Ironies of International Cooperation

Check out this figure on monetary unions--real and less so:

From the Atlantic.

My favorite comparison to the EU is "Countries Beginning with the Letter M."  Does that include Macedonia?  Hmmm.

The article is about inevitability of the end of the Euro.  I am not so sure, although this weekend's elections suggest that things will become more interesting in the days/weeks/months ahead.

Who Rolled Whom?

I have gotten some more information about the deal Quebec made with the leaders of the student groups, which suggest that maybe Quebec rolled the students rather than the other way around, contrary to my previous post.

The key is that the students will only have four spots on the nineteen person panel.  So, their influence will be mostly symbolic unless they can get other folks on their side.  Of course, the bad news is that the university folks only have six seats, so the panel is unlikely to be all that helpful to universities either.

It is also not clear how the increases in tuition are balanced by cuts in fees.  Given that some schools in Quebec have very little in the way of fees, it may be the case that the totals going to universities still increase over the next seven years.

Still, the idea that there is heaps of room to cut university budgets just because there has been some mismanagement is problematic.  The biggest university expense, as Lucien Bouchard pointed out, is personnel.  That would be profs, staff.  Quebec rates of wages are lower than rest of Canada's so not really much room to cut salaries, especially with unions on the panel.

Of course, this is all moot.  The students will have to agree to the deal, and if they use the same kinds of rules as before, open votes, with only limited turnout, I am guessing that the vote will be against the deal.  What happens if one or two groups vote for and one or two vote against?  Hmmm.

Anyhow, the devil is very much in the details, but the details may be overcome by events this week.

New Metaphors for Defense

One of the my most memorable days at Oberlin long ago was when a student group put up various effigies and other symbols to protest American defense spending and the emphasis on war.  What was so memorable?  Well, the missile as phallus was a dominant theme that day.  Uncle Sam was decorated with a particularly large, ahem, missile, for instance. 

I raise this now because I have no idea what this image of a blimp over Afghanistan implies for future discussion of body parts, imagery and war:

This picture was entitled "Nipple of the Eye in the Sky"

Does the increased role of women in combat and women as a means for war (disguised suicide bombers, targets of intel acquisition, etc.) mean that we are now seeing different kinds of images?  Or am I just way over-thinking this?

Your thoughts?

Concussions and Kid's Football

Very interesting study.  Not enough has been done thus far.


Clear lesson--football practices are as dangerous as the games.

Would moving back to touch football make a difference?  I don't know, but I do know that the coaches here in this story may not be that typical.  Other coaches may be a bit more into competition and a bit less into protecting the kids.

I am glad my daughter is into ultimate and not football, more so now than ever.

Always Bet on the QC Government

Always bet on the Quebec government to do the wrong/expensive/short-sighted thing.  It appears to be the case that the QC government managed to give into the student movements even though the students were only doing an excellent job of alienating the province. 

The apparent deal:

• Instead of freezing tuition, universities would have to reduce the various non-tuition fees they charge.  For the students, this means that their costs do not rise much (at all?).  For universities, this means that they do not get any help in addressing their budgets.  Universities became increasingly reliant on these fees since tuition had been frozen due to past student protests.  So, whatever the universities had hoped to gain from this battle, they are not going to get.
• A provisional/permanent council where students advise the universities on what to cut with all savings going back to students.  I am pretty sure that if something happened to increase costs (like the cost of energy), the universities would just have to suck it.
•  The students have already apparently found nearly $200 million of stuff to cut--advertising, travel, compensation for administrators, etc.  Whose travel counts?  Research travel, I am sure, the students would find wasteful.  What the students find wasteful might actually not be--tis in the eye of the beholder.  But the extremists here seem to think that anything not spent directly on students is wasteful, but that is a very narrow view that would be most destructive to the universities in Quebec.

It leads to the following questions:

• Which students will sit on the council?  Will the extremists be over-represented?  Who decides?
• What decision rules will the council have?  Can the obstinate paralyze the process?
• If the council cannot make decisions, does that mean government decisions continue?  That is, does the council have to have a consensus in order to shape outcomes?
• Ah, this leads to the big question--does the council have any real power or is a symbolic entity that the government can manipulate or ignore?  Or can it be a tool used by government to micro-manage universities?
• Of course, a bigger one still--the student groups can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  If they vote against this, then government can pull back.

 The big implications:

• Violence works.
• Universities lose.  The attempt to get more funding seems to have backfired.
• More instability ahead--the Quebec government just demonstrated that it can get rolled, even when the boycotters have very low support.  
• Oh, and violence works.

 I know that Ontario is mismanaging its own higher ed system, but Quebec's mistakes here make me even gladder that I am leaving the province.  Unless this is a great con job that fooled the student groups, very little good can come of this deal.

Avenging Principal-Agent Theory

You know you have been studying something too much when it comes to mind at the end of seeing Hulk smash, the Captain lead, Tony snark, Thor hammer, Hawkeye shoot, and Black Widow, well, kill.  But heaps of Principal-Agency theory in practice.


How so?  Let me count the ways after the break (to prevent spoilage):

Why the 21st Century Rocks

Now anyone can stage a pretty cool  light saber battle.

Even better?

thanks to Cracked

Too Many Chiefs?

I found it quite interesting that Minister of Defence Peter MacKay is re-organizing the command structure of the Canadian Forces.  Why?  Because I bumped into the new structures as I started doing research on Canada in Afghanistan.  General Rick Hillier re-organized the Canadian military early in his term in office, with little instruction or oversight from the civilians, moving the command for operations from the office of the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff.  Instead, four commands were set up: Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command [CEFCOM], Canada Command, Canada Support Command [CANOSCOM], and Canadian Special Operations Forces Command [CANSOFCOM].  Folks argued that CEFCOM and Canada Command were imitations of American combatant commands, as CEFCOM is responsible for all Canadian operations outside of North America and Canada Command is responsible for North American operations--including participation in NORAD.

The Americans shifted more weight to combatant commands--CENTCOM, EUCOM, PACOM, etc.--to empower one officer (a four star general or admiral) with sole responsibility for the operations of all branches of the service in his/her domain (with an exception for SOF, who often have a different chain of command going back home).  The idea is to force the services to operate well with each other and provide unity of command.  The Canadians are not supposed to have rivalry problems among the services because they unified the different services in the late 1960's.  But the realities of modern warfare mean that you need to do unity of command quite well.  To be clear, Hillier did not just imitate the US as other countries have set up similar structures including the Brits (PJHQ)and the Aussies (HQJOC) to deal with operating their militaries. 

CEFCOM and Canada Command were moved to Startop, an office building on the outskirts of Ottawa.  Ottawa is pretty small, so this is not far but definitely intended to make remove these folks from the DND building in downtown.  I have been to the Startop building several times to interview people at CEFCOM, including two commanders of CEFCOM and a few deputy commanders.  Not much parking. 

Anyhow, last year, in his last year as Lt.Gen., Andrew Leslie wrote a report recommending the cutting of some of these commands since the multiplication of these HQs means less officers and enlisted folks to serve in combat.  MacKay finally acted on this, apparently, with two commands replacing four: all but SOF are being folded into one command.  I think this is a two part-mistake: I think SOF should be folded in but perhaps Canada Command and CEFCOM kept separate.

First, the separation of SOF is problematic because, although it keeps tight the chain of command from Canada to the field, it usually violates "unity of command" as the folks engaged in conventional operations will not have control over or even know what the secret guys are doing.  If one is commanding all Canadian forces abroad, I think that should include the folks with the least amount of oversight.

May the Fourth Be With You

Hey, don't blame me, I don't have the droids or anything:

Failing Bargaining 101

Looking at the "demands" now made by CLASSE, the most radical of groups presenting themselves as representatives of Quebec's students, I wonder if they are really clever or just really ignorant.  Taking an extreme stance can be seen as good bargaining if they think it can push the other side, the Quebec government, into moderating its claims.  But this set of demands is less likely to do that than to help the Quebec government define CLASSE as insincere, crazy, and/or insane.  Why?   Let's go to the demands:

• Cut research funding.  Wait, cut research funding?  Ah, these folks believe that research funding and teaching are unconnected.  And they also believe that "much research conducted profits private corporations as opposed to students or taxpayers."  As the tweeter abbreviation goes, FFS!  
• Obviously, the first thing is that research and teaching are NOT independent activities. We actually do include new research in the classroom.  So, unless they only want to learn stuff that may be outdated, they might just want research to be funded.
• Second, where does a lot of the research money go?  To employing students.  I guess these folks have never been nor have ever met research assistants.  I am employing four undergrads in addition to a grad student this summer.  But these folks apparently do not want tainted employment since they might be working for THE MAN.  
• Third, since most of these boycotting students are not in engineering, the sciences, medicine, it is more likely that the research that is funded in their areas have nothing to do with capitalisme.  Oh, please save us all from idealistic socialists.
• Quebec would have to offer free tuition in five years.  That's right--they want more than a freeze--they want a rollback to a mythic fantasyland where tuition is free.  Such places do exist actually, but they tend to have stricter admission criteria since such magic lands admit far fewer students.  Geez, these folks suck at math.
• How is this paid for?  Capital taxes on financial institutions.  Because such businesses would not adjust by either leaving Quebec or by passing the costs on to those who use their services.  These folks suck at Econ 101 as well.
• Cut advertising where universities compete with each other.  So, prospective students should not be informed of the differences among the institutions?
• Freeze wages and hiring of university administrators.  Well, hmmm.  What counts as an administrator?  Is this a freeze on numbers or would it lead to a decline in administrators through attrition?  While I rail against the explosion of administrators and administrative expenses, I do recognize that some of these folks might be doing something related to, well, teaching.  So, I am opposed to generic solutions.
• Moratorium on construction/expansion of satellite campuses.  This, I think, I would not mind, but then again, are any of these aimed to reaching students and serving communities that are under-served?  Not all growth is, well, bad.

The other two student groups have made less extreme demands:

• maintain the freeze on tuition since university educations should not be subject to things like ... inflation, 
• better management of university spending through more involvement of students (um, no contradiction there, right?).
• a freeze on investments in universities, because, well, investing is bad.

Even if one thinks that tuition could not go up as fast as Quebec is planning (and the government did extend the time frame and increase the amount of aid going to the less well off), the rest of these demands are not just unrealistic but harmful to those making the demands.

While some universities (UQAM) wasted heaps of money on new construction, that is not really the source of funding problems.  That tuition was frozen for more than a decade, thanks to previous protests, has helped to create the difficulties now.  More importantly, these demands reflect ignorance of what universities and those working there do on a daily basis.  Research is not harmful to teaching, most research is really not going to private evil corporations, more ignorance is not more bliss, and not all administration is wasteful.

What the more radical demands do is taint the rest of them.  Perhaps freezing the growth of administration might make sense.   But if you demand to cut research at the same time because of the deluded belief that research is part of the MAN's grand plan, you just look silly and, even worse, dumb. 

Yes, I am aware that I have interests in play (or would if I were not leaving Quebec), but, unlike the students, I think I can figure out how my ideals and my interests might be finessed, rather than pushing for things that fit my ideology but undermine my interests.  A university education is pretty handy that way.

In Together, Out Together

The mantra during the Balkan interventions was "in together, out together."  This was often matched the logically compatible but empirically contradictory: "hasten the day" to get out.  The reality was that we did not come out of Bosnia together--we just re-flagged the effort from NATO to EU and the North Americans left.  I am sure that not all of the folks who entered Kosovo in 1999 are still there now unless being outnumbered by Luxembourg counts as "in".

I raise this now because of this tweet by NATO's Secretary-General Anders Fogh  Rasmussen who is in Berlin today:

On #Afghanistan Chancellor Merkel and I agreed to stick to our Lisbon timetable. And the principle in together out together.
— AndersFogh Rasmussen (@AndersFoghR) May 4, 2012

That the Dutch and the Canadians left their combat missions in southern Afghanistan should mean that in together, out together has been severely breached, even if they came back in non-RC South training missions.  It is clear that other countries will be leaving sooner rather than later, ahead of the 2014 deadline.  Australia has made that clear, and the French Presidential election may speed up the French exit if Hollande wins and then keeps his promises.

I understand why Rasmussen repeats the mantra and tries to get countries to feel bound by it.  It does raise the stakes of leaving if it appears to a country that it is breaking the norm and upsetting NATO.  But given who has left already and given the deep financial pressures and political stakes, I am pretty sure the promise to leave only together is now approaching the pie crust promise end of the pop culture promise spectrum.  I just feel it is my duty to point out when phrases from the international intervention drinking game may be deployed without much sincerity.

Chinese Squirrels

This article reminds me of the great moment in Up where the dog, Doug, is distracted by a squirrel.  Indeed, I have long thought that distraction sauce tastes like squirrel.  As I discussed on twitter today, there are good arguments to be made about the F-35 and why Canada might be willing to distort its defence spending for thirty years to buy the plane and operate it.  But China is not one of them.  As a relatively short-range air to air plane (with some air to ground since the plane is supposed to be multi-role), a Canadian F-35 would be confronting Chinese planes if:

1. China sent aircraft carriers to the North (way the hell north) Pacific or into the Arctic.
2. China somehow based planes in Russia (although they would still have to cross Alaska to get to Canada if the maps are correct).
3. Canada sent their F-35s to the Pacific to confront the Chinese in, say, Korea.

 Let's deal with each scenario one by one.  For (1), there are far easier ways to counter a carrier than stealth aircraft--use the Chinese solution--anti-ship missiles.  More seriously, the US would get in the way of any strange carrier task force that tries to get past Alaska.  The Chinese carriers will not be designed to engage in Arctic operations, nor will any sane strategist send them there when China will always have greater concerns closer to home--all those pesky archipelagos and random islands to the south.

For (2), please.  Yes, there might be some Chinese/Russian alliance down the road, but again, the threat would be more Russian than Chinese.  And there would never be enough F-35s to offset the Russian planes, so a few Chinese ones added is not a big deal.

For (3), yes, the previously purchased planes did engage in alliance operations, including most recently over Libya.  The problem with the Pacific, besides being pretty vast, is that Canada does not have the same kind of institutional ties/commitments.  There is no NATO out there.  Perhaps one could interpret the legacy of the Korean War (suspended by cease-fire and not settled) as a commitment by the Canadians to defend South Korea.  But when was the last time anyone in Canada discussed seriously Canada's commitment to the defence of South Korea?  Oh yeah, that is an ... American problem and a Japanese problem.  The RCAF is not going to be called upon in a crisis to deter a North Korean invasion.  Plus we are back to talking about North Korea and not China.

The combo of Arctic and China as the threat to Canada is just incredibly silly.  Yes, China could develop bombers with sufficient range to hit Canadian targets, but it is not clear why one would need stealth fighters to thwart that threat. 

No, there are good arguments to make about the F-35, but they are not about China.  And mostly not about the Arctic.  What unifies the folks who have been interested in the F-35 (Denmark, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, Norway, etc) are desires to be interoperable and save money via economies of scale.  Well, the latter has pretty much dropped out due to escalating costs.  So, the real reason (besides perhaps some local industries making some money--not that they could not make some money some other way) is the desire to be able stay with the US and other allies in a fight.  To be able to fly the first day and not just the third day after the US knocked out the other's side's defences.  To justify the F-35, then, requires taking seriously and committing quite deeply to the future of multilateral military operations especially with the US.  Otherwise, somewhat less special planes could be bought to deal with the more ordinary threats of hijacked planes, smugglers and whatever else. 

I used to be agnostic about the F-35 because I do see a role for Canada and other allies in NATO operations in the future.  However, money does matter (when people say it does not or should not, they are ignoring the realities of tradeoffs), which means one must prioritize.  The F-35 is incredibly expensive, which means it WILL crowd out other spending, whether that means less subs, less helos, less training and readiness or less something else we do not yet know.  But less of something else is most certain.  I would like to have Canada to have the best air force, but I am not sure that the F-35 would get Canada any closer to that goal of "best."

A Big Dose of Perspective Sauce

An academic friend of mine, Patricia Weitsman, has gone through hell over the past two years.  Today is the the anniversary of her "re-birth" as last year on May 3rd she had a bone marrow transplant.  This was to fight Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a precursor to Leukemia. 

Just in the past year, she has gone through:

treatment, transplant, broken ankle, multiple pulmonary embolisms in both lungs, residual host cells in the marrow 100 days post transplant, osteoporosis, chemo induced ovarian failure (pre to post menopause and XX to XY virtually overnight), Graft versus Host Disease, elevated glucose levels from 8 months of steroids. It has also brought new DNA, a new blood cell system, a fledgling immune system, a new identity, new hair, new hair color. 

I found out about her struggle pretty late in the process, but have sought to help out through the only way I can at a distance: sending her silly pictures to make her laugh.  Which is a good thing given her list of lessons learned through this process, which I post below with her permission:

1. Your strongest and closest allies will see you through your most difficult moments. But they can only do so if you let them.
2. Who you are is not what you look like.
3. There is no such thing as a bad hair day: only a bad no hair day.
4. The people who mean the most will always know who you are and will think you are beautiful no matter the circumstances.
5. Going through a process of this kind gives you unambiguous information about the substance and quality of the people around you. This is very valuable information to have.
6. Never let a day go by that you don’t express gratitude for the myriad blessings in your life.
7. When there is choice, opt to streamline negativity out of your life.
8. People are cured from disease every day—it requires a commitment to being one of them. Never deviate from this goal. And when fluff starts obscuring your vision, remove it; do not tolerate it.
9. Make your survival meaningful; make your life truly matter.
10. Spend time the way you want to spend your time. With the people you love doing things that are important to you. Your family. Your close friends. Exercise. Strong mind, strong body, strong heart.
11. Know your boundaries, your barriers, what is acceptable, what is unacceptable. Demand what you need for survival. Only you are accountable for your life. You know best. Trust yourself. Never apologize for demanding what you need to survive. It is non-negotiable.
12. Never worry about how inconvenient or difficult your health issue is for others, especially those who remind you that it is. Never worry about the people who tell you they are far too busy to help, or that they don’t deal well with illness. (Who does, I wonder? Alas, some do not have the luxury of choice. Those who truly love you will deal with it anyway.) Worrying about these things is a waste of time and energy. And they are irrelevant. Focus on your sources of joy. There are so many.
13. Know your body, listen to your body, honor your body.
14. Appreciate the beauty of your strength and the miracle of what your body does every second of every day.
15. Strive to be kind, open minded, mindful, and tolerant. Not only of others, but of yourself.
16. Avail yourself of any and all resources. Survival is always paramount.
17. Caring for your body, eating well, being committed to fitness cannot always keep you from getting sick, but it can help you triumph over the terminal.
18. Sometimes french fries are a healthier choice than salad; sometimes high fiber low fat diets need to be replaced by high fat low fiber ones. What is healthy is not absolute, but rather a product of what your circumstances are and what your body needs.
19. Giving up grapefruit can be harder than giving up wine.
20. There are 4g of carbs in the juice of a lemon!
21. Surviving the recovery is harder than surviving the disease and treatment. Once you fight for your life, you have to fight to get your life back.
22. While most will be ecstatic at your resurrection, accept the fact that there are casualties in a process of this kind. There will be people who fail you; there will be people who have benefitted from your absence. Enjoying every moment of life is the best antidote.
23. It is uncomfortable to see people who dropped out of your life for the duration of your most perilous moments. But it sure beats the alternative!
24. It is hard for others to understand what the journey to the precipice of death and back is like, or the ongoing challenges you confront. Accept this fact and move on.
25. Even the most sensitive people will say exceptionally insensitive things. These comments are very painful and extremely difficult to manage with diminished emotional reserves. Do yoga and breathe it out. Let it go. Focus on what serves your higher interest. Always.
26. Laugh every day. It is the best core workout of all.
27. Growing older is a privilege not a curse. This doesn’t mean you have to act your age. Channel your inner 8 year old, it is much more fun the second time round. See #26.
28. Truly revel in and appreciate the extreme depth of love the people in your life have for you and you have for them.
29. Recovery is not linear; transplant is a process.
30. There is no medical procedure more dangerous, more invasive, or more miraculous than a bone marrow transplant. Understand the scope of this and accept the changes it brings in your life.
31. One year is only the beginning of the recovery, the physical, emotional, and psychological components will take years to process. It changes you forever.
32. Control what you can control and let everything else go.
33. Strive for balance. Health, work, family, friends, exercise, recreation. Don’t say you don’t have time. You do. You make the time. Period.
34. Never underestimate the power of Providence.
35. You can do anything for 30 seconds. Oh! But I already knew that ;-) 

Patty says she is in awe of the people who have been with her in this, and I am awestruck by those folks as well.  But I am even more awed by Patty.  Clearly, she is winning this fight mostly due to her own courage and perservance, with some assistance from the doctors, nurses, relatives and friends.  I often use the word awesome, but here I really mean it--I am just awed by Patty's spirit in all of this.  I will probably not follow all of these lessons (I think I do #26-27 pretty well and am bad at #7) consistently, but I will try a bit harder.  Patty has inspired all those around her.  I appreciate her letting me share her lessons as it is better to learn from her than to have to learn these things through experience.


 

Seattle is Officially Most Interesting City

It has superheroes and supervillians:


Can any other city match that?

Canadian Grand Strategy

I started to ponder CA Grand Strategy during yesterday's chat.  So check out my first of a series of posts on it at CIC.

Favorite Non-Teaching McGill Memories

Since I already enumerated my top teaching memories in my decade at McGill, I thought I would ponder my favorite moments/experiences outside of the classroom:

• Hearing Helen Wilicka's laugh for the first time.  She was the most fun office manager I have experienced in my career (and that is saying something as I have been quite lucky).  Losing her to the Dean's office was a big hit even if her replacement has been quite excellent.
• When Juliet Johnson made central banking fascinating during a job talk.  A feat that still boggles my mind.
• Getting my first SSHRC grant.  McGill has had a high rate of success, and I benefited from that, as I was able to fund heaps of data-gathering with that first grant, my NATO-Afghanistan project with my second, and more data-gathering (diaspora) with my third.
• Watching a retiring colleague spend days weeks months standing outside of his office with a huge recycling bin, going to each page individually to see if it merited tossing into the bin.
• Sitting in on Stuart Soroka's methods class, picking up heaps of STATA tricks along the way.
• Designing the renovation of the third floor wing to create an office with a great view, even if McG would never let me out on the balcony (scared of me taking a dive?).  While the CFI paperwork was/is a tremendous headache, it was nice to have an influence on the offices/lab/conference room with spiffy new furniture.
• The binge of hiring the first five or so years--we hired a great bunch of folks.  It was a lot of work, but the rewards of that labor are paying off big-time now as they folks have moved up and up in the department and in the profession.
• The wager with Jacob Levy about the future of English private school in Quebec.  I was glad to lose even if it meant not hearing him lecture in Klingon.
• Teasing Jason Ferrell, who is even more of a comic book geek than me, about his always seeing the big superhero movies far later than any self-respecting comic book geek should. 
• The staff taking me out for beer and dinner last week.  They are great folks, and the department is lucky to have them.

We Live in an Awesome Time

Why?  This video reminds us of two things:

1.  Heaps of great superhero (and no so great) movies over the past couple of decades with Avengers just days away.
2. Folks now have the ability to edit and soundtrack heaps of clips.  The timing on this is fantastic.

Students are Revolting, part 13

I have lost track of the number of posts I have written about the Quebec students' boycott of classes.   it is quite clear the leaders of the groups have little interest in bargaining.  The CLASSE group even is explicit that their mandate is to demand, not bargain.  So, just a few bits and pieces on this:

• Jacob Levy just tweeted that the groups are asking for a spending freeze by the Quebec universities.  What a great plan.  Sure, the universities can control their spending.  But what would that mean? Cutting students?  Freezing hiring? Cutting spending on maintenance?  I am pretty sure that spending is planned to rise as costs rise.  Of course, the concept of inflation seems foreign to these folks since the basic tuition increase is only designed to catch the Quebec schools up to .... 1968.
• These students are losing the PR battle.  My post of last week is not the only one to note that more students are going to classes than are boycotting.  Indeed, the press seems more likely to use boycott now than strike since the students are not withholding their labor but their consumption of a service for which they have paid.  This represents a significant loss in the battle--the battle to frame the issues and set the agenda.
• Polls have shown that Quebeckers are not huge fans of higher education but are even more opposed to increasing taxes.  Their view, by roughly 75%, is that taxes should not be raised to cover tuition but the other way around.
• The folks who are demanding more democracy (which means they get what they want) are ignoring a key aspect--rule of law.  Students have gotten injunctions so that they can return to class, but these legal efforts have often met protestors who are unwilling to respect court decisions.  

One of the fun parts that remain: that if the boycott does end, it might bump into teacher unions that resist re-scheduling courses deep into the summer and/or on to Saturdays.

Oh, and this is affecting the larger Quebec game of when the next election will fall.  Speculation is rife (always wanted to say that) for sooner than later.  All I ask is that they wait until July.  I would like to get out of the province before the next election.  Please!

Conceptual Stretch of the Week

I always teased my students with the notion of Canada being a great power.  If so, then the concept of great power includes Canada, it has been stretched to the breaking point.  For the concept to mean anything, it has to only include those that bear the characteristics that define the concept.

Why am I mentioning this today?  Because in my twitter-feed, there was discussion that the Obama flight to Afghanistan is to lead to an agreement where Afghanistan is a "major non-NATO ally."  The problem is that this category includes Australia, Japan, and South Korea that the US has sworn to defend and other significant allies that the US is supposed to help out (Israel, Pakistan).  A pretty vague category I guess, but Afghanistan is not = Japan and almost certainly not = to Israel.  Perhaps Pakistan is similar.  When Pakistan gets involved in wars, we try to stop them.  But we cannot rely on Pakistan when push comes to shove as it did a year ago today when the US violated the hell out of Pakistan's sovereignty by flying into the country and killing Osama Bin Laden.

So, perhaps Afghanistan fits the Pakistan category of unreliable ally that also cannot entirely count on the US.  Which is distinct category from the Australia, Japan, South Korea category. 

Thus, we must keep this agreement with Afghanistan in perspective.  It comes far closer to the "pie crust promise" end than the "unbreakable vow" end of alliance spectrum.

Canada and the World: Unanswered Questions

I just participated in a live chat at Canadian International Council.  Check it out as we got through a bunch of interesting issues.  But what a bit of chaos--responding to a bunch of different questions all at the same time!

I am going to hit some of the questions we got and didn't answer here.

Phil: A big part of the Canadian defence policy debate between 1995 and 2005 focused on Canada's lack of influence and importance. In redressing this problem, did the Canadian government go too far, as Roland suggests?

Me: I think there is a logical disconnect here: Having the military have more influence and importance does not mean that the civilian side has less.  The CF had a tough decade after Somalia, and played mostly at the kid's table not just in Ottawa but in Brussels, Sarajevo and elsewhere.  In and due to Kandahar, the CF had more influence and importance.  This did not require that DFAIT and CIDA had to take a back seat.  They could have stepped up.  Circumstances and their own limitations made this difficult.  The Harper government constrained these agencies from talking about what they were doing in the field.  These agencies, especially CIDA, had such top-down management styles that limited ability to adjust and adapt--which is what counter-insurgency and alliance warfare absolutely requires.

roberteisenberg: How successful has Canada been at changing our reputation in the world as war-fighters?

Me: Absolutely.  Canada was one of a minority of allies willing to fight hard in a difficult spot. Only British, Danes, Americans and a few others were comparably capable and willing.

Mahmud Naqi: Mark Collins argues that our ability to afford a blue water navy is may be coming to an end, what do to think?

Me: The shipbuilding exercise suggests otherwise. I do worry that the F-35 will crowd everything else out, but the Harper government seems committed to building more ships.  So, the question will be how much blue water navy, not if.

PostWarHist via twitter The OMLT concept took off in Afghanistan post-2006. Do you see this commitment as mission-specific or a trend?

Me:  Mostly mission specific, as it required a willingness to put soldiers into harm's way.  Not sure that willingness will come back anytime soon.

Cyber question: I punted.  I just don't know enough.

If you had questions that we didn't see, shoot them my way here or on twitter at @smsaideman.

Oh, and keep an eye on CIC's series.  There will be more interesting stuff by other folks.  And I will keep on posting there.  Thanks to today's experience, I have a theme for May--thinking about Canada's Grand Strategy.