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The Obama Administration’s promise of early action to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is shaping up to become a direct challenge to the prominently declared views of his Defense Secretary.

President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign position on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was unambiguous:[i] “I will work with the U.S. Senate to secure ratification of the CTBT at the earliest practical date.”[ii]

Obama’s promised approach to nuclear weapons generally is to pursue their elimination while insisting that “as long as [other] states retain nuclear weapons, the United States will maintain a nuclear deterrent that is strong, safe, secure, and reliable” (emphasis added). The reference to reliability speaks to opponents of CTBT ratification who insist that warhead reliability deteriorates over time and that the current US stockpile needs ongoing testing.

A proposed alternative to testing selected warheads in the existing and aging stockpile is the controversial and still unfunded Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. Currently the viability of existing warheads is monitored without testing under the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). The SSP does not replace warheads (that is, it does not build new warheads), but does maintenance on them, including the replacement of parts. But there are those, including Mr. Obama’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, who argue that either the US must retain the prerogative to test warheads in the existing stockpile or build new warheads that will be regarded as reliable well into the future. They call it “modernization” and it is what the RRW program was supposed to do.

Last Fall Gates told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace audience that “there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.”[iii] Gates has indicated support for CTBT ratification, but only on condition of modernization of the US arsenal – that is, on condition of building new warheads.

President-elect Obama, on the other hand, has insisted, in response to an Arms Control Association question[iv] on whether existing US warheads can fulfill the deterrent role that Obama says is still needed, that “I will not authorize the development of new nuclear weapons and related capabilities.”

That seems to be an unambiguous rejection of the Reliable Replacement Warhead program and it promises to put the new President on a collision course with his Defense Secretary on the CTBT ratification issue. Gates says, either test old warheads or build new ones; Obama says, no testing and no new warheads.

For Obama to hold firm on CTBT ratification without allowing new warheads to be built will probably require some compromise by both the President and the Defense Secretary. For the President to ratify the CTBT he will require the support of two-thirds of the Senate, leaving the Democrats on their own well short. To win over the Republicans needed, Obama and Gates may well take up a compromise suggested by Michael O’Hanlan of the Brookings Institute. Obama would prohibit the building of any new warheads at this time, but would not insist on “never”; Gates would accept a significant delay in any warhead replacement program on grounds that his doubts about the reliability of existing warheads are based on their condition 25 to 50 years from now.[v]

A new Interim Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States[vi] could give support to the same compromise formula. The Commission also links ratification of the CTBT to an active program for maintaining the reliability of existing warheads, but it focuses on the Stockpile Stewardship Program which does not include the modification of existing warheads or any mandate to build new warheads.

The Commission lauds the ongoing success of the current warhead “Life Extension Program” (leaving one to contemplate the perverse irony that the preservation of warheads capable of killing many millions is designated a “life extension” program). That aside, the Commission’s Interim Report indirectly also makes the case for punting on the warhead replacement issue by pointing out that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has confirmed that the plutonium pits in warheads do not decay nearly as quickly as earlier anticipated – which should bolster US “confidence” in the reliability of existing warheads, thus permitting both CTBT ratification and stockpile reductions.

Success for Barak Obama, not to mention fidelity to his campaign promises, requires that he work for the ratification of the CTBT while also refusing in the timeframe of his presidency to permit the building of new warheads, and that his Defense Secretary becomes a champion of the same compromise.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

[i] President-elect Obama’s views on nuclear arms control are perhaps most clearly and succinctly presented in his response to a series of questions posed by the Washington-based Arms Control Association. Arms Control Today 2008 Presidential Q & A: President-Elect Barack Obama, Special Section, Arms Control Association, http://www.armscontrol.org/system/files/Obama_Q-A_FINAL_Dec10_2008.pdf.

[ii] He also promised to “launch a diplomatic effort to bring onboard other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force.” Those “other states” are the 44 states listed in Annex II of the CTBT, namely, states that pursue some elements of nuclear programming or have some nuclear technology or materials and which must all ratify the CTBT before it can enter into force. Three of the Annex II states have yet to sign (North Korea, India, and Pakistan) and nine[ii] (including the US) have yet to ratify the Treaty.

[iii] Elaine M. Grossman, “Gates Sees Stark Choice on Nuke Tests, Modernization,” Global Security Newswire, The Nuclear Threat Initiative, 29 October 2008, http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20081029_2822.php.

[iv] See Note i.

[v] Michael O’Hanlon, “A New Old Nuclear Arsenal,” 25 December 2008, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/24/AR2008122402032.html.

[vi] The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, Interim Report, 15 December 2008, facilitated by the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, http://www.usip.org/strategic_posture/sprc_interim_report.pdf.

It has long been blindingly obvious that the only sure way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them, but the politics of arms control has never really been drawn to the obvious – until now, that is.

This year could be a turning point for nuclear disarmament. That sounds like the kind of thing that might be said by disarmament enthusiasts each January, but it could not have been credibly uttered by even the most congenital of optimists at the start of any of the last eight years – make that 16.

George Bush the elder, presiding, as he did, over the end of the Cold War, had some genuine turning point opportunities and in fact managed to set in motion, along with Russia’s Michail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, a period of significant decline in US and Russian nuclear arsenals. The Presidency of Bill Clinton supported the momentum, but his failure to get the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty through the Senate and the rapid expansion of NATO were among factors leading to a souring of Russian-American disarmament efforts.[i] Then George Bush the junior, while continuing reductions in nuclear arsenals, embarked on a series of policies and actions designed to re-entrench nuclear weapons in US security policy and to ensure that the United States would not be constrained by any serious or permanent international disarmament laws or obligations.

But at the dawn of 2009 it is a whole new world of possibility.

To begin with, some simple truths are getting harder and harder to avoid:

· As long as some States insist on indefinitely retaining, and brandishing, nuclear weapons, others will insist on acquiring them as well.

· The greater the number of States with nuclear weapons, the greater the likelihood that they will be used.[ii]

· Nuclear knowledge, technology, materials, and weapons will inevitably be accessible to any state with a developing industrial base and advanced educational and scientific institutions – and that’s a long and growing list of potential proliferators. Thus, successful non-proliferation depends on creating a political/legal climate that sees nuclear weapons as sources of insecurity and vigorously eschews them.

· It is impossible to rationally construct a scenario in which the world would be better off if nuclear weapons were used in combat, than if they were not used.

Accordingly, indeed obviously, the consensus in favor of nuclear disarmament down to zero is reaching global proportions. A survey of 21 key states around the world found that 76 percent of people questioned favor a global agreement that “all countries with nuclear weapons would be required to eliminate them according to a timetable” while “all other countries would be required not to develop them.”[iii] Public support for the total elimination of nuclear weapons is higher than the global average in China, France, the UK, and the US, but lower than the average in Russia and India (but still 69 percent and 62 percent respectively). In Pakistan support is only at 46 percent, but even there more favor total nuclear disarmament than oppose it.

Given that overall support, it is not simply a coincidence that as of January 20, 2009 the White House will be occupied by an American Commander in Chief genuinely committed to the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons. Furthermore, he will have allies among the elites of the American and international security community, ranging from Henry Kissinger to Ban Ki-Moon.[iv]

In December a group of 100-plus political, military, business, religious, and civic leaders met in Paris to mobilize efforts toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. A unique contribution of this group, which Canada’s Simons Foundation was instrumental in assembling, is to insist on a definite timeline, 25 years, in which to accomplish the goal. The group refers to its effort as “Global Zero” and includes an impressive list of major figures among its supporters: former US President Jimmy Carter; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; former Defence Secretary Frank Carlucci; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; Shaharyar Khan, a former Pakistani foreign minister; retired Air Chief Marshal Shashindra Pal Tyagi of India; and Malcolm Rifkind, a former British foreign secretary.[v]

It’s also worth remembering that under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) all states (except India, Israel, and Pakisatan which have never signed it) are already committed to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals (but without a required timeline) and in the 2000 NPT Review Conference the nuclear weapon states made “an unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

There are still plenty of skeptics out there, some of them in high places. But the concrete steps needed for progress toward fulfilling that promise are already known and broadly agreed.

Analyst Gwynne Dyer has it about right: “It sounds like a pipe dream, but in fact the conditions have never been as promising as they are now. If Obama takes the lead, it could happen – and even in the depths of a recession, it wouldn’t cost anything.”[vi] The only thing to add is that this “pipe dream” is now the only realist option in the nonproliferation mission.

Over the course of 2009 there will be many occasions to assess progress, or lack of it, on the specifics, and, of course, to hear further from both the skeptics and the enthusiasts.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

[i] John Holdren, the newly designated Chief Science Advisor in the Obama Administration, provided a review of the 1990s achievements and failures in advancing nuclear disarmament in an address to Pugwash, 5 August 2000, “The Impasse in Nuclear Disarmament, http://www.pugwash.org/reports/pac/pac256/holdren.htm.

[ii] That is the conclusion of a November 2008 report of the US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025:

A Transformed World, available at http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html.

[iii] “Publics around the World favor International Agreement to Eliminate all Nuclear Weapons,” World Public Opinion.Org, 9 December 2008, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/577.php?nid=&id=&pnt=577&lb=btis.

[iv] See posting here on 04 August 2008, “McCain, Obama, and the imperative of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” https://www.igloo.org/disarmingconflict/mccainobam.

[v] “World leaders gather in bid to impose a ban on nuclear weapons,” Yahoo News, 7 December 2008, http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081206/world/nuclear_weapons_1. Visit the Global Zero website at http://www.globalzero.org/.

[vi] Gwynne Dyer, “Conditions favourable for elimination of nuclear weapons,” Kingston Whig Standard, 15 December 2008, http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1346088&auth=GWYNNEDYER.

Despite widespread complaints about the sorry state of Canadian military spending, Canadian contributions to international peace and security are more heavily weighted toward the military than they are in key European middle power countries.

Given the UN Security Council’s recent attention to Article 26 of the UN Charter,[i] it is worth asking whether the world’s 33 million military personnel (plus 54 million reservists) and the $1.3 trillion it spends annually on military forces are what the framers of that Article had in mind when they called on states to maintain international peace and security “with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.”[ii]

As a general proposition, many will certainly agree that this human and material treasure could be put to more productive use, but in most particular cases the point is likely be disputed.

Take Canada, for example. Canada is the world’s 14th highest military spender[iii] and might logically be regarded as among those states guilty of the excessive diversion of economic resources to military purposes – but it’s obvious that many disagree. Indeed, the prominent, if not prevailing, view among those interested in these matters is that Canadian forces are seriously understaffed and underfunded.

During recent discussions of the formation of a Liberal-NDP Coalition, to be supported on confidence votes by the Bloc, the Canadian historian and military affairs analyst J.L. Granatstein warned that “ideological and anti-military concerns of the coalition partners” could not be relied on to “restore” Canadian forces as the national interest requires.[iv]

The International Institute for Strategic Studies lists Canada as the 6th highest military spender in NATO, in addition to being the 14th highest in the world, yet Douglas Bland of the Queens University Defence Studies Program says “many billions more” will be needed to rebuild the Canadian Forces after the current Afghanistan mission.[v]

Canada’s ranking in the top 10 or 20 percent of the world’s military powers (the 14th highest in absolute military spending, and 26th from the top in per capita military spending) doesn’t deter another military analyst from declaring that “Canada has been a defence laggard for so long that it hardly warrants as news that we remain one today”[vi] – did we mention that Canada has the 6th highest defence budget in NATO?

There is another way of measuring the level of resources devoted to armaments or development and that is obviously to look at the defence to development spending ratio of a number of like-minded states.[vii] In 2004 that ratio in Canada was 3.8:1 – that is, military spending was at just under four times the level of development assistance spending, putting Canada roughly in the middle of the OECD rankings.[viii] The most balanced ratio was held by Luxembourg (1.2:1), while the most disproportionate ratio belonged to the United States (24.8:1). While those are both examples outside the mainstream, ratios in selected like-minded countries ranged from 5.9:1 for Germany to 1.6:1 for Denmark, 2.2:1 for Netherlands, 2:1 for Sweden, 2:1 for Norway, and 1.8:1 for Ireland. In other words, Canadian peace and human security spending was weighted more heavily toward the military than in most of these like-minded states.

In 2006 (the most recent year for which such figures are available) the Canadian ratio of defence to development spending had climbed to 4:1. The ratio in Germany had dropped to 3.6:1, and in Denmark it was 1.7:1, Ireland 1:1, Netherlands 1.8:1, Norway 1.7:1, and Sweden 1.5:1. In all of these states the spread between military and ODA spending had narrowed; in Canada it had widened.

Notably, if Canadian development spending had reached the declared target of .7% of GDP by 2006 (with defence spending maintaining its rate of growth), the Canadian defence to development ratio would of have been roughly the same as Sweden at about 1.5:1 and generally comparable to the ratios in the Nordic and some other like-minded European countries.

For now, however, Canadian contributions to international peace and security do remain more heavily weighted toward military spending than they are in key European countries – and that doesn’t seem to be quite in the spirit of Article 26.

(eregehr@ploughshares.ca)

[i] See the December 16 posting here.

[ii] These numbers are for 2006, taken from The Military Balance 2008 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press).

[iii] The Military Balance 2008 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press).

[iv] J.L. Granatstein, “The Coalition, the Obama Administration, and the Canadian Forces,” The Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute (http://www.cdfai.org/granatsteinarticles/The%20Coalition,%20the%20Obama%20Administration,%20and%20the%20Canadian%20Forces.pdf).

[v] Douglas Bland, “The Afghan mission has taught our politicians a lesson,” The Globe and Mail, 27 November 2008, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081126.wcoafghan27/BNStory/politics/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20081126.wcoafghan27.

[vi] Andrew Richter, “What Happened to the Promise of Large Defence Spending Increases?” Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, Summer 2007 Newsletter (http://www.cdfai.org/newslettersummer2007.htm).

[vii] See the 5 September 2008 posting in this space, “How Canada Spends its Peace Dividend,” https://www.igloo.org/disarmingconflict/howcanadas.

[viii] Military spending data is drawn from The Military Balance 2003-2004 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press); and data on ODA is drawn from OECD statistics, Table 4: “Net Official Development Assistance from DAC countries to Developing Countries and Multilateral Organizations,” at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/26/1894401.

The postings in this space continue the IGLOO Expert Blog, “Disarming Conflict,” which has appeared at http://www.igloo.org/disarmingconflict since September 2006. The current site is temporary while a new blog site is constructed at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (roughly by March 09).

Disarming Conflict is focused on initiatives, policies, regulations, and security cooperation measures that are designed to control and reduce arsenals, to reduce the incidence and impact of armed conflict, and to encourage states to devote a greater share of their resources to building conditions for sustainable peace.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the call of the United Nations Charter to demilitarize security has had about as much impact on international peace and security as would a Canadian call for the abolition of winter on the weather in January. But the framers of the Charter were not afraid of bold visions, so in Article 26 they mandated the Security Council to establish “a system for the regulation of armaments” as part of a larger effort to “promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.”

Article 26, like a no-winter policy, still awaits implementation:

· 80 million men and women are currently under arms (regular armed forces, reserves, and para-military), plus hundreds of thousands, if not millions, more are linked to non-state armed groups;

· the world annually spends more than a trillion dollars on armaments and armed forces;

· the nuclear weapons that remain deployed and on high alert are still capable of obliterating the world several times over, and

· almost 30 wars are currently being fought, and to prosecute them governments collectively divert vast sums of scarce resources away from development without delivering any of the security they promise.

But, of course, that is not the whole story. The good news is that an international phalanx of politicians, diplomats, researchers, and advocates is focused on pursuing the kind of peace and security arrangements that the Charter envisions. The postings in this space therefore focus on initiatives, policies, regulations, and security cooperation measures that are designed to control and reduce arsenals, to reduce the incidence and impact of armed conflict, and to encourage states to devote a greater share of their resources to building conditions for sustainable peace.

Topics addressed include:

· nuclear non-proliferation,

· controlling conventional weapons,

· current armed conflicts, and

· defence and human security.

To disarm conflict is to defuse it, and while the push to militarize the pursuit of security occupies the daily headlines, it is the effort to ameliorate the insecurities that face most people on a daily basis that has the truly disarming effect on conflict. Attention to unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably accompany these conditions of insecurity is at the core of preventing and terminating armed conflicts. The whole point of a “human” security framework is to challenge states to directly address the economic, political, and social conditions that render people and their communities insecure. Security policy worthy of the name must therefore include the pursuit of economic justice and poverty eradication, human rights and political inclusion, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and control over the instruments of violence.

It is this latter imperative, the need to control the instruments of violence or, in other words, disarmament, that is increasingly urgent and that is the focus of “Disarming Conflict.”

One of the more wrongheaded, but still ubiquitous, complaints voiced in the current Canadian debate over Afghanistan is that the Germans and others with forces in the north are not doing any “heavy lifting” and thus are both undermining the fight against the Taliban and – which some seem to find even more disturbing – putting the future of NATO in question. Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier echoed the point when he told CTV News on February 1 that within military circles the question is regularly asked: “Can you move troops from the rest of the country into the south where the need is most definite?”[i]

It is a Kandahar-centric question that fails to recognize that international forces in the north are in fact mounting credible and essential operations that could well turn out to be key to the long-term viability of development and good governance in Afghanistan. To cut back forces in the north (“north” being shorthand for those parts of the country generally onside with the Government and not heavily challenged by insurgent forces) and to redeploy them to the counterinsurgency war in the south (the parts of country plagued by a growing insurgency and where suspicion of the Kabul Government runs highest) would not necessarily or not even likely improve the chances of suppressing the insurgency, but would definitely put the stability of the north in further jeopardy.

In November 2007, for example, the BBC reported that in the north the always present violent crime is now being exacerbated by growing political attacks: “Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar‚Äîa former mujahideen leader who is battling the Kabul government independently from the Taleban ‚Äîare known to be active in Baghlan.”[ii]Another November example, a report from Radio Free Europe, describes northern militia leaders as “exploiting Kabul’s preoccupation with the violence-ridden south and east in order to stake claims to their old fiefdoms.” Some are rearming to prepare for what they fear may be another war with a resurgent Taliban.[iii]A new Oxfam International (2008) report on development and humanitarian priorities for Afghanistan also warns that the focus on the south is leading to neglect of the north and increasing the danger of spreading insecurity.[iv]

To preserve stability and advance human security in the north, stabilization forces must continue to contribute to conditions that are conducive to peacebuilding, that is, to reconstruction, disarmament, security sector reform, and accountable governance. The Manley Panel (p. 32) says that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan,” but in fact there is a peace to keep and build in the north. It is a fragile peace, to be sure, but it is one that must be nurtured and built up or it will be lost.

It is primarily in the north where there is currently a realistic prospect of gradually shifting security responsibility from ISAF to Afghan forces, but only with increased attention to training local police who will be trusted and to building the kind of economic and social conditions on the ground that are conducive to political stability. In the “clear, hold, and develop” framework, the 2001 invasion by US and northern Alliance forces was able to “clear” the north of the Taliban because the latter had few roots there. Since then the north has been “held” by a combination of Afghan (Government and militias) and ISAF troops. However, the “develop” phase (reconstruction and governance, in particular) has been chronically under-resourced. Governance reform has been resisted by both the central government and local officials and politicians (and militia leaders) in attempts to preserve their own advantages in a still corrupt system.

Much of the current debate is about whether or not Canadian forces should be engaged in combat operations. The real choice, however, is between counter-insurgency combat and a genuine post-conflict peace support and security assistance operation designed to stabilize the regions already largely under Government control. Both counterinsurgency clearing operations in Taliban-held regions and security patrols in government-held areas are UN Chapter VII (use of force) operations involving the resort to lethal force. The former, however, takes the fight to the Taliban without, as experience is showing (see the Feb 16 posting here), effectively suppressing the insurgency, while the latter focuses on providing security protection in communities where the insurgents are not present in the same way—even though the presence of spoilers is and will continue to be a challenge.

The explicit rejection of a combat role in Kandahar province should be understood as a rejection of counterinsurgency combat in favour of security patrols consistent with peace support operations in post-conflict areas of the country. In Afghanistan peace support operations are not carried out by Blue Helmets with binoculars and radios, but an armed security force with a mandate to protect people in their homes, communities, schools and places of work.

So, the general priority should now be to focus on the “hold” and “develop” tasks to ensure a stable future for Afghans in locations where the Government is basically in control and the insurgency is not present.

A British Humanitarian worker and researcher writes the following after recent visits to Afghanistan:^[v]

“Almost everyone I spoke to on my recent visit thinks that this strategy, which essentially consists of trying to capture territory held by the insurgents and then to “love-bomb” local residents with aid projects is crazy. It is a terrible way of distributing aid, it is not buying hearts and minds and it is actually creating an incentive for people in peaceful areas to stage “incidents” so that they can get “more, more, more” attention as well.

“Western strategy within Afghanistan should concentrate on securing the areas of the country that are currently under the nominal control of the government, strengthening the institutions of the state and tackling corruption and impunity. That will require a significant reorientation of existing policy – and real political courage – but until the institutions of government begin to command the respect of ordinary Afghans there is no hope achieving a durable political settlement.

“That does not mean the withdrawal of international military forces, but it should mean winding down aggressive military operations in the south and east. There is absolutely no point in asking British soldiers to risk their lives to capture territory during the day that the Taliban will simply reoccupy the next night. No amount of ill-thought-out aid is going to win the hearts and minds of a village whose children then get killed by an air strike.”

International military forces are needed to help “hold” the fragile peace in the north through stabilization or peace support operations that can be appropriately called Chapter VII peacekeeping. Efforts to “develop” that fragile peace into a sustainable peace are obviously what we know as post-conflict peacebuilding. Now is definitely not the time to shift forces from that vital peace support role in the north to join the unsuccessful counterinsurgency war in the south.

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[i] “German troops to stay in Afghan north despite pleas,” The Associated Press, February 1, 2008 (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080201/germany_afghanistan_080201).

[ii] “Afghan suicide blast ‘kills 40’,” BBC News, November 6, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7081012.stm).

[iii] Ron Synovitz, “Afghanistan: Armed Northern Militias Complicate Security,” RFE/Rl, November 4, 2007 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/ffca5de1-b96c-4cdf-810b-831bec1b5a6c.html).

[iv] “Afghanistan: Development and Humanitarian Priorities,” Oxfam International, January 2008 (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RMOI-7BE2T6/$File/full_report.pdf).

[v] Conor Foley, “Who is Right on Afghanistan?” February 15, 2008, Guardian Unlimited (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2008/02/who_is_right_on_afghanistan_1.html).

Neither the Manley-Harper formula that focuses on intensified efforts to militarily “clear” more parts of the country of Taliban insurgents, nor the alternative that focuses more on holding and developing (economic, governance, reliable security institutions) those parts of the country that are already cleared of the insurgency, can obviously guarantee success in Afghanistan. Neither can assure gradual and irreversible progress toward the safer future that Afghans want and need. But if our responsibility in the Canadian political debate is to identify the course of action with the better chance of success, we would do well to heed experience, which tells us that the odds do not favour the Manley-Harper formula.

Scholars who study post-WW II armed conflicts and their ultimate resolution draw some telling conclusions.[i]

Insurgencies are for the most part deeply rooted in grievance, conflicting interests, and a sense of exclusion, not in a detached or apolitical fanaticism. In other words, while ideological extremists may exploit disaffected populations, insurgencies are based on deeply held goals from which they are not easily deflected. An insurgency gains genuine staying power when it is able to draw on a large or core ethnic group for support (in this case, the Pashtun communities) and when it can access an independent income source (poppies) and safe havens (Pakistan). The Manley Panel (p. 14) seems to agree, acknowledging that “few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country.”

International military support tends to do little to improve the host government’s chances of prevailing over the insurgents. Instead, such support serves primarily to prolong the war because, with external support, governments take longer to face or own up to the disturbing reality that they are not going to prevail militarily. Put another way, external support tends to delay government recognition of a hurting stalemate, but does not ultimately avoid it.

Thus, wars against insurgents tend to be long wars, especially if foreign forces are involved. And the longer such wars last the more likely it is that they will be stalemated and require a diplomatic solution. Hence, the classic objective of insurgency is durability, not military victory. By dragging out the fight‚Äîoften committing heinous crimes in the process‚Äîinsurgents gradually force the government under attack to recognize that it must finally negotiate with the very people it once described as lawless perpetrators of atrocities and utterly unworthy of civil discourse. Insurgents win if they don’t lose; governments lose if they don’t win.

By this account, the Afghan Government and its ISAF partners are losing. When combat operations manage to clear the Taliban out of certain areas of Kandahar Province, for example, neither ISAF nor the Afghan security forces have the capacity to hold those areas in ways that ensure sufficient security to undertake significant development. The Manley Panel (p. 12) puts it more delicately, but there is no escaping the point: “security generally has deteriorated in the South and East of Afghanistan, including Kandahar province where Canadian Forces are based, through 2006 and 2007.” This conclusion is reinforced in much more categorical terms by a host of other studies, including a recent US study byCo-Chairs General James L. Jones (Ret.) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering[ii]and the reports of the Secretary-General.[iii]

The Manley Panel (p. 28) recognizes that “no insurgency‚Äîand certainly not the Afghan insurgency‚Äîcan be defeated by military force alone. The Panel holds strongly that it is urgent to complete practical, significant development projects of immediate value to Afghans, while at the same time contributing to the capacity and legitimacy of Afghan government institutions.” It correctly emphasizes more immediate-impact reconstruction and better coordination of the counterinsurgency effort, but refuses to acknowledge the need for political attention to the conflicts and grievances that fuel the insurgency. In the end, it turns to an intensified military effort (p. 35): “a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.” And the odds do not favor such a strategy.

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[i] See, for example, the Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 3 (2004). The focus of the entire issue is the duration and termination of civil war.

[ii] “Afghan Study Group Report: Revitalizing our Efforts, Rethinking our Strategy,” Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 30, 2008 (http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf)] and the UN Secretary-General’s 2007 report on Afghanistan.

[iii] UN Security Council. 2007. The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. Report of the Secretary-General. September 21. A/62/345-S/2007/555.http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep07.htm.

Neither the Manley-Harper formula that focuses on intensified efforts to militarily “clear” more parts of the country of Taliban insurgents, nor the alternative that focuses more on holding and developing (economic, governance, reliable security institutions) those parts of the country that are already cleared of the insurgency, can obviously guarantee success in Afghanistan. Neither can assure gradual and irreversible progress toward the safer future that Afghans want and need. But if our responsibility in the Canadian political debate is to identify the course of action with the better chance of success, we would do well to heed experience, which tells us that the odds do not favour the Manley-Harper formula.

Scholars who study post-WW II armed conflicts and their ultimate resolution draw some telling conclusions.[i]

Insurgencies are for the most part deeply rooted in grievance, conflicting interests, and a sense of exclusion, not in a detached or apolitical fanaticism. In other words, while ideological extremists may exploit disaffected populations, insurgencies are based on deeply held goals from which they are not easily deflected. An insurgency gains genuine staying power when it is able to draw on a large or core ethnic group for support (in this case, the Pashtun communities) and when it can access an independent income source (poppies) and safe havens (Pakistan). The Manley Panel (p. 14) seems to agree, acknowledging that “few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country.”

International military support tends to do little to improve the host government’s chances of prevailing over the insurgents. Instead, such support serves primarily to prolong the war because, with external support, governments take longer to face or own up to the disturbing reality that they are not going to prevail militarily. Put another way, external support tends to delay government recognition of a hurting stalemate, but does not ultimately avoid it.

Thus, wars against insurgents tend to be long wars, especially if foreign forces are involved. And the longer such wars last the more likely it is that they will be stalemated and require a diplomatic solution. Hence, the classic objective of insurgency is durability, not military victory. By dragging out the fight‚Äîoften committing heinous crimes in the process‚Äîinsurgents gradually force the government under attack to recognize that it must finally negotiate with the very people it once described as lawless perpetrators of atrocities and utterly unworthy of civil discourse. Insurgents win if they don’t lose; governments lose if they don’t win.

By this account, the Afghan Government and its ISAF partners are losing. When combat operations manage to clear the Taliban out of certain areas of Kandahar Province, for example, neither ISAF nor the Afghan security forces have the capacity to hold those areas in ways that ensure sufficient security to undertake significant development. The Manley Panel (p. 12) puts it more delicately, but there is no escaping the point: “security generally has deteriorated in the South and East of Afghanistan, including Kandahar province where Canadian Forces are based, through 2006 and 2007.” This conclusion is reinforced in much more categorical terms by a host of other studies, including a recent US study byCo-Chairs General James L. Jones (Ret.) and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering[ii]and the reports of the Secretary-General.[iii]

The Manley Panel (p. 28) recognizes that “no insurgency‚Äîand certainly not the Afghan insurgency‚Äîcan be defeated by military force alone. The Panel holds strongly that it is urgent to complete practical, significant development projects of immediate value to Afghans, while at the same time contributing to the capacity and legitimacy of Afghan government institutions.” It correctly emphasizes more immediate-impact reconstruction and better coordination of the counterinsurgency effort, but refuses to acknowledge the need for political attention to the conflicts and grievances that fuel the insurgency. In the end, it turns to an intensified military effort (p. 35): “a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan requires more ISAF forces.” And the odds do not favor such a strategy.

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[i] See, for example, the Journal of Peace Research, vol. 41, no. 3 (2004). The focus of the entire issue is the duration and termination of civil war.

[ii] “Afghan Study Group Report: Revitalizing our Efforts, Rethinking our Strategy,” Center for the Study of the Presidency, January 30, 2008 (http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf)] and the UN Secretary-General’s 2007 report on Afghanistan.

[iii] UN Security Council. 2007. The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. Report of the Secretary-General. September 21. A/62/345-S/2007/555.http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/sgrep07.htm.

The Manley Panel clarified and actually generated consensus on at least one important element of a coherent Afghanistan policy, namely, that Canada should not be putting its soldiers at major risk in support of a military strategy that stands little chance of succeeding. That may seem obvious enough, but given that Canada took on the Kandahar assignment largely out of a misguided desire to curry favour in Washington and without a thorough understanding of the situation in Afghanistan’s south,[i] overt recognition of this key principle, that for the use of force to be appropriate or justified there must be a reasonable prospect for success, is significant.

In his Foreword to the report of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan (2008), chairman John Manley puts it this way: “Our Panel concluded that the sacrifice of Canadian lives could only be justified if we and our allies and the Afghans share a coherent, comprehensive plan that can lead to success.”

The Manley Panel also accepts the troubling, but well-documented, truth that under present conditions the counterinsurgency effort is not succeeding and will continue to falter. Prime Minister Stephen Harper also acknowledged this reality when he accepted the Panel’s report. The Manley-Harper acknowledgment is more than the oft-repeated statement that the Afghan insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone. Rather, it is a recognition that even in the context of a 3D strategy (defence, development, and diplomacy), or whole-of-government effort, the military component of the Kandahar mission should not be continued as is.

Where Manley and the Harper Government part company with many critics of the mission is in their definition of winning conditions – that is, in their assessment of what is required to make the military component of the mission successful.

The Manley-Harper formula is set out in the Panel’s most discussed recommendation, and repeated in the mission extension resolution tabled in Parliament on February 8,[ii] that making the military mission in Kandahar effective and worth continuing will require 1,000 more soldiers from a partner country, as well as additional equipment, principally helicopters and drones. The Panel did not claim that these adjustments would produce an early defeat of the insurgency, but it argued that they would set the insurgency back enough so that, with further training of the Afghan National Army, by 2011 the Afghans would be in a position to take over the lead responsibility for military security operations from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kandahar province.

Critics of the military counterinsurgency effort argue that increases in foreign forces and equipment will not break the back of the insurgency, pointing out that several years of counterinsurgency warfare have actually seen the insurgency steadily gain strength. Some conclude that it is therefore time to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan, but others say Canadian and ISAF troops need to refocus on a mission to protect and stabilize those parts of the country (largely in the north and west) that are not heavily challenged by the insurgency.

The Liberal Party’s amendment to the Government Motion essentially adopts the latter approach, except that they say that Canadian Forces should be “providing security for reconstruction and development efforts in Kandahar.”[iii]To distinguish that military role from a counterinsurgency war would require the focus of operations to be largely confined to Kandahar city and its immediate environs – the only part of Kandahar Province, according to current reporting, in which the Taliban do not have a permanent presence. Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, who heads the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, was portrayed in theGlobe and Mail as being critical of the approach proposed by the Liberals, but from his description, current operations actually seem to following the model proposed by the Liberals:

“Gen. Gauthier said the military’s role as it is right now is to create secure conditions in regions around Kandahar city so reconstruction efforts can occur. He noted that the panel on the future of Canada’s role headed by former Liberal minister John Manley also concluded that reconstruction work cannot be separated from military efforts to make areas secure.

“‘It’s less a question of offensive actions than it is of taking the necessary measures to secure a zone of action,’ Gen. Gauthier said. ‚ÄòAnd I think the Manley panel recognized the fact that we cannot separate the needs of security and the security efforts from those related to reconstruction and governance.’

“He also said: ‚ÄòI think that security, reconstruction, the development of the capacity of the Afghan security forces, the development of governance, all these efforts go together. It’s as simple as that. They can’t be separated.'”[iv]

Keeping Kandahar city, like the rest of the country that is not now engulfed by the Taliban insurgency, from becoming a Taliban stronghold is an obviously significant objective and requires a combination of security support and development and governance reform.

In the language of the “clear, hold, and develop” strategy, it is logical to argue that priority should now be given to holding and maintaining security (which can also involve the resort to lethal force) and developing those parts of the country that are largely clear of insurgency. Those areas are in danger of slipping out of control, like much of the south, if residents don’t soon see major improvements in their security and wellbeing and the performance of their government. Thus there should be, as the Manley Panel also says, redoubled emphasis on security sector reform and training, especially of a national police force that respects basic rights and that serves the welfare of, and gains the confidence of, the people of Afghanistan. Accelerated development and reconstruction would not only enhance the welfare of Afghans, but would discourage support for insurgent forces.

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[i] The point is made clearly by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang in The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (Viking Canada, 2007): “A new consensus, led by DND, was rapidly emerging in Ottawa: Canada, and in particular the Canadian Forces, needed to do something significant for Washington‚Äîsomething that the Pentagon really valued‚Äîto compensate for the refusal to participate in Ballistic Missile Defence” (p. 181; see also pp. 181-188).

[ii] On February 8/08 The Government’s “Motion on Afghanistan” calling on the House of Commons to support “the continuation of Canada’s current responsibility for security in Kandahar beyond February 2009, to the end of 2011.”] [iii] Liberal Amendment to Government Motion on Afghanistan, February 12, 2008 (http://www.liberal.ca/story_13576_e.aspx).

[iv] Campbell Clark, ” Top general wary of Liberal positionCombat, reconstruction ‘can’t be separated’,” The Globe and Mail,February 15, 2008 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080215.AFGHANBRIEFING15//TPStory/Front).

This and the next five postings, on successive days, will review and elaborate the themes addressed in the Feb. 8 posting.[i] As noted then, the Manley Panel reinforced a prominent misperception in the current debate over the role of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, namely that “there is not yet a peace to keep in Afghanistan.” In fact, in large areas of the country, essentially the northern half, there is indeed a peace to keep. To be sure, it is a fragile peace, but if it is not protected, built upon, and genuinely nurtured it will yet be lost.

Security assistance forces in the north are critical to maintaining conditions that are conducive to moving from a fragile to a durable peace. International forces deployed in the north, unlike those in the south, follow the model of peace support operations intended to protect people in their homes, communities, schools, and places of work so that the regions of the country that are relatively free of the insurgency that increasingly plagues the south can develop and advance the human security of Afghans. The peace support forces operate under a Chapter VII mandate and can certainly involve the resort to lethal force, whatever national caveats may be in place, but it is a reliance on force that is clearly distinguishable from counterinsurgency combat that seeks to defeat the Taliban on their home ground in the south.

The harsh reality is that the counterinsurgency combat operations in the south are repeating history in their failure to stem, never mind defeat, the insurgency. The growing danger is that while ISAF and NATO focus on the south, the security, reconstruction, and governance challenges in the north will be neglected to the point that declining northern confidence in local and national government will lead to collapse there as well.

Accordingly, the military choice facing Canada in Afghanistan is not between combat and no combat, it is between counterinsurgency warfare and Chapter VII peace support, or peacekeeping, operations.

Tomorrow: The search for winning conditions.

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[i] This same material is also presented in Project Ploughshares Briefing 08-1, available athttp://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf081.pdf.

The Manley Panel seems to support, as does the Government resolution, the idea that, rather than concentrating only on counterinsurgency operations, Canadian forces should increasingly focus on training Afghan security forces. However, the Panel tends to define training as mentoring Afghan soldiers in counterinsurgency combat situations.

Its report (p. 24) notes that the ISAF Operational Mentor and Liaison Teams link to Afghan National Army units to assist in planning and carrying out field operations; “in reality, training and mentoring Afghan forces means sometimes conducting combat operations with them” (p. 30). But in another context the Panel emphasizes the distinction between combat and training. It (p. 34) says, for example, that the report’s recommendations, if adopted, “would reorient Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan more systematically from combat to the intensified training of the Afghan army and police.”

The latter understanding of training seems to come a bit closer to what is needed. Serious training takes place in training academies and through field exercises and should prepare both the Afghan National Army and, more importantly, the Afghan National Police to maintain order in the context of a country no longer at war that has the benefit of a political accord that embraces all elements of Afghan society. The Manley Panel’s view of training as on-the-job training in counterinsurgency warfare assumes ongoing war, however, and seems to reduce the objective to leaving minimally trained or mentored Afghan government forces to their fate once foreign forces deem them ready to take over the fight.

Richard Nixon called a similar strategy “vietnamization.” This formula for long-term war is a formula for Afghanistan’s long-term loss of the state’s monopoly on the resort to force – the name for which is “failed state.”

The Panel (p. 32) says that “the Canadian combat mission should conclude when the Afghan National Army is ready to provide security in Kandahar province.” But the general strategy of transferring security responsibility to Afghan forces will be possible only if there is a new political accord that ends the insurgency and therefore drastically reduces the government’s security requirements. For Afghan forces to be trained and expanded to the point that they could take over the entire country’s security needs would mean that the war would first have to end. Afghan forces on their own will not defeat an insurgency that NATO/ISAF forces have not been able to even contain, never mind defeat. Furthermore, the Government of Afghanistan can obviously not afford to maintain the level of armed forces needed to keep up long-term combat operations against insurgents.

The alternative to permanent war must be to replace the military counterinsurgency strategy with a political counterinsurgency strategy. In the south the “clear” element of the “clear, hold, and develop” strategy must become a political operation that addresses the conditions that fuel the insurgency through processes that are inclusive and participatory in carrying out the negotiations, along with social reconciliation that will need to become part of a comprehensive peace process.