Author Archive

Political correctness aside, Pearson’s point has not lost any of its trenchant relevance. He made the comment in his 1957 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and it was followed by three decades of the kind of Goliathon war preparations that are, and we hope will remain, unmatched in human history.

Indeed, the legacy of those precocious giants continues to exact an annual toll of hundreds of thousands of lives as well as billions of dollars that might otherwise be spent on preparations for peace. The 600 million-plus small arms that flood the planet continue to kill at least 250,000 people annually, many in war and many more in homicides, suicides, and law enforcement killings in societies not at war.[i]

The worlds 27,000 nuclear weapons, a figure well down from Cold War highs, continue to threaten annihilation and continue to cost the world billions of dollars each year, either to maintain or dismantle them, to clean up the environmental contamination caused in their production, and to carry out the inspections needed to prevent their spread.

In 2005 global military spending reached $1.2 trillion.[ii]Some of that is spent to keep the peace, but keeping the peace, research and experience of the past decade in particular have been telling us, is rather more complex than suggested by the ancient Latin bromide: “if you want peace prepare for war.”

It should be both fundamental and obvious that preparations for peace, for the security and safety of people, should respond to the ways they experience insecurity. And the most immediate threats to human security derive from unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably accompany these conditions of insecurity.

The primary threats to the safety and welfare of people, in most cases, are not external military forces bent on attacking the territorial integrity or sovereignty of their state It should follow, therefore, that the build-up of military prowess is not the primary means of pursuing the security of people. Clearly, it is favorable social, political, and economic conditions – that is, economic development, basic rights and political participation, control over the instruments of violence, and skill in the peaceful settlement of disputes – that are essential to advancing human security.

For the most part, these approaches to international peace and human security are funded out of aid budgets (official development assistance ODA). Governments also spend separately on diplomacy and disarmament, of course, but it is still instructive to compare the ODA to Military Expenditures of states[iii] to get a sense of how Lester Pearson’s giants and pygmies are doing.

Some states put a high premium on ODA. In Norway and the Netherlands the ratio is 1:1.7 and 1:1.9 respectively – that is, even though military forces are extremely expensive to maintain, in Norway and the Netherlands military spending is less than double that of their development assistance.

Other states have different priorities. In the United States the ratio is 1:25.1 – that is, Washington spends 25 times more on military preparations than on development assistance. The global average is much better than the US example, but a long way from the model of Norway and Netherlands. Among OECD countries, the ODA to Military Expenditures ratio is 1:7.5.

And Canada? Here the ratio is 1:3.5 – much, much better than the worst cases, but there is still some work to do to match the Norwegian model. Canada would reach the Norwegian and Netherlands achievements if we but implemented our declared policy. If Canadian development assistance was actually raised to the declared objective of .7% of our gross national income, and if defence spending continued as currently projected, the ODA to Military ratio in Canada would reach about 1:2.

On this International Day of Peace it is an objective worth rediscovering.

[i] The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calls small arms “weapons of mass destruction” and offers background and figures (http://www.irinnews.org/IndepthMain.aspx?IndepthId=8&ReportId=58952), and the International Action Network on Small Arms provides additional evidence (http://www.iansa.org/media/wmd.htm).

[ii] The Military Balance 2007, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2007)

[iii] All figures are drawn from the IISS (see note 2), the OECD, and Canadian public accounts and are for 2005.

The National Counterterrorism Centre of the United States delivers the cold hard facts:[i] in 2006 terrorist attacks rose by 25 percent and deaths at the hands of terrorists by 40 percent. But this time it’s not the devil that is in the details. It turns out that when you look closely, in Europe, Eurasia, East Asia, the Pacific, and the Western Hemisphere the already low levels of terrorism have declined even further.

Take the headline-making countries out of the equation – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan, where incident of violence were up by 50-90 percent – and the trend is toward growing global safety.

Look at the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia – in 2006 there were no high-casualty terrorist attacks and 95 percent fewer victims of terror than in 2005. Of course, the US “counterterrorism” centre says this “is likely attributable to a more robust regional counterterrorism effort,” but it’s actually a lot more complicated, and promising, than that.

Less than a decade ago, Indonesia was a poster country for a world of never-ending war. Project Ploughshares tracks and tabulates wars for its annual Armed Conflicts Report[ii]and Indonesia has featured prominently, hosting six separate wars over the past decade (many at the same time), but now Indonesia is absent from the report. In the southeast, war ended when East Timor gained independence. In Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sulawesi inter-ethnic and Christian-Muslim tensions remain, but the violence has ended. Tensions also continue in West Papua (Irian Jaya), but the fighting has stopped. InAceh in the northwest a new agreement grants the province considerable autonomy, following a 2005 peace accord. The Molucca (Maluku) Islands have also largely returned to normalcy.

This is the first time since 1987, when Ploughshares began reporting annually on armed conflicts, that Indonesia has failed to make an appearance on the Armed Conflicts Map.[iii] Indeed, it’s a failure that is spreading – the current map shows 29 conflicts in 25 countries, the lowest numbers since 1987.

But conflicts don’t usually end by accident, and they almost never end because one side wins. They end because the participants are persuaded, as a result of a great deal of determined and multifaceted diplomatic, humanitarian, and political effort, to pursue other options.

In the last decade, 35 conflicts have ended in that way. In fact, while wars and rumors of wars remain all too prominent a feature of this planet, every war now raging could have been prevented (and that includes the tragedies of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan) and can and will be ended.

Ending wars does not end conflict, but it does demilitarize it and that is what the visionary drafters of the United Nations Charter had in mind. They wrote eloquently in the preamble about their intention to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and in Article 26 they sought to give their bold vision substance by mandating member states 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.”

The headlines and taxes remind us daily that Article 26 still awaits implementation (taxpayers fund military expenditures at the rate of a thousand-plus billion dollars annually). But that doesn’t mean no one is trying to implement Article 26.

The postings in this space now begin a second year and they will continue to draw impetus from the international band of politicians, diplomats, researchers, and advocates who focus on pursuing the kind of peace and security arrangements that the Charter envisions. As promised here a year ago, postings in this space will focus on initiatives, policies, regulations, and security cooperation measures that are designed to control and reduce the arsenals of war, 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 will include: nuclear non-proliferation, controlling conventional weapons, current armed conflicts, and defence and human security.

It is the effort to ameliorate the insecurities that face most people on a daily basis that has the truly disarming effect on conflict. The core of preventing and terminating conflict is therefore to be found in attention to unmet basic needs, to political exclusion, denied rights, and social and political disintegration, and to the criminal and political violence that invariably accompany these conditions of insecurity. In other words, there is still too much to write about.

[i] “Report on Terrorist Incidents – 2006,” The United States National Counterterrorism Center, April 30, 2007 (http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2006nctcannexfinal.pdf).

[ii] http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-TitlePageRev.htm.

[iii]The Poster, http://www.ploughshares.ca/imagesarticles/ACR07/poster2007.pdf.

Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, currently Canada’s top military commander in Afghanistan, puts it simply:[i] “I don’t talk to the Taliban.” In the same Canadian Press report, Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier is just as categorical: “Canada does not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason.”

For both comments, the immediate issue was the negotiated release of South Koreans held captive by the Taliban, but in both cases the comments were given broader context.

Gen. Laroche acknowledged that it will take more than military force to bring peace and order to Afghanistan, but he is right about not negotiating with the Taliban in the sense that he certainly has no mandate to do so. There may be tactical situations involving Canadian Forces in which negotiations would protect particular people in particular circumstances and his blanket dismissal of such an option does not generate confidence, but he is right in a strategic sense. Negotiations with the Taliban with a view to a more effective pursuit of peace and order are not up to foreign military commanders – that is the task of Afghans and the international community represented through the United Nations presence there.

And that is where Foreign Minister Bernier is certainly wrong.

Mr. Bernier is simply mistaken when he says that Canada never negotiates with terrorists. Canada has had officials present at current negotiations with the Lord’s Resistance Army to get it to end its campaign of unspeakable terror in Northern Uganda. Canada has similarly been represented at peace talks to end the war, and the extreme war crimes, in Darfur – sharing a table with the perpetrators of terror.

Canada, the United Nations, and virtually all governments enmeshed in protracted conflicts negotiate with individuals and groups guilty of heinous crimes. Minister Bernier is new to his post, but there are many seasoned negotiators in his department who are in a position to help him adjust, expand, and nuance his views.

As has been frequently argued in this space, a key measure of Canada’s effectiveness in Afghanistan will be the extent to which this country has used its presence there to encourage negotiations toward a new political consensus and a new governance structure that is understood by all Afghans to reflect and represent their best interests.

[i] Canadian Press, “”General vows: ‚ÄòI don’t talk to the Taliban’,” The Record, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontarion, August 31, 2007.

It was a particularly arresting headline that warranted the further search: “Taliban, US in new round of peace talks.”

Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of the Asia Times Online, has been writing a series of articles on continuing efforts to negotiate deals which he says “aim to stop violence in selected areas and give the Taliban limited control of government pending the conclusion of a broader peace deal for the country and the Taliban’s inclusion in some form of national administration.”[i] What he describes is really talks about talks, and he links the interest in negotiating to interest in the fabled oil pipeline to connect the oil fields of Turkmenistan and the other northern “stans” to south Asia and beyond, but there is no doubt that the undeniable futility of the fighting is increasingly turning heads to the possibility of alternatives.

The negotiation track has been given a significant boost by the recent four-day joint (Afghanistan and Pakistan) “peace Jirga,”[ii] by all accounts an extraordinary gathering that has inspired both hope and considerable skepticism.

The hope owes to what some consider the broad base of the Jirga[iii] – some 700 delegates that included representatives of civil society, business, tribal communities, religious communities, Parliaments, and Governments – and the agreement to pursue a peace and reconciliation agenda within the Pashtun communities of both countries aimed at curbing violence and bringing the communities into credible participation in provincial and national governments.

The skepticism owes to what others regard as the narrow base of the Jirga – the President of Pakistan was key in the selection of Pakistan participants and the Taliban were excluded – and to the insistence that it mandates talks only with those who renounce violence and terrorism[iv] (a reflection of Washington’s reluctance to support an aggressive reconciliation program).[v]

The Jirga did produce two significant results. It authorized a smaller and ongoing Jirga of 50 members (25 from each country) with a mandate to “expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation,”[vi] and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan acknowledged at the closing session that indeed the Afghan insurgency did receive support within Pakistan (but denying it was with official connivance).[vii]

Although media shorthand frames the issue as “negotiating with the Taliban,” the point is not to seek accommodation with the Taliban as an ideological movement, but to engage the people of the chronically destabilized parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that means talking to the representatives of the Pashtun community on both sides of the border. Tarique Niazi of the University of Wisconsin argues that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who initially proposed the Jirga and who is himself a Pashtun, regards tribal leaders as the “foundation of Pashtun culture and believes in their primacy over all other cultural and political institutions to resolve internecine conflicts” and also believes “that the jirga is the most effective tool in Pashtun society for conflict resolution.”[viii] Niazi makes a clear and compelling case for focusing talks within the Pashtun community rather than on the Taliban as an organization:

“Although Pashtuns reject al-Qaeda and its terrorism, as the Kabul Jirga resoundingly demonstrated, they are resentful of their loss of power in Kabul, which they held for 200 years, to an ethnic minority-dominated and U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. The Taliban, who are predominantly Pashtuns, are drawing on this sense of exclusion among their majority community to sustain their struggle. An ethnic balance to the current distribution of power, therefore, will help drain the Afghan resistance of energy and serve as well the long-term security interests of the Northern Alliance.”[ix]

The calls for such negotiations are not new, of course. President Karzai had earlier asked a group of former Taliban to engage dissidents.[x]The Afghan Senate has called on the government in Kabul to open direct talks with native Taliban insurgents, and for NATO-led military operations against them to stop.[xi] Last fall a group of village elders told a UN Security Council delegation that the international community should make peace with the Taliban and turn from fighting the Taliban to a focus on reconstruction. They said stability would be advanced by increased financial aid and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.[xii] A former Afghan (Taliban) Minister, who now teaches at a university in New Zealand, writing in the International Herald Tribune, also argued last year that the international forces in Afghanistan have reached the limit of their contribution and that a new plan is called for, including renewed focus on development, greater focus on training Afghan army and police, a Muslim peacekeeping force, and in particular a new intra-Afghan dialogue.[xiii]

As has been noted here before, negotiating with one’s adversary is the rule, not the exception, in the successful termination of armed conflict and Canada should take advantage of the upsurge in the interest in talks and devote substantial diplomatic and material resources to supporting and promoting such negotiations. In the NDP’s dissenting opinion to the report of the House of Commons Defence Committee on Afghanistan, MP Dawn Black suggests that the success of the diplomatic element of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan

“should be judged by its capacity to support, facilitate and catalyze efforts towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan. Specifically, the diplomatic mission should be measured by progress in building international momentum for comprehensive peace negotiations at three levels: within Afghanistan; with international players; and in the regional context.”[xiv]

That is anything but a partisan appeal. Indeed, inasmuch as the safety and well-being of Afghans depends the emergence of a new political order, it ought to be the core objective of Canada’s presence in Afghanistan.

[i] Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Taliban, US in new round of peace talks,” Asia Times, August 21, 2007 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH21Df03.html).

[ii] A tribal council or assembly.

[iii] Tarique Niazi of the University of Wisconsin described it as “that grandest gathering of Pashtun leaders since the Durand Line was drawn in 1893 to divide Pashtun territories between Afghanistan and the British
Raj.” [“Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).]

[iv] “Taliban leaders denounced the jirga, and refused to fulfill preconditions that would enable their attendance, namely a public renunciation of violence and recognition of the Afghan constitution’s validity.” [ Camelia Entekhabi-Fard and Richard Weitz , “Probing for ways to engage the Taliban,” Eurasianet.org, August 16, 2007 (http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav081607.shtml).]

[v] Shahzed reports on talks by Afghan representatives with Taliban leaders in both Afghanistan and Quetta, Pakistan seeking Taliban for ongoing talks, and in the meantime he notes “it remains for Washington to commit fully to a permanent policy for a political settlement.” [“Talks with the Taliban gain ground,” August 24, 2007, Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH24Df01.html).]

[vi] The text of the Afghan-Pak Joint Peace Jirga Declaration” is available from the August 13, 2007 edition of the Daily Times of Pakistan (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH21Df03.html).

[vii] Taimor Shah and Carlotta Call, “Afghan Rebels Find Aid in Pakistan, Musharraf Admits,” New York Times, August 13, 2007 (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C14F73B5D0C708DDDA10894DF404482).

[viii] Tarique Niazi, “Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).

[ix] Tarique Niazi, “Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).

[x] Terry Friel, “Only peace talks can save Afghanistan – former rebel,” Reuters, April 12, 2007 http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2007/april/apr122007.html#4

[xi] Afghan Senate urges Taleban talks, BBC News, May 9, 2007.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6637473.stm

[xii] “Make peace with the Taliban, village elders tell UN,” CBC News, November 14, 2006. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/11/14/delegation-afghanistan.html

[xiii] Najibullah Lafraie, “The Way Out of Afghanistan Is to Get Out,” International Herald Tribune, September 6, 2006. http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,435388,00.html

[xiv] Dawn Black, Dissenting opinion of the New Democratic Party to the Standing Committee on National Defence, Canadian Forces in Afghanistan: Report of the Standing Committee on National Defence, June 2007, 39 ^th Parliament, 1st Session. http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/nddn/reports/rp3034719/391_NDDN_Rpt01_Pdf/391_NDDN_Rpt01_Pdf-e.pdf

On August 3, 2007 the United States and India set out the details of their proposed Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy. This “123 agreement”[i] would bring significantly more of India’s civilian nuclear facilities under an international inspections regime, but it also in effect calls for the international community to embrace India as a de facto nuclear weapon state without requiring in return that India accept even the most basic disarmament obligations of nuclear weapon states. In the process, rather than bringing constraints to India’s nuclear weapons activities, the proposed deal would actually facilitate a significant expansion of India’s nuclear arsenal.

Despite the new agreement between the US Administration and India, it remains a proposed deal which will take effect only if it receives the unanimous approval of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG – of which Canada is a member)[ii] and after India negotiates appropriate safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). NSG approval would mean specifically that civilian nuclear cooperation with India would be exempted from the current provision that, with the exception of the five nuclear weapon state (NWS) signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),[iii] civilian nuclear cooperation is acceptable only with countries under full-scope safeguards. Full-scope safeguards in turn mean that all of a particular country’s nuclear facilities are subject to IAEA inspections.

In other words, India would then have the same access to nuclear materials for civilian systems as do NWS, but India is not a party to the NPT and thus is not directly bound by the Treaty’s Article VI disarmament provisions, nor is it bound by the significant additional obligations that the NWS agreed to in the context of the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences.[iv] Without requiring India to formally assume any of the disarmament obligations of the NWS, and without receiving any concrete undertakings from India regarding a permanent halt to nuclear testing and the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, the US-India deal as it now stands imposes severe costs on the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and should not receive the approval of the NSG (because the NSG operates by consensus, a Canadian vote against the ccurrent deal would ensure that).

This is not an argument for the status quo. Under current arrangements nuclear cooperation with India is eschewed in favour of regular entreaties (including through UN Security Council Resolution 1172) for it to end all its nuclear weapons programs, place all its remaining nuclear programs under IAEA safeguards, and join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. Under these arrangements India has with impunity tested nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and thus ensures that it will not enter into force,[v] continues to produce fissile materials for weapons purposes, and gradually builds up its inventory of nuclear warheads.

Clearly, some change is needed. The prospects for Indian (or Pakistani or Israeli) disarmament outside of the context of general nuclear disarmament and significantly altered regional security conditions are not promising, to put it mildly, and without some internationally agreed changes, India will continue to expand its arsenal and there will be inevitable erosion from the current consensus against civilian nuclear cooperation. Already Russia has signaled a move toward large-scale nuclear cooperation,[vi] Australia has said it will sell uranium to India,[vii] and the French are in talks toward a deal similar to the US-India deal.[viii] If civilian nuclear cooperation with India (and ultimately with Pakistan and Israel) is inevitable, it should at a minimum be through a multilateral, coordinated policy that gains concrete disarmament commitments from these three de facto nuclear weapon states that are outside the NPT.

The outlines of a compromise policy have gradually emerged out of the debate over the US-India deal. In exchange for recognizing the reality of India’s situation as a de facto nuclear weapon state, including a nuclear arsenal in accord with India’s minimum deterrence doctrine, the international community would no longer demand immediate nuclear disarmament as a condition of civilian nuclear cooperation but would require, a) a moratorium on nuclear testing and ratification of the CTBT to facilitate its entry into force in accordance with the unanimous view expressed in 1995 and 2000 by all signatories to the NPT, including all the NWS, and b) it would require assurances that civilian nuclear cooperation will not facilitate expansion of its nuclear arsenal.

The 123 agreement fails to meet the terms of such a compromise.

In the first instance, civilian nuclear cooperation is not made contingent on a halt to testing. In the event of another Indian test, US legislation authorizing the deal currently would prohibit continued US nuclear cooperation (for example the supply of reactor fuel), but in a slightly bizarre move, in the 123 agreement the US promises that it would advocate on behalf of India to assure it of continuing nuclear supplies from other sources even while it bans such supplies from the US.[ix]

Secondly, the deal facilitates the expansion of India’s ongoing production of fissile materials for weapons purposes. Without an Indian moratorium on the production of such materials (all five NWS currently adhere to such a moratorium), its access to foreign uranium for its civilian programs would allow it to use all its domestic uranium for an expanded weapons program.

If, as seems inevitable, India is now to be treated as if it were a nuclear weapon state, India needs to be moved to accept that new status within the context of a series of clear and binding disarmament obligations by making civilian nuclear cooperation with India contingent on at least the following undertakings:

• A declaration by India that it regards Article VI of the NPT as the expression of a global norm requiring the elimination of nuclear weapons, and that it regards itself and other non-signatories to the NPT as legally bound by that norm;
• An immediate moratorium on nuclear testing along with an undertaking to work with Pakistanso that both sign and ratify the CTBT within a reasonable timeframe; and
• A moratorium on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes and an undertaking to support the immediate commencement of negotiations toward a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).

[i] Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act requires that any nuclear cooperation between the United States and any other country be defined through an agreement submitted to the President that sets out the “terms, conditions, duration, nature, and scope of cooperation.” Section 123 of the act also outlines some essential elements of those terms and conditions that must be included in the agreement. The text of the AEA is available at http://epw.senate.gov/atomic54.pdf.

[ii] The Nuclear Suppliers Group is a 45 nation group of suppliers that sets guidelines for trade in nuclear materials.

[iii] China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States.

[iv] India’s approach toward disarmament obligations agreed to by NWS is explored in a forthcoming Ploughshare Working Paper, “India and the disarmament obligations of nuclear weapon states.”

[v] CTBT requires ratification by all states with nuclear programs or capabilities before it can enter into force.

[vi] Vladimir Radyuhin, “Russia vows strong support in NSG,” The Hindu, August 15, 2007 (http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/15/stories/2007081561711600.htm).

[vii] “Australia will sell uranium to India,” The Times of Indiam August 16, 2007 (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Australia_will_sell_uranium_to_India/rssarticleshow/2283648.cms).

[viii] “France and India in nuclear deal,” BBC news, February 20, 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4731244.stm); “France and India hold nuclear cooperation talks,” Energy Daily, New Delhi, July 30, 2007 (http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/France_And_India_Hold_Nuclear_Cooperation_Talks_999.html).

[ix] The 123 agreement says (Article 5.6.b.iv: “If a disruption of fuel supplies [from the US] to India occurs [say, in the aftermath of an Indian test], the United States and India would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries to include countries such as Russia, France and the United Kingdom to pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply to India.” (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/aug/90050.htm

That the international effort in Afghanistan is faltering, most recently confirmed by a British House of Commons report,[1] is not in doubt.[2] Nor is it in doubt that sooner or later Canada will leave Afghanistan. But the latter should not be determined by the former.

Whether Canada stays beyond February 2009 involves a broad range of issues – especially the implications for other Canadian priorities and the ability to respond to urgent needs elsewhere – but exit strategies do not help us meet the responsibility to understand what is not working in Afghanistan and to fix it by encouraging the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) contributors to make the changes needed to mount a more effective Afghan mission.

NATO of course manages the ISAF command and its current chief intelligence officer, Canadian Brigadier General Jim Ferron recently told an international group of journalists[3] that the deeper causes of the insurgency are not religious fanaticism but are essentially a combination of nationalism and social grievances.

In the south there is the particular and traditional Pashtun wariness of foreign influence (by which they now also seems to mean Kabul), and throughout Afghanistan grievances are linked to poverty and lack of economic opportunity, corruption, and lack of education. “The enemy is illiteracy, it’s poverty, it’s unemployment,” he said.

The same point has been emphasized by the International Crisis Group which reports that when surveyed Afghans repeatedly point to a variety of social and political grievances that account for their opposition to the government:[4] p olitical disenfranchisement which favors some groups or tribes and excludes others from decision-making; disputes over land and water, exacerbated by the return of refugees and internally displaced people as well as a long drought; c orruption that includes misappropriation of state and donor resources by officials; the l ack of development by a government that has oversold the short-term benefits of democracy; and a buse by local and international security forces, involving mistreatment by local police or army as well as by international forces during village and house raids, the killing of civilians through aerial bombardment, and illegal detentions. [pp. 11-12]

In other words, the challenge of that we call “the Taliban” is focused less on irrational fanaticism than on very basic and familiar grievances – the kind you find in any conflict. These are grievances that are amenable either to negotiation or to accelerated development and good governance efforts.[5] As the Afghan Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies[6] reminds us, “the international community must realize that the centre of gravity of this conflict is not Taliban or even al-Qaeda. Rather, it is the Afghan people who have suffered immeasurably. Until the population is convinced that the battle is about improving their livelihood, Afghanistan will not proceed down the road of stability.”[7] The population in the south opts to support the Taliban, not out of loyalty to Taliban jihadist ambitions, but out of non-confidence in the international and Kabul forces and the political order they are there to advance.

In the southern heart of the insurgency there is no social stigma against young men selling their combat services to the Taliban to help keep Kabul and its backers at bay and that is the local political calculation that has to change. The political calculus at the village and family level won’t change by isolated reconstruction projects designed to win hearts and minds. Instead, it depends on the development of a new political framework and consensus – a kind of Bonn II exercise to integrate the Pashtun into a political/administrative order that they believe will respect their collective interests. Again, the Afghan Centre for Conflict and Peace points out that the 2001 Bonn Agreement brought together various groups opposed to and still fighting the Taliban. “The fault lines between these various groups were never resolved – the sought after peace agreement where people from opposing sides negotiate and come to a settlement never materialized. On the ground, the Taliban were isolated and on the run resulting in the premature conclusion that the Taliban was a spent force. Instead, they fled across the Afghan-Pakistan border and started to regenerate and where they re-organised, re-armed, and recruited from the local madrassas.”[8]

Until a process to bridge the basic fault line is thoroughly pursued, if not actually built, the counter-insurgency war in the south is more likely to fuel insurgency than to suppress it. And, perhaps most worrisome, it will continue to divert funds and attention away from consolidating the relative stability in the north, where the failure to address the long list of grievances noted above, threatens to further undermine political and economic conditions.

Re-thinking of the Afghanistan mission logically points to two kinds of changes.

First, it suggests a greater emphasis on consolidating the relative stability of the north through training support to security forces, especially training local police to reject corruption and to accept the demands of strict adherence to humanitarian and human rights standards, and support for good governance and reconstruction. Assistance in disarming non-state groups is also essential, but before local militias can be disarmed so that the government can reclaim its constitutional monopoly on the resort to force, confidence in that government and its security forces needs to improve. That means new economic opportunity to re-integrate members of armed groups into society, and it requires effective security forces to contain the criminal violence that is inseparable from poppy production and the drug trade.

On training, the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier has been emphasizing a shift in that direction in the south. But without a change in the military-centred counter-insurgency strategy, training looks a lot like the tried and failed Vietnamization strategy pursued by the Americans in Vietnam. It implies a continuation of the same strategy, the attempt to forcibly suppress the Taliban without a new political process, except that the front end of the fighting gets increasingly shifted to Afghans in an accelerated civil war. ISAF officials, including Canadians, regularly remind us that the insurgency will not be militarily defeated – and it is a truth that applies to Afghan military forces as well.

The insurgency in the south will not be defeated and the strategy must be to contain it.[9] In part, containment means preventing the insurgency’s spread beyond the south by increased reconstruction and police training to build confidence in government and the rule of law in areas of the country not bedeviled by the insurgency.

Containment also points to the second primary change needed, that is to shift in the south from counter-insurgency combat to the political task of building an inclusive political order that has the confidence of southerners. It means pursuing that Bonn II-type effort toward a new political arrangement that has some chance of winning the confidence and loyalty of the Pashtun communities that dominate the south and that traditionally mistrust and resist control from Kabul. It means negotiating a new political order that the Pashtuns[10] will find clearly superior to what is on offer from the Taliban. And what constitutes a superior option? – one that addresses the needs and grievances that currently undergird the insurgency.

That may be described as negotiating with the Taliban, but what it really means is peace and reconciliation talks with the disaffected Pashtun communities in pursuit of a political dispensation that they regard as meeting their needs. If that means a Taliban role, that is a choice they are surely entitled to make within basic international human rights standards.

The challenge facing Canada is not to agree on a withdrawal date but to help transform the entire ISAF operation into a constructive and durable process toward an Afghanistan that meets the basic needs of Afghans.

[1] “UK operations in Afghanistan,” Thirteenth Report of Session 2006-07, House of Commons Defence Committee, July 18, 2007 (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmdfence/408/408.pdf).

[2] See the sources listed in the last posting, “Closing the Afghanistan credibility gap,” closingt.

[3] Ahto Lobjakas, “Afghanistan: NATO Sees ‚ÄòTribal’ Nature of Taliban Insurgency,” Radio Free Europe, July 20, 2007 (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/07/88253227-F287-4104-A336-0874C98978C2.html).

[4] “Countering Afghanistan’s Insurgency: No Quick Fixes,” International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 123, November 2, 2006 (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4485&1=1).

[5] See Ernie Regehr testimony to theStanding Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, Report 28, 1 ^st Session, 39 ^th Parliament, November 8, 2006 (http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=184288&Lang=1&PARLSES=391&JNT=0&COM=10475).

[6] The Centre’s web site describes it as an independent research centre based in Kabul that conducts action-oriented research aimed at influencing policy-makers in key areas including state building, governance, narcotics, conflict resolution and peace building. The Board of Advisors includes: Canadian Paul Evans of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (and formerly of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia); Robert Rotberg, Director of the Program on Interstate Conflict and Conflict Resolution, Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Surin Pitsuwan , the former Foreign Minister of Thailand. The web site is at http://www.caps.af/.

[7] Hekmat Karzai, “Why isAfghanistanfacing a serious insurgency?” Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, Afghanistan (http://www.caps.af/detail.asp?Lang=e&Cat=3&ContID=100).

[8] Hekmat Karzai, “Why is Afghanistan facing a serious insurgency?” Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, Afghanistan (http://www.caps.af/detail.asp?Lang=e&Cat=3&ContID=100).

[9] Rory Stewart, “Where Less is More,” The New York Times, July 23, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23stewart.html?ex=1342843200&en=fbd9aaaadcd57a21&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss).

[10] A May Strategic Counsel survey indicates that 63 percent of Canadians support negotiating with the Taliban to end the violence in Afghanistan. The Strategic Counsel, A Report to the Globe and Mail and CTV: ” Trusted Canadian Institutions, Afghanistan, and Foreign Ownership,” May 18, 2007 (http://www.thestrategiccounsel.com/our_news/polls/2007-05-18%20GMCTV%20May%2014-17.pdf).

The Toronto Star recently described Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier as optimistic about the mission in Afghanistan.[i] At the same time, an impressive (and depressing) array of independent reporting from Afghanistan is consistent in describing Afghanistan’s security situation as dire and deteriorating.[ii]

Background briefings and roundtables involving Canadian military officials are consistently informative and upbeat about Canadian military operations in Afghanistan. The same officials also have a keen appreciation that ultimately success depends on progress in meeting the non-military challenges of reconstruction and good governance. But their official optimism that the Taliban have been knocked back on their heels is not, to put it delicately, widely shared. Nor is this a new discrepancy.

Last fall the Minister of Defence, Gordon O’Connor told the House of Commons Defence Committee that “o f [Afghanistan’s] 34 provinces, the insurgency is a great challenge in maybe six or seven. In the remaining provinces you have, in Afghan terms, relative stability.” But the report of the Secretary-General of a just a few weeks earlier described an upsurge in violence and described the insurgency as covering “a broad arc of mostly Pashtun-dominated territory, extending from Kunar province in the east to Farah province in the west; it also increasingly affects the southern fringe of the central highlands.” The swath of insurgency described by the Secretary-General was closer to including 15 to 20 provinces, and he concluded that “at no time since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001 has the threat of Afghanistan’s transition been so severe.”[iii]

In his next report, March of this year, the Secretary-General noted that “since the last reporting period, there was a marked increase in insurgent forces prepared to engage in conventional combat operations against Government and international security forces, and a significant improvement in the insurgents’ tactics and training.”[iv]

So, Canadian official reporting notwithstanding, the insurgency in the south appears to be at least as disruptive as ever.[v] In the north, dissatisfaction with the Government in Kabul is also growing, and while the north is still largely free of insurgency,[vi] there are reports of new arms coming to competing and newly assertive warlords,[vii] and some analysts warn of renewed inter-ethnic fighting if corrective action is not soon taken.[viii]

Canadian Forces and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) can certainly point to military victories and to numbers of insurgents killed. But some tactical victories, won at huge political cost, turn out as strategic victories for the Taliban. As we’ve been hearing with disturbing regularity, successful battles against the Taliban frequently involve the significant loss of civilian lives, disruptions to local communities, and displaced populations. To be sure, and this should not be forgotten, the insurgent forces have to date been responsible for the majority of civilian killings in Afghanistan – according to Human Rights Watch, in 2006 there were 492 civilians killed in bombings and another 177 by other attacks and executions.[ix] Nevertheless, Afghan authorities report that in the first 6 months of 2007 American and ISAF forces killed more than 130 civilians,[x] and other reports claim that in the first half of 2007 more civilians were killed by ISAF and American Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) forces than by insurgents.[xi]

Indeed, the Taliban appear adept at luring ISAF forces into battles that are tactical defeats for the Taliban but which they know will advance their strategic prospects. The Secretary-General’s March 2007 report on the situation in Afghanistan put it this way: “Despite high losses of personnel during the past year, indications pointed to an insurgency emboldened by their strategic successes, rather than disheartened by tactical failures.”[xii] In other words, the International Security Assistance Force may well be fuelling the insurgency, in part because of the political costs of tactical victories and in part because Pashtun southerners widely believe that the Afghan military forces and their international backers are supporting a government and political order that is not in their interests.

Too much of the Canadian response seems guided by the old adage that, “having lost sight of our objectives, we redoubled our efforts.” Despite the now widespread recognition that a military solution is not possible,[xiii] one military expert proposes a fourfold increase in NATO troops on the ground.[xiv] Another political analyst wants Canada to leverage its presence by offering NATO a Canadian military presence beyond February 2009 on condition that other NATO countries match our effort.[xv]

It seems some Canadians want to end the military effort in Afghanistan because isn’t working; others want to increase and extend the military effort because it isn’t working yet.

Frank assessment[xvi] of what is and what isn’t working is essential for the debate in Canada to transition from its current focus on exit strategies to explorations of how the international community collectively can best make progress toward a stable security situation in Afghanistan – characterized by a genuinely representative and accountable government, an economy that works and ends its drug dependency, and a political-legal culture that respects basic rights.

February 2009 is nobody’s end date in Afghanistan. An active international presence, with a significant security element to it, will be required well into the future. Under international burden sharing it is entirely legitimate for particular countries, including Canada, to depart after they have made a meaningful contribution, but only on condition that others are available to fill in – not to continue a counter-insurgency fight that is in danger of advancing the strategic interests of the insurgents, but to learn the lessons of experience and to change to a more effective course.

For the time being, Canada remains in a mission that is difficult and faltering. That means we should be talking less about getting out and more about what is needed to make it work for the people of Afghanistan. More on that soon.

[i] Bruce Campion-Smith, “General says he’s no politician-in-waiting,” Toronto Star, July 16, 2007 (http://www.thestar.com/News/article/236269).

[ii] Report of the Secretary-General, “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security,” report to the General Assembly and Security Council, March 15, 2007 (A/61/799-S/2007/152).

Taliban Politics and Afghan Legitimate Grievances, policy paper by the Senlis Council, London, 2007 (http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/publications/documents/taliban_politics_policy_paper).

Afghanistan‘s Endangered Compact, The International Crisis Group, Asia Briefing #59, January 29, 2007 (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4631&l=1).Center for Defense Information, Afghanistan Update, May 1-31, 2007 (http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/document.cfm?DocumentID=3991&IssueID=48&StartRow=1&ListRows=10&appendURL=&Orderby=DateLastUpdated&ProgramID=39&issueID=48).

[iii] Report of the Secretary-General, “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security,” report to the General Assembly and Security Council, September 11, 2006 (A/61/326-S/2006/727).

[iv] Report of the Secretary-General, “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security,” report to the General Assembly and Security Council, March 15, 2007 (A/61/799-S/2007/152).

[v] The British Parliament’s Commons Defence Committee has just issued a report acknowledging worrying signs that the Taliban are growing stronger. Luke Baker, “Taliban growing stronger in Afghanistan: report,” Reuters Canada, July 18, 2007 (http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-07-18T094341Z_01_L17163224_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-BRITAIN-AFGHANISTAN-COL.XML&archived=False). Haseeb Humayoon, ” The Iraqization of Insurgency in Afghanistan,”July 12, 2007, The Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies, Afghanistan (http://www.caps.af//detail.asp?Lang=e&Cat=3&ContID=2549).

[vi] “Suicide bombings continued to define the security situation in Afghanistan with two particularly worrying attacks in relatively peaceful Regional Command North.”

Center for Defense Information, Afghanistan Update, May 1-31, 2007 (http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/document.cfm?DocumentID=3991&IssueID=48&StartRow=1&ListRows=10&appendURL=&Orderby=DateLastUpdated&ProgramID=39&issueID=48).

[vii] Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif, “Northern Afghanistan Faces New Security Threat,” Institute of War and Peace Reporting, July 16, 2007 (http://www.iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=337148&apc_state=henh).

[viii] In Afghanistan’s north the insurgency is largely absent but “the potential for wider intra-ethnic and intra-regional conflict remains,” especially if the development and reconciliation objectives of the Afghanistan Compact are not pursued more effectively. Afghanistan‘s Endangered Compact, The International Crisis Group, Asia Briefing #59, January 29, 2007 (http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4631&l=1).

[ix] “Taliban accused of war crimes for killing civilians,” Associated Press, International Herald Tribune (Asia Pacific), April 16, 2007. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/16/asia/afghan.php

[x] Barry Bearak and Taimoor Shah, “7 Children Kill in Airstrike in Afghanistan,” The New York Times, June 19, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?ex=1182830400&en=c7cda1ad17b2a811&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS

[xi] “Afghan investigation finds 62 Taliban, 45 civilians killed in southern battle,” International Herald Tribune, June 30, 2007. http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=6428190

[xii] Report of the Secretary-General, “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security,” report to the General Assembly and Security Council, March 15, 2007 (A/61/799-S/2007/152).

[xiii] “We know the success of our mission cannot be assured by military means alone.”Department of National Defence,Backgrounder: Canadian Forces Operations in Afghanistan, BG-07.009 – May 15, 2007 (http://www.mdn.ca/site/newsroom/view_news_e.asp?id=1703).

[xiv] Bill Doskoch, “Time for a strategic re-think in Afghanistan?” a July 7, 2007 CTV report quoting retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie as saying that NATO needs four times the number of troops it now has on the ground in Kandahar (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070704/afghan_strategy_070704/20070704/).

[xv] Norman Spector, “An Afghan solution: Redefine the mission,” The Globe and Mail, July 12, 2007 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070711.wcoafghan12/…).

[xvi] Spector calls on Prime Minister Harper to give “Canadians the unvarnished truth about the mission’s prospects.” Norman Spector, “An Afghan solution: Redefine the mission,” The Globe and Mail, July 12, 2007 (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070711.wcoafghan12/BNStory/Front/home).

A central feature of the 50 ^th anniversary of the first Pugwash Conference, commemorated with an international experts’ workshop (July 5-7) on “revitalizing nuclear disarmament” at the site of the first conference in 1957, was a ceremony to present the medal for the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize to the Pugwash Peace Exchange.

The Pugwash Peace Exchange is a national Canadian initiative emerging out of the community of Pugwash, with Senator Romeo Dallaire as patron, to build an “interpretive, education and research facility, based on the history and work of the Pugwash Conferences,” and it is this centre that will house the medal. It had been at the London, England home of the late Joseph Rotblat, a participant in the first Pugwash conference organized by the Canadian industrialist Cyrus Eaton to bridge the Cold War divide through a meeting of world scientists and experts, especially from the Soviet Union and the United States. It was Rotblat’s wish that the medal go to the birthplace of the Pugwash movement.

The 22 participants of that first Pugwash meeting, which spawned the international and ongoing “Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs,” were responding to the manifesto issued two years earlier by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein. Troubled by the toxic mixture of the destructive power of nuclear weapons and escalating East-West suspicion and enmity, Russell and Einstein wrote:

“Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

At the 50 ^th Anniversary conference, we of course heard that the “risk of universal death” is in fact hugely expanded from what it was in 1957. While nuclear arsenals have been reduced from their peak in the 1980s, they are still much larger than they were when Russell and Einstein issued their warning in1955 and those weapons still have the capacity to effectively annihilate human society. As they did in 1957, the Pugwash experts set out an agenda for nuclear disarmament that is achievable and most certainly urgent:

“This sober, inescapable truth continues to haunt the international community,” the 2007 conference declared.” Every minute of every day, more than 26000 nuclear weapons – many thousands of then on hair-trigger alert – are poised to bring monumental destruction if they are ever used.”

So now two Nobel Peace Prizes reside in Canada – the first, is housed at the Department of Foreign Affairs in the building bearing the recipient’s name, Lester B. Pearson (he, of course, received it for his visionary work in proposing the United Nations Emergency Force which as able to keep the peace and allow the belligerents in the 1956 Suez crisis to withdraw).

These two Nobel Prizes don’t only honor past achievements; they point to future responsibility for both war prevention and nuclear disarmament. And Canadians should accept the medals on our soil as challenges to this country in particular. A country of extraordinary privilege and capacity, we have a particular obligation to advance policy and global consensus toward the objectives the Nobel Peace Prizes honor.

Foreign Minister Peter Mackay spoke at the anniversary event in Pugwash, recommitting Canada to the disarmament enterprise. In particular he explicitly supported the “13 practical steps” toward nuclear disarmament that were universally agreed in the 2000 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and which summarize the essential global nuclear disarmament agenda. The Bush Administration has since specifically repudiated the 13 steps, so to have the current Canadian government specifically hold them up as critically important is a welcome gesture (more on moving from gestures to concrete action to come in future postings).

The peacekeeping Nobel Prize is certainly a reminder of the need for renewed leadership in the pursuit of alternative means of settling disputes. In fact, while the Russell-Einstein manifesto is a profoundly moving and persuasive warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons, the challenge that Russel and Einstein and their nine co-signatories set before governments went well beyond nuclear disarmament:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

Two Nobel Peace Prizes and two extraordinary challenges.

This year’s Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference has confirmed two central realities: First, if the ailing NPT is to fulfill its foundational role in advancing global security it must be solidly balanced on its three equal pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses. Second, the international community is now well beyond simply debating a range of disarmament and nonproliferation options; rather, it is looking for meaningful implementation of an already agreed agenda.

While all states are equally bound by all Articles of the Treaty, there are really four categories of states in the nonproliferation regime; and each category faces particular implementation roles and challenges.

The biggest category, of course, is non-nuclear weapon states, and in exchange for forgoing nuclear weapons, they have received the legally-binding promise of disarmament by the nuclear weapon states, and they are to have access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. But that access requires that they continuously verify their non-weapons status through safeguards agreements with the IAEA. Many have yet to fulfill their obligations (and, of course, Iran and DPRK are in much more serious violation of their safeguards and NPT obligations). Furthermore, about three dozen of these states are in possession of nuclear power technology and thus must sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before it can enter into force. (Of the NNWS on the Annex II list, Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, and Colombia have signed but not ratified the CTBT; the DPRK, which has withdrawn from the NPT but now is on track to return to it, has not yet signed the CTBT).

Nuclear Weapons States, the second category, are under legal obligation to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. At the 2000 Review Conference they renewed their commitment to achieving that goal, although they are not bound by a specific deadline. In the meantime nuclear weapon states are obliged to fulfill specific commitments that they have themselves made. I won’t go through the list, but irreversible and verifiable cuts to arsenals are at the core. Failure to meet these obligations constitutes noncompliance just as certainly as do failures by non-nuclear weapon states to meet all their safeguard requirements.

In the third category are India, Israel, and Pakistan – de facto nuclear weapons states but not signatories to the NPT. That does not mean they escape all disarmament obligations. They are bound by the NPT norm of nuclear disarmament, and as members of the CD (Conference on Disarmament) they are obligated to pursue in good faith the agreed objectives of that body: including the prevention of an arms race in outer space, legally-binding negative security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states, and a fissile materials cutoff Treaty. The CD also negotiated the test-ban Treaty and all three, as states with nuclear technology, must ratify the Treaty for it to enter into force (only Israel has signed the CTBT, and none of the three has ratified it). Both are also in direct violation of SC Res 1172 which unambiguously calls on them to end their nuclear weapons programs.

The fourth category is non-nuclear weapons states within NATO – a group that obviously includes Canada. They find themselves in a stark contradiction – affirming within NATO that nuclear forces are essential to alliance security, while at the same time affirming within the NPT that nuclear disarmament is essential to global security. It is a contradiction that must be resolved in favour of the latter commitment.

So, what priorities should Canada pursue within this broad and essentially agreed disarmament agenda?

To continue to set the right course, each new Canadian Government should, as a matter of course and at the highest level, reaffirm Canada ‘s fundamental commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. With that unwavering goal always at the core of its efforts, Canada should continue to actively promote the early implementation of the broad nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation agenda, referred to above and rooted in the NPT and its 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences, giving priority to particular issues that it is in a good position to influence. There will necessarily be some shifts in priorities according to changing circumstances, but currently at least four of the issues deserve the focused attention of Canada.

First among these is attention to the disarmament machinery. Nuclear disarmament depends first and foremost on the political will of states to simply do it, but the institutional mechanisms through which they pursue that fundamental and urgent agenda are critically important. The continuing dysfunction in the CD suggests it is once again time for Canada, along with like-minded states, to explore having the First Committee of the UN General Assembly form ad hoc committees to take up the four-fold agenda that lies dormant at the CD – that is, the non-weaponization of space, negative security assurances, the fissile materials cut-off Treaty, and new approaches to nuclear disarmament broadly.

In the context of the NPT, Canada should continue to press for a more effective governance structure involving annual decision-making meetings, the ability to respond to particular crises (such as the declaration of a State party’s intent to withdraw), and a permanent bureau or secretariat for the Treaty. In that context, Canada has made, and should continue to make, a point of promoting transparency through regular reporting by states on their compliance efforts and fuller NGO participation in the Treaty review process.

Second, the conflict regarding Iran’s uranium enrichment program raises important issues about the spread of weapons sensitive civilian technologies‚Äîto which all states in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations are now legally entitled. It is in the interests of nuclear disarmament that access to these technologies be severely restricted and placed under international control through nondiscriminatory multilateral fuel supply arrangements. Canada , as a state with high levels of competence in relevant technologies, should take an active role in investigating and promoting international fuel cycle control mechanisms.

Third, the US-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal has led to proposals to exempt India from key guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Canadian technology and interests are directly engaged. Canada must be at the fore of international efforts to bring India, Israel, and Pakistan under the rules and discipline of the nuclear nonproliferation system. In particular, and at a minimum, Canada should insist that the Nuclear Suppliers Group require that India ratify the test-ban Treaty and abide by a verifiable freeze on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes before any modification of civilian cooperation guidelines is considered.

Finally, Canada cannot avoid promoting within NATO a resolution of the NATO/NPT contradiction in favour of the NPT disarmament commitment.

A recent survey, conducted in countries that together represent just over half the world’s population, found strong public support for a strengthened United Nations, including strong majority support for a standing UN peacekeeping force, UN regulation of the international arms trade, and UN authority to investigate human rights violations.

The survey was conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.Org, in cooperation with polling organizations in the countries surveyed,[i] and its findings of significant public support for UN regulation of the international arms trade has particular relevance for current efforts at the UN to negotiate an international arms trade treaty.[ii]

Last fall the General Assembly passed a resolution directing the Secretary-General to survey and report on the views of member states on such a treaty, and mandated an experts group to study “the feasibility, scope and draft parameters for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.”[iii]

The survey of member states will soon be completed and Canada has already submitted its views, welcoming a “single comprehensive universal instrument guiding the trade in conventional weapons.”[iv] Canada ‘s submission focused on the parallel rights and obligations of states:

“Existing treaty obligations and customary international law includes the right of states to meet their own defence and security needs, and needs relating to their participation in international peace support operations, both through domestic production and through the responsible importing of arms. The export of arms to help other nations meet their defence and security needs is also valid in Canada ‘s view.

“Against this, however, are countervailing considerations that need to be addressed. These include the need to prohibit arms transfers that breach international sanctions regimes, exacerbate and prolong conflicts, destabilize countries, allow arms to flow from the legitimate to illicit markets, support terrorism, undermine sustainable development and in the commission of serious human rights abuses.

The survey results are welcome news for those promoting the arms trade treaty. Readily available arms are the most obvious means by which political conflict is transformed into war. The ongoing flow of arms encourages communities and governments already at war to resist compromise in negotiations and to press instead for redoubled efforts to win a military victory.

[i] The complete report is available from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs at http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/UserFiles/File/POS%20Topline%20Reports/….

[ii] See earlier commentary on “New Action to Control the Arms Trade,” newactio.

[iii] General Assembly Resolution A/Res/61/89, December 18, 2006.

[iv] Canadian Submission on the Arms Trade Treaty (resolution 61/89).