Meaningful Metrics of Commitment?

I have been engaged in a twitter conversation with Phil Lagassé (No surprise) and folks at the Canadian International Council (first time) about the role Canada played in Afghanistan.  The question, of course, was "it" worth "it"?  And the focus was on why Kandahar.  I have talked about this before and will again, but I want to focus on the last tweet I got yesterday about Canada having more casualties per # of soldiers in Afghanistan than the US or UK.


I happen to have a handy set of figures from October 2010.*

	KIA	Size of Contingent	Population	KIA per Contigent	Rank, KIA/Cont	KIA/Pop	Rank, KIA/Pop
Denmark	37	750	5,500,510	4.93%	2	0.000007	1
UK	337	9500	61,113,205	3.55%	3	0.000006	2
Canada	152	2830	33,487,208	5.37%	1	0.000005	3
US	1247	47000	307,212,123	2.65%	5	0.000004	4
Norway	9	500	4,660,539	1.80%	6	0.000002	5
Netherlands	24	1940	16,715,999	1.24%	10	0.000001	6
Australia	21	1550	21,262,641	1.35%	8	0.000001	7
Romania	17	945	22,215,421	1.80%	7	0.000001	8
France	49	3750	64,420,073	1.31%	9	0.000001	9
Spain	30	1070	40,525,002	2.80%	4	0.000001	10
Italy	33	3150	58,126,212	1.05%	12	0.000001	11
Germany	45	4415	82,329,758	1.02%	13	0.000001	12
Poland	21	1955	38,482,919	1.07%	11	0.000001	13
Sweden	4	410	9,059,651	0.98%	14	0.000000	14
New Zealand	1	220	4,213,418	0.45%	15	0.000000	15
Turkey	2	1755	76,805,524	0.11%	16	0.000000	16

*  I created this table a year ago.  Some numbers have changed--particularly size of contingent (US pre-surge, CA/Netherlands not yet out) but also the US taking some significant hits over the past year, Canada's number of KIA increased by five before it left and so on.

First, Canada barely led in that particular metric just ahead of Denmark.  If one uses casualties per home population, then Canada is actually third behind Denmark and the UK and just ahead of the US. 

Second, this is an indicator that has some intuitive value, but has some flaws as well.  There are more differences between the US and UK on one side and Canada on the other than just per capita KIA.  Because the other two deployments are much larger than the Canadian one, the lower per contingent (but much higher aggregate) numbers might be because the UK and the US have a smaller percentage of their contingent engaged in infantry and convoy operations--where Canada has paid a high price.  The US and UK have had more folks in helos, in planes, and in supporting such assets, so the relatively small differences might be because these countries had a smaller percentage of troops in harm's way, especially before the Canadians deployed additional non-infantry assets after the Manley report and mandate extension of 2008.

Third, what this table does demonstrate is that the big four (UK, US, Denmark, Canada) have been paying a higher price.  That comes with the combination of difficult territory (Helmand and Kandahar (and Eastern Afghanistan for the US) and a willingness to take more risks rather than restrict the troops behind caveats and other limitations imposed on commanders on the ground.

So, the twitter conversation missed the real point of comparison--not between Canada and the US/UK, but between the US/UK/Canada/Denmark group and the rest.  This then speaks to the larger point of Canada choosing Kandahar over some semi-random isolated spot in Regional Command West (the Italian-led sector).*
* I still think the Canadians of the Hillier era and beyond would have been largely incompatible with the highly restricted Italians as their bosses.  I have not been told this was a conscious part of the decision-making process, but I cannot help but think that working under the Italians would have been damn near unthinkable for Hillier and the rest of the current crop of Canadian commanders.

Canadian leaders, civilian and military, were looking to change how Canada operated in the world.  Rather than 40 little missions with 40 little maple leaf flags on UN maps, there was a conscious choice to have Canada focus its efforts to make a difference and to have more influence over what it was doing and perhaps beyond.  Going to Chaghcharan where a small Lithuanian unit has filled the gap the Canadians refused to fill would have fit the old strategy of just being present but not much more than that.  But doing more than that involved risks--of casualties, of $$ being expended, of bad things possibly happening (detainee scandals, collateral damage, friendly fire, working with the brother of Karzai, whatever), and of mission failure.  

But for me, it keeps coming down to two things:

• Just showing up is not a responsible policy.  How can one espouse a policy called responsibility to protect (whether that applies to Afghanistan or not, although I lean to the idea that it does) if one just is showing up?  Willing to do enough so that one's marked down for "attending" but not really participating is a C or C+ effort that does not get one noticed one way or another.  But yet would still cost millions of dollars despite not providing a valued alliance with much added value.  
• Making a difference requires doing something is hard, not easy.  Kandahar was hard.  Harder than Canadian leaders might have expected (I am beginning to think this was less about intel failure and more about wishful thinking).

Focusing on casualties is understandable as they are a simple comparative measure of commitment, but the numbers can be deceptive.  At the end of the day, measuring lives is incredibly hard.  Was 157 Canadian lives worth it?  Depends on what "it" is, but if you want to measure the "it" in terms of the lives not lost in Afghanistan during 2006-2011 due to the provision of security (even shaky or limited) by the Canadians and the health care (deaths during childbirth, for example) facilitated by the Canadian presence, as long as Afghan lives are not discounted too much, the balance sheet is quite positive.  Canada did make a big difference in terms of lives alone.  In terms of influence gained due to the sacrifice of 157 Canadian lives, well, that is an argument that Phil Lagassé and I will be having for quite some time to come.

Halloween at the Park

I have never gone to an amusement park in the fall.  Busch Gardens was set up for Halloween in a big way.  So, I invested in the quick access pass for the afternoon and evening--a smart idea since the place was more crowded than any big park I have ever seen.  People will still coming in as I was leaving at 8pm. 

Anyhow, at 6pm, various parts of the place turned a bit "darker" as they said: scary clowns, butchers wielding chainsaws that made real noises, guys stitching themselves up, and so on.  I went to two of the five haunted houses (I was getting tired, and one of the houses had paused due to a girl who apparently sprained her ankle).  BG did a nice job of taking buildings that were in progress or stages and filling them with creepy folks--themed so one was vampires, one was just creeps.  Some shouted and jumped out, some just walked behind you and touched your shoulder, and so on.  Pretty scary stuff.

The basic theme was Gardens in the Dark, with the key illustration a rose with an unblinking eye in the middle.  And, of course, this compelled me to buy this cupcake:

It was a heap of fun.  The strangest sight were the scantily clad young ladies that were part of a dance show.  Their moves and their appearance at 2:30pm were, well, a bit unexpected.  I am not a prude, but the sexy nurse costumes were aa surprising thing to see.  And their moves were, well, wow.  Parental-guidance indeed.

The other surprise was the Pirates 4-D show--a movie with Leslie Nielsen, Eric Idle and Rodney Dangerfield.  Yep, it was old but fun.

Anyhow, I had a great, long day, a silly way to wrap up the book project.

Going Back to the Start

I realized while walking around Yorktown that this is a most suitable place to be towards the end of the Dave and Steve project on multilateral warfare.  Yorktown is only the victory that led to the endgame with the British and produced American independence due to an alliance with France, which provided not only the ships to corner Cornwallis but the siege weapons and doctrine.

I had a choice of Jamestown or Yorktown (not both since I was already spending the rest of the day at Busch Gardens (see next post).  I chose Yorktown due to my fondness for military history.  Given that this project has allowed me to learn more about World War I, World War II, and the military histories of Canada, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Australia (I don't remember going to a military history museum in New Zealand), it only made sense to go to the starting point of American military history--the revolution. 

The Park Service has done a nice job of preserving the battlefield.  They had the berms and the trenches in place along with cannons.  The Park Service center had a short film and some information, and an old tent of George Washington's.

The monument was beautiful.  Complete with a real live bald eagle flying nearby.  Really.  Some folks were getting married at the Victory monument.  A very pretty site but strange location except the groom was wearing some kind of cadet uniform.  The monument has three phrases circling towards the middle: One Constitution, One Country, One Destiny.  Of course, that was less ironic than it could have been since it was built in 1880, even though its creation was mandated by the Continental Congress in 1781.


Walking around Yorktown reminded me of how much history is embedded in the place.  The Civil War ran over this territory as well with the Peninsula Campaign.  I also realized about 30 years later than I should have known that one of the carriers playing a big role in the early days of the Pacific, including being sunk at Midway, was named after this battlefield.  Duh, Steve.

I then ventured over to the Yorktown Victory center, which, I think, had some civvie reanctors hanging out, in addition to the center's regular personal, so I took a video (which I will try to upload later) that has two teams of artillery folks--regulars and VA militia. 

They didn't seem to know each other well. I learned some history that I should have known--that the US Constitution was the first written constitution?  Really.  I guess so, since the Magna Carta does not count as a constitution (suck it, limeys!).  The words by the renowned scholar Jeffrey Spicoli, PhD resonate louder today:

What Jefferson was saying was, hey we left this England place 'cause it was bogus. So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves pronto, we'll just be bogus too.

One last thing--if you go, definitely take the Colonial Parkway.  The road surface was, what, stone?  Lined by trees until it is along the river/bay.  Just beautiful. 

Tis a Social Science

Yesterday, Dave Auerswald and I had several chapters of our book grilled by the faculty at William and Mary.  They were enthused about the project, but, more importantly, they gave us excellent feedback about the book.  They noticed stuff that we could not see and they gave us very sharp ideas for how to proceed.  They didn't tell us that our approach was wrong, but how to best improve it.  While I like my first two books, my participation in other people's book workshops (reading and commenting on their stuff) made me envious.  Thanks to the initiative of Mike Tierney, of W&M and our friend from grad school, I don't have to be envious any longer.  We got what we needed, and our book will be much better for it.  Oh, and longer, too ;)

17th Century Tourist Question

I am in Williamsburg for the next couple of days as the folks here are holding a semi-book workshop (the book is not complete) for David Auerswald and myself.  So, when I got in yesterday, I walked around Colonial Williamsburg.  It is very pretty, and William and Mary definitely competes quite well with last week's winner of beautiful campus-ness--U of Southern Cal.  I wonder how many campuses have their own cannons?  Probably more than we would expect.

But, walking among the historic buildings, I could only have one question: is the amount of horse poop on the streets historically accurate?  Or is it not enough?

Iran and Strange Assassination Plots

A student asked me to blog about the latest news about Iran and the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US.  I simply have no clue about it.  I do think Foreignpolicy.com has had a few posts that are most illuminating including Worst Bomb Plot Ever;  Excellent stuff here.

I do have a few questions.  Folks tend to think the guy at the center of the plot is hard to buy as a covert operative. "Manssor Arbabsiar, the Iranian expatriate at the center of the plot, bears no resemblance to a covert operative.(Worst Bomb Plot)" Um, isn't that what a covert operative is supposed to appear to be?

Complicated Canadian Constitutional Questions

As someone who was not here when Canada repatriated its constitution (whatever that means), I find the sweats and shaking that folks tend to have when this topic comes up to be entertaining.  Well, no need, apparently.  This piece says that Quebeckers are far bigger fans of the Canadian Constitution than conventionally believed and would not mind finishing the process.  Of course, the sweats and such make sense given that the efforts in the 80's and 90's precipitated two referenda, including the one in 1995 that nearly broke the 50% barrier (and what a silly number that is).

The new poll indicates a bunch of stuff:

— Fifty-nine per cent of respondents said Quebec's famous language law, Bill 101, should comply with the Charter of Rights. Only 41 per cent said Bill 101 should take precedence.



— A strong majority of those surveyed, 69 per cent, said the Constitution should be reopened eventually to include Quebec and 73 per cent said they hope to see it recognize Quebec as a nation and grant the province more autonomy.
— However, 77 per cent also said they want a moratorium of the constitutional debate.
— Seventy-one per cent called the sovereignty debate outdated.
— Seventy-six per cent expressed pride in being Canadian, while 83 per cent expressed pride in being a Quebecer. Sixty-three per cent expressed pride in being both.

 Reactions?  Well, 41 percent thinking Bill 101 should take precedence over the Charter of Rights means that the PQ is right to obsess.  If they can get 40% of the vote, first past the post plus a third party should mean getting into office, right?  So, a majority of folks are fine with the Charter of Rights being paramount, but the political incentives point elsewhere for at least one party.  Sometimes, I hate being a cynical political scientist.

I love that super-majorities favor Quebec being included in the Constitution but don't want this debate to take place anytime soon.  This is most rational.  Yes, the situation should be fixed, but the process is so messy that we ought to kick the can down the road.

Seventy-one percent think sovereignty debate is outdated!  Well, that kind of makes all PQ and more extreme Quebec nationalist claims kind of silly.  Hard to get 50% plus one if 2/3s of the folks don't want the debate at all.  Of course, thus far, I have not been that compelled by the math skills of many politicians here (and, yes, I am contradicting my assertion above about 40% on Bill 101).

And the real key is that most folks are fine being both Quebeckers and Canadians.  Just as most Texans are also fine with being Americans.  Well, except for Rick Perry sometimes.

Georgia on My Mind

The US is apparently pushing to have Georgia start the NATO membership process.  Oy!  First, of course, Georgia hardly meets the criteria for entry, given its inability to control its own territory and its failure to resolve its relations with its neighbors.  Not that I think that membership criteria are serious barriers to entry.  Far from it.

Second, and, more importantly, it undermines the essence of NATO.  The heart of the organization is a promise by all to help out when any one of the members is attacked.  Sure, as my work the past few years has shown, the opt out clause in Article V is quite real, so not all countries will show up.  Indeed, we saw this in the aftermath of 9/11 and the first time article V got invoked.  But it is one thing for some members to stay out of the common defense.  It is another to admit a country that no member seriously intends to defend, not even the US.  In the crisis a couple of years back, the US helped out Georgia, but not very far and far less than they expected.

Which leads to a third problem: providing Georgia with the appearance of security guarantees might just encourage its leaders to be less cooperative and perhaps even more provocative with its neighbors--namely Russia.  As I just lectured yesterday, one of the major kinds of war-causing misperceptions focuses on allies.  Will they or won't they come in to play in a crisis?

So, I have no real clue what the US is doing here.  Does anyone else?

Corruption Post Du Jour

I would say of the week or of the month since I really do not post on corruption on a daily basis, but I am not sure it would be du semaine or de la semaine.  Anyhow, there is a good piece in today's Gazette--it mostly relies upon a McGill Law prof who studies corruption and how to deal with it.  The keys are:

• design a system that allows an investigation to produce evidence that can be used in court.  Public inquiries tend to suck at this.
• look forward and backward by creating fostering competition for government purchases (like letting US and non-Quebec companies compete for contracts);
• Appoint a special prosecutor who is involved in the process so that muck is more than stirred--people get prosecuted;
• Make the mandate of any inquiry go back far enough into the past so that both major parties are implicated: "it is not just us!"
• appoint someone now who is beyond reproach (who would that be?).

Overall, a good set of ideas, based on serious studies of experiences elsewhere.  And that really is the need--to build on what other folks have learned rather than relying on the "Quebec model" where everything here is distinct.  

I thought about ten years ago that I should start studying corruption as it was clearly a big piece of the ethnic conflict problem but also a larger issue for countries around the world.  I figured corruption would be to the Aughts and beyond what ethnic conflict was to the 90's.  But it is a field of study that requires better economic skills than I have and more challenging data problems--people tend to hide their corrupt activities.  I also got distracted by NATO and Afghanistan, which has been a very worth obsession the past several years. 

So, I will just have to rely on other folks doing the hard work in this area.  It was great to see the Gazette rely on an expert to provide some real insights on this problem that is just killing Quebec.

How Afghanistan is Like Vietnam

I hate it when Afghanistan gets compared to Vietnam because we have different lessons we can learn from the one to be applied to the other, but there are many differences that often get glossed over.   But, it is my blog, so I can break my rules.

I was reading Tom Ricks's blog, and he had a guest poster, Lewis Sorley, summarizing the reasons why General Westmoreland "lost Vietnam."  His number 1:

And the number one reason why Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam: With his unavailing approach to conduct of the war he squandered four years of support by much of the American people, the Congress, and even the media.

Yep, while there are many reasons why the US and NATO may fail in Vietnam, wasting time--2002-2008/9--is a key part of the story.  I absolutely hate it (as frequent readers of this blog know all too well) when people say: we have been doing this (whatever this is) for ten years.  No, NATO/US have only been doing COIN seriously--for a couple of years.  And the conventional wisdom is that it takes ten or more years to do.  So, we wasted about half of the bare minimum time needed, and now the once patient publics are not patient anymore.  2014 is around the corner.  So, seeing this assessment of Vietnam reminds me that there are some general (pardon the pun) dynamics of fighting these kinds of wars, and wasting time seems to be one of them.

The Pop Social Science of Ewoks

I most enjoyed one piece of this week's How I Met Your Mother: Barney was using Ewok appreciation as an indicator of age.  Those over a certain hated Ewoks, those under loved them. 

This site has a bit more detail on the discussion.  I always felt conflicted over the Ewoks as Return of the Jedi had some great scenes (It's a trap!), but the Ewok battle seemed just a bit too cute.  And yes, I am on the left side of the age line.  Worse, the Ewoks set the stage for ... Jar Jar.*  Some would trace the worst parts of Return to the worst parts (the majority) of the prequels.

* I could not watch more than a few minutes of the 3rd Transformer movie as it had two JJ like transformers serve as pets/pals/major annoyances for the Shia Leboeuf character.

I appreciated this discourse on Ewoks because I guess I had never considered how different generations viewed them.  I have thought about the correct way to show kids the series, with Star Wars, Empire, Return before the prequels, as it was intended, so that Empire ends with the big twist.  But not about pro vs. anti Ewok generations.  Hmmm.  

While HIMYM has had its ups and downs, I have appreciated its Seinfeld/Friends-esque element--having characters with competing theories of social behavior and then seeking to test them.  Barney often does this by himself, but more fun when he faces competition.

Remember Which War?

The Canadian papers are starting to fill up with the planning for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.  Yep, they call it the same thing up here.  Anyhow, I am curious is whether this is getting any play in the US.  For Canadians, this war is pretty significant, apparently.  Why?

• Canadians can boast that they beat the Americans.  The only big battle the US won was after the formal declaration of peace--the Battle of New Orleans.  The British/French/first nations folks thwarted the American invasion, building some institutions (reserve units) that became part of the new Canadian federation in 1867.  Yes, fifty years later.  Things move slowly when it is cold (the time from the French and Indian Wars to the Revolutionary War in the US case was 12 years).
• That the US lost most of the battles (they burned the capital, eh) and basically consider the war a draw explains why it is not so featured in the US.  Or is it?
• The occasion plays to Canadian fears about American invasions since the US did actually try to invade Canada and seize hunks of territory.  Canadians will still occasionally voice concerns about American designs on Canadian oil and water.  This helps to provide just a bit of glue to Canadian identity--a shared modest anti-Americanism.

Anyhow, I will be tracking the festivities over the next couple of years. If any Americans spot significant remembrance activities, shoot me an email.

Pondering Failure in Afghanistan

Colonel Gian Gentle, a confirmed counterinsurgency [COIN] skeptic, raises questions for Col. Paul Yingling about the role of generals as COIN seems to be falling short in Afghanistan.  Yingling made much noise in 2007 by attacking American generals for poor leadership in 2007, as the US was losing in Iraq at the time.  Gentle is essentially pushing Yingling either to call Petraeus a bad general now (since Afghanistan is not such a happy place) or retract his earlier criticisms.

While this is an argument between two Colonels, I am stepping in because I received a similar question last week at a presentation in Los Angeles (at USC) on the current book project: did our work on caveats and other means by which countries influence how their troops are used in alliance operations explain mission failure on Afghanistan?

The answer to my question is also partly an answer to Gentle's question.  That is, (a) not so clear the mission has failed; (b) failure is over-determined.  First, there are lots of indicators that seem to suggest that the Taliban momentum of 2008-09 has been broken, even as violence continues.  NATO and the US may not be clearly winning (whatever that means, see below) but we are not so clearly losing as we were a few years ago.

Second, COIN and good generalship can only do so much.  Likewise, caveats and other overly blunt means to control troops in a multilateral damage can have an impact, but other stuff matters as well.  What matters?  I have long talked about the three Ps of Afghanistan: poppies, Pakistan, President Karzai.  Each one makes COIN very, very hard.  Poppies give the insurgents access to cash and facilitates corruption of police, courts, army, etc, which need to be the backbone of the COIN effort.  Pakistan serves as a sanctuary (although not from drones), making "defeat" of the Taliban very hard since they can rest, recover and re-arm there.  Plus Pakistan may just be doing more than providing space for these guys.  Karzai presents the third challenge to the NATO/US effort, as the military side of COIN is aimed at providing a safer environment so that the government can provide services and gain the confidence of the people.  Karzai has been focused on maintaining his grip on power, at the expense of building institutions and putting competent people into power. Generals McChrystal, Petraeus, and Allen had/have finite ability to get Afghanistan to do what is necessary to make progress.

The key difference between these generals running the Afghanistan war and the ones who ran the Iraq war before 2007 is that the current folks have proven adaptable to the circumstances.  While the newer folks may have tried to apply an Iraq template to Afghanistan and that may not be the best fit, they at least have a better grasp of the multi-dimensionality of the conflict.  The American generals in the first four years of the Iraq war had very little clue about how to prepare for the conflict, where to focus the efforts, and how to move from conventional war to counter-insurgency.  Franks was one of the worst generals in recent memory, Abizaid recognized the realities (I think) but could not get those under him to adjust, and Casey was mostly focused on preserving the Army rather than adapting to the realities on the ground.

Military experts can draw greater distinctions between the past and present crews (Yingling, I am sure, could roast Gentile's assertions pretty quickly).  But the conditions in Iraq with the AQ types overplaying their hands, the Sunnis realizing that the US was their best protection against Shiites and Sunni extremists, and somewhat more compliant local leadership enabled COIN.  In Afghanistan, these conditions have not really existed.  So, there is more going on here than generals.  Clearly so, as Gentile is really attacking counter-insurgency doctrine more than individual generals.   War is politics by other means, and COIN especially so.  Winning a COIN battle means getting the politics right, and that is largely although not entirely out of the hands of the military.  All the COIN stuff can do is enable the politicians, not work miracles despite the hype surrounding Petraeus.


Gentile's attack is actually a different war, one for the soul of the military.  What will be the future of the American army?  A smaller one for sure, hopefully avoiding these kinds of conflicts.  The reality is that politicians will continue to use force in ways that are inconvenient to conventional thinkers in the military.  There will be few conventional wars to fight as long as the opponents realize that the US can beat them at that game.  That is not going change even as these Colonels fight over the lessons to draw from the wars of the Aughts.

Indeed, this whole discussion reminds me of the most basic lesson of Vietnam--people will learn the lessons they want to learn, as these conflicts are complicated.  There is never one single set of lessons to learn, and so the fight afterwards is over which lessons do people want to learn.

Scary Thought of the Day

After watching the first season of Game of Thrones, I had much fun making fun of the Stark's motto: Winter is Coming.  Well, after reading the second and third book, where the Starks do not enjoy Autumn, all I can say is that "Winter is Coming" is now pretty damned scary.

And, despite my pop culture fixation today, I did spend Canadian Thanksgiving writing IR stuff.  Specifically, the last chapter of my current book.  Usually, the conclusion is the most fun, because it requires heaps of thinking and not too much research.  Thus far, squeezing a short account of NATO's Libyan experience into a book on Afghanistan is not so much fun.  Alas.  Still, I am thankful that this has been such a rewarding project--just very, very interesting stuff, producing lots of interesting interactions, and not a small amount of travel for both research and presentation.  With this project nearing an end, my work is not headed towards a GoT-like Winter.  But summer does seem to be ending.

Godwin's Law of TV

Godwin's Law is that any internet conversation, given enough time, will eventually lead to comparisons to Hitler and Nazis.  Well, I have been most amused that in the aftermath of last night's wonderful Breaking Bad finale, my favorite TV critics (http://twitter.com/sepinwall, https://twitter.com/#!/BastardMachine/, https://twitter.com/#!/HitFixDaniel  ) started by ranking the seasons of BB but ended up ranking seasons of The Wire.

That's right--any discussion of best of TV anything ultimately leads to The Wire.   I call it: Stringer's Law.  Wallace's Law would be confusing: where is it? 

Giving Thanks, Canadian-Style

It is Thanksgiving up here in Canada.  Sure, the sneaky Canadians beat the Americans every year to the harvest celebration.   Aside from being earlier (harvest is earlier!), Canadian Thanksgiving is different from the American one in a couple of other ways.

1. No real consensus on when the big meal is: my informal FB poll has Sunday as more popular, but not as dominant/no brainer as Thursday is for the folks down south.
2. No consensus on the meal itself.  Sure, some go for Turkey (and we had a hard time just finding turkey breasts at the grocery store on Saturday), but duck seems like a popular choice.
3. The travel/family thing.  Canadians always marvel at how many Americans travel very far for Thanksgiving, as they don't go great distances for their version.  

But my daughter is a big fan of holidays and turkey (and pie), so we had a low-key (how Canadian!) celebration of the holiday, with turkey, pies, stuffing, and the like.  So, it seems like this would be a good time to give thanks for Canadian stuff (will save the general life thanking--health and family and such for the American one). 

• I am thankful for my Canadian (and other) students.  They are bright, engaged, fun, and only a few are whiny (papers are due last week and this week, so the whininess inherent in the 21st century undergrad went up a bit).  
• I am thankful for the Canadians around me.  Our neighbors and other folks we have met in Canada have always been quite friendly.  Even though we don't speak the dominant language of this part of the country, we have never felt especially alienated (particularly when compared to a certain previous place we resided).  We have developed some great friendships with people in Montreal, Kingston, and Ottawa.
• I am thankful for the benefits of living in a small country (big territory, small population) as I have had amazing access to politicians, policy-makers, military folks, and the like. 
• I am thankful for the generous national grant agency (SSHRC) for funding much of my research for the past ten years.
• I am thankful that the Canadian economy has been in better shape than the American one, even though there are some similar problems up here.  One of the benefits of the last referendum (1995) is that my house was undervalued when we bought it, and has steadily gained value since then.  
• I am thankful that ultimate is not only pretty robust up here but growing even more with the new West Island ultimate leagues. 
• I am thankful for the skiing (not a big skating or hockey fan) that will keep my weekends interesting for much of the winter.  I am not so grateful for the long, long winters, but skiing and indoor ultimate can make the winters move a little faster.

I am sure there is stuff that I am forgetting (no, I am not forgetting the health care system--just not giving thanks for it).  But we are in our tenth year in Canada, and we are grateful for a great ten years (leaving aside what the country has done to our cars). 

Round Numbers Can Be Deceiving

Just as last month was the 10th anniversary of 9/11, today is the 10th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan (as if being governed by the Taliban would be considered "not war").  But that round ten number is deceptive.  Sure, it means that this conflict is the longest in American history (depending on when you start the clock on the Vietnam war), but at no time did this particular reflect a commitment and an effort akin to the big wars of American history--the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  Instead, it is actually akin to the war in the Philippines which dragged on far longer than the official enddate.   Insurgency and counter-insurgency is like that--not respecting treaties and such.

While there are plenty of good pieces being written about the war's 10th anniversary, such as at Foreignpolicy.com, the idea of 10 years at war is incredibly frustrating to me.  Afghanistan was going to be very, very hard to achieve anything looking like stability, but the US government, under Rummy, Bush and the anti-state-building, no foreign policy is too important to screw up gang, deliberately under-invested in Afghanistan.  Perhaps motivated by the myth that Afghans are so xenophobic that any decent footprint would be too big, but more likely using that myth to keep resources slated for the war in Iraq, Rummy set strict limits on the troops deployed to Afghanistan.  This not only meant relying too heavily on local proxies for the operations to capture Bin Laden and other AQ types, but it mean relying too heavily on warlords, Karzai, and Pakistan.  It mean, most importantly, wasting several years. 

The clock was always going to be ticking on the patience of the democracies, and doing real stability operations, including counterinsurgency takes time.  By very much wasting time between 2002 and 2008 (only serious efforts once Obama surged and re-surged), Bush, Rummy, Cheney and the rest not only let the Taliban to recover, but also helped to create the illusion that "we have been there longer than two world wars combined" and other myths that helped to run out the clock.  Given the acceptance of 2014 as the year of transition, it seems clear that the US had about 12-13 years to try to stabilize Afghanistan.  Sure, this was a very impossible task, but wasting half that time made it harder still.

Of course, the Iraq war was more than just a diversion of troops.  That war eroded American will, cost far more money, weakened allied support in Afghanistan, and fostered an insurgency that would then share its technologies (how to build a better roadside bomb) with the Taliban.  So, recent reports of one third of American vets saying both wars were "worth it" should not surprise us.  Iraq was not worth it, especially as it empowered Iran, impeded progress in Afghanistan, and cost an enormous amount of lives (US, Iraqi and others), dollars and political capital.  Afghanistan?  Hmmm.   We will only really know in 2015 or 2020.  The lives of Afghans are largely better now than in 2002 or 2001 or 2000, BUT if Afghanistan succumbs to another civil war after NATO leaves, then it will be very hard to argue it was worth it.

LA Story

I am in LA briefly to present the NATO and Afghanistan book.  It went well, with some very useful comments from the discussant and from the audience.  Great timing, as I am in the middle of writing the conclusion and some of the comments definitely addressed the big questions.  So, other than the talk, what did I learn and/or was reminded of?

I love Southern California.  The rain yesterday made for wonderfully clear skies today.  The palm trees, the hills in the distance, and all of that made for a very nice scene.  I hadn't realized that Shriner's Auditorium, site of the Emmys, is next to the campus.

The campus of University of Southern California really shows what money does.  Really.  Just a very modern campus with beautiful buildings, great landscaping and heaps of coaster bikes (no gears).  Does not hurt to have George Lucas (see the building he funded to the right), Steven Speilberg and others from Hollywood and elsewhere dumping huge sums of cash on the place. 

Walking around before my talk reminded me of the thought I usually have when I visit San Diego for a conference: why the hell did I leave?  The answer: no academic jobs when I finished grad school in 1993 and few opportunities since then.  Sure, they have earthquakes and a deeply messed up political system (direct democracy is not so good).  Still, great Mexican food with best Churros I have ever had, I think.

Next stop (after going home for a few days): William and Mary.  Probably lovely in the fall.  Certainly great friends await.  And probably heaps of useful criticism.  But the Mexican food and the palm trees will probably be lacking.

NATO Rocks, NATO Sucks, NATO Rocks

If you follow the travels and speeches of US SecDef Panetta, you will find him being pretty bipolar on NATO: trashing the alliance one day and praising it the next.  Well, this is all about preparing for and then being at the NAC DM: North Atlantic Council Defense Ministerials--where the SecDefs and MoD's meet.  I remember the good old days on the Joint Staff where the talking points were vetted in the interagency.  Anyhow, as I come to the end of a long book project on NATO, I have gone from being super-critical of NATO to being appropriately so, I think.

Our project moved from focusing on the organization to focusing on the member states and their political dynamics.  The challenges of caveats, limited capabilities and all the rest suggested a hamstrung alliance.  But, as we think about the big picture, I cannot help but notice that NATO is still quite relevant.  The Libyan operation was far smoother than publicly portrayed in terms of the military interoperability.  Sure, many countries did not participate, but those that did engaged in a complex ballet of refueling, coordinating, planning, and all the rest.  The politics means that not all countries participate, and much variation in how they participate, but once in, the NATO doctrine, training, and the rest make a big difference than if it were just a couple of random countries working together.

So, I now tend to react to comments about the weaknesses and irrelevance of NATO with protestations about the alliance's enduring impact.  It may not be efficient but can be effective.  Something to think about some more during conclusion writing season.

Ironies of the Week

McGill retained its high ranking as a great place to work among Canadian workplaces at a time where the support staff is on strike.  Given that this is the third (at least) strike in the past nine or so years (twice by staff, once by teaching assistants), it is strange to see McGill do so well.  Of course, other big employers in Canada may have more strikes or McGill ranks highly because the strikes are so effective.  If McGill always caves in (like it has done in previous strikes), then having a weak employer might improve its ranking. 

I am pretty suspicious of all rankings, so perhaps I am biased.  Still, when I see strikers have picket signs that refer to this ranking, it does raise a question or two.  Of course, working at a university is pretty cool for a variety of reasons, so I am not surprised that McGill would compare well to other kinds of employers.  But are McGill folks happier than those at other universities?  Apparently by this survey.  I guess it kind of depends on who is asked.

Sharp Advice on Fieldwork in Dangerous Places

Jason Lyall, a relatively junior but already prominent prof at Yale, doing work on civil war, discusses the challenges of doing fieldwork in a conflict zone.  This kind of work--not something that my wife would let me do or that I would do, knowing the risks.  But if we want to understand the worst forms of human behavior as they have big consequences, somebody's going to take risks.  Glad that Lyall is sharing what he learned so that my students (and yours) can be make more informed decisions when doing what needs to be done.

Cutting Foreign Aid

I am not at all surprised to see foreign aid on the US chopping block to deal with the budget crisis.  Foreign assistance is never popular and always over-estimated.  But the problem for is this: coming up with the correct analogy.  I tweeted the following:

Cutting foreign aid to address budget crisis is like an alcoholic cutting back on apertifs.

I am not sure that is the most apt analogy so I am taking suggestions.  Winner gets, well, credit when I post it.

Harper As Control Freak

I am shocked, just shocked that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper might have left the Minister of National Defence Peter Mackay out of the loop when making decisions about Afghanistan.  Murray Brewster is having some great press, publicizing his new book (not yet released) on Canada and Afghanistan.  The book (a classic case of a book I have read but not read myself) details how Harper tried to control the messaging of the war and seemed to leave the Minister of National Defence out of decision-making processes. 

Given all that I have heard and observed since I moved to Canada, I am not at all surprised.  For instance, the decision to send a new training mission to replace the combat mission was most obviously made with no consultation with military folks given that there was no NATO request for 1000 trainers nor places to put them.  That is why the mission went from being Kabul to "Kabul-centric."

One of the things I have been asserting lately, a product of my comparative study of the countries involved in Afghanistan, is that leaders that stand in front of the mission tend to foster more support.  Leaders that hide ultimately pay a price for that--at least in terms of support for the mission.  Harper was almost entirely silent.  Why?

In 2006, with Canadian casualties mounting, some of Hillier's people were frustrated with the fact the government was saying little about the war, allowing the NDP to fill the void with anti-military rhetoric and robbing the mission of public support.  That frustration "boiled over" during a meeting between Defence Department officials and the PMO on Sept. 6, 2006, in the immediate aftermath of bloody Operation Medusa, Brewster writes. Hillier chastised Harper's staff for what he considered a lack of moral support.
Insiders later attributed the silence to the PMO's difficulty in crafting a suitable political message.  "It was always a crisis," the book quotes one anonymous PMO official as saying.
"I think the reason there was so much silence was because we were trying to figure out how to transition the communications politically from a hard terrorism message to, you know, about women voting and all that stuff.”
That's why, Brewster writes, "there was no consoler-in-chief during that awful summer.
"The country that had not been at war in half a century was left to figure out for itself why its sons and daughters were coming home in caskets."

To be fair, this passage conflicts with an earlier passage in the piece focusing on how Hillier and previous Minister of National Defence Bill Graham were warning everyone that Kandahar was going to be different than Kabul--dangerous and that body bags would be coming home.

I do look forward to reading the book, as it will provide me with more proof of what we have come to understand about Canadian civil-military relations.  Given the controversies of the past few weeks, we could all use a dose of reality.

Progress on Afghanistan

This BBC post has a few stats that suggest that things are better in Afghanistan.  Specifically, the number of kids in school has increased by over 600% and the GDP/capita has tripled.  Even the casualty stats are kind of okay.

That is, if you notice, the increase in civilian casualties seems to have been stemmed, that Afghan security forces are taking far fewer hits, and so on.  One could argue that figures through August are premature, but most of every year's damage has taken place in summer (where "winter is coming" is actually a good thing).  So, we will see 2011 look less bad than 2010 unless something strange happens.  NATO has been doing a better job of avoiding harming civilians, even though it still happens.  But again, what really stands out here is that the ANA and ANP are not getting hit that hard.  Given that "Transition" is supposed to put these guys more in the front, and given that they have always been seen as easier targets, this one trend (I use that word hesitantly) is very, very important.

Of course, none of this is necessarily sustainable.  When the US and its allies leave in 2014-2015, schools will likely close, the economy (which is almost entirely based on aid and the activities of the foreign folks) will suffer, and the ANA/ANP will be taking the blows quite directly.  That is, if they can remain functional and united.

Still, not too bad.  On the usual Afghan-o-meter of confidence from zero to ten, I guess I am now at negative three.  Which is an improvement.

Canadian Identity

I was talking about identity in my Intro to IR class yesterday, focusing on how identity is somewhat out of one's control.  This video about Canadians and their "national character" testifies to this since it is actually an American production.  AND I got the link from a Brit.



Nearly every Canadian documentary or movie about its military history usually starts with the view that the Canadians were being deployed and used quite badly by British commanders and success occurs only when the Canadians are allowed to command.  So, distinction from Britain is a key element of Canadian identity (going so far as to piss off a friend who obsesses about the Crown and its role in Canadian politics) even though anti-Americanism is really more central to Canadian identity these days.  To be clear, Canadian anti-Americanism is, well, like the Canadian stereotype, kind of cute, funny and mostly harmless.  Canadians do not throw rocks or eggs at American Presidents.

Anyhow, all this is an excuse to show the video clip.

Game of Thrones update

I have been reading the Game of Thrones series since the first season of the TV series aired.  What mighty thick books are these.  And chock full of surprises.  Hence, see below the break

Voting Rules Fraud

The fraud is not one of non-eligible voters voting.  No, the fraud are the claims by the Republicans that their efforts to put laws on the books to restrict access to voting are anything but attempts to prevent Democratic voters from casing their vote.

The damning bit of proof: "Under the Texas law, licenses to carry concealed handguns would be an acceptable form of identification to vote, but not student ID cards."  Hmmm.

The piece here does the usual "he said, she said," especially with the headline.  Too bad the GOP does not realize that disenfranchising voters leads to more conflict.  Or perhaps they do not care.  Let's bet on the latter, given their stands over the past couple of years, preferring to see Obama fail rather than help the country out.

What galls me most about this voter fraud crap is how obvious the tactic is yet how "fairly" it is covered.  The media is complicit.  Not a huge surprise but annoying nonetheless.

Just a short rant to start the week.

More on Advising

I posted last week on advising.  Well, some folks have thought about such stuff far longer and far more completely.  Check out this site, put together by Cynthia Verba, a Harvard prof who also happens to be the wife of uber-Poli Sci star Sidney Verba. 

Art Imitating Life continued

Given how nasty the war has been in Afghanistan, I guess it is only appropriate that this cartoon in the NYT today is brutally funny:

Not sure I get stone the hole, but otherwise, oh my.

Of course, when people say ten years or longer than the two World Wars combined, it frustrates me because the effort has been inconsistent at best.  Canada went it, came out, went to Kabul in a relatively light stability op, and was in Kandahar with a relatively small contingent (historically-speaking) for five years or so.  The US?  Treated Afghanistan as a sideshow from 2002-2008.

Still, ten years is a round number, so it will resonate more.  So, any other suggestions for party games?  How about "move the omelet" as in spoon race with not just an egg, but a delicious concoction of egg, peppers, onions?

Ig Nobels for Political Science

There are awards given out every year to note research that, well, is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Nobel-prizing winning research--the Ig Nobels.  Given that research has been the theme of the week here at the Spew (and Globe and Mail), I am, of course, disappointed to find no political science on this year's list of Ig Nobels.

Of course, all good research projects start by insisting there is a hole in the scholarship of a topic (a lacuna, if you will).  So, the lack of political science Ig Nobels is really an opportunity for us to ponder what work in our field makes us laugh and then think.  Various takes on the McDonald's peace come to mind.  As does a certain book on the application of Theories of International Relations to Zombies.  The problem with Drezner's Z-book is that it deliberately attempts to be funny (I think it actually is, others may disagree).  I am not sure Ig Nobels are given to work that is deliberately satirical.  The list of this year's winners suggests that it is the only accidentally or unintentionally amusing that wins.

So, I ask my readers: what work in the past couple of years compares well to the Ig Nobel winners?  What piece of work would you nominate for an Ig Nobel-like prize?  I have to go to the dusty archives to come up with some nominations (or browse the web).  Inspire me with your choices.

Perceptions of Academia

My op-ed on research and teaching in the Globe and Mail got far more positive comments than my previous op-eds on Afghanistan.  Not a huge surprise given how controversial the latter is.  But it was kind of fun to observe the comment threads on the former, as it appears that there is a Godwin's law specific to academic discussions.

Godwin's law is the observation that any internet discussion that goes on long enough will eventually invoke comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis.  Well, on any discussion about universities, it seems that the conversation eventually must end up in one of two places: that we profs are really in the business of indoctrinating our students; or that universities are really about money/profit.  Each raises a variety of interesting questions.

Indoctrination?  What are we forcing students to learn/follow/believe?  This usually refers to left-wing folks inflicting their views on the students who then become hippies.  I am pretty sure this refers to pieces of the social sciences more than anything else: political science, economics, history, sociology and the like.  It is not clear how the rest of the university is in indoctrination business--chemistry, math, biology, engineering, etc.  Given that it is the latter that tends to wag the university dog (they bring in more money, fame, prestige, etc), it is not clear how this indoctrination machine works.  Another big problem with this set of beliefs is that we apparently suck at this.  Yes, educated people are, on average, less conservative than folks with fewer degrees, but there are plenty of folks in North America who have both college degrees and conservative views.  So, the indoctrination machine apparently sucks.

To the second, profit-making machines?  Um, whuck (a 30 Rock term compressing WTF)?  Yes, tuition has been going up (although hearing Canadians complain about this makes me giggle given how low tuition is in Canada, compared to the US), but whose pockets are being lined?  Yes, university presidents are getting paid more than in the past, but the wage distribution in academia hardly compares with the skewness of wages in the rest of the economy.  Who are the stockholders in this view of profit-seeking universities?  Who owns the shares?  Again, I do whine about there being more administration and administrators, but universities are spending most of their money on salaries/benefits of professors and staffers.  That is where most of the money goes.  Do professors make a good wage?  Yes, but, again, does not compare to the rest of the economy for folks with lots of degrees. 

Some of the comments seem as if they did not read the op-ed that they are criticizing.  Not surprising, but what the conversation there suggests is: confirmation bias.  That we tend to observe the stuff that confirms are pre-existing beliefs and ignore what does not.  Which would also explain the very kind emails I got from some profs around Canada, complimenting me on the post, and the nice facebook comments as well. 

I am so aware of the dangers of confirmation bias that my intro to IR course is very much not about indoctrination (except for convincing the convinced that the Bush administration made big mistakes in its foreign policy, like firing the Iraq army in 2003).  My goal in that class is to introduce a variety of theories about international relations and some tools to figure out for oneself which ones are more persuasive.  That is, I am trying to foster lots of different beliefs so that down the road students do not cram reality into the one box in their head via confirmation bias but have choices about how to view things.

If trying to get folks to see multiple perspectives is indoctrination, well, then I am guilty.  But then we have stretched the concept of indoctrination so far that it loses all meaning.