We Have Liftoff! A Great Overseen or Overlooked Book Launch

 Last night, Carleton's Faculty of Public and Global Affairs held an Authors Meet Readers event at Irene's Pub for the Steve/Phil/Dave book: Overseen or Overlooked--Legislators, Armed Forces and Democratic Accountability.  I gave our origin story--how the book started from a surprising conversation with a Canadian member of parliament who sat on the defence committee.  His lack of information, lack of influence surprised me (not so much Phil) and got us started on this project.  Phil summarized our argument, dodging the invitation to discuss how hard it is to co-author with me.  Justin Massie, from UQAM, served as our discussant/commentator.  He asked great questions as did the audience, which was a good, engaged crowd.

 Our basic message--in most democracies, legislators and legislatures are not doing enough, and Canada's parliament is among the most blissfully ignorant.  Woot! 

Phil presented the argument of the book

Justin asked some very thoughtful questions
that produced an excellent conversation

Required post-event pic

 

Participant-Observer Methodology Strikes Again: Appearing before Canada's Defence Committee

 Today, I got stretched pretty good, as I was asked to testify before the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence.  The focus was supposed to be the Baltics/Ukraine security situation, but I ended up helping to, um, expand the conversation.  I was on with two sharp people who are far more knowledgeable about Ukraine and Baltic security stuff, so I made that clear at the top of my initial statement.

Because dropbox no longer lets one share files easily, I will just summarize my opening statement: lots of uncertainty, much hinging on the US election (which had the effect of derailing the conversation a bit, I think), that Canada is contributing to NATO via the mission in Latvia, that it is no longer doing the air patrolling stuff, that my civ-mil hat is causing me to ponder how is Zelensky managing his military and how likely is it for the Russian military to mutiny.

The committee was smart to keep the regional questions aimed at my colleagues.  Marta Kepe of RAND spoke about hybrid warfare and other unconventional threats facing the Baltics.  Arel was quite critical of the lack of political will on the part of the west in general in not supporting Ukraine earlier and letting its fear of escalation inhibit support now.  I found myself agreeing with them on pretty much everything they said except for that political will stuff.  The Q&A ran for nearly 2 hours with each MP getting somewhere between 1 and 5 minutes to ask questions (the MPs from the NPQ and Block got 1 minute each--smaller parties get less time).  

The first question to me was by Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant asked about very specific drone capabilities and why don't we have more systems to combat higher level air threats.  My response focused on the fact that our allies have anti-aircraft capabilities to help us, and that the drone procurement thing is happening.  I forget when I mentioned that there had been opposition to weaponized drones a while back because of concerns about their being used to assassinate individuals, but that the Ukraine war has shown us of the importance on a conventional battlefield.

The second question to be was by Christine Normandin of the Bloc, who is one of the Vice Chairs of the committee--wouldn't Poland paying more than 2% of its GDP on defense insure that Trump would still respond to an attack on Poland?  Nope, that Trump couldn't be counted on for anything like that given his hostility to NATO and his positive attitude towards Russia/Putin.

The next question to me was from the NDP's Lindsay Mathyssen about the links between the far right and Russia, and I, well, really went to town on that one--mentioning their joint interest in eroding trust in democratic institutions, their weaponization of all kinds of hate (transphobia, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, Islamophobia) to divide democracies, and their joint fondness for autocracy.  I didn't mention DeSantis by name, but I did link Orban to all of this.  This got picked up by some far right media folks so here's the video of that sequence.

Conservative Don Stewart pushed again on drones--whether it would be right to train our troops on them before shipping them out to our troops in Latvia and why we don't have so many.  I mentioned the procurement challenges, here or later, including the fact that with everybody wanting to buy drones, there is a supply problem.

Liberal Emmanuella Lambropoulous asked a question of Arel that she then directed to me--why support Ukraine?  In addition to the stuff Arel mentioned, I pointed out that our inflation was partly caused by the commodity shock of Russia invading Ukraine's grain growing area.  I also mentioned our commitment to NATO, and this is a war that directly implicates NATO.

Normandin asked again about Trump, and I forgot if I said much different from the first time.

Liberal Marcus Powlowski asked about a reference I mad to Russian soldiers mutinying.  I said that what we know from civ-mil is not that we can pinpoint when one might happen, but the reckless disregard for the welfare of Russian troops might lead to units munitying.  He asked for evidence, and I had none except stories of individual soldiers attacking superior officers.  That time was not necessarily on Russia's side.

Conservative Vice Chair James Bezan asked about whether we should have sent some of the LAVs to Ukraine earlier, and I basically said yes.  

Liberal Chad Collins asked a long question about disinformation, which followed up from my previous answer about democratic institutions and the far right.  Either here or before, I pointed out that across the democracies, a key for preventing the rise of the far right is for right-wing parties to oppose them. 

My notes deteriorate from there.  We were asked about Ukraine and membership in NATO--I pointed out that won't happen until the war is over, as admitting a member mid-war is essentially NATO declaring war.  I was then asked if Ukraine could become a member if Trump was President, and I reminded folks that NATO operates by consensus, and Trump, having been impeached the first time for trying to extort Ukraine, would probably not support membership for Ukraine.

One can find the video online to get the whole hearing--the other two folks were super sharp and I learned much for them.

Did I tell the parliamentarians that my next book, with Phil and Dave, compares defence committees around world and found that the Canadian version was deliberately irrelevant?  No.  I will save that for the book launch.  I was very conscious that all parties were trying to play me and the others into giving them the soundbites that they wanted.  Perhaps I am biased, but the Conservatives seemed the most consistent, focusing on a particular message--that the Liberals are responsible for the CAF being under-equipped--which is not wrong, but I didn't want to get pinned down to say this was a uniquely Liberal problem--the Conservatives helped to get us here as well.  I probably gave the Liberals and the NDP the soundbites they wanted, but I did sense that there was a bit more genuine interest in the stuff and a bit less ruthless focus on point scoring.  As I said, I might be more aware of the stuff on the right than on the left.

I was asked by someone later whether this was stressful or whether I was frustrated.   Nope, this was fun--talking about this stuff is what I like to do, and talking to a committee that is, um, sort of responsible for this stuff is still cool even if I am a critic of how it does its business.

 

Reforming the CAF--More Oversight Needed?

 This might be a mighty strange take from me, but, no, Virginia, you don't always need to add a new oversight body. In the aftermath of the Royal Canadian Air Force dudes assigning a very problematic call sign, there is now an effort to build a committee or board to review call signs.  Oy.   Let me explain.

I do think that the CAF has long had insufficient oversight--that is, the civilians tended not to provide oversight, CAF did its best to avoid oversight.  The defence committee in Parliament is delightfully ignorant, preferring to know less (no security clearances, small staffs) so that they can say a lot, rather than be careful critics.  This article documents that (although I am still resentful that the editors changed the title from "Ignorant Critic versus Informed Oveseer).  The former defence minister didn't think it was his job to oversee the person directly under him--the Chief of the Defence Staff.  I think that former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour missed an excellent opportunity when she said she didn't recommend an Inspector General in her report.  So, yes, more oversight is necessary.

However, the response to every problem or bad news story is not to invent a new oversight body.  Not every problem requires a new institution--or else all the institutions compete or throw the hot potato to the next one.  While I have been emphasizing institutions (what is the promotion process) when folks talk about culture, some problems require culture to change more than institutional reform.  This is one of those cases.

Essentially, the RCAF officers need to understand what is stupid shit and then not to do stupid shit.  Creating callsigns that punch down should be a no-brainer--don't do it.  If the CAF makes adequate progress in improving its culture, this kind of stuff will happen less and less.  It won't go away entirely because, well, you always get people who don't learn yet still survive in the institution.

The government did create a new institution and commander--Chief Professional Conduct and Culture.  The CPCC's job is to foster not just more professionalism but a better understanding of what it means to be a profession.  Up until very recently, apparently one could consider oneself the epitome of professionalism but apply the rules only to subordinates, not to oneself (Vance, Maisonneuve, etc).  How can professionals tolerate/engage in abuse of power and sexual misconduct?   Either they are "unprofessional" or their sense of professionalism allows or rewards that kind of behavior.  

I chatted yesterday with a field grade officer about this stuff over coffee and cupcakes, and they pointed out that good leadership is not abusive, that it should be setting a higher standard.  Punching down via shitty callsigns should be viewed as unprofessional.  If we can start to change the CAF's sense of what is professional or not, just maybe we won't need additional review boards.

Of course, the more important question is this: are my cookies sufficiently professional?

Time to make the deliveries.

Testifying Before the Defence Committee

 Today, I got to be one of three academics to be part of a panel testifying on threats facing Canada and the military's readiness to address them. 

Here's what I said in my opening statement (and video):

Democracies, Scandal and Oversight: A Mighty Long Day

As a dual citizen of the US and Canada, I was quite conflicted: which country should be more embarassed, and should I be upset at the scandals or thrilled at the oversight being exercised?  Let's compare the two crises du jour and how they played out.

First, for those not familiar with the Canadian situation, here's the summary: The Trudeau government is in crisis because it kept pressuring the Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to push the prosecutors to give SNC-Lavalin (a big firm mostly based in Quebec and constantly mired in corruption controversies) a deal rather than prosecute.  Yesterday, JWR, who was shuffled out of that role to be Minister of Veterans Affairs and then left the cabinet when this story broke, testified after much discussion about confidences and prerogatives.  And when she did, she ripped a hole in the Liberal government, as she was quite persuasive that she was pushed out because she would not make a deal despite much pressure and much concern by the government that they would lose jobs, and, more problematically, votes in the next election in Quebec. To be clear, SNC-Lavalin did not pay off the government--they threatened to leave to London (UK), which is a dumb threat in the age of Brexit.  This whole thing is very problematic for the Liberals since the last couple of Liberal governments had their own scandals. 

There had been debate about who should be hearing what.  That a parliamentary committee (whose agenda is usually controlled by the government when it has a majority) gave JWR plenty of room to provide her side of things in an election year showed ... that parliament is not utterly irrelevant (my usual starting point), that it can do oversight, as it can put the government's feet to the fire. 

Meanwhile, in the US, the President's lawyer revealed that Trump has probably engaged in at least 14 felonies.  Oops.  That this happened in Congress is due entirely to the Dems winning the House.  The House under the GOP never did anything like this, and the GOP did not cover itself in glory yesterday.  They tried to defend Trump by attacking Cohen, rather than taking seriously that, well, yeah, the President might be a criminal.

So, which hearing wins?  Depends on what you mean by winning.  If you mean:

• Salaciousness: then US wins as Cohen's stuff addressed all kinds of illegal activits.
• Impact on elections: Canada wins since this scandal and yesterday's testimony may cause the Liberals to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
• Identity politics: a draw as the first Indigenous woman to hold major office in Canada spoke out against mostly white men BUT in the US you had a white man use a Black woman as a stunt and then got called on it.*
• Perfomance on TV: the big winners are the new women on the Oversight Committee who demonstrated discipline, focus, and strategery.  AOC did a great job of providing investigations with more names, more trails to follow on tax and insurance fraud.  Tlaib did a great job of calling out Meadows.   Pressley pushed on both the Trump Organization as a fake enterprise essentially for Trump's ego and then focused on Trump as racist.
• Exhausted academics who had much grading to do: nope, we didn't win. 
• Thrilled academics studying comparative legislative oversight (well, over the armed forces, bu close enough): winners all around!

I do think these events put the Trudeau government into deep trouble.  I don't think this will actually change things in the US--it may force the Dems to try to impeach Trump, but as the GOP showed, they will defend him, so the Senate will not convict. 

A good day for oversight, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  It is going to be a mighty long year.

*Spare me the pity party for Mark Meadows--he knowingly tried to argue that Trump is not a racist because at least one Black person works for him and says he isn't a racist.  And no, this is not the first racist act for Meadows since he repeatedly made birther arguments.  

Foreign Relations vs Defense: A Quick Look at Some Interesting Patterns of Overseers

I saw this tweet

Interesting profile of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen - the only woman on the 22-member Senate Foreign Relations Committee https://t.co/xQnlPe2J7y

— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) February 25, 2019

and my first response was to consider the Senate Armed Services Committee:
 
 Nine women are on the SASC.  So, it clear is not that national security ain't too cool for women or women are too cool for international relations.  The same pattern, although less extreme applies in the House of Representatives with six women on the Foreign Relations committee and fifteen on the Armed Services committee.

Here's a quick couple of guesses:
1)  Follow the money.  DoD has a huge budget AND this committee (along the House Armed Services Committee) can move money in the budget (unlike damn near every democracy I am studying right now), and there are big electoral benefits to increasing defense spending in one's state and protecting the existing bases in one's state.
2) If one has Presidential aspirations, having experience on the Senate Foreign Relations may have been seen in the past as key to developing one's credentials (Obama, HRC), maybe one consequence of our forever wars is that it may be more important these days to be conversant on defense than on foreign policy (not great).  Notice Warren and Gillibrand choosing to be here and not on SFRC.
3) Who does the media cover?  Related to 1 and 2, one is more likely to be televised overseeing DoD and scrubbing the Acting Secretary of Defense and asking Generals/Admirals to contradict the President than asking State flunkies stuff.

The key assumption behind all of this is that committee service is a drain of time and effort and does not tend to get much votes back home, so Senators try to be strategic.  How much of a role does the party have in assigning people versus Senators choosing?  That is for one of my co-authors to figure out, but I do think this pattern is interesting--that women get assigned/prefer to be on the harder side of security.  Given that female Senators are still relatively scarce, that so many are on SASC and so few on SFRC, it says something about what we value these days.  Unless one thinks that serving on the Armed Services Committee is a punishment or lesser service, which it is most clearly not.

Anyhow, I am sure scholars will be pondering this pattern and others like it.