Canadian Troops, American Orders, Bad Headlines

 So, the Economist's headline is creating some noise in Canada: "Canadian soldiers are subject to Donald Trump's Orders."  The article focuses on the many Canadian military personnel who are seconded to teh American military, just as they are seconded to the British, Australian, and other armed forces.  It gets right the key nugget--that while operating as if they are American or British or whatever soldiers, sailors, or aviators, they are still subject to Canadian laws and orders.  The big question is what orders they are receiving.

I co-wrote a whole book about this (ebook is on sale!), seeking to understand why the countries operating as part of a NATO mission behaved differently.  They were all under the same commander (an American--the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe--SACEUR), but they followed different rules.  Why?  Because anytime, ANYTIME, a country transfers an individual or a unit to operate in someone else's chain of command, that individual or unit wears two hats--the national hat and the other hat (American or British or multinational such as NATO or UN).  And which hat matters more?  The national one as the individual or unit is ultimately responsible to the national command authority--that the promotion of that individual, the resources of that unit all depend on their homeland.  Any officer obeying a multilateral or other national command in contradiction to their own nation is putting their career, and, yes, their freedom in jeopardy.  This all makes multilateral war difficult (and fun to research).  

So, the good news is that these individuals working in various military jobs within the US military are subject to Canadian laws and orders--that those will always, sorry, trump the American orders.  The bad news is that I am pretty doubtful that the civilians in the Canadian government are playing much of a role in all of this.  The Minister of Defence absolutely can, as he can give orders to the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Chief can then give orders to those below her.  But will the MinDef do that?  Alas, many Canadian MinDefs see their role mostly as cheerleader or supporter of the CAF, not as overseer.  We had one MinDef tell a parliamentary committee that he could not oversee the CDS as that would politicize things--dude, you had one job.  I don't know much about the current MinDef, David McGuinty and his attitude.

What I do know is that the military doesn't think it is the Department of National Defence's job to do oversight--just the Minister's.  I do know Parliament doesn't think it is their job--their lack of interest in oversight inspired this book. So, the Economist article gets a lot of no comments from government.  Not great.  The responses were kind of like Stephen Harper's during the detainee stuff in Afghanistan--sure, prisoners are being beaten, but none of the ones we handed over were.  Sure, sure.  So, the Canadian media should be asking the PM, the MinDef, the CDS, and pretty much everyone else: what instructions are there to prevent Canadians from participating in operations against the American people?

I am guessing they won't get any answers but, as Nemik said, try.