Canada has a built in FOMO syndrome with which I sympathize greatly. Indeed, I have internalized this so when somebody says transatlantic and only refers to the US regarding this side of the Atlantic, I take umbrage. In the latest alliance/coalition news, Canada is not being asked to join a new European effort to form a coalition fleet to protect shipping near Iran. And I say: phew.
Why? Because I don't want Canada to get stuck in any escalation of conflict with Iran. This entire dispute is unnecessary. Iran signed the JCPOA, a deal that stopped its quest for nuclear weapons (we can argue about whether the deal was perfect or not, but it went a long way towards the most important goals), and then Trump, upset that Obama's name was attached, pissed it away. Which has led to increased tensions with a drone getting shot down, with tankers being seized. A war with Iran wouldn't quite make the Iraq war appear smart by comparison, but, yes, a war with Iran would be dumber than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Canada was smart and lucky to duck out of that particular conflict. It would be smart and might require luck to duck out of another Mideast war. I opposed the 2003 war in part because I thought the Rummy team would screw things up (and they did). Can you imagine a Trump team running a major war? Just thinking of that makes me queasy.
Anyway, the entire point of coalitions of the willing is to include folks who are willing and leave out those who are not. I said on twitter that if this were a NATO fleet, then, yes, Canada should join as the alliance brings both obligations that Canada should respect and restraints that might limit the US a bit. A coalition of the willing imposes no obligations on Canada and restrains no one (see the works by Patricia Weitsman and Sarah Kreps for more on coalitions vs alliances).
One of the questions we asked during the week in Israel was where Israel stood on this stuff and why. We kept finding folks there arguing that American bombing of Iran was preferable to the deal. That bombing would not do much but kick the can down the road a couple of years as it could not erase Iran's nuclear program. That this was better than a ten year delay in Iran's program (which was giving them more credit since the JCPOA is more than a ten year delay). Why? Something about making the Iranians hurt, I guess, which might deter further nuclear ambitions? I found these arguments utterly uncompelling.
Iran remains a challenging country because it is more than just a nuclear program, it is also a sponsor of very serious, very dangerous proxies. One cause for turbulence in detente with the Soviet Union was the expectation that arms control would tie the USSR's hands on many other issues, when all it did was restrain the arms race. Asking for a deal that staves off Iran's development of nuclear weapons to do more than that shows a lack of learning and unrealistic expectations.
Canada is smart not to get sucked into this. This is one thing Canada should not fear of missing.
I agree with your general sentiment here but I wonder how this squares with a more comprehensive, strategic view of Canada's national security needs and especially our security relationship with the U.S. On July 23rd you made some interesting comments on Twitter that seemed resigned to the idea of Canada choosing the U.S. F-35 as our next fighter, saying:
ReplyDelete"Canada is buying one plane for [the] next 40 years. If it can't strike well, then it can't play well in allied ops. Guess how predecessor has been used in past 30 years: coalition strike ops."
This perspective is sound if we assume a Canadian defensive strategy over the next forty years which continues to be prepared to participate in allied expeditionary strike missions. If that's a "given" and makes sense for Canada, then why shouldn't we join this "coalition of the willing" mission of our allies in the Gulf?
Perhaps it would make better sense for Canada to reconsider these strategic assumptions and instead to develop a new strategy focused primarily on integrated North American defence in conjunction with our 363-kg ally to the south? It's not clear that a "fifth generation" strike aircraft which uses stealth to subvert adversarial air defences would be essential to such a strategy. Stealth won't help Canadian fighters intercept Russian bombers or grapple with hypersonic missiles of the future.
I realize the current Government has had a lot to say about the need to meet Canada's "NATO and NORAD commitments" but U.S. Air Force aircraft currently assigned to the North American air defence role under NORAD are F-15's, F-16's and F-22's, not F-35's.
If Canada's next fighter was an aircraft optimized for North American air defence perhaps we'd no longer need to consider which expeditionary strike missions-of-choice we wanted to support and which ones we might avoid without annoying our American allies.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
ReplyDeleteMy first response would be: just because I suggest we opt out of this one coalition of the willing does not mean that the past thirty years of allied air efforts is not going be a good predictor of future efforts. Canada has "re-thought" its strategy every 4-8 years with various white papers, and the basic pillars remains the same precisely because Canada's strategic position does not change.
The fifth generation is not just about stealth (which is still handy for operating in various airspaces where the adversary has anti-air capability) but also about info sharing and other features.
The challenge is that there are no aircraft out there that are optimized for NA air defence. And choosing a plane that can't strike well limits choices down the road. Canada has a small military so duplication is very costly--it will need a fighter plane that is good at home and on the road.