Researching the Canadian Military: How Many REB's Do We Need?

 Yesterday, I participated at a roundtable consultation with the Social Sciences Research Review Board* [SSRRB], which is DND/CAF's equivalent of a research ethics board.  The meeting was partly to brief us (some profs researching the military, some research ethics board folks) and partly to get our feedback on how things are going and about potential reforms.

*  The SSRB process is essentially run out of the Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis.  And that was cool to learn since DGMPRA is a partner of the CDSN, with one of its staff, Irina Goldenberg, serving as one of our Co-Directors. 

I would say that this institution, like research ethics boards, are necessary evils for researchers, but they are not evil.  They can be inconvenient, but as one REB participant said, they create necessary friction.  Social science has a history of doing harm to its research subjects--with the most infamous ones being the Milgram experiments and the Stanford Prison experiments.  What is it about psychologists that cause them to be the exemplars for this stuff?  I don't know, but I do know that Carleton has separate REBs for psych versus other social sciences since the former needs more vigilance than the latter.

Part of the challenge of REBs and especially SSRRB is that we hear the horror stories, but do not have a good sense of how much they slow researchers down, how much of that is due to the researchers and how much of that is due to the review process.  I can give you one example that is most trivial that slowed my latest one down: the Carleton REB required me to change my various documents (the consent form I give to my research subjects, for example) to update the new Carleton logo.  Which is, to be clear, utter bullshit since an old logo or a new one has no implications for whether I would be creating risk for the research subjects if they consented to be a research subject (to agree to be interviewed).  But the change did not take me long.  

Anyhow, SSRRB does not have a website!  So, their ability to convey info is not great, so we can borrow from a organization (and CDSN partner) that interacts with SSRRB quite often: CIMVHR! CIMVHR is the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, and while much of their work is on health stuff, which goes to a different board, their members do a lot of social science stuff (more on that below).  So, the CIMVHR website provides much more help for SSRRB than, well, SSRRB does right now:

We encourage all applicants to review the Social Science Research Review Board (SSRRB) requirements before applying; For SSRRB inquiries contact: ssrrb-cerss@forces.gc.ca

So, our first recommendation was for them to get a website!

Anyhow, they explained the process, and it was most relevant as I just had a student face serious challenges.  To get SSRRB approval, one needs an internal sponsor within the CAF or DND.  What is most confusing about this is that it needs to be an L1 organization--which means the Army or the Navy or the Air Force or a command like CANSOF or CJOC.  Does that mean that it needs to be approved by THE L1?  The commander of the Navy, the chief of the army and so forth?  Um, depends on what you are asking?  If you are asking to survey a specific unit, one can perhaps work with someone at the LCol level rather than having the big boss sign off.  The SSRRB folks said that they could help folks find a sponsor, which my student didn't experience.

Why a sponsor and then why are other approvals needed?  The SSRRB folks said this was mostly to prevent survey fatigue and researchers getting in the way of operations, etc.  I did ask about whether this could serve as a veto in the research process since there is language in the documents (from Treasury Board) about the research being in the interests of the organization.  The SSRRB folks insisted this didn't happen, but it is hard to tell if that is the case.  

The big thing in play is that the Arbour Report had a recommendation (#46) specifically focused on this stuff.  Specifically, why should academics have to go through their university REBs and then do it again with SSRB?  They are working on three three options:

1. Allow for concurrent review with academics so that folks don't have to wait and if they get feedback from one system, they can then revise what is in the other.
2. Have SSRRB accept or waive the ethics stuff in their process if a researcher can provide them with a REB certificate from their home institution, and just work on the stuff that is DND/CAF-centric--security/operational issues, whether the research has already been done (lots of internal research that we don't have easy access to), or whether it gets in the way of operations.
3. Collaborative agreements whereby a university's REB and SSRRB agree perhaps to SSRRB essentially be one-stop shopping--that if one gets SSRRB approval, then the home university accepts that as a legit REB approval.  

The idea here for any reform is to make it easier/simpler/quicker for academics.  Grad students and junior faculty do not have a lot of time to go through multiple processes.  So, this is a work in progress, but it does look like things will get easier although perhaps not easy.  Getting a sponsor is not so easy and getting commanders to approve of research in their area of responsibility is tricky as well.  But eliminating duplicative REB processes would be a big improvement.

I mentioned social science above--one of the things that drives me crazy works in a positive way here: a narrow definition of what counts as social science.  In the minds of the SSRRB folks, as far as I can tell, there is a tendency to consider surveys as social science and may be focus group stuff, but not other stuff, which means that other stuff (which really is social science) does not fall into their domain.  So, one can do elite interviews (the stuff I do) since they are "consultations".  One can also do program eval, which don't count as research if worded correctly.  So, either one's REB or SSRRB can help frame a project so that going through SSRRB's approval process is not necessary.  On the other hand, having that stamp of approval is handy for getting commanders to allow pesky academics to have access to subordinates.

So, the big punchlines are: SSRRB may not be as much a gate keeper as folks think, and if they are gate keepers, they are willing to change due to the Arbour report to make things better.  Oh, and there are ways to dodge them.  I still worry about the parts of their procedures that give senior folks in the CAF the ability to veto research, but the practical reality is that one can't do a variety of research projects on the military if  the commander is hostile, whether or not there is a procedure that gives them a veto.

One last thing: DGMPRA have done a lot of studies on personnel issues, so if one is working on that, it is best to approach them and see if a related project may have produced data--they are willing to share data.  Tis what the collaborative agreements are for. 

 

Reactions to the Reactions

 My piece in the Globe and Mail has gotten a bit of traction and, yes, feedback.  It is a much more political piece than usual in that I don't usually target a party and its strategy in my op-eds.  Looking at my recent op-eds, the theme is mostly "hey, there's something wrong with Canadian civil-military relations."  Which means, yes, I can be critical of the Liberals.  Indeed, an op-ed two years ago in the same paper was focused on calling for the firing of the Liberal Defence Minister because he didn't seem to understand his role at all.  Anyhow, I thought I would go through some of the stuff I have seen on twitter, the comments section of the paper (yes, I dared to go there), and emails.

Folks point at the Liberals politicizing the military.  This has happened (although not where/when/how they think), and two wrongs don't make a right.  So, making retired LTG Andrew Leslie a very visible part of their campaign in 2015 was not good.  Appointing a former military officer to be Minister of National Defence was not good--indeed, he was truly awful, and, to repeat, I called for him to be fired, but Trudeau waited until after the next election to shuffle Sajjan to a less relevant/influential position (one that does not really have a ministry!). 

What these critics of me and of the Liberals get wrong is that "inclusiveness/diversity = politicizing."  Yep, I saw plenty of pics of the military at Pride events.  Is that the Liberals politicizing the military?  Not really.  It is the military itself noting that the next generation is much less rigid about sexuality, and so if the military wants to recruit younger people, it will need to demonstrate to them that the military is an inclusive environment.  Making inclusion a partisan thing is, well, a tell that fans of the Conservatives are hostile to the stance of a majority of Canadians--that one's sexuality should not be a barrier in any way.  

Some of these folks argue that the personnel crisis is due to "wokeness" in the military--but that is not backed up by the data.  We have no evidence that young folks are avoiding the military or older folks are leaving because there is an effort to make it a more inclusive place.  What we do know is that the excellent job market, the pandemic (which greatly interrupted recruiting), archaic recruiting practices, and a severe misconduct and abuse of power crisis (by the least woke generals/admirals) have challenged recruiting/retention.  Plus there is a generational change going on--40 years ago, a guy would join the military, and his wife would go with him wherever he was deployed because the women were expected to sacrifice their career.  Now, we have men and women joining the military who have partners who have jobs that are hard to move.  We still have a military that expects people to move every 2-3 years, but the reality of today (including rising housing costs) make that kind of career unattractive.  

One more thing on the inclusiveness thing: if some men are uncomfortable joining an organization that treats women better and that treats LGBTQ2S+ better, then it is better off that these men don't join or don't stay.

Other responses to my piece were focused on Liberal defence policy--being too slow to procure equipment for the military.  Sure.  Cutting spending?  Not yet.  The Liberals have spent more money on defence, just not enough to catch up to the 2% metric.  But the Conservatives were the last ones to cut the defence budget in a big way as Harper sought to balance the budget.  And, yes, the Liberals cut defence before Harper.  Defence spending is not politicizing, whether it goes up or down.

Which means I could have done more to define what is politicizing, but op-eds are not really the place for lots of definitions.  In this piece and generally, I am referring to making the military a partisan actor--by making folks think that the military prefers one party by platforming a guy who represents the old guard. 

Some say that Maisonneueve is retired and can say what he likes.  Absolutely, but my piece was aimed at the Conservatives for giving him a platform.  No one is entitled to a platform, and Maisonneueve likes to complain about being cancelled usually in op-eds he writes for the National Post--hardly cancelled.  The thing is folks will confuse what a retired general says for what the military thinks.  Which means he should have some caution, if he were a responsible individual, but, again, I was aiming at the party.

One last thing--I could have written all of this into the piece, but then the piece wouldn't have been picked up.  Only so much one can say in 700 words.  And, yes, no matter how much data one might throw at this, folks are going to believe what they want, like DEI forcing white men out of the CAF simply for being white men.  With such a personnel shortage, there really aren't quotas of any real kind in the CAF.  But people can believe what they want to believe.

Cutting the Cord: Social Media edition

 I have been reluctant to quit twitter despite all of the Musk-ness.  I have built up a pretty cool network of followers and followees over the past 14 years, and I didn't want to lose that.  Path dependence/sunk costs are a thing--as are network effects.  But Musk has made twitter a Nazi house party--this weekend's attacks on the Anti-Defamation League, cheered on by real life Nazis.  That Musk embraced anti-semitic conspiracy bullshit is not surprising given that he has already proven to be transphobic (at the expense of his kid), racist, and more.  All those hatreds tend to travel together, but Musk didn't have to platform and amplify them.  That was his choice, and since he has made Twitter not just a social media company, but his play thing, it was time for me to pull the ripcord.  Yes, I know that twitter has long been a hostile place to many groups, but I found my pieces of community there.  Now?  Oy.

So, what did I get out of twitter?  How about the classic listicle to ponder what we are losing?

• Friends.  Yep, real life friends from silly virtual interactions.  This is what has been most valuable and what I hope I can carry over to the alternatives.  Twitter fight club, for instance, did an amazing job of not only connecting me with tons of sharp national security folks--scholars, analysts, practitioners in DC and elsewhere--but helping to foster friendships, even with those that denied me a victory.  
• Icebreaking.  I was able to use the tenuous, virtual connections to meet people I would never have met.  While I started out mostly focusing on those most directly related to my research and other interests, I began to use twitter to meet the next generations of scholars and policy-makers and especially those from different backgrounds.  My feed got increasingly diverse over the years.
  
• Expertise.  All those connections gave me quick ways to catch up stuff around the world.  I am not only a deeply curious person, but I also need to know stuff that is going on for my classes and for engagement (more on that below).
• Research.  For me the civ-mil community has been so great on twitter--learning of ongoing projects, getting perspectives on the stuff, building panels for conferences, etc.  
  
• Engagement (that didn't take long).  I developed connections with and friendships with journalists in Canada, the US, and even occasionally elsewhere.  This made it easier to have productive conversations for stories they were working on, and I would occasionally get some handy info as well.
• ENGAGEMENT.  Not just journalists but folks in the policy world and in the public and in the political world.  So strange to have members of parliament and admirals and other folks follow my stuff.  I know that the public affairs folks at the Canadian Department of National Defence were following what I have been spewing on twitter.  Twitter has helped me bridge all kinds of gaps.
• CDSN.  The Canadian Defence and Security Network probably wouldn't exist without twitter.  It helped foster connections that led to partnerships and a credible "knowledge dissemination strategy" for sharing our work with the public and the policy world. We used twitter to try to get audiences for our events, to get folks to apply for our various opportunities, and so on.  Twitter's collapse is going to make a dent in our efforts, but we are lucky this is happening so deep into our run than if it had been year 1.
  
• Promotion
• Other: I have greatly enjoyed connecting folks to exciting work I have found.  I got more deliberate over time about promoting the work of junior folks.
  
• Self: twitter was always handy for promoting my own stuff.  Indeed, the fact that I started twitter about two months after I started blogging is no coincidence. I have used twitter to promote my research projects as they have bumped along, the products (hey, you want to find a good cheap book on NATO....?), the events I have been organizing, and all that.  One of the strange realizations over the past few years is that I have some influence in Canada via my ramblings online--twitter, blogging, the podcasts.  I don't get additional pay to be an influencer, but I get more media attention and govt attention because I am loud on social media. 
  
• Fun.  So much fun stuff. 
• I have met virtually some folks who featured bigly in pop culture--Henry Winkler and Morgan Fairchild to name the most obvious cases.  I have had conversations with my cooking muse Nigella Lawson.  Mark Hamill even liked one of my tweets.  
• I have found cool podcasts via twitter.  
• I have enjoyed the snark and the memes about all things--political and otherwise
• Twitter became a more hostile place over time, even before Musk, but there was always room for heaps of humor and silliness.
  
• Fixes.  I have complained about some companies which led to their responding to me and getting my problem fixed. Other times, folks have provided solicited and unsolicted advice that has been most helpful.  

 What am I going to do next?  Bluesky.  Same address--@smsaideman.bsky.social.  I have tried Mastodon and Post, but neither really took.  I am avoiding threads for now.  Bluesky seems to have much potential and feels kind of 2011 twitter.  Much snark, easy to use, not too much noise.  I hope to build networks there from those that I had developed over the years at twitter.  I will post announcements over at twitter since I had something like 19k followers over there.  But I am not going to visit that often, moving my app to off the front page of my phone.  I will check out mentions and such because ... FOMO and narcissism.  

I will also blog more--that instead of 12 threaded tweets, I just will jump over here and post something.  Like the olden days of June 2009.

What will you miss about twitter?

Thirty Years Fly By: Teaching IR

 This week is the 30th anniversary of my first day of teaching and of professing (although I think my first title did not include "professor" as a visiting ABD).  The first day of teaching was my best exemplar of being an absent-minded prof: I somehow forgot to bring the pile of syllabi to the first course of the day--Intro to IR... and then to my second course of the day, which was a different section of Intro to IR..... and then to my third course of the day---also Intro to IR.  This was long before folks had courseware, long before stuff was uploaded before classes started.  Profs brought paper versions of their syllabi (shorter then because of little required boilerplate) to the class. And I failed miserably in that basic task.  Have I said this before?  This is now a constant problem in my teaching (and in my blogging?)

I don't have any pics of my
early teaching so this will
have to do.

The good news is that I didn't fail as a teacher that first year.  As a last minute hire, I was lucky to get three sections of the same course, one that I had TA'ed for a few years earlier.  In my second year of grad school, at a school with a quarter system, I got to assist a terrific class, a bad class, and a class that was a bit of a mess as the prof was figuring out how to revise the class as the Cold War was ending.  So, I built that one course from the terrific class, borrowed a few tricks from the class that was a bit of a mix, and learned what to avoid by not doing what I saw in the bad class.

My aims my first year were modest: try to be clear and organized.  I had very extensive notes although I did not try to read off of them.  I spent much effort producing transparencies so that I could show the students the outlines of the lecture to keep both me and them on track.  I did not build in jokes or elaborate stunts to keep them away--the tricks developed later mostly to keep the 600 students awake and engaged at McGill.  At Vermont, I had roughly 30 students per class, did mostly lecture (much more my strength then and now, rather than leading discussion).  I am trying to remember if the classes had discussion sections... I remember not having TA's, and doing the grading myself.  Papers and exams although it has been forever since I have had in-class tests.  And it went well enough that they brought me back even after being ruled of that year's job search. 

I liked teaching quite a bit.  Sure, I am an attention hound, but talking about the stuff helped me understand it better, they asked good questions which made me think, they pushed my curiosity as I didn't always know the answers (I often did not the answers).  They were a lively, engaged bunch and I fed off of their energy.  It has been a long, long time since I taught three classes a day, but I was able to do it then by being an energy vampire.  It was really a terrific place to learn how to teach and how to manage my classes--I was a visitor whose career there was quickly to become finite, so I could focus on the teaching (no dept meetings for the visitors, no dept service either) and on the skiing.  It was also where I started to learn and theorize about department politics. 

It is kind of wild to think that particular batch of students of about 90 poli sci students are now around 50. I have not kept in touch with any of the students from that first year (although I did write a few recommendations for some of them shortly after their time with me) and only occasionally a few profs from that experience.  

Of course, I am celebrating my 30th anniversary of teaching my first classes by ... not teaching.  I am on sabbatical this year, so no teaching (except for the Summer Institute last month).  I hope to be refreshed next year, as I am entertaining the idea of teaching a new class (or an old class that I haven't taught in eight or nine years)

Looking back, I realize that I am very lucky to find something that works so well for my personality and for my excessive curiosity.  I don't enjoy grading, but hanging with the kids has kept me youngish, keep pushing me to think about stuff differently, and keep challenging me.  I have had to ditch my old cultural references, and I have to keep track of my stories better.  

I stayed in grad school in part because I could not imagine doing anything else, and, now?  My imagination still sucks, as I can't imagine anything that would have worked as well for me. 

 

The Perils of Politicization With Maple Syrup

 Last night, a friend informed me that my favorite retired Canadian military officer, Lt. General (ret) Michel Maisonneuve is going to speak at the Conservative Party of Canada's convention.  This gave me a case of deja vu, as the 2016 US campaign had dueling generals at the conventions--Michael (how many foreign payrolls am I on?) Flynn for Trump and the Republicans and John Allen for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.  I have been meaning to write about Michael Robinson's book, Dangerous Instrument, Politicial Polarization and US Civil-Military Relations, for some time,* but the CDSN Summer Institute and a mad dash to finish the Steve/Dave/Phil book got in the way, but this news has pushed Robinson's book to the front of my mind.

* One of my sabbatical goals is to catch up and write about the latest civ-mil work (and some older stuff).  Robinson's book was at the top of the pile.  Now I am working on Jason Dempsey's book about whether the US Army was "Conservative" or partisan in the early 2000s.

Robinson does an amazing job of taking a variety of surveys and survey experiments (where some respondents read or listen to one vignette/treatment and others get exposed to different ones to see what primes people) to assess a variety of dynamics surrounding the US military: what shapes people's views, what shapes their media consumption, what shapes media coverage, and ultimately what shapes the standing of the US military in the public.  Oh, and how thoroughly screwed the US military is.

The basic idea is that there are different ways to politicize a military.  The military can politicize itself by directly getting engaged in politics or by doing things that resonate beyond the military.  But the book is really a story of affective politicization--that how people see the military depends not just on what the military is doing, but what the other actors in the system are doing that makes it appear as if the military is becoming closer or farther politically.  This is all very important because most modern militaries in most democracies seek to be non-partisan institutions--that they were taught the key to both civilian control of the military and relative autonomy was to stay out of politics.  Indeed, because most militaries are not seen as partisan, they tend to have higher popularity ratings--that most other institutions are seen as belonging to one side or another and thus at least a chunk of the political spectrum is pissed off.  I have delighted in our CDSN surveys showing that only academic folks have higher trust ratings than the military.

In the US, there was an arms race between the Democrats and Republicans amassing endorsements from retired generals and admirals, as each sought to be seen as the party of national security.  This was bad for the military, as it may be that the public sees retired officers as the voices of the active service since the latter are largely restricting from speaking in a partisan fashion.  This culminated in Flynn chanting "Lock Her Up" at the 2016 convention, which is more than a smidge ironic or hypocritical given that Flynn was a far greater danger to releasing classified information than Clinton's email.  Anyhow, things got worse once Trump got into office as he kept referring to his generals, kept making partisan statements to and in front of the military (including announcing the Muslim ban at the Pentagon).

Robinson, in his book, shows that views towards the military have become increasingly partisan--that views of the military now go up and down depending on who is president--that Republicans, traditionally strong supporters of the military, are less enthusiastic when a Dem is president. The key dynamic driving much of this is confirmation bias (woot?)--that partisans will notice only that which agrees with their preconceptions and discount that which does not agree.  As Americans become increasingly partisan--with their identities tied to parties, this gets worse, especially for those who consume only from a very biased portion of the media (you know who).  

What I like about this book is that it uses a word I hate, polarization, quite well.  Polarization generally implies that all parties are spinning away from the center, when studies show that the GOP is becoming radicalized, but the Dems are mostly staying where they were, sliding a smidge to the left.  But what is abundantly true is that all sides are increasingly tied to their partisan id.  Robinson goes on to show that that consumption of Fox is not good, and so on.  And the military is utterly screwed because if they push back at, say, charges of wokeness, they only make things worse.  The results also show that despite all the talk of norms of civil-military relations, the public is not really aware of them, nor that concerned about them.  So, it is up to the politicians to refrain and for the military to ... hope (and hope is not a plan).  

So, it is a great book, with terrific social science, important implications for civil-military relations, and, yeah, we are kind of fucked.  

 And now it applies to Canada, damn it.  The Conservatives are bringing Mr. Cancelled to their convention, imitating the GOP, so he can rail against the Liberals and the wokeness of the Canadian Armed Forces.  The Liberals have dipped into this as they had Andrew Leslie, another retired LTG, in a prominent place when they ran in 2015.  The key difference is that they were just trying to use his credibility and stature to buttress their own, they were not using him to attack the military, nor did he speak out that much in any way that was particularly controversial.  Maisonneuve, on the other hand, used  his Vimy speech and then a regular spot at a national paper, to blast the Liberals, the woke media, the military for daring to make itself more inclusive, and pretty much anyone else he felt spurned by [I am still waiting for some media outlet to note that Maisonneuve was part of the military's abuse of power crisis].  

The Conservatives are embracing some of the GOP's efforts to mobilize populist resentment as they now apparently seek to tear down many Canadian institutions.  When I say this will endanger Canadian civil-military relations, I don't mean there will be a coup.  But it will mean that the public and politicians will view the military as a partisan actor, that appointments and decisions will be viewed through partisan lenses, and then the Canadian military will be fucked, because its efforts to defend itself as an inclusive institution, desperately needed during a personnel crisis, will be seen as partisan.  "Hey, we don't discriminate against x" will be seen by CPC partisans as being too woke. Which will make it harder to recruit and retain, deepening the spiral that may make it very hard to send a ship to the Pacific or sustain the commitment to Latvia.  In short, the Conservatives are starting a process that is going to be bad for the military, despite their bad faith assertions that they care more about the CAF than the Liberals do.  [No, Trudeau does not care much about the CAF, but the CPC does not either].

So, here's a song that goes with all of this.

Summer Institute 2023: This Is Why We CDSN

Did I just turn CDSN into a verb?  Sure, why not.  We had a tremendous week at our second in-person Summer Institute (see last year's summary here).  I am still jazzed after a week of informative presentations from our various speakers, of scheming by our participants in the simulation, of sharp insights from the participants who came from all over the Canadian defence and security community, and of amazing work behind the scenes by our CDSN team.  

Group pic after DND briefings

It starts with the participants.  The original idea that animated the grant in the first place was to bring together people from military, from the other parts of the government, and from academia (would love to have journalists as well) attend a week-long seminar/workshop/institute/whatever to learn from experts but as/more importantly, learn from each other by seeing the same stuff from different perspectives via the varying lenses of folks in the community. Plus we wanted to facilitate networking that bridge the various divides.  And, yeah, it was really sweet to see it come to fruition this week.  Last year's cohort was wonderful, but was not nearly as representative of the defence and security community.  We still have work to do to include folks from Public Safety, Global Affairs, and other departments.  

Our presenters included CDSN co-directors and other Canadian academics, folks from the policy community, CAF officers, American academics, journalists, and a pollster.  They brought much experience and insights to our discussions, provoking many questions along the way.  Most of the week was at Carleton, but we did foray into downtown one morning to meet with folks at the National Defence Headquarters.  There we meet with folks from defence intelligence, the deputy commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, and some of the top officials on the civilian side of the Department of National Defence.  With Chatham House rule in effect, I can't say what individuals said, but I can say that most of the folks we met along the way were quite open.  

The Valens Simulation ended in tears and dollars?  The scenario had disinformation and arctic sovereignty in play with three teams role-playing the US, Canada, and Meta.  Meta got huge profits as it continued to spew disinformation, while the US-Canadian relationship was torn asunder as they failed to reach an agreement.  Daveed Garenstein-Ross, the head of Valens, had to wake up early and re-write the ending presentation in light of unexpected conflict.  This sim had multiple purposes--to use some of the skills over the course of the week, to get a taste of the strengths and limitations of simulations, to provide a more interactive experience, and to create small cross-sectoral teams.

I am very grateful to the HQ team of Melissa, Sherry, Racheal, Carelove, and Ayshia for doing all of the hard work.  All I did was make cookies and introduce people and ask some pesky questions along the way.  Colonel Cathy Blue, who was our Visiting Defence Fellow for the past year, was so crucial.  Her first week with us last year was during the previous Summer Institute, so she gave us great feedback on what worked best and what did not, and then she helped plan this year's SI.  More importantly, she is an amazing recruiter, so she helped us reach our goal of a nice mix of policy, military, and academic folks.  She couldn't join us for this year's as she has an important job now of Commanding the cadets at the Royal Military College.  

If you are interested in the Summer Institute, we will be putting out ads and accepting applications in early 2024, and you can check out more info at our website: https://www.cdsn-rcds.com/summerinstitute 

Below are a variety of pictures from the week.  Again, Carelove took better ones, but I am quick to upload mine ;)

Once again in the Board of Governors room

Our policy process panel with Kristine Ennis-Heise
of DND, retired man of many jobs Vincent Rigby, and
CDSN Co-Director Alan Okros

Valens introduces the week's simulation with
Libby at their hq and Daveed Garenstein-Ross
in Ottawa

Murray Brewster, Amanda Connolly (on zoom), and
Captain (N) Kelly Williamson on the media and
Canadian defence

My first slide for the panel on Canadian
civil-military relations with Andrea Lane, Risa Brooks,
and myself

Co-director Will Greaves, Michel Roy of CSE,
and Saira Bano of Thompson Rivers
discussing variety of threats facing Canada

Stephanie Carvin zooming from Oshawa talking
intel with ...

Battle Rhythm co-host Artur Wilczynski

Much fun at our midweek Networking Reception

Charlotte and Andrea enjoying the picture taking

Our partner for this event was
Women in International Security-Canada. 
WIIS-C is a founding member of the CDSN, and
I greatly enjoyed hanging out with their new team

You know it is a good reception when a large
segment of the group stick around after the event
at the hotel bar.

Grace Scoppio of Royal Military College,
co-director Andrea Charron, and
Conseils de Sécurité host Sarah Myriam Martin-Brûlé
discuss collaborative research

Co-Director JC Boucher, Captain (N) Kelly
Williamson, and Nik Nanos of the Nanos Research firm
discuss Canadian public opinion on defence

Co-director Phil Lagassé looks to be in some
pain as he discusses defence procurement

Twas really great to have ADM (Mat) Troy Crosby
and the always natty Kim Nossal to discuss
defence procurement

Brandon Behlendorf presented red-teaming to us

Alliance dynamics with Carleton poli sci prof
Aaron Ettinger, DND NATO officer Ashley McCauley
and Co-Director Stéphane Roussel

The end of the simulation with US and Canada
breaking up and Meta profiting hugely.

Not All Change is Progressive, Canadian Defence Beat

 So, Anita Anand is out and Bill Blair is in as Minister of National Defence.  This is bad news for my civ-mil classes as Minister Anand zoomed into my class both times I taught the class while she was Minister of National Defence.  I think it is also bad news for Canadian civil-military relations, the Department of National Defence, and, yes, the Canadian Armed Forces.  Let me listicle my way through this:

• the file is not an easy one, and Anand has done a heap of homework and understands the stuff pretty well by this point.  While she has not been able to deliver a defence policy update on time, she has managed the file pretty well given the constraints imposed by the Prime Minister's Office, the world (hey, how about you spend much of your time working to help Ukraine), and resistance within the CAF and maybe within DND itself.  Blair will come in and have to learn from scratch.  Will he have the same determination to read everything (as Anand said on the BattleRhythm podcast)?
  
• Speaking of which, DND and CAF aren't very transparent, but Anand did do a fair amount of outreach, including appearing on our podcast. Will Blair?
• Beyond reading/speaking, Anand seemed more determined than most MND's to actually impose civilian control of the military, rather than just sign off on whatever the CAF wanted.  While this might have been tough for the CAF to swallow, the military had proved that it did not handle its autonomy well at all.  
• Which gets back to continuity.  How long does it take it to create new institutions, rules, and norms and have them bite--shape the incentives, outlooks, and then ultimately who leads?  Not sure what the magic number is, but I am guessing it is more than two years.  
• What of that defence policy update?  Will it be scrapped and started again with new leadership?  Will Blair just sign off on the previous work?  🤷.
• I have written repeatedly about the problems of having a former military officer serve in this spot--O'Connor/Sajjan here, Mattis/Austin in the US.  What about an ex-cop?  Lovely.  Not so lovely.  If there is an agency or entity that has a worse record of civilian control than the military, it is Global Affairs the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well as the other police forces in Canada.  As an ex-cop, Blair almost assuredly had an attitude that the cops knew better than the politicians and that they should have autonomy to avoid being politicized.  The problem, of course, is that all policing is political.  Is Blair likely to accede to whatever the military recommends, or is he going to, yes, engage in management and even micromanagement?  Gasp!  I am guessing the former.  While there are better leaders in the CAF now than a few years ago, decades of behavior and the dynamics in other countries have proven that giving militaries heaps of autonomy is not the way to go.  
• So, that is the substantial stuff, but there is also the symbolic.  No, I am not talking about swapping out a women of colour and putting in an old white guy (although, yeah, that might send some signals).  I am talking about removing a super-competent, engaged person and replacing them with someone who has little clout and has mismanaged his previous files.  The message this sends?  Trudeau doesn't care about defence now that it is not burning as much, so he is sending someone who should have been shuffled out of the cabinet to defence.  This is a damaging message to send to those who have been sticking it out in the CAF and DND, hoping for and fighting for change to happen.  Is Blair going to help or hurt with the personnel crisis?  Now that I think about it, that really would have been the first question I would be asking myself if I were PM.  Sure, few folks condition their votes on defence or foreign policy, but when making this decision, I would use that attitude to do what is necessary for Canada's national interests.  Given the primacy of the personnel crisis, that would shape the decision..... or not.

Maybe they need a sharp, detail-oriented person at Treasury Board.  Ok,  But Blair as Minister of National Defence?  

 

My Dream Defence Policy Update

 Since it is taking a lot longer for the Canadian Defence Policy Update to come out (I am using passive voice for a reason),* I figured I would present my ideal one.  This way, I can be properly disappointed when it does come out.  To be fair, I did pushback at media folks who were already doing the disappointment stories.  Who knows, maybe the DPU will provide what we need/want.  But to make that assessment, I thought providing an ideal baseline would useful.

Before I get started, first some caveats and other qualifiers.  I am not a defence economist, so I can't speak with any great certainty about dollar amounts.  I also can't assume that the government will have any clearly articulated grand strategy or foreign policy review.  My basic assumption going in is that as long as ships are not cancelled, none of this will move the needle in any direction domestically.  That is, the public wouldn't mind more spending on defence (the polls show they support it), but they won't give the incumbent party any votes for doing so either.  Yes, my dream defence policy update will require more spending, but what kind of dream would it be if I were too uptight about budgets?  A nightmare!

Ok, let's go:

• Personnel
• Specify the legislation that will be required to implement the key parts of the Arbour report (perhaps not every facet should be followed through--the Minister should have some judgment because Arbour is not perfect).
• Specify the legislation that will be needed to make a significant dent in the personnel crisis including making service in the CAF a fast pathway to citizenship.
• Allocate $$$ to address the crisis--better pay for all, retention bonuses for those who have excellent reviews, improving bases and providing better housing support, day care for kids, education/training/employment opportunities for trailing spouses.
• Develop a plan to require fewer moves over a military career including leveraging work from home for some jobs.
• Shift any jobs that don't require uniformed personnel over to DND (note: this is not sending these jobs to the private sector).  Anything that does not have physical requirement or a legal requirement to have a soldier/sailor/aviator should be civilianized including chief of personnel.
• Shift more jobs (if not entire bases) to be closer to major urban centers.
  
• Latvia/NATO
• Clarify that the Latvia mission is enduring, beyond a three year cruise, and detail how it will be sustained.  
• Clarify what the new money is going to and what additional funds will be required down the road. 
• Agree to be a framework nation at the MND-N level so that command rotates between us, Latvia, Danes.
  
• NORAD Modernization
• Be specific about what will be spent on what over the next 5-10 years including whatever new money there is.
• Indo-Pacific
• ¯\(°_o)/¯
  
• Domestic Emergency Operations
• Make clear it is not the last of many priorities, but co-equal with the highest, allocating money to improve the central HQ's coordination/lesson learning effort.
• Invest in domestic emergency-specific equipment--we don't need to have everything be useful for every possible mission.  
• Provide for leaves and other benefits similar to what the troops get after a foreign deployment for an extensive domestic emergency deployment.
  
• Procurement
• Set up a new procurement agency so that there is one shop, rather than multiple ones, responsible, with a new minister focused solely on this.  Take it out of DND and out of Public Works.
• More off the shelf type purchases like the P8, Javelins, Stingers, etc.
  
• Improve Civilian Control of the Military
• Include in culture change plans/conversations discussion of changing perceptions of civilian control of the CAF.
• Provide better training for new DND civil servants (at the entry level and for those who get moved over from other departments) so that they have a better understanding of the CAF and of military stuff.  One of the sources of tension is the attitude among military folks that the civilian folks don't know military stuff.
• Review and improve civ-mil components at all of the professional military education spots (including the systematic debunking of Huntington).
  
• Reverse the pattern of senior leadership at key L1s--for example, have a civilian chief of defense intelligence with a military advisor.  Sorry, Mike.
• Make specific commitments for improved transparency. 
  
• Future reviews: 
• Commit to four year cycle so that DND develops the muscles to be reviewing, assessing progress, being transparent about progress, consulting, etc.  This review has been much delayed for many reasons, creating frustration and problematic expectations.  Our allies do regular reviews for a reason.
• Academic engagement (i.e. super specific, self-centered stuff)
• Revise the length of MINDS Network Grants from 3 to 5 years and include a renewal process so that existing networks can use past performance to justify renewed funding.
  

Note: I am not dreaming of getting to two percent of GDP on defence.  However, I think this defence review should show how the military is spending more money for the things it needs to do, which will have the effect of getting Canada closer to 2%.  If we are a smidge below 2%, the griping at NATO will be less energetic.  But the focus needs to be on outputs and outcomes--that we can keep our promises to do various things (Indo-Pacific, Latvia, etc) at the level of quality we want--rather than inputs.

I will probably revise this as folks give me ideas of things I forgot.  But that is how reviews and updates are supposed to go--being resistant to moving the goal posts is problematic when winning on the battlefield requires adaptation.  

So, what did I miss?  What dreams should I include?

* A friend of mine and I were thinking of wagering on it, but she didn't like my over/under proposition, and I didn't like picking a specific week. 

Vilnius Summit Review: More Woots Than Not

 Summit success is often a matter of expectations, and, of course, depends on where you sit.  For Ukraine, this may not have been as successful as it would want since they didn't get a fast track into NATO.  But that was an unrealistic expectation.  I didn't expect Turkey to stop blocking Sweden's membership, so my expectations were exceeded and thus huge success.  But the summit is more than just one or two decisions, so I am going to review much of the communique and then the Canadian announcements to figure out how many woots does this summit get.  Of course, since my pals and I didn't get a chance to go to the expert forum side party this year, there is a cap on the excitement--no NATO family dance party for us.

First, as mentioned above, Ukraine didn't get a superfast track to membership, as having Ukraine join while the war is going on would either mean that NATO invokes Article V--an attack has happened against a member and deserves a collective response--or it does not.  In the former case, NATO is now at war with Russia, something that the alliance has rightly been avoiding.  In the latter case, Article V gets eroded as it is not used when a member is attacked in a very serious way.  This is not just a few loose bombs or artillery shells like when forces in Syria hit Turkey.  The question really is how soon after the war would Ukraine become a member, and the answer this time was: very soon.  But it was not more definitive because the alliance requires consensus, and that is all that they could agree to.  I pushed back on twitter about cowardice or manliness.  NATO being at peace while Ukraine has been at war is not great for Ukraine, but the fact that Russia is not hitting the supplies going into Ukraine before they get there is hugely significant.  Expanding the war is not good for most folks, and the risk of nuclear war, which is small but real, is not great even for Ukrainians.  

Second, Sweden is an unalloyed win for the alliance.  It makes defense of the Baltics easier since Sweden sits astride the best ways to reinforce the Baltics in a time of war.  It also means that countries leading the NATO missions in the Baltics, looking for more troops to plus up their battlegroups into brigades (going from 1k to at least 3k) have a robust potential donor to beg (force generation is begging in the words of a NATO military official we cited in our book with the ebook version on sale now!).  It is also a massive defeat for Russia, as Putin has long wanted to break NATO, but finds his aggressions in Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022 have only strengthened and expanded the alliance.  Finland and Sweden would not have asked to join had Russia stayed within its boundaries.  

Ok, onto the communique, which represents a lot of homework and bargaining over the past year, with the summit serving as an artificial deadline to get folks to agree, kind of like an academic conference is designed really to get profs to finally finish their papers:

• the formation of the NATO-Ukraine Council. This supplants the old NATO-Russia Council which died due to Russia's aggression.  This gives Ukraine much visibility and status and allows the Ukrainians to participate meaningfully in many NATO conversations.  It ain't membership, but it is significant.
• Finland is now a member, woot!
• China as a threat--this requires work as some countries (France) want to keep sucking up to China.
• Lots of stuff on Russia, not recognizing Crimea as Russian, etc.  Naming Belarus and Iran as complicit (although not China).  The language on Russia can't be a partner for now is probably the closest we can get to declaring the NATO Russia Founding Act dead.
  
• Lots of stuff about supporting Ukraine, that no need to continue with the Membership Action Plan, which means Ukraine is closer to membership and is increasingly integrated.
• Some more language about ISIS and terrorism.
• 2% gets the usual shoutout--making progress but now we recognize that 2% isn't enough.  
• More forward defense with regional defense plans, more troops at high readiness, moving from battlegroups to brigades in the east as promised last year.
• Defence Production Action plan--to improve delivery of weapons/ammunition
• Integrated Air and Missile Defense with emphasis on eastern flank--this represents a response to the roles played by drones and missile attacks in Ukraine.
• Continued opposition to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons since nukes are part of NATO's deterrent strategy.  Not a surprise.
• No Japan office for NATO since France opposed it.  Consensus decision-making can suck... like how do we dump Hungary?
• The standing up of a Maritime Center for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure.  This seems in response to Russia primarily monkeying around with cables.
• Cyber got the longest paragraph, I think, with a new Virtual Cyber Incident Support Capability to help members respond to cyber attacks.
• Western Balkans get several items--75-78--as tensions are brewing there.  Supporting Bosnia's integrity is directly aimed against Bosnian Serb separatism, KFOR continues to operate and has increased its troop numbers due to violence in the Serb-inhabited areas.  A reference there to conditions based not calendar driven brings me back to my Joint Staff days concern whether exit/reductions are determined by benchmarks (conditions) or milestones (time).  

There was more, but that is the stuff that caught my eye.  So, much progress on some of the most important things, hard time getting consensus on NATO becoming relevant in the Pacific despite clearer language about the threat posed by China.  

What about Canada?  I got asked lots of questions about 2%, and I didn't see anyone put Trudeau in a headlock for not making sufficient progress towards 2%.  Nor did I see Canada making a huge stink about Biden's sending of cluster munitions to Ukraine (a post for another day maybe).  Canada did take part in several announcements--a blueprint for Latvia's defense, a NATO plan for defending the Baltics, and the like.  Trudeau announced sending up to 2,200 Canadian troops to Latvia which is up from the original 450 or so and then 800-1000 that it has been at since last year.  He announced $2.6b in spending on the Latvia mission over the next three years including $1.2b.  I don't know if this is enough to cover the additional costs of sending the larger numbers of troops who have to be rotated every six months, the costs of more infrastructure (barracks, dining hall, training facilities, etc) for not just the more Canadians but the more NATO folks, etc.  

Remember, Canada is the Framework Nation for Latvia, which means it is Canada's responsibility to lead the multinational battlegroup that is now becoming a multinational brigade.  That means providing some infrastructure for those who Canada cajoles to stick around (Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and North Macedonia) and maybe join us (Denmark, Finland, Sweden) to get to 3000+ troops.  Given that there are now eight places for NATO to send troops--the three Baltics, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania--so competition will be fierce to get more troops from some of these countries.  So, Canada has to make the place welcoming and a good training area--which means plenty of ammunition and other logistical support so they can exercise often. 

And no Defence Policy Update.  Which is a disappointment--it is very late.  When will be the next time where announcing it will be handy for the government?  Maybe when parliament is back in session?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, I think Canada did the minimum to keep the criticism down, but perhaps didn't really do enough to set up the Latvia mission for success.  I don't think getting to 2% quickly is a realistic expectation, but the government could have made it a bit clearer that Canada would be moving in that general direction.  That there have been a heap of commitments made, that the personnel crisis itself needs much money thrown at it, so defence spending should be going up, even if it is not going to increase by 50%.

Overall, the summit went well, the big things happened, the smaller things mostly worked out.  Putin's efforts to divide the alliance keep failing, the media's efforts to set unrealistic expectations and Zelensky's first outburst did not really upset things much.  I am sure many observers would prefer Trump running around, pushing over the leaders of smaller countries.  It would be more entertaining.  But we got enough progress on enough items.  Is it fast enough?  Not for Ukraine.  But a consensus-based organization is not going to move that quickly.  That NATO will soon have something like 30,000 troops forward deployed is pretty amazing.  And definitely not what Putin wants.  

Destiny's Name is Adventure

 Mrs. Spew and I saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last night, so tis time to re-rank the Indy movies.  My old post set the terms, so I am just going to consider where the new movie stands in the various categories.  To be clear, Raiders was and remains my very favorite movie of all time. So, its ranking ain't changing.  But I do have a question: when did they Star Wars: a New Hope Raiders so that it is now called Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Sabbatical Plans? We Don't Need No Plans!

 Ok, maybe we do.  Seven years ago, I posted my plans for that sabbatical, my second one. Before discussing my plans for this year (July to June), let me check out how I did last time.

1. Make progress on the legislatures and civ-mil book with Phil and Dave.  Well, I did do a heap of research on that book, going to Japan three times!  The other trips happened later due to impeachments in Brazil and then South Korea.  which should have been finished by now.  We did manage to publish a bunch of articles: on Canada, hCommunity Policing as a metaphor for Belgium/NZ, and the entire set of cases.  But the book itself is not yet complete--we hope to finish it off in the next month or two.  Publishers are interested in it, so we just need to revise to make the entire team-written thing sound like one person wrote it.  
2. Smaller projects although not policy relevance piece nor the bureaucratic politics piece (more on that below). Instead, I finally published the testing the hypotheses about professionalization piece.
3. Apply for the partnership grant.  Yep, it took two tries, but we got it.  It has dominated my destiny ever since.  I have no regrets as CDSN-ing has not only helped fulfill the various objectives we had set out (foster a more diverse/inclusive/equitable next generation, become a world-class network that folks outside of Canada will connect with, advance our understanding of defence and security issues, improve the defence/security literacy of Canadians, foster research projects across the various divides, etc), but has been so personally rewarding--I have learned a lot, developed new skills (management?), traveled to cool places, and engaged with so many folks in and out of government.  
4. Read?  Not as much as I would like.

So, what am I going to do with this sabbatical?  

1. 
   With the legislature book project winding down, I am hoping to make progress on the Steve, Phil, and Ora project: comparing defence agencies around the world.  What roles do ministries and departments of defense see for themselves?  How are they viewed by the militaries they interact with?  This project will merge with the aforementioned bureaucracies project--what is the nature of each democracy's policy marketplace?
1.  Mostly the same cases as before but with new ones.  I don't know exactly where I am going to be during this sabbatical, as a couple of fellowship applications didn't work out, one got deferred, and I applied for two more after the initial results came in.  The joy of comparing 15 plus countries means I can go pretty much anywhere.  This fall, I am probably headed for shorter trips to South Korea and Denmark, but that could change.
2. I do plan to spend much of the winter somewhere, with the contenders right now being Rome, Berlin, and Taipei. 
   
2. I plan to do a better job of keeping my promise re smaller projects.
1. There is the aforementioned policy relevance piece that will have new data soon.
2. There are a few surveys of the Canadian public I am working on with JC Boucher, and we hope to push out those results this year.
3. Start the work to organize a workshop on the uses and abuses, pro's and con's of using principal-agent theory in Canadian defence/security stuff.
   
4. A few other things that are on the edges of my attention right now.
3. CDSN-ing!  We have a variety of new and continuing stuff to execute--the Summer Institute, the Year Ahead, the Capstone, the various other opportunities plus a Meeting of the MINDS workshop for the leaders, project directors, and students associated with the nine MINDS networks.  Oh, and I will start prepping the next big grant application to keep us going beyond the first seven years.
4. 
   Read!  This time, I mean it.  I have a stack of great civ-mil books that I want to catch up on.  I am going to try to set aside one day each week just for reading.  Let's see if that is a pie crust promise!

Sabbaticals are perhaps the coolest thing in academia--a year to reset, refresh, travel, complete old projects, start new ones.  It is not a year off, as we tend to pile on a lot of work into these years--just not service and teaching (especially grading).  I will still supervise the PhD students I committed to, the MA students who have projects underway, and the CDSN-related service.  But I will not be attending department meetings or retreats, and I will not be serving on any committees.  Woot!

It is my penultimate sabbatical unless I want to work an extra five years to get a year of sabbatical.  This is the one for all the marbles, as the next one will probably be a teaching gig someplace that I want to live for a little while.   No pressure!

Last Thoughts on a Great Trip: Lessons from the Narrow Roads of Spain

We had a great time in Spain, as my general observations of each place we visited indicated, but I thought I could provide some general lessons across the entire trip.  Most of our tactics and strategies worked out quite well.  

1. 

   The Valencia hotel was
   just a couple of miles
   from the beach and was
   just beautiful.
   

   We treated southern Spain like a tapas restaurant--we tried out a lot of places rather than have one big helping except for Barcelona and maybe Madrid.  And it was great.  We could have spent more time in a few of the places, but each of the cities and towns we visited were so different, each had much to offer.  Would we take the train next time to avoid the awkward few spots of driving? I am not so sure--we tend to pack heavy and dragging bags onto and off of trains every day may have defeated us.
   
2. 
   We relied mostly on Expedia for arranging hotel rooms.  I focused on air-conditioned rooms mostly in or near the old quarters that got a rating at Ex of 9 or better.  This worked out really well--none of the hotels were disappointing, all were clean, well located, and staffed with very helpful people. There were no quarrels or confusions about the the arrangements, although we had to contact a few places ahead of time, as Ex told us, to confirm parking spots.  We even chatted online with Ex help to have them contact one place since I could never figure out how to make calls.
3. The one mistake may have been to stay too close to the city center in Toledo and Granada as that led to, um, narrow driving lanes and more stress than I needed.  
   
   
4. We relied mostly on our guide book to give us ideas of places to eat, but then mostly used google map's ratings, sticking to 4's or better and mostly finding 4.5's.  And, yes, there seemed to be a real different between a 4.3 and a 4.7.  Crowdsourcing works even if I am a collective action shirker by not rating places myself. Google maps was also good for finding out which guidebook-recommended restaurants were permanently closed and for getting the hours right for each place.
   
5. We tended to order too much food as the tapas experience means so many tasty options.  But, on the other hand, it allowed to
   sample more widely, so I am not sure how much I would dial it down.
6. 
   I would distrust the walking directions a bit more next time in terms of distances--things were often much further than I had thought, punishing Mrs. Spew as she tried to keep up.  Likewise, four museums in a day was probably one too much.  We did do just one army museum and one navy museum, as my wife was less interested in that stuff and more interested in gardens. Both of the military museums were interesting for as much as they omitted as they showed us.  The Army museum in Toledo was undergoing some renovations, so we did not get much history of the 1900s.  The Navy Museum underplayed 1588.  And both did not cover the civil war much at all.  I really should have looked more aggressively for Spanish Civil War museums as I was most curious and most ignorant despite reading a certain dissertation a while back.  
7. 
   We definitely hit our fill of cathedrals.  We were glad to hit the less central one in Toledo that had amazing views from the tower, and those originally built by Muslims were quite special.  
8. We probably could have hit more markets for lunches.
9. Torrejas were an important discovery.
   
   
10. Getting rooms near city centers may have made parking hard, but made siestas easy.  And they were key.  
11. Maybe go sometime that is not late June?
12. Given that it was late June/July, we should have committed to a day at a beach somewhere--that was dumb.
13. Oh, and I should tried asking for Sangria Blanco earlier.
    
    

Overall, we had a great time, we ate well, learned a lot, saw some spectacular art and architecture and landscapes, met some really nice people, and had a heap of fun.