Blame Canadian Forces?

I am feeling a bit of deja vu.  Over the past few years, the conventional wisdom in Canada has placed the responsibility for the decision to deploy to Kandahar upon the Canadian Forces who somehow fooled the civilians.  Now, folks are blaming the CF for the F-35 purchase.  It is almost as if there is no civilian control over the Canadian military.

Now, I have argued that there is no parliamentary oversight over the CF since the parliamentarians do not have security clearances.  But civilian control?  Yes.  Paul Martin, the Prime Minister decided to send the troops to Kandahar because it fit within his anti-Chretien vision of using the military as a way to increase Canadian influence.  Instead of sending Canadian troops to 40 different spots where none of the deployments have much of an impact, Martin agreed with General Hillier, indeed picked him, that the Canadians should deploy in a way that gave them influence not just over the troops themselves but over the larger effort. Oh, by the way, the Foreign Affairs types were also big fans of going to Kandahar (CIDA not so much), but have successfully allowed the CF to take the hits for the decision. 

The F-35 decision has heaps of problems, but Canada is not alone in this, just like Canada was not alone in Afghanistan.  In each case, Canada acted quite similarly to its allies: all NATO countries showed up in Afghanistan to varying degrees.  Many NATO members and NATO partners chose the F-35.  So before we delve too deeply into the pernicious influence of a military, we might want to ponder why a bunch of countries acted similarly.

The idea was a good one: more countries buying the same plane would make each plane less expensive via economies of scale and foster interoperability.  Kosovo revealed the challenges of fighting a coalition air campaign with mixed set of capabilities.  Libya reminds that coalition air campaigns can still happen.  The problem is that the F-35 is the typical US military project: undertested, compromised (limited range), and, most importantly, increasingly expensive.

I saw a tweet that said the Pentagon was going to release the final cost estimate, and my immediate reaction was thinking of George Lucas saying he was done tinkering with the Star Wars movies.  My second thought was to notice estimate in the tweet.  Costs are going up, countries' fiscal pictures are not improving, so the F-35 is a problem.  Not just for the Conservatives or Canada but for all of the potential purchasers.

So, did the CF compel the civvies into buying this plane?  No, although they probably pushed only this plane as they seek interoperability.  BUT the civilians make the decisions in Canada, and so they need to suck it up and take responsibility.  Sure, militaries ask for the best, most expensive hunk of equipment because nothing is too good for the pilots, sailors and soldiers.  But it is up to the civilians in charge to face the tradeoffs.  

And the key tradeoff of the day is: what is necessary for alliance warfare vs what countries can afford.  The Conservatives could have been clearer earlier, but that is not their style.

Unintended Xenophilia

One of the first things one realizes when one gets a job in Quebec is that you have to go through two immigration processes: Quebec's and then Canada's.  Quebec has a system that gives points for a variety of things including fluency in French.  Once you make it through the Quebec process, Canada can only say no (as far as I can tell) to you if either you have a criminal past (the CA process includes fingerprints* processed by your home country's police--the FBI in the US case) or if your medical check is problematic (less about contagion and more about expensive health care risk for public insurance system).

* Fun part of the process: one of the local agencies permitted to do the fingerprinting only took cash.  That is, it was essentially hiding income despite being responsible for doing something that was supposed to be about preventing crime and fostering security.  We ended up walking a few blocks to a cash machine since we had not expected tax evasion by such a business.  Ah, we were so naive back then.  

So, if you do not qualify to get into Canada through the normal system, you can take advantage of asymmetric federalism by going through the Quebec process. Apparently, the system is weighted enough that Chinese folks can get in if they master French.  Which means that there are now full classes in China.

This is kind of entertaining to me because the intent behind the Quebec immigration process (having a separate process and focusing on French as a key qualifier) was quite nationalist, of course, but it is now leading to immigration by people who are as far from "pure laine" as one can imagine.  This is not really news, as Quebec has seen a significant wave of immigration from the Middle East, Africa, Haiti and Vietnam--wherever France had colonies.  This is great for the cuisine, but I am not sure these folks will be voting for separation once they become citizens. And, of course, this has created problems given that Quebec nationalism has multiple threads, with some parts of it related to language but other parts focused more on xenophobia. 

The challenge Quebec faces is a declining population unless there is enough immigration, but even French-educated immigrants are not likely to be super-friendly to the nationalist cause.  Plus they will be the targets of nationalists who focus more on the color of their skin or the accent with which they speak French, rather than welcomed as part of the French-speaking community.  Which makes me wonder whether the recent Halal "crisis" was reported back in China and what the potential immigrants might think of it.

Under Review: Refereeing Articles

I have been asked by some folks to spew about reviewing--not when to say yes or no; not rules for reviewing--but what are one's standards?  Do one's standards depend on the journal?  Yes.

In reviewing stuff, there are standards that are general and those that are specific or varying.

For every journal article, I expect to varying degrees:

• a relatively clear argument,
• organized logically,
• situated within existing knowledge. That is, the author(s) has read and understood the relevant literature by using the existing works to define the question, to explain how the question has been answered, why those answers are insufficient.
• For me, endless lit reviews are not desirable.  The lit review does not even have to be caleld a lit review.  It does not have to be complete, but it does have to be sufficient.  It does not have to cite everything written on a topic, but it should cite the stuff that a reasonable scholar in a similar position would be aware of that speaks directly to the piece.
• One should not demand an author cite one's own work--that is worse than cheesy.  On the other hand, if you have written the definitive work on topic x, and the person is clearly addressing topic x in a way that needs to be aware of your work, then tell the editors.
• One should never expect an author to have read something that is not in press.  Just because you have a friend or network that has made you aware of a forthcoming book or a wonderful working paper, it is not reasonable to expect unpublished work to be well known.  Unless it is an old unpublished work that has been cited previous and often.
• explains the method.  This is where qualitative work (which is mostly what I do) needs to learn from quant--be explicit about assumptions, choices, etc.  Not all quantitative work is that clear either, but there is a greater expectation on those folks.
• presents the research in ways that relate to the argument.  
• discusses some of the findings.  Just the most relevant stuff.  Not statistical result or quirk of the case study needs heaps of elaboration.
• concludes by tying things together and suggesting implications and broader relevance.

 What is more specific from journal to journal?  Two things: the scope of the journal and how much of a contribution the piece makes.  If a journal is focused on security issues, but the article is focused on stuff that is about security, well, I should not have been reading it.  It should have been a desk reject.  Scope rarely comes into play.  But contribution really is the key.  How much of a contribution is the piece?  Is the contribution significant enough to warrant interest beyond those interested in that exact question?  The wider the perceived significance, the more visible/selective the journal it should be in.  If I read a piece submitted for a major journal, and the contribution is slight, I will be more likely to reject it.  If I read a piece for a more specialized journal, I will expect a different kind of contribution--less about theories that should travel to other domains and more about improving our understanding of a specific causal mechanism or a specific case.

To be honest, most of the reviews I do hinge much more so on the general criteria--is this a good piece of research and less on the question of contribution.

I am sure I am overlooking stuff, and I will be more self-conscious the next time I review a piece.  Which is tomorrow since I am late with one.  Oy.

Twitter-gedon Approaches

Tomorrow is my first (and perhaps only) day of competition in Twitter Fight Club.  As I mentioned before, #tfc12 is a competition among folks who tweet on national security issues.  So, despite a class to teach, some re-grading to do, and other obligations (plus commuting), I plan to be on twitter as much as usual (which is way too much), offering wild speculation, ill-informed opinions, snark, and unsolicited or barely solicited academic advice.  Oh, and thinking of how Harry Potter would win this competition but only after the death of nearly everyone who helps him.

The voting will open at 9am and will be found linked to this page.  Vote for me early and often.  Oh, and check out the folks who are involved--lots of top notch folks who are most interesting to follow on twitter.  I have learned heaps even in the past few days as I have followed people I did not know before.

Covering a Massacre

At the CIC, I posted on understanding the media's focus on the killer in the Panjwai spree and not the victims.  I am more frustrated that Lynndie England, the Abu Ghraib war criminal, is getting media coverage out of this.  Perhaps America should not permit second acts for such folks.  Not to abridge their right to free speech but perhaps an expectation that the media not reward criminals with no insight with more platforms.

Law School Update

I have spewed before about the outlook for law students these days--that their market sucks and that the training is expensive (and certainly mostly boring).  Well, turns out aspirants figured it out for themselves:


Fewer folks are applying to law school.   I guess it peaked during the recession as a way to avoid the job market, but the reality may have sunk in that law school is no guarantee of anything besides more debt.

Anyhow, I am now curious about GRE trends to see if the same trend is happening for aspiring grad students.  I think not.

Enjoying Spring?

This has been my first real spring in Canada in my ten years here: a March where the snow is mostly gone, where I can walk around in the afternoon with just a light jacket or none at all.  Terrific, except for this:



H/T to Sara M, who linked to this.

Oh, and this is the first year in my ten years in Canada where I skied not at all.  Mostly ice and rock for much of the season, and I was sick the one good weekend of the year.  Too bad, as moving to Ottawa will mean far longer distances to the Eastern Townships areas.  I didn't have a chance this year to say goodbye to Owl's Head, Orford or Mont Sutton.  Oh well, at least I don't have to scrape ice off my car that much this month (and rarely after we move--the new house has two car garage and Carleton has parking garages!).  Oh, yes, my driving is not going to slow down climate change at all in Ottawa, but I will be fuming less about bad Mtl mass transport, so there might be a tradeoff.

Spew Knows Pew

I love this outcome in today's Montreal Gazette:


The key is not taking "non" for an answer.