Canada's Prairies Are Lefties?

I had a fun half hour on a CBC radio station broadcasting to Saskatchewan a few minutes ago.  The focus was a proposal for Canada to establish bases of some kind around around the world to facilitate expeditions like Afghanistan.  I was surprised that most/all of the questions focused on how the military-industrial complex wanted more busy work around the world.  I think this proposal is in reaction to Canada getting booted out of Dubai when the United Arab Emirates wanted to use Camp Mirage as leverage for getting Emirates airlines into more gates at the Toronto airport (and elsewhere here). 

The military-industrial complex line does not make too much sense, as these bases, if they are like Mirage at all (which I got to see on my way into and out of Afghanistan in 2007), are a runaway, a few quonset huts, some container-type barracks and some buildings to house the guns, protective vests, helmets and other stuff, plus maintenance equipment.  They are not places where big hunks of capital are sunk--that is what the F35 and the new naval vessels (much competition now about where the ships will be built) are for.

Yes, having such bases will make foreign deployments easier, but politicians will deploy troops whether the conditions are set or not.  Not having a base like Camp Mirage will not stop a Prime Minister from sending Canadian Forces to Haiti, East Timor, Afghanistan, Darfur or a Rwanda.  And, as the US learned when it tried to get Turkish support at the last minute in 2003, asking for help when you really need it is not a good way to get a good deal. 

So, it is funny to hear some folks get upset when the Canadian government is actually trying to do some due diligence and make the next mission down the road more effective and less expensive.  And, for the record, I don't expect such a mission to happen any time soon.

Oh, and one last note, I guess I could pick up a whiff of isolationalism as well--spend money at home, not abroad even though this particular proposal is not very expensive.

Good Government? Don't Be Silly

The Parti Quebecois seems to be falling apart just as victory (at least in terms of winning a provincial election) is around the corner.  The current fight is whether it is proper to give a sweetheart deal to one company to build an arena in Quebec to attract an NHL team at a time where budgets are otherwise mighty tight.  Apparently, Pauline Marois, fresh off of her 98% vote tally of support in a party convention (Soviet-esque?), is facing criticism for being authoritarian.  I would never have guessed that someone who got 98% of the vote might be seen as acting undemocratically. 

What is a bit more surprising (although not entirely so) is that the PQ is falling in the polls.  It seemed to have clear majority support whereas now it would win more seats than the Liberals (who have been in power forever here and have heaps of scandals to prove it) but not enough for a majority.  Not the best conditions for a referendum. 

Ooops, even more so, the polls show that more than eighty percent of Quebeckers would rather folks focus on good government than sovereignty. 

Reality appears inevitable now: Quebecers want the PQ to put aside its sovereignty option and instead offer a "good government" to taxpayers.This verdict is clearly dominant in the general population (82%), but also among voters PQ (71%) and the separatists (68%).

Given that many PQ diehards usually see focusing on good government as a distraction from the pursuit of independence, this is not something the PQ elites wants to hear.  It is a sentiment that also explains why the Bloc collapsed so dramatically in the recent federal election--people want decent streets, bridges that don't collapse, metros that work all of the time, health care that does not require waiting in emergency rooms for more than 24 hours, and so forth.  I would be interested to see how "good government" is unpacked.  Is it about roads, schools, taxes, health care or immigration discrimination?

I am suddenly not so pessimistic about the future of Quebec.  But I am not going to bet on it quite yet.

Kandahar in the Rear View Mirror

Lots of stories in the Canadian press now about the mission in Afghanistan now that Canada is pulling out of Kandahar.  Pieces on the training of the Afghan military, Matthew Fisher's series this past week on the mission, Liberals having buyer's remorse (or blaming everyone else for their initial decision), and others provide are nice reminders that things are never clear when it comes to either Afghanistan or counter-insurgency.

I spent yesterday in Ottawa talking to various civilians about the "whole of government" or three D (defence, democracy, development) effort in Afghanistan.  Of the four meetings, one was pretty upbeat, one was overwhelmingly negative, and the two others were in between.  I think I would have only gotten more differences of opinion had I talked to a hundred economists (old joke inserted here). 

I guess I should feel much better about my ambivalence about the mission since it comes pretty close to the average of what I have heard.  Of course, we should be confused:

We've learned when the politicians change their story about why Canada is fighting and what is at stake, public support for war will erode. Successive governments over the past decade have changed their tune several times on this war - arguing variously that it was a fight to rout al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks; then arguing that it was an effort to stabilize a fragile new state; then that it was a war to defeat the Taliban that threatened its region and beyond; and finally that it was about re-building a wartorn country. These various narratives confused the public and led them to believe that Canada's involvement in Afghanistan was optional. Public support drained away as a result. Eugene Lang

A couple of quick reactions to this, keeping in mind that Eugene Lang was an adviser to several Liberal Ministers of National Defence.  First, it is not just the government that changed their tune.  The Liberals started the mission in 2005 and then ran away from it when it was out of power.  Sure, in Westminster systems, the job of the opposition is to oppose.  But the major critiques raised were so incredibly lame that they did not serve to educate the public but confuse them--that Harper was opposed to development (no, the Taliban were and they voted with their weapons); that Canada would only be there for a short time and then rotate out (since when has anyone ever rotated systematically in an alliance in and out of harm's way); and that the Afghan effort was too much, preventing Canada from peace-keeping elsewhere (as if the only roadblock to a Mideast peace or serious efforts in Darfur were the absence of Canadians wearing blue helmets).  So, we can blame the main opposition party in part because it was so lame in its opposition.

Second, we can blame the government for not saying enough.  Harper largely hid from the mission for much of the time, not unlike Merkl and others.  The mission was better received in countries where politicians stood in front and explained it, even when there were high casualties (see Denmark and its minority coalition government).  Moreover, the insistence that the civilians get their talking points from back home meant that the reporters in Afghanistan didn't talk to them much.  If only the military would speak about what they were doing, then the media would not wait around for the Ottawa-approved messaging.  So, no wonder that Canadians do not see the civilian effort too clearly.

Third, what are the metrics for success? This has been a problem that everyone has talked about endlessly, including myself.  One example: Canada put much effort into the prison in Kandahar, and apparently the warden and the jailers treat their prisoners far better than they used to.  But the prison is a sieve where hundreds escape every few years.  So, has the effort to improve corrections been a success or not?  Well, given that the starting point was so incredibly low, yes, there has been much success, but it does not look like anything that we would find acceptable and the optics of the semi-routine breakout are awful. 

So, the Canadian public is confused.  As are all the others.  The fog of war is especially opaque when it comes to counter-insurgency campaigns in countries that never made it past the 1300's and then suffered through more than thirty years of war.

 

Ignoring Tradeoffs Is a Tradition

From the Canadian War Museum.  Big question for the next twenty or more years: can the country afford an adequate Navy, new planes for the Air Force, and engage in expeditions even if they are not as intense as Afghanistan?

Wifi Break During Day of Interviews

I am in Ottawa today interviewing a variety of folks related to Afghanistan--a former RoCK (Representative of Canada in Kandahar), Public Safety folks (who sent police and other types to Afghanistan to mentor), a Senator (to ponder security clearances and oversight), and an NGO that trains and send folks to train Afghans.

The scheduling gods altered my plans so that my morning got freer after a breakfast meeting so I had time go to the Canadian War Museum.  Note: War museum, not a museum of military history.  It was very interesting--I learned a great deal about the early days plus additional information about the WWI/WWII experiences.  I will be posting pics later, so that I can show a relatively unique exhibition--a hall of tanks, guns and vehicles. It also contained some stuff dug up in the 80's when a German informed the Canadians that Germany had dropped a few guys off in a remote part of Eastern Canada to observe the weather during WWII.  It was unclear if they had been detected at all, but seems that they were not.  The only notable part of the museum is that Afghanistan has not made an appearance, at least as far as I could tell.  Herds of school kids may have blocked  whatever A-stan stuff I might have seen, but still pretty strange to see almost nothing on the most violent hunk of war Canada has had since WWII.  Much more space for Cyprus--which was a more violent and longer-lasting peace operation than I had thought. The museum is definitely worth a visit.

After today, I have one more trip to Ottawa planned but will add more if I can get more folks to agree to talk to me.  Next time, I will be able to drive my brand new ... car!!  We pick it up tonight.

D-Day, 67 Years Later

With NATO engaged in a half-hearted effort to take down a relatively lame dictator, today's D-Day anniversary reminds us that the guys back then paid a huge price so that we can be far less committed today.  Um, that is perhaps not the right lesson of D-Day, but it is one lesson.

The other thought that has occupied me today on the anniversary of the Day of Days is that this is the first one without Dick Winters, the leader of the Band of Brothers.  He is just one of the many folks who made such a difference who are passing from the scene.  The good news is that we will still have some of these guys for a while longer--the last vets from World War I recently died.  The bad news is that we are losing folks who knew what it mean to sacrifice it all for their buddies and beyond.  We still have those folks around today, as we have seen a Nepali get a medal from the Queen and Obama honoring of a living Congressional Medal of Honor winner.  But as a country, we refuse to raise taxes to pay for these wars, making our children pay not just in debt payments but in declining government support for education and other programs.  We did far better sixty years ago with the investments made in education and elsewhere.

Where is our Marshall Plan?  Oh yeah, tied up in Congress.  Still, we must remember that we had common cause in 1944, and perhaps it is a sign of progress that no threats today are so great as to provide us much glue today.

So a very ambivalent D-Day anniversary, I guess.

Appealing to the Ego

One more stray thought on Libya:  anybody got his email or skype address?  I'd love to tell him that if he stepped down today, he would be upstaging the anniversary of D-Day and the events in Yemen!  Given that he has all the attention-seeking requirements of a youngest child (not that I would know anything about that), and his keen sense of fashion, better for him to make the news today rather than slink off while folks are on summer vacation.

Caveats Ahoy!

NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen is calling for more NATO members to pick up the slack over the skies of Libya.  Good luck with that. 

NATO has intensified its campaign, launching daily raids on Tripoli, but only nine of NATO's 28 member states are taking part in the strikes. France and Britain are bearing the brunt of the load with helicopters now in their arsenal.   The other countries are the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and non-NATO state the United Arab Emirates.

The big surprises there from the Steve and Dave project are Belgium and Italy.  I guess Belgium demonstrates that it might be easier to have an assertive foreign policy without a government than with a coalition.  I am skeptical that Italy is doing more than providing bases.  Is Italy really dropping bombs?  It would not be the first time that Italy said it dropped its restrictions and then didn't.

The less obvious difference between Libya and Afghanistan is that all NATO countries (and then some with about twenty partners [Australia, New Zealand, Jordan and so on]) gave at least token force to the effort, such as Greece having 15 guys deployed at one time.  For the Libyan effort, many members providing nothing.  For many, it is a matter of capability--that the Baltics have nothing to give.  For others, it is simply too much, politically or logistically, such as Poland. 

This Sec-Gen speech is an effort to hector the free riders to kick in some support, given how burdened the nine strikers are.  I doubt that he will be successful in getting a greater commitment from the less enthused.  The domestic dynamics, plus the ability to say I gave at the office in Afghanistan, means that NATO is not going to get much more help.  The good news appears to be that Qaddafi's supporters are ebbing away.  He now officially has outlasted Milosevic since the Kosovo campaign lasted 79 days.  This effort may exceed one hundred days but not much more than that, I think.  Indeed, I would rather bet on the under of the over/under of 120 days, compared to the under of a NATO participation over/under of 11 members engaging in air strikes.

Marvel-ous Summer continues

We continue to make our summer Marvel with the X-Men: First Class movie.  It was a heap of fun, especially for the IR professors in the audience with the Cuban Missile Crisis as the focal point.

Below the break: Professor X as Obi-Wan Kenobi: these are not the mutants you are looking for.

Poland and Libya

Interesting take on Poland's opting out of the Libya campaign.  I would concur with the conclusion that opting out here will not harm Poland in NATO or with the US.  Six F16's here is much, much less meaningful than more than two thousand troops in Regional Command East in Afghanistan.  The Poles have been willing to put themselves in harm's way in a mission that matters far more to the US and, ultimately, to NATO.

Still, an interesting story to follow as the public opinion story is an easy one to convey and to buy, but the Libyan mission is not tremendously popular for some of the contributors either.

Who Had Late June?

I proposed a betting pool for when Qaddafi would lose power.  It is increasingly looking like late June is looking pretty good (congrats, Brandon) with more defections by senior officers who report that Q's military capacity is collapsing.

“Gaddafi will fall in a few weeks' time, morale is so bad both in the army and in the population,” said General Halassa, who defected a week ago with his wife and five children. He said rebel and NATO attacks as well as shortages of food and fuel had demoralised Colonel Gaddafi's forces.
On Friday night Britain deployed its Apache helicopters for the first time, attacking and destroying two military installations, a radar site and an armed checkpoint.
General Halassa said: “Sometimes the rebels or protesters who are killed are relatives or friends of men in the army; the killers and the killed are related, and that hurts morale even more.”
General Oun Ali Oun, formerly of the military intelligence service, said a group of 120 officers and soldiers who had defected were now in Tunis. Many others had switched sides and joined the rebels, or were in hiding. source

Note not just what they are saying but who is saying it, especially when generals from the intel branches.  They have not only the most knowledge but also often the most to fear if they stay on a sinking ship. 

There are no guarantees, of course, as Qaddafi has held out longer than Milosevic, but, then again, the demands here are higher--loss of his job, not just a loss of territory.  I do think that Q's end will be sooner rather than later.  But I have been wrong before.

You Cannot Go Home Again

A friend posted this promo video about my old summer camp, Camp Airy, on his facebook page:


So much has apparently changed at this place that has meant so much to me.  Most of the activities shown did not exist during my time: model rocketry, zip-lining, skate-boarding, dune-buggies or whatever, monster trucks, etc.  A lot of the equipment and facilities were far more basic in my time.  Lots of investment since then, and apparently much effort to keep up with other camps, I guess.  I wonder what has happened to overall levels of campership in the US.  It seems clear that Airy's apparently peaked at some point, when it was restricting folks from spending the full eight weeks to open up space for other folks.

The promo plays up the Jewish-ness* as well, as it only really meant, in my time, that we didn't have milk with meat (and obviously no pork or shrimp); that we had about 15 minutes of songs before Friday night dinner and about forty five minutes of songs Saturday mornings (wearing white as they did in the video); that we had some Israeli counselors sprinkled among the Americans (and Brits) who taught us that Israelis do not use their brakes much when driving; and that the dating pool at the girls camp was parent-approved (only Jewish girls).  I don't remember that many Israeli flags, which kind of bothers me now since I long ago reached the point where I do not agree with everything Israel does. So, I am very struck by this stance, and must remember that this is a marketing effort.  Clearly, the PR folks behind this think that playing up this identity will play to the parents while the pics of the cool stuff will probably play to the boys.  Of course, I may just be noticing this more given my own discomfort with all things religious.

* There is the view that attending Jewish summer camps is a key part of the American Jewish [non-Orthodox] experience that keeps folks, well, Jewish.  And some social science [logit!]has been applied to this question, suggesting the system works.  Of course, in my family, the two kids that did go to such camps are fallen/lapsed/un/whatever, and the two that did not go Jewish summer camps are observant, more or less.  I could spend all day looking at the results of this one survey, but will just note that Jewish camp had a very small impact on marrying within the faith, which is probably the most important outcome that many (most?) Jewish parents obsess about.

Of course, the real reason I cannot go back* is that the people I was with at the time are no longer there with a few notable exceptions (the executive director held all kinds of positions during my time).  Facebook has allowed me to re-connect with some.  I missed an opportunity last summer for a big alum event in the middle of the summer as I was committed to a family vacation. I am glad that my friends are sending their kids there to keep the experience going.  We send our daughter to a camp much closer to home and much more basic (and cheaper).  This summer, she is going for twice as long, and her first day is exactly the same day as Airy's (and Camp Louise's).  So, I will not need the countdown clock at the bottom of the camp webpage, as my daughter is counting down the days, as I used to do so. 

*  I also cannot go back because I am not sure I could handle the internet-withdrawal.  Notice there is nothing in the ad to suggest that the mountain has wifi.

Anybody But Him!

Why does Robert Kaplan get all of the attention?  Balkan Ghosts was an awful book and had a big impact.  His other stuff was much the same.  And now he is getting quoted for saying that Germany's rising power is the big deal in Europe.  First, this is hardly original.  Lots of fear-mongering about Germany since 1989.  Second, it is hardly right.  Yes, Germany has more power because of the debts owed by the rest of Europe to it.  But Germany is imprisoned by that debt as well.  Not unlike the China-US relationship, where mutual vulnerability limits the power of both.  Germany's well-being depends on its cooperation with the rest of Europe, whether it is within the EU or beside it. 

Oh, and, while we ponder the awesome power of Germany, we must not forget how marginalized Germany was in Afghanistan--the third largest contributor of troops spending nearly all of its time on the defensive.  Defensive in two senses--not engaging in offensive operations until mid-2009 and having to defend the value of its contribution to allies paying in blood (that would be the US, UK, and Canada).  As a result, Germany was not a mover and shaker in Afghanistan except at the beginning. 

And what do we see with Libya?  Is Germany leading the effort?  Or, is it like 2003, where Germany failed to stop something that it found to be problematic?  Merkyl has received much criticism not only abroad but also at home for Germany's stances on the Libyan uprising.  Once again, Germany is watching from the sidelines.  And then there is the flipflop on nuclear power.

Germany will be relevant and a major player in Europe (but beyond?), but we ought not to overestimate it.  And the general rule applies: if Robert Kaplan says x, then expect something other than x. 

There is Wrong and Then There Is This

Ok , it is easy to say Obama when you mean Osama, or Iraq when you mean Iran, but this is beyond.


Where did Palin go to school?*  There is little that is more basic in American history than Paul Revere's ride.  Sure, it has gotten mythologized and all, and you can confuse whether it was one light or two, by land or by sea, but it was about warning the colonials about the British, not warning the British about a second amendment that would not exist for another couple of decades.

* and yes, she does look kind of stoned in this clip.

Didn't Sarah Palin see National Treasure? It is not as if we expect her to have read Gladwell's bit on Revere in Tipping Point. 
Ok, she needs remedial schoolhouse rock:

Be Careful When Choosing Metrics

I am writing a paper on Canadian civil-military integration on the ground for a workshop in Australia (tough life, yes, but someone has to do it), and I was struck by this sentence in the third quarterly report in 2010:

Tellingly, insurgents did not manage to conduct an effective, complex or spectacular attack in either Kabul or Kandahar City during the July to September quarter.

Um, un-check with the recent prison break.  I have been wondering whether the spate of spectacular attacks the past month or two across the country are Tet-like ways to score some big PR points and undermine the coalition's claims rather than a real indicator of increased Taliban capability.  Of course, as Tet showed us, the PR points matter a great deal, much more than the capability.  But I am still trying to figure out what the real trendline is.  Lots of mixed messages coming out of Afghanistan, so it is hard to figure out the patterns.  Still, the idea that the surge is "working" to reduce violence is hard to see right now.  Perhaps at the end of the summer, we can count IEDs, suicide attacks, and where the people are standing to figure it out.  

Irony or Hypocrisy

In my second column at Current Intelligence, I ponder Pakistan's protests over its violated sovereignty.  Consider this my monthly plug.

Libya Clarification

This piece on what Harper needs to say about Libya rubs a sore-spot for me.  It poses regime change and civilian protection as entirely separate enterprises.  Yes, one can slice and slice to come up with distinctions, but the reality has always been that the only enduring way to protect Libya's rebellious civilians from the government is to change who runs it.  Since only gullible intellectuals can possibly imagine Qaddafi as being a credible guarantor of any agreement, how could the civilians of Libya be protected with Qaddafi still in place?  With UN/NATO occupation of the rebellious zones?  Um, the UN resolution prohibits that.  And NATO has no troops or patience for that.

So, this is a very artificial distinction that might make sense to politicians who want to hedge or criticize, but civilian protection logically and realistically implies regime change of some kind. 

If you can imagine a situation where there is no regime change and the civilians can be sustainably guaranteed their own security, please let me know how that would work. 

If A Tree Falls on a Mailman in a Forest, Will We Notice?

Canada is bracing for a postal strike.  Sort of.  The possible strike is both caused by the decline of first class mail and is mediated by this development.  In the US and Canada (and elsewhere), the bread and butter business of postal services, the first class letter, is waning as people now communicate via email, skype, and all the rest.  This is putting pressure on the postal services and thus onto postal workers.

So, the Canadian postal workers are going on strike, but will we notice with our paychecks being direct deposited, with our bills being paid via electronic banking, and so forth?  I already feel as if the mail here is only delivered four days a week (it is a rare Friday that we get any mail),* and most of the rest of the mail is crapola.  Bills, checks, and stuff we don't want. Except for magazines, which are dying as well.  So, will we notice if the mail stops being delivered?  A bit, as some of those checks are delivered by mail still.

* The Canadian postal service does not have the same ethos of through rain and sleet and all of that.

Like the existing delivery patterns of the post, the strike is spotty.  This time deliberately so, focusing on one city at a time, starting with Winnipeg.  So, I guess this means that Winnipegians cannot write each other to celebrate the return of professional hockey to the city.

The good news is that I can continue to post through a strike, and, if the strike becomes painful, I will whine about it.  You can always count on that.

A Fan of a Fan

There is a long profile of Bill Simmons, ESPN's Sports Guy, in the NYT.  I have been a fan of his stuff for about a decade now--his columns, books, and podcasts.   He is about five years younger than me so that his pop culture references work for me, although he has paid far more attention to 90210 and I to Hogan's Heroes.  To be clear, my lecture style of using pop culture at times to explain concepts precedes my fandom of Simmons (Footloose as a model of chicken was way before ESPN.com).  But I am clearly influenced by Simmon's in my sports fandom and in my blogging.

His power resides in the overall effect of his columns, the mix of honesty, enthusiasm, smart analysis and an implicit recognition that for fans, anyway, the sports experience is bound up with moments in our lives.

 I now pay far more attention to basketball due to his columns, podcasts and his book.  I even sort of root for Boston teams in part because I know more about them than I did before (even though that betrays a basic Sports Guy set of values about fidelity).  That and because Montreal is essentially in Boston's sports market except (and this is a huge exception) for hockey where Boston is very much the enemy. I enjoy his discussion of gambling on sports even though I restrict my gambling to poker. I do now think of odds, lines, and prop bets thanks to Simmons as well as Chad Millman's blog.  Indeed, I have become a fan of some folks who appeared on Simmons's podcasts, such as Millman and Alan Sepinwall.

In terms of blogging, I use some of his terminology, like chill scenes or Tyson zone (referring to Mrs. Spew is a direct rip-off of his Sports Gal); integrate twitter and blog to react to live events (as opposed to dead ones); build on his fantasy sports fixation with my Lost fantasy league; rank movies; and lots of other ways that may be less obvious.  Perhaps I am more accepting of my narcissism since Simmons has parlayed his into tremendous success?

I think Simmons's greatest asset is his ability to make him the conduit of our vicariousness.  Ok, that is not well phrased, but we get to experience what he experiences.  We get to be the fan talking to William Goldman, Charles Barkley, Chad Millman, and his cast of friends.  We live sports and pop culture through him.

And most importantly, he majored in Poli sci.

The Man, The Myth, the Legend

I had friends who attended this ceremony, mostly because of the biggest honoree, and the are in the background of the video below.  The Spaceman himself, William Shatner:


I wonder who wrote the Dean's (my former Chair) speech.  For the text of the speech by the actor known for playing James Tiberius Kirk's speech, see here. 

Shatner is, indeed, McGill's most famous alum.  The students even named the student center building after him, even though he did not donate anything for it.  Indeed, the university does not recognize the building's name.  Still, it is known as the Shatner building, proving that the man, the myth, and the legend have far more power than university policies.  And for that, I admire him all the more.

Something to Build On

Lots of storms in the US and Pakistan over their relationship, but, as it turns out, they may be more alike than we thought:

"Strategy is very un-Pakistani," noted one western official. "You kick the can down the road and hope it lands in the right place." source

Who Cares About Iowa and New Hampshire?

Presidential candidates do.  Why?  Because they go first?  Why do they get to go first in the process for selecting nominees?  Because they do and have done so.  Last time states tried to jump in line, IA and NH sought to penalize the candidates that had the temerity to challenge the Iowan/New Hampshirian entitlement. 

So, check out this post by 'lil Steve which builds on some other stuff to show how wonderfully anti-democratic and distorting this process is.  And that the alternatives are not so great but certainly better.

I have always been annoyed by the increased power of two largely unrepresentative states.  Probably not going to change soon, but not a bad time to vent a spleen or two.

When You Hear Military-Industrial Complex, Duck!

This piece complains about the incorporation of the universities of Canada into the military-industrial complex.  Yes, industry tries to manipulate politics so that it can get more money to build more stuff.  The F-35 is part of that process.  Yes, academics take money from the government and study military stuff.  Does that mean that we are agents of the government in persuading the Canadian public of the righteousness of its military efforts?  Um, no.  Given reactions to the op-eds I have written about Afghanistan, I would say that we academics are not swaying the public all that well.

And to be clear, using academics as your stalking horses is a bad idea.  When I went to Afghanistan with seven or so other academics in 2007 to learn more about the conflict and what Canada and NATO were doing, we were aware that we were part of an "information operation" aimed at the Canadian public.  So, we were not dupes.  And the folks I was with carried with them their skepticism about the mission.  Herding cats not only describes department chairs trying to run a department but any effort to get scholars to say what you want them to say.

This author should actually look at the SDF research and see if it is biased and cheerleading the military. Some of it does, but much of it does not.  I do not have a dataset on what has been funded, but I can tell you that my research, funded by SDF, raises questions about the quality of oversight and ponders whether the absence of any real parliamentary oversight over the military is such a good thing.  Is that what the military wants to hear?  Another SDF-funded project of mine considers the politics of early departures, comparing the Dutch to Canada.  This is probably not what the military wants folks to focus on, as there is less glory in taking off than in other parts of the mission.  My third SDF funded project ponders whether the efforts to un-fail states by creating strong militaries (as we are doing in Afghanistan) may be causing problems down the road in the form of coups and repression.  Most of the rest of the McGill/Montreal research funded by SDF is far more focused on broader security issues than on Canadian defence issues. 

The only roadblock I had in my research was not SDF, which did help me meet with military officers to interview them along the way, but other parts of the military that opposed a survey I wanted to conduct.  SDF is about outreach--the idea is that ignorance is not bliss.   I have had no instructions on how to do the research, what to say or what to publish.  The military, in Canada and the US, mostly just wants to learn any way they can since bad information, poor strategy and the like will get people killed.

The funny thing is that military officers, because of the heavy responsibilities, are actually far more open-minded than the folks who write pieces about the military without doing the research to actually figure out whether there are any infringements of academic freedom.

PS  See Stephanie Carvin's blog for some piling-on.  And h/t to Phillipe Lagasse's tweet that started this ruckus.

Slow Blog Day, May 2011 edition

I am behind on everything as I spent a day going to and from Ottawa to present some research.  Next three trips to Ottawa (over the next three weeks) will be back to asking policy-maker types about their work on Afghanistan to get the civilian side and also more of the military side.  The former is for a new spinoff project that will take me to Australia in July.  The latter is for the book project and associated pieces.  I will be late with the first draft of the Aussie paper (due today) by a few days.  I blame the careless school bus driver.  May not be true, but it is a ready excuse.

So, just a few scattershot thoughts on various news/events/realizations of the day:

• I have a new favorite podcast--Nerdist.  It is supposedly nerd-focused (comic books and such) but the interviews are with a range of interesting people and go in all kinds of interesting directions.  Hosted by Chris Hardwick, who started out on the MTV Singled Out show, it is just very, very funny.  I didn't lose control of my rental car on the way to or from Ottawa, but it was close a couple of times.  Just funny, often profane takes on things.  I will never think of Darth Vader the same after the podcast with Kevin Smith.
• Thanks to the podcast with Kevin Smith, I will always look at Ferris Bueller's day as motivated by Ferris's coke addiction.  It just makes too much sense.
• Thanks to another Nerdist podcast, my crush on Alison Brie of both Mad Men and Community has just deepened.  
• Fun day of powerpoint panics.  My presentation almost had to be ppt-less as the building lost power a couple of hours beforehand.  Luckily it came back AND I was not in an elevator.  Later, on the way home, I stopped by the organizational meeting of a new ultimate league that is based in the western part of the Montreal island.  The head of the Montreal frisbee folks was a bit off his game, since his powerpoint presentation had not been saved right.  So, for the kids out there, always, always print out an outline view or a summary of your ppt so that you can handle a broken computer/file/projector.  I was ready in case the power was out--I could have given the talk, but would have had to draw on a board or something....
• Onto professional type stuff, Prime Minister Harper was in Afghanistan to close out the mission in Kandahar.  He said the usual crap that drives me crazy--that the mission lasted longer than the two world wars.  True but inane.  "We have to look at this mission as a great success,’’ Harper said.  Depends on what you call success.  Roland Paris tweeted today how insecure Kandahar is.  I have no idea if it is better or worse.  The Taliban certainly seem to be generating lots of dramatic attacks around the country, but I do not know if this is more frequent/intense or just more visible.  The prison break shows that there has been no progress at all on that front since it is the second one.  So much for that effort.  I do think that "not losing Kandahar" was an achievement.  I do think that Canada's effort in Kandahar did earn it more influence, so these are successes.  Stopping terrorism--not so much.
• Speaking of achievements, Harper's tour included a farm where an Al Qaeda base used to be, so that he could have Canada take credit for the renovation of a big dam project.  What he did not point out is that improving irrigation not only improves the wheat crop but also the poppy crop.  I don't think that is a bad tradeoff at all, just being honest about it is all.
• I do disagree with a tweet I saw about the Canadian shift from Kandahar to training in Kabul making sense.  I disagree--Canada developed expertise and relationships in Kandahar that are being essentially tossed away to fill a bunch of slots that were not empty (there was no NATO need for lots of clasroom trainers in Kabul, but a heap of need for continued mentors/trainers going into combat with Kandahar-based Afghan units).  More ranting on this later.
• One trend I hate: rebooting an entire comic book.  Worse: DC is rebooting all of its series.  I stopped collecting when my daughter was born since diapers displaced the comic books in the family budgets.  Given the messes made of my favorite characters and groups (mostly Spidey and X-folk), I have few regrets.

Perhaps more tomorrow as I try to get through some deadlines.

Let's Play: Which Is Worse?

The Westboro Church has gained much notoriety for engaging in protests at the funerals of soldiers, asserting that this is God's punishment for the tolerance of gays, I guess. I have stopped paying close attention to their rantings and ravings because, well, these folks are nuts.  And I would like to ignore these folks, but they are not going anyway anytime too soon.  So, they, of course, protested at Arlington National Cemetery today on Memorial Day.  Yes, these folks have no class.  Anyhow, the striking thing is not their appearance but that among the counter-protesters were a certain 3K clan.  I don't want to use their name because I really don't want to be linked to them.  But you know who I mean. 

So, who should we root for in this?  The racists who are supporting our troops?  Or the crazy religious folks who are a different kind of menace to society?  My gut tells me to root for the racists since the issue of the moment is the sacrifice of the troops.  My head tells me that the Westboro folks are a very small, marginal group that are good at getting attention but not much else, and that the racists in the past and in the future have been and will be a greater threat.  I just don't know. What do you, the reader, think: racially motivated hate mongers or religiously motivated hate mongers?  Pick your poison.

Party's Over

Whenever I read a headline like this "In Its Rebound, Detroit Focuses on Selling Smaller Cars," I just want to bang my head against a desk.  How many times must this happen and happen late?  Detroit was surprised by the oil crises of the 1970s and then again and again since.  The lure of easy money by selling big cars packed with stuff always seems to trump the long term challenge--that oil is a scarce commodity subject to the ebbs and flows of international relations. 

Yes, these companies have gotten more serious about electric cars and hybrids, but only because they have been dragged here.  As I prepare to buy a new car (thanks to the maniacal inattentive school bus driver), I have only considered one company, Ford, and only if I cannot get a good deal from a South Korean company (Hyundai).  Sure, I would like to buy a hybrid, but they are out of my price range.  The good news is that the mileage (or, as I am always confused by here, litres per 100 km) is much better than it used to be, so the difference between Prius and Elantra is not so startk. 

Anyway, back to the point: short term profits seem to trump the long-term (which is not terribly surprising), but these companies hedge so very poorly that any price shock (plus a shock to capital markets) threatens their survival.  The funny thing is that Ford is said to have a "head start" by focusing on smaller cars five years ago.  Um, a head of whom?  GM and Chevy, yes.  Hyundia, Kia, Honda and the rest not so much.  The only good news is that Toyota has lost its sheen for being reliable and Honda is not so exalted these days either (plus as we found out, Hondas have been the target of thieves). 

This entire article is far too laudatory--the car companies are coming to the party after the party is over.  Yes, they can make a comeback and do ok, but they hav

He knew G.M. was on the right track when he parked one of the first new Cruzes off the assembly line at a supermarket in suburban Detroit, and a store employee rushed over to check it out. “She said, ‘I can’t believe Chevrolet is building a car this size that’s this good,’ ” Mr. Reuss said.e frittered away so much time and money that it reminds of the US effort in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Not good.

 Ah, the joy of low expectations!

Karzai Issues Last Warning

Ok, so Karzai has issued a "last warning" after the tragic raid/strike that lead to 14 Afghans being killed by NATO forces.  I understand he is engaged in position-taking for the domestic audience.  I understand that it is unfortunate that the international forces have made mistakes in this war.  Still, I would like Karzai to point out occasionally that the Taliban has killed three times as many civilians and its strategies aim at baiting the ISAF forces into killing civilians.

But go ahead, President Karzai, do what comes next: if this is the last warning, then that means that next time, he will do what?  Ask NATO to leave?  If so, then I guess that means it is time to go.  If Afghanistan is a sovereignty entity, then if the President asks the NATO forces to leave, then they should go. 

Karzai has been a very important source of mission failure, so if he wants to have the entire thing on his shoulders, then we all can save money and lives by leaving.  Again, I fear what will happen to the Afghans who did rely upon us, but if the elected (however flawed the election was) government wants us to leave, then we leave. 

Otherwise, what happens after a last warning?  Another one?  Or, he could suck it up just a bit and act like a leader and take some responsibility.  But that would be way out of character. 

We have run out of time and out of choices.

Why the Third Matrix Movie Sucked

Because it ended with an incredible bargain: that the computer and Neo would just agree to an unenforceable bargain with plenty of room for either side (especially the computer) to cheat and renege.  Why do I raise this now?  Because the government of Sudan seems to be pretty fixated on violating the accords that were to end the conflict.  The big question was always the oil-rich territories on the edge of North and South.  Now, Sudan is sending troops into this region.  So much for playing by the rules.

External guarantees really don't solve the problem when civil wars are ended, because it merely moves the credibility problem from between the actors in the country to the actors outside.  Given how much resentment there is in Libya towards the half-hearted NATO [new acronym--Nothing After Take Off]*, you can see why the government of Sudan is not deterred by the possibility of an outside intervention.

*  Reminds me of what folks would say about ISAF [I Saw Americans Fighting] and the CPA of Iraq [Cannot Produce Anything].

The warning lights are blinking, the alarms are sounding for Sudan and South Sudan.  Not that it matters much.

Delusional Democracy

Elitist blogpost of the month: does it make sense to have direct or indirect democracy when the people are so frickin' clueless?  Or does a fact-free/knowledge-free environment not really matter that much?

The prod today is a post at Steve Greene's blog: Americans radically over-estimate the percentage of gays and lesbians in society, with the plurality thinking the number is around one quarter.  Now, maybe this is good, because this misperception might cause people to realize it is not wise to discriminate against 25% of the people except that the survey also showed that this perception did not correlate with more or less tolerance. 

Steve links this misperception to the usual one--that Americans think lots more money is being spent on foreign aid than actually is the case. 

Good thing we have Fox News and its equivalents to provide us with good information about the situations around us.  Oh, and that internet thing is great since everything on it is true.  I am afraid that confirmation bias is everywhere. 

So much bad information.  Isn't democracy based on the idea that if the people have enough information and enough reason, the competition and debate among them will lead to the best outcomes?  Maybe not.  Of course, the old saw is still correct--democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.

Classic Comedy Loses A Laugh or Two

Jeff Conaway died today of a drug overdose.  Alan Sepinwall had a nice piece that considered Conway's career.  He attached a couple of key clips from Taxi. Including this classic, classic bit:


I am amused to see that Alex in this scene espouses a problem I became familiar with once I started teaching graduate students:  "What am I worried about? Two things: that they will not issue a license for him to drive in this city or that they will."

I am sorry that Conaway's life spiraled down from here.  At least, we have youtube to remember him by.

The New Deterrent?

Yesterday, I scoffed about the possibility that EU conditionality was all that important in the arrest of Ratko Mladic, even though the EU re-issued some threats quite recently.  Today, I scoff at the impact of the arrest.

The NYT editorial: "The arrest should be a warning to other butchers that they, too, will be caught and held to account, no matter how long it takes."

Um, about sixteen years after the fact? If one knows that one will be captured almost two decades after the crime, will that serve to deter?  This is especially questionable for middle-aged folks, as Mladic is now, apparently, far more impaired by health than by prison.  Heart attacks and strokes (too much fatty food while on the "run"?) have proved to be more punishing than the international community.

Sixteen years? Political scientists tend to assume that folks focus on the short term, not the long term.  I am pretty sure 16 years is the long term, and Keynes was right about what happens in the long run.

The funny thing is I am pretty sure that if we dig up enough NYT editorials, we might find one or more on how the US death penalty is not a deterrent precisely because it takes so long. 

I am not saying that picking up Mladic is a bad thing.  Not at all.  I am just saying we should not exaggerate how it will impact future genocidal types, who themselves are not known for engaging in long-term utility calculations.

Conditionality Works?!

With Serbia arresting the last big PIFWC (person indicted for war crime--my favorite NATO acronym)--Ratko Mladic (see my post about the previous arrest, of Karadzic), does this mean that I was wrong about the power of conditionality?  That is, the Steve and Bill book argues that we ought not overestimate the threats organizations like the European Union or NATO make about conditions for membership.  We argue there and elsewhere that the requirements are unenforced (Cyprus gets in despite not settling its ethnic problems, Romania and Bulgaria get in with their shaky rule of law); that the rules do not apply to members so that once you are in, you can go back to violating the rules; and so on.

But Serbia seems to have knuckled under to EU pressure and will be sending Mladic to The Hague stand trial for genocide, ethnic cleansing and all the rest.  But the pressure has been applied since 1995.  Can we say that conditionality worked if it took 16 years?  Oh, and enlargement is probably not a realistic option right now since the EU is focused on its own internal crises (driven by past poor decisions about ignoring conditions--letting Greece and others into the Euro zone).  So, the timing here is interesting--submitting to the PIFWC conditions when the conditions are least relevant, as opposed to earlier when other countries were in the queue to join the EU (despite not meeting other conditions).

I have not been following Serbia's politics closely, but this is still a very important decision, whether it is to suck up to the EU or not.  After all, a preceding leader of Serbia, Zoran Djindjić, was assassinated after sending Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague.  So, the stakes are quite high domestically.  Mladic was reputedly more popular than Karadzic, especially among Serbia's military and police.  If there are no nasty consequences from this, then this is an important development for civilian control of the military and Serbia's democratization.

Getting Mladic to stand trial for his crimes is a big victory for Bosnia, for Serbia, and for justice.  I just am not sure that the EU had a lot to do with it.

Update:  For one take by an expert.

Quebec Irony Du Jour

Jack Layton has been getting heaps of flak because his party has taken contradictory positions about Quebec secession.  The Clarity Act says that the federal Parliament would have a say on whether a question is clear enough to count and whether the outcome is clear enough to count, and then a negotiation would ensue.  This is based on a Supreme Court decision.  The Quebec sovereigntist position (and the position of other folks pandering to the nationalists) is that any referendum with a vote of fifty percent plus one is good enough.  I have ranted enough about this before--that 50% plus one is a lousy standard.

The fun point is this: Layton's party, the New Democratic Party [NDP], has more than half of its seats in .... Quebec.  So, yes, the pandering may have worked, but now what?  If there were a referendum and the 50% plus one rule played out, then Layton would find himself with less than half a party.  Or he could try to become a leader in newly independent Quebec, not that he would win or anything.  The irony is that his support of 50% plus one is suicidal politically in the extreme--if such a situation were to arise.

But, of course, if there were a referendum, I would count on the NDP supporting implementation of the Clarity Act--for its own survival, not out of principle.  Not that it matters much really, since the Conservatives a majority in the Parliament where fifty percent plus one is also the rule.*

* I think--I have no real understanding of the Canadian constitution. 

Still, the idea that the NDP's fate would be held hostage by a Quebec separatist effort is actually quite amusing, as long as we do not get close to it in reality.  

Progress On One Front

Despite what I said yesterday about not liking change, arresting Ratko Mladic, who commanded the troops at Srebrenica (biggest case of mass murder in Europe since World War II), is change I can believe in.  Indeed, as the tweets of the morning indicate, not a bad May (Bin Laden, Mladic) and not a bad 2011 with Mubarak and others losing power.

Mladic was THE most wanted war criminal from the Bosnian conflict.  And his arrest, along with that of Karadzic, means that the folks in ye old Balkan Pit of Despair (the J-5's desks on the Balkans) will have to change the talking points about the "redlines" of engaging Serbia.  Serbia has satisfied a crucial set of conditions--picking up the most wanted PIFWC's (Persons Indicted for War Crimes).  I have not been following Serbia closely to see how it is doing otherwise, but this is a big, big step, probably more so than Karadzic since Mladic had strong ties to Serbia's military.  Indeed, this is a real test/accomplishment for civilian control of the military.  Being able to do this (and hopefully not getting shot for it) shows that President Tadic is in command and not the military.

I can only ponder a world in which Serbia seems far more functional than Pakistan.

Of course, Serbia has other problems than this, but it is a good day for Serbia, for Bosnia, and for the international community after way too many bad days in the first half of the 1990s.  I'll leave it to the real experts on Bosnia to judge whether this matters anymore for Bosnia's present and future.

One last thought--just before the G8?  Is this timing accidental?  Or does Serbia want to get on major powers' agenda in a good way for a change?

Dead Parent Movie Escalation

When my daughter was younger, my wife and I would joke about most movies for the kids being "dead parent" movies.  Most of these would have at least one parent of the featured character killed on or off screen.  This, of course, starts with Bambi.  Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and all of the rest of the new Disney classics had dead parents.  So, we have come to wonder if Andy in the Toy Story series has a father or a second mother or what?

I forget all of the discussions we used to have about these as our teenage daughter is less interested in animated flicks these days.  The interest now is in Pirates of the Caribbean, which, now that I think of it, is also a dead parent movie, with both Kiera Knightley's character and Orlando Bloom's having at least one missing parent, right?

I guess getting rid of the parents allows us to focus on the child in the movie with which the children in the audience can empathize.  Anyhow, the inspiration of this post is the new escalation as seen in SPOILER ....

Getting Conservative in My Old Age

Ok, I am not that conservative or that old, but I have come to realize that my views are far more conservative than I had thought, but not Conservative the way Stephen Harper defines it in Canada or the various Republicans do in the US.  I have realized that my starting stance on any policy change is: is it better or worse than the status quo?  I am realizing that change for the sake of change, either to return to some imagined past or to jump to some potentially wonder future, is not really the justification we need.  First rule for Doctors: do no harm.

So, in my running debate with the Anglophone nationalists (see here, here and here), I tend to worry more about how trying to change the status quo might do more harm than good (not to mention that change would require convincing enough Quebeckers, no easy trick).  To be clear, I am not Dolores Umbridge who said: "But progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved and prune practices that ought to be...prohibited!"  She was hardly conservative as she imposed a bunch of new rules and practices, perhaps to bring Hogwarts back to an imagined past, but imposed radical changes to make this happen. 

I guess I am stuck on the meaning of conservative-as it has multiple and often conflicting definitions:

1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.

Clause #1 has conflicting meanings, as preserving existing conditions and restoring traditional ones are not consistent.  I guess I tend to think of conservative as clause #2--cautiously moderate.  Obviously not a label that describes the fictional folks like Umbridge or the semi-fictional folks like Palin, Limbaugh, Bush II, and other "Conservatives."  In Canada, there is much concern about which definition will apply to Harper now that he is no longer constrained by minority government. 

My decision rule, at the end of the day, is that change is not always undesirable but that we should aim for changes that do the least harm, and that we should choose changes that harm those who are best able to weather the harm (that would be rich folks).  So, I am quite Liberal in my conservatism, I guess.  I am a progressive in the sense that I prefer change that improves things (to perfect the union, as Obama has put it often) rather than change to some idealized past (the 1950's were not such a great time for minorities, women, gays and lesbians, but other than that, it was swell, right?).

Does this post conflict with my earlier one where I say I don't like tradition?  No, because I do think that change that improves the status quo is perfectly fine and dandy especially even if it goes against tradition.

Responding to the Anglophone Nationalists

I have gotten a heap of comments from a variety of folks who I would consider members of the Anglophone nationalist community in Quebec.  Perhaps that is not an entirely accurate label, but let's debate that in another post (or in the comments to this one).

Is it ever acceptable, Tony asks, to infringe rights?  To be clear, my specialty in Political Science is not about rights--I have no expertise on the should questions and questions of rights.  I am a specialist on the whys of International Relations--why countries intervene or not, why countries delegate or not to their soldiers on the ground, why institutions might or might not foster ethnic outbidding.  So, I am an amateur on this kind of question.  But that has never stopped me before.  So, the answer is, um, yeah.  A gun rights advocate from Texas would find living in Canada to be oppressive since one cannot buy semi-automatic handguns at the local Walmart here.  Taxes can be seen as oppressive.  What is a right is often hotly debated.  Which is more important:  individual rights vs rights of the community?  I, as an American, focus much, much more on individual rights rather than collective ones, but that does not mean that collective rights are inherently undemocratic (I leave that to the political philosophers).

How Can One Tell I Am Not a Baby Boomer?

I am not a big fan of Bob Dylan.  I think the post-boomers vary in how much they appreciate Bob Dylan, but he does not have a mythic status that is widely shared.  I just don't get the fascination that the boomers have with Dylan.  Some of his songs are pretty good, but mostly, I think he is over-rated.  People will say that he is a great song-writer, but it is hard for me to tell since I have a tremendous urge to change the channel as soon as I hear his voice.  Plus I am a lousy judge of song-writing, so I have to cede people the argument that he has been a great song-writer.  Still, I think the Dylan as icon or not is a big divider between most boomers and most of us who are not.  Give me the Beatles any day.

Will this post antagonize more people than my recent ones on Anglophone nationalism?  Probably.  Will it distract the latter?  Absolutement non.

When Good News Is Spun Badly

Crime continues to go down.  More than we expected, especially in a bad economy.  This article continues significant frustration that the models seem to be broken.  But isn't this a "good news" story?  I would think that the story would have less frustration and more, ahem, glee since fewer people are getting killed (with NY and Philly as notable exceptions).  And having the experts say:

“Remarkable,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. “Given the fact that we have had some healthy declines in recent years, I fully expected that the improvement would slow. There is only so much air you can squeeze out of a balloon.”

Um, a city or country is not like a balloon.  We are far from empty.  Yes, crime is historically low, but it is not at or near zero.  Sure, my car was not stolen this year (just rammed by a school bus), nor did I lose any computers to theft this year, but there are still thefts, rapes and murders.  Less of them, but still not close to "squeezed balloon" status.

Anyway, the tenor of the entire piece is one of disappointment that we don't know why the numbers are down rather than taking seriously a big jump in the quality of life, even during a bad recession and with stagnant wages over the past decade.  Perhaps a new model of crime might have been useful.  Surely, there must be some sociologist/criminologist that has a take on this.

Here is one theory that was not brought up: the population is still aging.  Older folks do less crime.  Plus more of our youth are in prison than ever before (more or less), so perhaps we just have fewer people in the right demographic out on the streets.  Which suggests a way to get crime even lower--let's imprison even more of the population.  Oh, we are running out of space, huh? The bright side is that with California being compelled to release tens of thousands of prisoners, we can test my hypothesis that rounding up all the young folk might be doing the trick.  If California's crime rate does not jump up after the 30k-40k jailed folks are released, then there might be something else going on. 

The key takeaway is that the NYT can depress us even with good news.  Well done.

NATO Reads My Blog?

Is it a coincidence that NATO significantly increased its bombing campaign, focusing on and near Qaddafi's compound just after I post a game on when Qaddafi will lose power?  Maybe, maybe not.  On the other hand, they may just be trying to beat the latest ash cloud.

This is Tripoli lit up by last night's attacks (From this twitpic: http://twitpic.com/51ux58  From a twitter account named ChangeinLibya).

Deja Vu All Over Again, Or Libyan Pool O' Regime Change

I already suggested elsewhere that Libya seems to be a lot like the Kosovo campaign of 1999:

• The wish that bombing would easily/quickly lead to the desired outcome.
• The stated refusal to put boots on the ground.
• The impatience of the public media.

And now the French and British are deploying attack helicopters.  My guess is that these helos will get more use than the American ones deployed to Albania in 1999, but that would not be hard since none of the US helos were actually used.  The US military and the Clinton administration worried far more than Wesley Clark, who was heading NATO's military at the time, about helos being shot down.  Because the French and the British pushed this effort and face heaps of criticism for sucking the US and NATO into another endless war in the Mideast, they have a bit more enthusiasm and willingness to take risks than Clinton did in 1999.

More importantly, it is a good thing I held off on posting a new game (in honor of the anniversary of the end of Lost and my fantasy game).  When will Qaddafi lose power?  Either to violence or to quitting?  Rather than holding a draft, I am simply going to offer up options and folks choose via comments which time period they will take (or none at all):
First, one can choose the rest of May--that Qaddafi will fall soon, very soon.
Second choice is first week of June (1st-7th), perhaps hoping that the anniversary of Kosovo is a harbinger of things to come.
Next: June 8th-20th--Qaddafi just wants to outlast Milosevic's record.
June 20th to July 3rd--things start to get too hot for Qaddafi, jail cell in cool Hague sounds good.
July 4th--if it is good enough for Will Smith, it is good enough for Qaddafi.
July 5th-28th--Qaddafi wants to give a gift to me or my many relatives who have a birthday in this period.
July 29th-August 30th--Qaddafi wants to sneak out while most of Europe is on vacation.
August 31st-Sept 4th--Big events seem to happen during the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (Katrina), so Qaddafi will quit while most of the American experts are otherwise indisposed.
Sept 5th to the end of the year--slow but steady wins the race?
Last possible choice: Qaddafi lasts as long as the world (if the world ends on Jan 1st 2012).  This is the choice for the NATO doubters--that the effort fails and Qaddafi sticks around.

In this game, the choice is Q or not Q.  If Qaddafi is replaced by a military regime, that is still a win for NATO for the purposes of this game.  After all, we do not know what the outcome is in Egypt, except for Mubarak is gone.

My bet would be on the middle of June.  One of these compounds that NATO hits will eventually hit Q or his supporters will start to step away from him.

Oh, and the stakes: if you win, you get to have a guest post here at the Spew where you can post whatever you like, including most embarrassing tale about me.

Burden-Sharing Continued

From the Guardian via the Atlantic Council.  The little things are supposed to represent number of cruise missiles fired.

Of course, numbers can be deceptive as the Canadians have been most proud of conducting the fourth highest number of bomb-dropping sorties (after the US, UK, and France) despite having a smaller force than the Italians.  Italy only got into the bomb dropping game late (at least by word, not sure if they have really been conducting much in the way of air strikes).  The non-NATO Arab world is represented by three countries and 32 planes, although none appear to be dropping bombs.  The article is mostly, ahem, on target, but notes more surprise than it should by the Danish effort, given its forward-leaning behavior in Afghanistan.  This mission really is not that surprising, given what the Danes have been doing lately.  The Norwegians and the Swedes are not that surprising either as they have engaged in offensive operations in Afghanistan, even if they have been restricted to the northern part of the country.  Belgium is perhaps one of the biggest surprises given that it still does not have a government. 

But this kind of figure may cause us to overlook those that are omitted. Most notably: Germany.  But who else is not participating in this effort: Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltics, Albania, Croatia, and Slovenia.  Most of these do not have much of a naval capability, and I am not sure how inter-operable many of these are yet since most of these are new-ish members.  Poland, which has been quite the burden-bearer in Afghanistan, can get a pass here.  Portugal is really the only country, other than Germany, that has some available capability that is not being deployed for this cause.

So, once again, Germany does not quite fit, even though there is evidence that the German people are bigger fans of this mission than their government.

More on Libya later today.

I Am a Bad Nationalist

No surprise really that I am a bad nationalist.  My post on Yoda and nationalism has gotten a couple of angry responses from the Anglophone nationalist community.  I apparently stumbled upon the angry hornet's nest of the anti-Bill 101 movement.  My first reaction to this is: have they not read other posts in my blog?  A quick search on Quebec or separatism or secession will show a multitude of posts where I am rather critical of Quebec separatism, that I am not pleased by efforts to extend Bill 101 rules to higher education (or day care) or to private school.

But such opposition to changes in the status quo are not sufficient for these folks: they want to roll back Bill 101 itself.  I understand their frustration and their desires, and  I agree with many of their views about Bill 101 and the notwithstanding clause.  Yet I am hardly sure that this would be the best thing for the Anglophone community in Quebec.  The passage of Bill 101 and its various implementations has meant that those who are concerned about the survival of French as a language and Quebec as a distinct society do not have to fight for independence.  Bill 101 was a defeat for the sovereigntist movement as it has taken much of the wind out of the sails.  Yes, the Bill has been harmful to the Anglophone community, especially the school system.  But I am pretty sure the status quo is better than being in an independent Quebec.  Without Bill 101, the 1995 referendum might have gone the other way.  A reversal of Bill 101 now would energize a movement that has been flailing along.

But nationalists do not consider tradeoffs--their way or the highway, more or less.  What would replace Bill 101? A stronger separatist movement.  Lovely.  So, I see their point, but wonder if pushing for rollback helps or hurts the cause of preventing Bill 101 from being applied beyond where it applies today.  Maybe their mobilization would be better aimed at issues where Francophones and Anglophones largely agree--like continuing to allow students to choose freely their CEGEP (the two year semi-junior college unique to Quebec).

I have often said that the separatists should give up their fight, since they have lost twice, and focus on improving the lives of those who live in a Quebec that remains in Canada.  The same is true for the Anglophones--they should focus on the same.  Fighting a lost battle that will not be won anytime in the foreseeable future is a waste of time and energy that could have been spent on something more productive.

But my willingness to cut my losses and be practical makes me a sucky nationalist.

Upon Further Review

The regular network TV seasons (setting aside HBO, AMC, etc) that is currently ending was excellent and bad.  The returning shows that I like mostly had very good seasons: Chuck, Big Bang Theory, the Mentalist, Parks and Rec, Community, Friday Night Lights (not done yet on NBC, long past tense via DirectTV).  The new shows were mostly bad and disappointing--especially the Cape and No Ordinary Family.  I stuck with the latter longer than the former, but it became quite clear that both were dead.  The only new show that I will miss is Chicago Code.  It was a fun, not so realistic take on Chicago politics and police stuff.  Not The Wire by any stretch, but entertaining. 

I have been following the upfronts--where the networks explain their decisions for next fall--via Alan Sepinwall, Dan Fienberg and Tim Goodman, my favorite TV critics.  I have no excitement about any of the shows slated for next fall, although a few look pretty good.  I am going to hold off for awhile on any judgment given how tragically off I was for this past year (not even going to link to my predictions at the beginning of last fall).

The best news is that the non-traditional networks have been pumping out heaps of great TV: Game of Thrones, Mad Men (last fall and not again until 2012), Waking Dead, Breaking Bad (currently catching up via late night broadcasts of the first two seasons--I love my DVR), The Killing (not as great as the others, but still interesting).  The increasingly big cost of living in Canada is that we don't get FX, so Justified is now on my Father's Day list.

Summer is coming (like the winter in Winterfel), but there is still plenty to watch.  Plus I hope to finish my Wire quest this summer along with catching up with Breaking Bad and perhaps starting on The Shield.

And, yes, I hope to finish a book and go to Australia.  I guess I will have to just cut back on the lawn maintenance effort.

Reality Provides Social Science Experiment

Is it Harper or is it about minority government?  That is the question of the day/week/month/year.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper was adamant that there would be no boots on the ground in Afghanistan after the Canadian mission in Kandahar ends in July.  Then, he came up with a new training mission that was to be Kabul but is now Kabul-centric since there were not enough slots in Kabul itself.  And now the allies are seeing the new majority government as being perhaps more willing to stick around in Kandahar.

So, we have a nice apples and apples or apples and oranges comparison since we have the same leader, the same foreign policy challenge and so on, and only one big difference--going from minority government to majority.  The Auerswald and Saideman book in progress (July as an end-date?) does focus on such things as the nature of the government, so on one hand, we expect that this might make a difference.  However, we also find in the book that minority governments are not as paralyzed as people would aver, as it really depends on who bears the onus of cooperating.  That is, does the government need to get some part of the opposition to cooperate?  In which case, the government is weak and restrictions are likely.  Yet if the opposing parties must cooperate among themselves, then the government may actually have a free hand.

Thus, it should make a difference if the government is majority or minority.  BUT our book has a second step in it--when individuals are empowered (as in Presidential systems and single party parliamentary governments), the personality of that individual matters.  Perhaps Harper himself is not a big fan of the combat mission, especially since his control freak-iness is constrained when it comes to the fighting.*  So, to have more control, he might be inclined to stay out of combat.

*  There are big risks if a leader does micro-manage a war effort--as he/she then becomes directly responsible for anything going wrong, and Afghanistan is a place where lots of things can and do go wrong--IED's, prison breaks, corruption, etc.

So, I am less sanguine about the chances of Canadians being sent to southern Afghanistan than the allies.  But as a social scientist, I am keen to see how the experiment plays out.

Left Wing Canadians Flee South to More Progressive U.S.

No headlines like that?  Really?  I got asked in 2002 and interviewed in 2004 about whether Americans would run north to escape the Bush Administration.  It is only fair to ponder whether the Canadians who fear an empowered Harper majority government might flee south. 

Why are American newspapers and radio stations not pondering such a wave of left-immigration?  I can think of two reasons:

• American media outlets simply do not care about Canada, so they have not noticed that a Harper majority government might be any different than the previous five or so years of a Harper minority government.
• Americans may be arrogant and narcissistic, but not quite as smug.  The whole "Americans are fleeing north" mythology flowed nicely from myths Canadians tell each other to feel better about themselves and about living where it is really cold. Just like the mythologies about health care.   

Anyhow, I just wanted to point out the absence of such a theme in the post-election coverage.  Of course, there is plenty of hysteria here that we do not need to consider any below the border. 

Is this post produced by the post-traumatic stress bitterness of being rammed by a school bus?  Maybe.

The Door is Over There

I took part in a panel on Peacebuilding yesterday at the Center for International Governance Innovation [CIGI], which was part of the larger Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting.  My panel was on Afghanistan, and it was most striking how most of the folks were already using the word "failure" to describe the mission.  I was uncomfortable with that, not because I am a wild-eyed optimist about the international effort to help Afghanistan become a semi-stable semi-self sustaining state, but because I am reluctant to call it a day quite yet. 


I have been arguing for a while that we have not really been doing "this" for nine or ten years, but that only in the past year or two have there been both enough troops and a relatively coherent strategy to do counter-insurgency.  Before that, the Canadians in Kandahar and the British and Danes in Helmand and the Dutch/Aussies in Uruzgan and the Americans all over the place were mostly "mowing the grass" or serving as fire brigades--clearing insurgents out of a spot but not enough of them to hold the territory.   The mantra of clear, hold, build was always problematic even before one factors in the Karzai government doing the building because there were not enough troops to do the holding.  Anyhow, with the Obama surge, there are now enough troops to be effective. 


So, the real test was not the violence last year but the violence this year.  Last year was more violent with the influx of troops, which produced more patrols, more contact, and thus more opportunities for violence.  This year, the expectation would be for less violence as the ISAF/Afghan National Army [ANA]would have more control over more territory (see Kalyvas for control and COIN).


Of course, the really big problem is that COIN and the surge are aimed at creating space for the politicians to do stuff to persuade the citizens that the government is deserving of their support--by providing services and improving their lives.  Or, at the very least, not being rapacious and exploitative.  We may be doomed to fail because our partners, Karzai and his pals, are so very flawed. 

Surprising Email Du Jour: Defence Dept Spreading Survey Results

I just got an email from Canada's military--a press release from Ipsos Reid on a survey of many countries about the Libya mission:

A majority (60%) of citizens from 23 countries support the actions of a number of countries that are part of NATO, and with the support of the Arab League, to enforce a no‐fly‐zone and intervene militarily in Libya.
Most likely to support this action is South Africa (83%), followed by Belgium (83%), Australia (77%), India (75%), France (72%), Sweden (71%), Canada (70%), Brazil (68%), Japan (68%), Spain (64%), South Korea (63%), Poland (62%), the United States (61%), Germany (59%), Great Britain (58%), Hungary (54%), Mexico (53%), and Italy (52%).
Of all the countries surveyed, those countries least likely to support the mission are: Russia (23%), Turkey (35%), Argentina (38%), Indonesia (46%) and Saudi Arabia (50%).

Not too many surprises really.  Thus far, the mission has had no casualties on the part of the interveners, Qaddafi has continued to provide good reasons for those who hate him to continue doing so, and so we can expect support to be pretty positive.  Given that NATO is dropping bombs on Muslims, the Saudi and Indonesian results are actually pretty positive.  Shows how much the Saudis hate Qaddafi.

The results also show that Merkl really blew it--the pacifist Germans to support the bombing campaign about as much as the trigger-happy cowboys (that would be the US and the Brits). 

It is funny that the Brits are the least enthused of the Commonwealth countries (South Africa, Australia, India, Canada).  That is surprising.  Any reactions from the readers?

Yoda on Nationalism

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Why is Yoda relevant this morning?  Because we are seeing a bit of a fear to hate to suffering spiral in Quebec.  

"Serge Provost, the leader of the Patriotic Militia of Quebec, is accused of making the threats against Hugo Shebbeare, an organizer of an anti-Bill 101 protest which was held on April 17 in Montreal."  source

Bill 101 is the law that guarantees the supremacy of French in Quebec in all kinds of ways, including government, business, education and so on. Shebbeare wanted to protest this law since it is, ahem, rather unfortunate for the Anglophone minority. 

Opposition/protest clearly does not justify death threats: '"I strongly advise you to tell your daughter you love her, and that you're doing this on her behalf, because you may not make it back home alive the night of April 17," said the message, which Shebbeare provided to CBC.'

This situation is a deviation from the non-violent, only mildly rude nationalist politics here in Quebec.  Neither guy here is all that representative of his community.  Most Anglophones do not like Bill 101, but have accepted it as a reality.  They don't want it expanded to cover the smallest businesses, federal offices (except for Jack Layton and the NDP), or higher education (neither do Francophones on this last point).  Francophones do not advocate violence against the Anglophone minority, except for the Patriotic Militia.

Still, the government is prosecuting Provost for issuing a death threat.  The importance here is that this thus far has been all talk.  But, as the wise Jedi Master suggests, fear and anger lead to hate and suffering.  I know that I post a lot of critical stuff about Quebec nationalism here, and will continue to do so.  But I will try to remember this ruckus and try to avoid the dark side of anger and hate.