Unintentional Comedy: Message Management Edition

I wrote a piece for CIC today on how the Harper government's efforts to create fear in Ottawa--do not talk to the media or else--leads to perhaps more messes than otherwise.  Yep, media is scary: boo!

Check it out and comment there or here.

Canada is Confusing to Unfrozen Caveman American

[now at CIC]

One refrain I heard during Canada’s time in Afghanistan was that Canadians were confused about Afghanistan.  Well, after more than twelve years in Canada, I can say that I am still quite confused about Canada.  How so?  Last night, there was an emergency debate about Canada’s deployment of 69 troops (Special Operations Forces) to Iraq to do training.  I think the point of the debate was to provide some clarity about this effort, but if so, it failed miserably.

The Liberals called for this debate and only had a handful of members show up.  If this is something that is vital, which is kind of implied by the term “emergency debate,” one would expect a better turn out.

The New Democrats sent a significant number of members to show up and, mostly, demonstrated that it takes the Defence file more seriously than the parties.  Of course, they still provide more confusion than clarity about whether votes are required for deployments (they are not and have rarely taken place).

The Conservatives sent only a few members and only their B team.  There was no Prime Minister, there was no Minister of Foreign Affairs, and there was no Minister of National Defence.  I have engaged in long discussions on twitter and in person with some smart people about Canada and how accountability is supposed to work up here.  As a result, I get that having any representatives of a party with strict party discipline means that the entire party, including its ministers, are being represented and held to account.  But the optics, well, suck. 

If the idea of such efforts as this debate is to hold the Ministers to account, should not the Ministers show up?  Are they incapable of discussing these issues?  Is it that the Conservatives do not want to lend this debate any gravitas that comes with the Ministers? 

Indeed, the government has done a fine job of sowing confusion.  What are these troops going to do?  Advise and assist.  Ok, does that mean that they will serve as mentors to the Kurdish forces and the Iraqi army?  That is, will they provide the same kinds of functions as “omelets” in Afghanistan—Observer, Mentor, Liaison Teams—that went into battle with the Afghans?  Probably not since there is all this discussion of non-combat.  But what purpose can advisers serve, especially if they are only to be sent for a thirty day mission that might (will certainly) be extended?  Given the crisis in Iraq and Syria, how is non-combat training likely to make a difference in the short term?  Don’t the forces in Iraq really need the US, Canada and others to embed their advisers to provide leadership during battles and connections to American air support and to logistical support?

To put the confusion cherry on top of the confusion sundae, Jason Kenney, the Immigration Minister (interesting choice), argued that this mission is a Responsibility to Protect [R2P] effort.  That may be so, but this government has opposed the concept of R2P rather consistently and refused to label the Libyan effort as such even as R2P by everyone else involved saw it in this light.  I understand that foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but rampant inconsistency suggests that opportuntism is driving things rather than principle.  Which is fine, but it does lead to more confusion.

To be fair, one Conservative consistency that proves most confusing is its stance on deployments and the necessity of votes.  Harper has called for votes when troops are being sent into combat—the two extensions of the Afghan mission and the three votes for the Libyan effort.  For non-combat deployments, he has felt that votes are not necessary.  The Liberals are being more inconsistent on this, especially given that their past has involved few votes but many deployments.  The NDP would like to have votes all the time, but did not force a vote (that they would lose) here. 

Here is where it gets tricky: votes may not be helpful.  I have been persuaded by Phil Lagassé that holding a vote where opposition parties end up voting with the government can serve to “launder” responsibility for a military effort through parliament.  Once the 2^nd extension vote took place in 2008, Afghanistan largely fell off the political agenda in Canada except for the detainee issue.  This substituted for any real discussion of the larger issues at stake. 

One last bit of messiness: the troops being sent are from the Canadian Special Operations Regiment.  This makes sense as the Special Operators of the advanced democracies used to spend most of their time abroad training the militaries of other countries.  It is only after 9/11 that SOF spent far more of their time doing “kinetic” stuff—fighting.  In Canada, the deployment of SOF is very tricky since one cannot really discuss the secret stuff on the floor of the Parliament, yet the Defence Committee members do not possess security clearances so closed meeting are pretty useless. 

The secrecy involved helps to explain why the government has been so incredibly vague.  Of course, that still does not explain why a deployment with a thirty day mandate has an unknown start time.  That is, we do not know when the clock started on the mission (but we will be told when it ends... and then we can subtract 30).  Is there some reason why this must be secret?  I have no idea, and neither does Parliament.

Votes/debates

Comparative Civ-Mil

My latest post at CIC compares Rummy and Gates to understand the SecDef's role in managing American civil-military relations.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  I do plan on a longer review of Gates's memoir next week here.

How About Some Humility?

In today's CIC post, I argue that we have tried pretty much everything in the Mideast from nothing (Syria) to bombing (Libya) to massive intervention (Afghanistan, Iraq), and have not been very successful.  Perhaps we have learned some humility about what outsiders can do?  Well, many of us, not John McCain.

One can argue that each effort was imperfectly deployed, raising all kinds of counterfactuals that suggest we could have done better: we could have surged in Afghanistan in 2002 and not 2010; we could have had a plan for Iraq after the regime fell in 2003; we could have done more in Libya besides drop bombs; we could do more in Syria right now, and so on.

Indeed, if, if, if.  Reminds of the partition debate, which would be swell if done correctly.  In that case, the imperfections were largely baked in--that it was inherent in the enterprise to do it badly.  Maybe not so much for Mideast interventions these days, but I cannot gain much confidence that we, the outsiders, have gotten any better or could get any better in the political/governance side of things.  That is:

• picking the right guy or being brave enough not to pick the right guy but let the domestic processes shake out without our thumb heavily on the scale (although that might not be much better); 
• figuring out how to dump some money into a country for development without distorting everything and accelerating corruption;
• having the various outsiders work by the same or similar rules (we suggest this is unlikely);
• making sure the various government agencies within each country play well together (not likely, given what I learned for the next book).
• and on and on.

I am not saying that we (US/Canada, NATO, whomever) should never intervene, but that force has limited utility.  It is good for breaking stuff, not putting governments together.  This seems basic but John McCain and some other folks keep forgetting.

Anyhow, with great power comes great responsibility but not necessarily great effectiveness/efficacy.  And that is something we should keep in mind.

The Limits of Greater Russia

Check out my latest CIC piece for why Russia is not going to get much larger.  Builds on previous work.

Nationalism and the Olympics

I didn't post here this morning because I was too busy writing up something for CIC: what nationalism tells us about the Olympics and vice versa.  Check it out.

Kicking Off the Book Tour

I will be talking about NATO and Afghanistan in a semi-book tour event on Wednesday.  Roland Paris of U of Ottawa and Lt. Gen (ret) Andrew Leslie could not get the book in time to engage it seriously, so we will just chat about the joy of multilateral operations in Afghanistan and maybe

Libya (chapter eight). 

Roland has written much about international intervention.  General Leslie served a long career in the Canadian Forces, including serving as Deputy Commander of ISAF and as Chief of the Army.

So, come on out on Wednesday to the Rainbow Room in the Byward Market  at 6pm for this CIC organized Politics in the Pub event.

WWI Deja Vu

I extended yesterday's post for CIC.  I forgot to include alliances, which was silly of me given the hottest book to hit the market in just a couple of days (Sunday!)

The British Say Shhhed-oo-ul, We Say Calendar

I got mighty miffed this weekend when I saw a piece suggesting that the militaries of the US and Canada acted similarly as those in 1914 Europe by pushing timetables and escalation plans upon the civilians. 

So I wrote this at CIC.

Your thoughts here or there?

If A Referendum is Scottish, Is It Not Crap?

I posted this at CIC, arguing that the Scottish referendum will not be very relevant for Canada/Quebec as no matter what happens, folks will derive the lessons they want to derive.  It is a Canada-focused version of the argument I am presenting Friday in Glasgow. 

Yes, the upside of separatism is that I got a trip out of it.  I have never been to Scotland, so be prepared for heaps of pics, Highlander references, kilt jokes, and many re-postings of

Budget Crisis: So Let's Do Things More Expensively

Here is my CIC piece taking issue with the move towards having defence policy be industrial policy.  That is, buy Canadian when there are more efficient producers elsewhere.  Why not?  It is not as if there are limits on what we can spend, eh?  Oops.

Apathetic, My Ass!

I really disliked two posts at foreignpolicy.com so I imposed a theme on my response and ranted at CIC.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, as Dean Wormer suggested, but to argue that Canada is Flounder? Beyond the pale!

Counting the Casualties

I was inspired by a piece in the National Post today about a memo that Stephen Harper received in 2007 about the costs Canada was paying in Afghanistan in blood compared to the allies to post this at CIC.

Check it out.

Being Pro Military is Not Always Pro-Military

My latest at CIC where I argue that the Harper government's compulsion to appear to be pro-military (keeping the force the same size, buying the equipment they promised to buy) is going to hurt the Canadian Forces due to deeper than needed cuts in operations, training and maintenance.  Hollow?  Hollooooow?  Hollooooow?  That would be me suggesting that echo sound of a hollow military, but the funny thing is that the American concern about hollowing out a military does not seem to travel north.

Boston

I posted my weekly column today at CIC on the Boston attacks.  It is too soon to speculate, but I had a hard time thinking about anything else right now.  So, I discuss the realities of the situation--we cannot stop every single person who wants to commit such acts every single time, so we must be resilient in the face of such awful events.  The ways that folks near and far reacted to the attack give some solace. 

Your thoughts are welcome either here or at CIC (or both). 

Threat Exaggeration, Canadian Style

Check out my latest at CIC--the sky is falling, the sky is falling.  That is, folks are trying to generate panic if Obama does not approve Keystone pipeline.

Choosing Not To Decide

You still have made a choice.  Ah, Rush.  Well, I posted at CIC this week on the themes I drew out from the CDA conference last week that I reported on here and here.

Oversight Overboard

Check out my latest at CIC--where I call both CA and US legislators a bunch of babies.

Understanding Canadian Bipartisanship

My latest at CIC, where I ponder the strange bipartisanship around the Mali mission.  Glad I wrote it as it gave me something to talk about when I did some TV later in the day.

To Err Is Human, To Deny Error is Organization

Check out my latest at CIC on the tendency of the CF and DND to deny, deny, deny.