contractor.”
• DND, the CF, proper, DFAIT, CIDA and the PCO rarely communicate amongst themselves – not effectively, at least. The “suits” do not like or understand the soldiers, the soldiers reciprocate. The “turf wars” within DND and between DND , DFAIT and CIDA are endangering our chances of succeeding in Afghanistan.
• Far too much attention is paid, by the less than well informed “opinion leaders,” to the military aspect of the Afghanistan mission which means that we are doing far less than we need to do in the Diplomacy and Development domains. If we fail in Afghanistan it will, likely, be because we “lose” Kandahar for non military reasons.
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My
personal observations:
Very few of the
influential Canadians support the military mission. Those
influential Canadians tell the media what to tell us
ordinary Canadians. Brian Stewart, the CBC journalist, confirmed this- indirectly – during the symposium.
Part of the problem is that DND’s public affairs staff is seen, perversely, as “biased” but e.g. CARE Canada and even Steven Staples are seen as “unbiased” or as being “expert.” It is a huge media (and academic) blind spot which, I think, dates back to Vietnam.
Bob Fowler is right; we (Canadians, including military people) do not understand that “we” is a false model. There is no “we.” We, in ISAF, for example, includes Australia, Canada, the UK and the US. We must not think that Canada and the US share many aims and objectives in Afghanistan. We are both there for our own national interests but our interests are not alike, in fact they are not even very similar. Some of our interests, like improving Canada’s standing in the world, are, in fact, at odds with the US aim of maintaining and enhancing its status and influence. Fowler is also right when he says that we, all of us in Canada, have lost sight of the aim. I think we had a fairly clear aim when Chrétien was in office; but see: http://ruxted.ca/index.php?/archives/2-The-Lack-of-Leadership.html . Harper, especially, has obscured the aim, presumably for what he sees as good political reasons. Canadians, especially Canadian soldiers, deserve to know why our sons and daughters are fighting and dying.
If we lose Afghanistan, and we have at least an even chance of doing so, then the impact on the CF and our broader military community will be devastating – the more so because if we lose in Afghanistan it is very unlikely to be because of a military failure. Many influential people in that room already think the military is the problem in world affairs, not (part of) the soluition.
Gen. Hillier is, simultaneously, admired for his drive and communication skill and detested for his effectiveness and “values.”
Most of the attitudes held by Canadian politicians, journalists and academics is driven by deeply ingrained, very unspecific anti-Americanism. Most of those politicians, journalists and academics hate George W. Bush with a deep and abiding passion even as they, consistently, misunderstand or misrepresent his policies. This is very dangerous for us because it means we are making decisions for all the wrong reasons – we are doing things to “offend” George W. Bush not to serve Canada’s interests. The knee-jerk anti-Americanism is not confined to the “left.” (Political) Conservatives and so-called “right wing” people expressed them, too.
We stumbled into Afghanistan and we are still stumbling. Prime Minister Harper wants out, sooner rather than later, but he doesn’t want to pay any political price. He is trying to start getting out be not getting us in any deeper - which may be a serious mistake. We need to get in deeper to help get ourselves out – which is the right long term objective.
I suspect Fowler, Rubin and others are right. We are facing a half century of crises caused by failed and failing states. I do not think Africa is the only or even biggest problem. I think we will have several more West/Central Asian problems before Africa explodes. Pakistan might be the next one. It may have a civil war which be just too attractive for India not to exploit. Saudi Arabia is our biggest
threat. It’s money funds radical Egyptian intellectuals who, in turn, animate Arab/Islamist radicalism. The Arabs/Islamists will have a useful nuclear capability within a decade. Some of them are going to use it against someone. The so called Islamic Crescent, which stretches from Morocco to Indonesia will explode and we, the US led West, will be drawn in – if we don’t jump in first and create some of the crises.
