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Somewhere on the road to Kandahar it has apparently been revealed to NATO that its future is inextricably linked to success or failure in Afghanistan – begging the question of whose definition of success applies.[i]

If NATO’s political and military leaders choose to characterize their alliance as so fragile and wanting in purpose that its fate is now in the hands of peasant fighters in Afghanistan – even though NATO accounts for two-thirds of all global military spending and even more of its military capacity[ii] – that’s up to them, but perhaps it’s time to get a grip.

Contrary to current rhetoric, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on which Canada serves in Afghanistan is not a “NATO mission.” Indeed, the American led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) force, still present and active in Afghanistan , is arguably much closer to being a NATO mission. The OEF force was mounted in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US , based on the UN Charter’s self-defence provision (Article 51), and NATO in turn invoked its Article V on grounds that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on them all.

ISAF is something entirely different, and it is definitely not meant to be the NATO alliance in self-defence mode. Established by the Security Council at the request of the 2001 Bonn Conference and the interim government it created, ISAF has the specific task of assisting the Afghan government in maintaining security – i.e. to provide for the safety and protection of the people of Afghanistan, as well as the UN and other agencies working there.[iii]

It was initially managed by the UK, and rotated to Italy and Germany until August 2003 when NATO took over.[iv] When ISAF was under UK command it was not regarded as a “UK operation” and now that it is under NATO command it is not a “NATO operation” – in both cases it was and is an international force, mandated by the UN, that involves troops from countries within and beyond NATO (of 37 troop contributing countries, 11 are from non-NATO countries).

The foreign troops of ISAF are not there under NATO Article V obligations of mutual defence, which means that the obligation on NATO countries to contribute to ISAF is no greater than the obligation on any other country.

The problem with the repeated insistence that ISAF is a NATO operation on which the future of NATO depends is that the focus inevitably becomes the interests and well-being of NATO rather than the interests and well-being of the people of Afghanistan – and to equate the two is the worst form of Western hubris and triumphalism.

In fact, it is NATO’s self-definition of success – that is, the military defeat of the opponents of the Government of Afghanistan and ISAF – that now drives the push to concentrate combat forces in the south and to bolster the firepower of those forces with more tanks and tracked armored vehicles[v] and more of the air strikes that inevitably produce civilian casualties.

NATO planners and strategists, unfortunately, are unlikely to follow the advice that the Washington Post says has found its way into the draft of a new US Army/Marine Corps Field Manual on counterinsurgency: “The best weapons for counterinsurgency do not shoot bullets. The more force you use, the less effective you are.”[vi]

While NATO steers ISAF increasingly towards shooting more bullets to militarily defeat the insurgency, that insurgency in fact grows. At the Latvian NATO summit, there was even pressure to pull ISAF contingents away from important security patrols in some of the relatively stable regions of the north, risking the subsequent spread of the insurgency to the communities that would be then left exposed.

UK journalist Kate Clark, in a new television documentary and a related account in the New Statesman, emphasizes the risk. Many of the grievances that fuel the insurgency in the south, she reports, are also present in the north. She quotes a northern Afghan aid worker as saying: “If we had a resistance movement to join, there’d be an insurgency here as well.”[vii]

The International Crisis Group elaborates on the grievances behind the insurgency in the south: notably, p olitical disenfranchisement which favors one group over others and excludes others; resource conflicts, particularly over land and water; corruption; lack of economic opportunities; and abuse by local and international security forces.[viii]

In other words, the insurgents which are routinely referred to as “the Taliban” are driven less by irrational fanaticism than by very basic and familiar complaints. And they are grievances that are all amenable to being addressed through negotiation, political inclusion, and changed governmental and ISAF practices.

But as long as the grievances are ignored in the hope that NATO will be able to claim success in militarily defeating the aggrieved, many Afghans will continue to transfer their allegiance away from a Government and international security assistance force that have not lived up to expectations and toward the very groups the international forces are fighting.

ISAF’s focus, at NATO’s urging, on expanding and trying to redeploy military forces, rather than on radically expanding attention to real grievances (through economic initiatives, improved social services like health care and education, and attention to corruption and to human rights violations by security forces), appears to have a lot more to do with NATO’s perceived need for a military success to cement its future than it does with the needs of Afghans.

What’s at stake is the future of Afghanistan. It’s not about NATO.

[i]“All NATO’s members need to bear the brunt,” The Globe and Mail, lead editorial, November 29, 2006. On the same day, the paper’s columnist, Jeffrey Simpson, argued that “NATO’s very survival hinges on the Afghan mission.”

[ii]Military Balance, 2006(The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, UK) shows 2004 military spending for NATO to be $707 billion out of a world total of $1,119 billion (US dollars), p. 403.

[iii]Security Council Resolution 1386 (December 20, 2001).

[iv]See UN Secretary-General’s report A/60/224-S/2005/525, para. 68.

[v][v]David Pugliese, “Armoured vehicles headed to Afghanistan ,” CanWest News Service, November 25, 2006 (http://www.canada.com/components /print.aspx?id=1cef8bf3-18b2-4f06-b1f9-5031e1dba…).

[vi]T.X. Hammes, “The Way to Win a Guerilla War,” Washington Post, November 26, 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR200611……).

[vii]Kate Clark, “The real Afghan war,” The New Statesman, November 27, 2006.

[viii]“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).

India and Pakistan have in recent days both carried out tests of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.[1] The tests are in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1172.

Following the May 1998 nuclear weapons tests by India and Pakistan, an indignant Security Council reflected the global mood when it unanimously passed Resolution 1172 (June 6, 1998) condemning the tests, demanding “that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests” and called upon “India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons [emphasis added] and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.”

The resolution also “requests the Secretary-General to report urgently to the Council on the steps taken by India and Pakistan to implement the present resolution.” The Secretary-General has yet to report back to the Security Council on the matter, and it would be correct to conclude that no implementation steps have been taken.

Coincidentally, while the Indians and Pakistanis were testing their ballistic missiles in definace of the Security Council, the US Senate voted to support proposals by the Bush Administration to enter into civilian nuclear cooperation arrangements with India – arrangements that accept and actually welcome India as a de facto nuclear weapons state, facilitate the further production within India of fissile materials for weapons purposes, and ignore India’s refusal to sign, much less ratify, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In contrast, Washington and the Security Council have been following Iran ‘s civilian uranium enrichment program with unwavering vigilance. While India’s actual acquisition of nuclear weapons has the White House in search of ways to accommodate it, Iran ‘s uncertain and future pursuit of a weapons capability is met with a full-court press of diplomacy and Pentagon planning for pre-emptive attack. It would be wrong to treat Iran’s uranium enrichment capability as fully benign, but it is also worth remembering that to date there is no conclusive evidence that a nuclear weapons program is Iran ‘s real goal.[2]

What drives Washington these days is selective non-proliferation – the issue isn’t the spread of nuclear weapons, but who is getting them. In the hands of the friends of the United States, and currently Israel, India, and Pakistan all fit into that category, nuclear weapons are not seen as a danger. Not all agree, however – notably, Hans Blix and his commission on weapons of mass destruction urge the world to hold fast to non-proliferation principles and “reject the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy.”[3] (p. 60)

[1] Archana Mishra, “India Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile,” The Associated Press, Nov. 19, 2006 [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111900156].

[2] Seymour M. Hersh, “Is a damaged Administration less likely6 to attack Iran , or more?, New Yorker, Nov. 27, 2006 [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061127fa_fact].

[3] Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. 2006. Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms. Stockholm . http://www.wmdcommission.org (p. 60).

The “third way” posting on Afghanistan (October 17) describes the polarized debate on the question of Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan:

“The Prime Minister leads the charge for staying the course. Canada is at war, he says, and we don’t cut and run – we will stay in this war until the job is done. NDP Leader Jack Layton leads the call for withdrawal. It is the wrong mission for Canada; it is a war with unclear objectives and it can’t be won.”

The posting goes on to look at some recent proposals and arguments that point to a third option or approach:

“So here are the main elements of an emerging third option: pull out of the south; redeploy to the north in support of training and provincial reconstruction teams; substantially increase non-military aid; review the strategy, objectives, and tactics used by the NATO-led ISAF; and re-open the political process in pursuit of a more inclusive and representative political order for the entire country.”

Since then, an October 27 letter sent out by Mr. Layton elaborates a position for the NDP that looks a lot like the “third way”:

• “Give notice that Canada will withdraw from the search-and-kill combat mission in Kandahar.”
• “Work with NATO partners, the Afghan government, and other affected parties to find a political solution through capacity building and a comprehensive peace process.
• “Focus Canada’s role in Afghanistan on humanitarian aid, reconstruction and development, with appropriate security measures.”

A focus on humanitarian aid, reconstruction, and development, assisted by appropriate security is elaborated in a recent press kit prepared by Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (available along with other excellent resources at www.w4wafghan.ca ), a Calgary-based NGO that has been working with Afghan women since 1996:

“Afghanistan needs an international security force, adhering to internationally recognized human rights standards, for a period of at least ten years. This force should have the following main objectives:

• To provide security and stability for all Afghans;
• To facilitate safe provision of basic services such as education, clean water, and healthcare;
• To create an environment where Afghans can take on reconstruction and development activities on their own terms; and,
• To ensure the security needs of women and girls are met, which include protection from sexual violence, trafficking, rape, and other security threats commonly face by Afghan women.”

When the Colombian Air Force begins later this month accepting delivery of a fleet of new Super Tucano aircraft intended to help it prosecute counter-insurgency operations in its decades-long civil war, Colombia will in effect be importing engines from Canada, machine guns from Belgium, rangefinders from the United States, avionics from Israel, radios from Germany, ejection seats from the United Kingdom, and any number of other components and sub-systems from other countries.

None of these countries allows such exports without a permit, but not one of them has authorized the exports to Colombia. That’s because, before going to Colombia, all of the components first go to Brazil where they are assembled to become the Super Tucano – and from they are shipped to Colombia subject only to Brazil’s export control system.

Welcome to the global arms factory, the loophole-ridden international arms production and marketing system. But there are signs of change. A new initiative and landmark resolution launched at the United Nations this fall aims to finally bring the arms trade under some measure of control.

Military export controls are designed to prevent exports that could destabilize regions, exacerbate wars, contribute to human rights violations, or otherwise undermine international security and the safety of people. Canada’s policy, limits direct military sales to countries like Colombia – that is, to countries in conflict and where there is a risk that the arms will be used in gros and systematic human rights violations.

But there is no effort to exercise control over the final destination of indirect sales. So Canada authorizes exports of engines to the country where the aircraft are being assembled, but makes no judgment about where the engine is sent to actually be used military purposes.

That would be a defensible arrangement if there were universal or global standards for exports and if Canada was confident that Brazil, in the case of the Super Tucano, would apply the same control standards as Canada when it makes decisions about export permits. But there is no uniform international standard, and the situation is thus made to order for regulation shopping – looking for countries with the least stringent export controls as locations to assembly weapons systems that can then be sold throughout the world with minimal restrictions.

The new UN initiative builds on a major international civil society effort that has been ongoing for more than a decade to develop legally-binding international standards to regulate arms transfers. A General Assembly resolution acknowledges that “the absence of common international standards on the import, export and transfer of conventional arms is a contributory factor to conflict, the displacement of people, crime and terrorism,” and that the absence of common standards therefore “undermines peace, reconciliation, safety, security, stability and sustainable development.”[i]

Canada cosponsored the resolution and Canada’s Ambassador to the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament, also emphasized that “a comprehensive, legally-binding Arms Trade Treaty could provide important international and human security benefits, notably by curtailing the irresponsible trade in all types of conventional arms.”[ii]

A key principle to be imbedded into the Treaty is that states are culpable if they knowingly assist other states in the commission of an illegal act – for example, if a state knowingly provides military equipment when it is reasonable to expect that it will be used to violate human rights then the supplier is also guilty of violating human rights law.[iii]

States advocating new efforts at arms trade restraint met earlier this year in Kenya and articulated a set of global standards by which exporting states acknowledge their obligation to prevent exports if there is a reasonable risk that the commodities in question will be used to commit grave or persistent violations of human rights or fundamental freedoms, grave breaches of international humanitarian law, acts of genocide, or crimes against humanity. They agreed that exports should also not contravene bilateral or multilateral commitments on non-proliferation, arms control, and disarmament, or support or encourage terrorist acts or the commission of organized or violent crimes.[iv]

The pursuit of common standards has the potential for introducing a significant measure of restraint into the arms trade, but it must also be said that effective and durable restraint will also require significant and enduring reductions in demand, including more effective conflict resolution diplomacy in chronic war situations like the one in Colombia, mutual security arrangements within regions and sub-regions, as well as region wide import bans like the small arms ban in West Africa.

An Arms Trade Treaty will still rely on national decision-making that is still subject to all the conflicting pressures that complicate the setting of national priorities – notably the conflict between export promotion and arms control objectives. But a Treaty would necessarily include mechanisms for greater transparency and accountability, as well as prior peer reviews and consultations in instances of contested export proposals.

In the case of the Super Tucano sale to Colombia, the suppliers of major components would still not have final authority, on their own, over the export permit decisions, but they would be consulted and would participate in a more collective decision-making process.

This fall’s resolution directs the Secretary-General to survey and report on the views of member states on such an instrument, and establishes the experts group that is to report to the 2008 session of the General Assembly.

[i] Resolution A/C.1/61/L.55, October 12, 2006.

[ii] Paul Meyer, “The Need for an Arms Trade Treaty,” Statement to the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, August 10, 2006.

[iii] Emanuela Gillard, What Is Legal? What Is Illegal? Limitations on Transfers of Small Arms under International Law (Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, Cambridge; paper is available at http://www.armstradetreaty.com/att/what.is.legal.what.is.illegal.pdf), p. 4.

[iv] The non-paper was submitted as a Working Paper, submitted by Kenya to the Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, New York, June 26-July 7, 2006, A/Conf.192/2006/RC/WP.2, (http://www.un.org/events/smallarms2006/pdf/rc.wp.2%20(E).doc).

The main elements of a satisfactory end to the North Korean nuclear crisis have been in place for more than a decade.

North Korea receives economic assistance, especially energy assistance such as fuel oil or electricity. Nuclear supplier states promise to explore assisting it in building a light water nuclear power plant. North Korea’s sovereignty is clearly acknowledged and security assurances that take regime change off the table are provided.

In return, North Korea commits to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, terminates all military nuclear programs, places all its nuclear programs and facilities under full international inspections to confirm that none support military objectives, and returns to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state.

That was essentially the arrangement under the 1994 “framework agreement” between Pyongyang and the Clinton Administration. [1] Its core elements held until 2002 when the Bush Administration imposed unilateral sanctions in response to North Korea’s currency abuses, included North Korea in the famous “axis of evil,” and used the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review to issue thinly veiled nuclear threats against North Korea, Iran, and other states in Washington’s bad books. TheUSalso accused North Korea of mounting a uranium enrichment effort with help from Pakistan’s famous nuclear smuggler A.Q. Khan, but the Koreans denied it and to date no public evidence of the program has been presented.[2]

Former President Jimmy Carter, who has served as an informal envoy to North Korea during the Clinton Administration and beyond, found North Korea’s precipitous response – expulsion of the inspectors, resumption of the production of nuclear bomb materials, and withdrawal from the NPT – fully predictable. [3] The North, he says, has always responded more favorably to positive inducements, especially those that are understood to take regime-change strategies off the table.

The same deal of positive inducements and commitment to a denuclearized Korean peninsula was again agreed to by North Korea in the September 2005 Joint Statement by the parties to the Six-Nation talks. [4] The 1994 and 2005 agreements stated the deal in terms of the positive commitments made by all the parties. The UN Security Council Resolution No. 1718, unanimously adopted October 14, 2006 following North Korea’s October 9 nuclear warhead test, repeats the deal but focuses on the negative consequences that are to be visited on North Korea until it meets the central demand to end all military programs and return to the NPT under safeguard inspections. Until that time, it will be denied economic cooperation and a broad range of punitive economic measures will be imposed. [5]

What could be simpler? It is really only a matter of managing the appropriate mix of threats and incentives. But that’s where it gets complicated. The North Korean regime regards itself as largely immune to military attack – not because of its elementary nuclear weapons capability, but because of its million-strong conventional army. That army would not save it in any war, but it would guarantee a level of such extraordinary devastation that its neighbors continue to conclude that any militarily forced end to the regime would be much worse than the status quo.

Kim Jong-il’s fierce resistance to threats is not evidence of his presumed invulnerability, but of his view that threats and punitive sanctions show that the US, and now also the Security Council, is reneging on those elements of the September agreement that call for security assurances and normalization of relations. In the Joint Statement the US affirmed that it “has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons,” and agreed that the two countries would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.”

For Resolution 1718 to be implemented, the United States will once again have to provide North Korea clear security assurances and evidence of progress towards the normalization of relations, including a relaxation of unilateral sanctions which effectively block North Korea from all access to international financial institutions.

But nuclear weapon states will also have to make some changes – perhaps not to get the current deal outlined in Resolution 1718, but certainly if non-proliferation is to be honored in the long run.

You can’t persuasively preach temperance from a bar stool, but that is exactly what the UN Security Council is trying to do. All five permanent members of the Council (P5) are recognized as nuclear weapon states under the NPT and as such are obliged to dismantle their nuclear arsenals according to Article VI of the Treaty and as confirmed in the 1996 World Court opinion. [6] In 2000 they reaffirmed their rhetorical commitment to abolish nuclear weapons – through their “unequivocal undertaking,” at the NPT Review Conference, “to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament” [7] – but the P5 remain determined nuclear retentionists.

China and the United States refuse to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, even though they obviously want North Korea and all other states to abide by it. They refuse to negotiate an agreement to cut-off the production of fissile materials from weapons purposes, even though they obviously want North Korea and all others states to end all production of such fissile materials. All five continue to modernize their arsenals, elaborate nuclear use doctrines, and pursue selective non-proliferation (e.g. accepting nuclear testing in some cases, such as India and Pakistan, while opposing even the development of civilian nuclear fuel technologies in others).

Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Laureate and Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agrees that a roll back of North Korea’s bomb is both essential and eminently achievable. He emphasizes dialogue and security assurances and is wary of punitive sanctions: “Once you start applying penalties, it brings hardliners into the driver’s seat.” [8]

We can also add that it wouldn’t hurt if the advocates of nuclear temperance in North Korea would begin to address their own addictions.

[1] Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 1994. October 21.http://www.kedo.org/pdfs/AgreedFramework.pdf.

[2] “Little is known about North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment program–where it might be located, its state of development, or how many centrifuges might be operational. The United States has not provided any public information that substantiates its existence. Following the U.S. manipulation and distortion of intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, some countries and analysts are now skeptical of any U.S. allegations regarding other nations’ nuclear programs. [8] A March 20 Washington Post report that the White House misrepresented intelligence on the supposed transfer of nuclear material from North Korea to Libya may have further undermined the Bush administration’s credibility, even though the White House denied the report.”

“North Korea’s nuclear program, 2005,By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen
May/June 2005 pp. 64-67 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

( http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=mj05norris)

[3] Carter, Jimmy. 2006. Solving the Korean stalemate, one step at a time, The New York Times, October 11.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/opinion/11carter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

[4] Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks, Beijing, September 19, 2005. 2005.http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/53490.htm.

[5] United Nations Security Council. 2006. Resolution 1718. October 14. http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/572/07/PDF/N0657207.pdf?OpenE….

[6] International Court of Justice. 1996. Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Advisory Opinion. Found at The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy.http://www.lcnp.org/wcourt/opinion.htm.

[7] NPT. 2000. 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Final Document.http://disarmament.un.org/wmd/npt/2000FD.pdf.

[8] “ElBaradei warns on sanctions on N. Korea, Iran,” Reuters, October 23, 2006.

With Canada in a sustained ground war for the first time since Korea, it is not surprising that the debate over our role in Afghanistan has become thoroughly polarized.

The Prime Minister leads the charge for staying the course. Canada is at war, he says, and we don’t cut and run – we will stay in this war until the job is done. NDP Leader Jack Layton leads the call for withdrawal. It is the wrong mission for Canada; it is a war with unclear objectives and it can’t be won.

The Prime Minister sees Afghanistan as the kind of on-the-job experience that is making a better Canadian military. In fact, he implied in a CBC interview that the Canadian casualties are part of that process of shaping the military.[i] The whole experience, he said, is “certainly raising Canada’s leadership role.”

Mr. Layton in turn makes the point that withdrawing from the war and giving priority to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan will allow Canada to “focus on building a made-in-Canada foreign policy that moves us toward reclaiming Canada’s place in the world.”[ii]

Both arguments make the place of Canada in the world a central issue, but is that really the primary preoccupation of Canadians when it comes to Afghanistan? And should it be?

Two recent polls suggest that Canadian attitudes towards the war have less to do with its impact on Canada as a player on the world stage, and more to do with its impact on Afghanistan. A Decima poll found that 59 percent of Canadians agreed with the pollster’s statement that Canadian soldiers are dying for a cause that can’t be won.[iii]And in September EKOS Research found thatCanadian views are not driven so much by the level of sacrifice as by a sense that “the mission is unlikely to bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan.”[iv]

The evidence by now is well documented and mounting that the Canadian mission, indeed the entire International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in southern Afghanistan, is not working. But neither of the two options in the polarized debate – stick with a failing enterprise no matter what; pull out because it is a failing enterprise – responds to a primary concern of Canadians, namely, how to build a safer Afghanistan.

In other words, we need a third option. Calls for new negotiations with the Afghan dissidents and for increased attention to reconstruction efforts point in that direction, and recently a “third way” proposal was put forward by Eugene Lang, a former chief of staff to two recent defence ministers and now chief policy advisor to Bob Rae.
The proposal is in fact close to the Layton/NDP option. The main difference is that the NDP calls for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, while the Lang option calls for redeployment from the south to the north. Both, however, counsel withdrawal from the counter-insurgency war and call for greater non-military assistance.[v]

So here are the main elements of an emerging third option: pull out of the south; redeploy to the north in support of training and provincial reconstruction teams; substantially increase non-military aid; review the strategy, objectives, and tactics used by the NATO-led ISAF; and re-open the political process in pursuit of a more inclusive and representative political order for the entire country.

Of the three options, the least convincing is the stay-the-course focus of the Prime Minister. Even the Defence Minister now acknowledges that the Afghanistan conflict will not finally be settled on the battlefield, but it is the military prosecution of the conflict that is getting all the attention. Canadians are telling pollsters it won’t work, and conflict analysts and Afghan specialists have long been pointing out that if the objective of the counter-insurgency war is to stabilize Afghanistan and advance the well-being of Afghans, it is not getting the job done.

That leaves the other two options, complete withdrawal or the withdrawal from the counter-insurgency war and redeployment to peace support operations in the north while pursuing negotiations towards a more inclusive political order.Which of these options one supports depends on one’s understanding of the conditions that obtain in Afghanistan.

If the Government of Afghanistan has been discredited throughout the country and has lost the confidence of Afghans generally, and if the trend is thus toward outright and widespread civil war, then it is clear that foreign troops are there to support an illegitimate government and will themselves be regarded as illegitimate. In that case, foreign troops are more likely to fuel conflict than resolve it – with a pullout the logical conclusion.

If, however, the civil war is essentially confined to the south, and if in the north the Government still has the substantial support of the people, then the north is a post-conflict environment that, while still unstable, is amenable to security assisted peacebuilding efforts. In that case the redeployment of forces to the north to help in training security forces and in protecting newly funded civilian reconstruction operations would serve the greater well-being of Afghans.

Current reporting from Afghanistan is mixed, but it generally still suggests the latter situation prevails – with the clear implication that it will slide to the former unless major changes are made. That points to the urgent need to pursue the third option. But the fact that it is both urgent and prudent doesn’t guarantee, especially in the context of a polarized debate, that it will be chosen.

[i] “Canada’s military back on world stage: PM,” CBC News, September 19, 2006 account of interview on The National (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/19/harper-afghanistan.html).

[ii] ” Statement by NDP Leader Jack Layton on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan,” Aug 31, 2006 (http://www.ndp.ca/page/4119).

[iii] Keith Doucette, “MacKay slams Afghan poll,” The ChronicleHerald.ca, October 3, 2006 (http://www.herald.ns.ca/Canada/532054.html).

[iv] Bruce Campion-Smith, “Afghan mission impossible: Poll,” Toronto Star, Sept. 18/06 (available at http://25461.vws.magma.ca/admin/articles/TheStar18Sept2006.pdf).

[v] The Project Ploughshares materials have also called for an end to participation in a counter-insurgency war as counter-productive and a disservice to Afghans (e.g. “Towards counter-insurgency by other means,” http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf061.pdf; “From good intentions to sustainable solutions,” http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/monitor/mons06f.pdf).

At least one western constituency is celebrating Kim Jong-il’s nuclear test – the folks who toil in the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the beltway publicists who promote their cause in the public square.

The morning after the test, David Frum, the former Bush speech writer and current fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, was in the New York Times[i]advocating a central role for accelerated deployment of ballistic missile defence (BMD) in the panoply of threats and punishments that he wants visited on North Korea and China. The next day Frank Gaffney Jr., another Washington neo-conservative and former official in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon, was in the Globe and Mail[ii]urging the US to “greatly ramp up [its] effort to deploy the sort of effective anti-missile defences first sought by Mr. Reagan” (a much more far-reaching, and fantastical, plan than the current Pentagon program).

From its earliest days the MDA has depended heavily on cooperation from Kim Jong-il and his generals in preserving the North Korean threat – a primary rationale offered by BMD’s Congressional advocates. And of course, the North Koreans are nothing if not accommodating. The North Korean long-range missile test last June and the nuclear warhead test on October 9, despite the outright failure of the former and the ambiguous results of the latter, have injected new energy into a program that was languishing due to a lack of purpose and attention from a White House and Congress with other things on their minds.

The timing of Mr. Kim’s gift to the BMD lobby in Canada could also not have been better. Just days before the Korean nuclear test, the Senate Defence Committee recommended, in a report it entitled “Managing Turmoil,”[iii] that Canada “enter into discussions with the US Government with the aim of participating in the Ballistic Missile Defence program.” Interestingly, the Committee made no reference to North Korea in its supporting argument, arguing instead that participation would cost nothing and it might even work.

The Senate argued for BMD because “it is not offensive and not a threat to any other nation.” Frum argued for it because it is highly threatening – particularly to Chinese interests, and punishment of China was very high on his strategic to do list (he also advocated for Japan to go nuclear for the same reason).

Kim Jong-il and North American BMD advocates may find common cause for the moment, but in the end, it is likely that more prudent minds will prevail. Serious strategists recognize that any possible protection that BMD would offer from a North Korean missile would be immediately undercut by a manifold increase in the Chinese nuclear threat.

The politics of BMD will ultimately be fought out between Washington’s beltway mythmakers and the American taxpayers, and sooner or later, reality will raise its expensive head. As they say, the Americans usually end up doing the right thing, once all the other options have been exhausted. In this case, the other options involve great cost and no security payoff. And if the present Korean crisis were to be properly handled, the BMD publicists could end up losing a valued ally.

[i] David Frum, “Mutually Assured Disruption,” The New York Times, October 10, 2006.

[ii] Frank Gaffney Jr., “Dealing decisively with the enemy,” The Globe and Mail, October 11, 2006.

[iii] Available at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/defe-e/rep-e/Rep….

When Prime Minister Harper told the Economic Club of New York (Sept. 20/06)[i] that “Canada intends to be a player” in international peace and security efforts, he quickly turned to what was of more interest to his audience, and of greater concern to his government, namely security arrangements in North America. He noted the recent and indefinite renewal of the Canada-US North American Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD), but then went on to the nub of the matter: “Our partnership on all of these issues depends vitally on our maintaining a secure and efficient border.”

After the Cold War and 9-11, military cooperation is not the primary focus of the Canada-US security relationship. But compare the Prime Minister’s focus with that of Prof. J.L. Granatstein’s recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail[ii] which revived an old theme in Canada-US security relations – “defence against help.”[iii] Prof. Granatstein argued that, even with announced increases, Canadian military spending is so abysmally low that, in the mind of Washington, North American security is being imperiled. Furthermore, if we Canadians don’t soon do something about it, the Americans will be forced to take drastic unilateral action help us, whether we like it or not, with untold consequences for Canada. Well, actually, not untold but repeatedly predicted consequences. If the Americans were to assume our military security duties for us it would be “completely destructive to Canadian sovereignty and nationhood.” On the other hand, if Canada were to assume “the full cost of providing its own defence to a standard that does not cause concern in the US,” it would be “ruinously expensive.”

For Canada to mount a military capability “to a standard that does not cause concern in the US” would certainly be a tall order and might well be “ruinously expensive.” Washington’s standards for military spending are well beyond both Canada’s means and political will. It is hardly news that the US finds Canada’s military preparedness to be inadequate – it was always thus and it simply continues to put us in rather common company. Washington generally thinks that any country broadly on “their side” should spend more. The Bush Administration has not hesitated to admonish its NATO partners to increase spending (repeated to the 2006 NATO Defence Ministers’ meetings)[iv] – notwithstanding NATO being the relatively small community of states that collectively accounts for about 60 per cent of planetary military spending. In truth, it is only those countries not in the friends of Washington column that are regarded as spending too much.

But for Canada to mount a military capability that is commensurate with a reasonable assessment of current and foreseeable military threats is eminently affordable. In fact, that is what this country has been doing, without relying on American help. Surveillance of Canadian territory (air, land, and sea) is carried out by Canadian personnel using Canadian assets. Under normal circumstances, the defence of Canadian air, land, and sea space is also carried out by Canadian personnel and assets (aircraft and ships). The main peacetime threats are contraband and now fear of terrorist incursions, and all wayward and undocumented or unaccounted for aircraft and ships entering Canadian territory are intercepted by Canadians, not Americans.

In extraordinary circumstances, Canada, like all countries, looks for help. On rare occasions, the tracking of unauthorized aircraft or ships in border regions can include cross-boundary pursuit if a neighbor’s forces are not immediately available for a handover. In circumstances of a direct attack or military assault on Canadian territory Canada would most certainly depend on its allies – not the United States specifically, but NATO, with NORAD as a regional arrangement within NATO. It is the same NATO that the United States turned to in its extraordinary circumstance on Sept. 11/01and which invoked its Article V to declare that the attack on the US was regarded as an attack on them all.

The appropriateness of such military-centric responses to 9-11 is another matter, but the point is that since 1949 Canada has relied on collective defence – a reliance that is not a compromise of Canadian sovereignty any more than it is a compromise of British or Danish or American sovereignty – and has more or less ignored Washington’s fulminations against Canada’s inadequate defences.

Trying to raise Canadian military spending to a level that mollifies Washington is not an option. In the meantime, Canada does pay for its own defence in accordance with its own assessment of need in the context of other national and international needs and obligations. Canadians will regularly debate whether that is too much or too little, but let’s hope the focus is on the defence of Canada, not defence against help.

[i] Available at: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1327.

[ii] “Will the US cut Canada Loose?, Aug. 30/06, Available at: http://www.ccs21.org/articles/granatstein/2006/jlg_washington_aug06.pdf.

[iii] An interpretation of Canada-US defence relations first proffered by Canadian academic Nils Orvik in the 1970s.

[iv]US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld”continued to urge his counterparts to examine the percentage of the gross domestic product that is invested in defense within their respective countries.” Available at http://www.usembassy.org.uk/nato203.html.

Talking to the Taliban

For a state to negotiate with its bitter enemies is hardly a new concept, but when that was recently suggested for Afghanistan and the Taliban, commentators from Rex Murphy[i]to theWestern Standard[ii]managed only to ridicule the idea. The Globe and Mail editorialized that “if there were a realistic prospect that all sides shared this goal [of reconstruction and meeting the basic needs of Afghans], Canadian soldiers would not be fighting in Afghanistan”[iii] – and since we are fighting the Taliban, was the message, why would we negotiate with them? Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada cast it as a general principle: there cannot be “peace talks between an elected government and heavily-armed gangs of militant school-burners'[iv]

If that is indeed a principle, we should be grateful that it is regularly honored in the breach. Governments of varying degrees of democracy are even now in prolonged negotiations with non-state groups guilty of vicious attacks on civilians and state authorities.[v] In north east India the elected Government is negotiating with multiple rebel groups to try to end a quarter century of attacks. The same goes for Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. The current Government of Sudan includes southern rebels with whom it finally negotiated an end to decades of war, and it is now in similar negotiations with Darfur rebels, and one can only hope those talks will not drag out as long.

In the Mozambique of the early 1990s and Uganda today, Governments finally had to sit down and deal with insurgents guilty of the vilest of deeds. The elected Government of Uganda is now in talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army, a group of heavily armed bandits with no apparent agenda other than the maniacal fantasies of its leader and the kidnapping of young children – but after two decades, the unspeakable horrors for which there have proven to be no military solutions must be ended. And so they’re talking.[vi]

Enemies talk to each other because that is how wars are ended. Calls by Canadians for talks by the Government of Afghanistan and its international backers with the Taliban recognize some hard realities. First, there is no military solution to the Afghan conflict – indeed, Canada’s Defence chief, Gen. Rick Hillier recently confirmed it “has never been the strategy” to defeat the Taliban militarily.[vii] Second, the credibility of the Karzai Government and the foreign military forces in Afghanistan are inextricably linked. And the declining credibility of both in large parts of the country sets up the third hard reality: many Afghans are transferring their allegiance to the very groups the international forces are fighting. That in turn means that restoring the legitimacy and effectiveness of the central government and its backers is not simply a matter of improved performance but also depends on a commitment to political inclusiveness that reaches out to those now in opposition to the government.

The UN-mandated and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is explicitly charged with supporting the Government and assisting it in maintaining security in support of Afghan reconstruction.[viii] But the Government’s failure to meet reconstruction goals (in significant measure due to the failure of the international community to provide effective non-military support), charges of corruption, and deals with feared war lords have contributed to a decline in support and thus to a sense that ISAF is propping up an illegitimate regime. Similarly, counter-insurgency strategies that kill civilians[ix] and displace communities, and charges that ISAF is advancing American interests rather than serving the security needs of Afghans, have contributed to the sense that the Government is being supported by foreign forces that do not have the interests of Afghans at heart – and thus the suspicion that the Government itself does not have the interests of Afghans at heart is exacerbated.

The most recent report of the Senlis Council, a British think tank on security and development with an office in Kabul and researchers on the ground, describes the consequence – increasing support for the Taliban.[x] The people of the troubled south have genuine grievances and more and more of them are driven to conclude that the Taliban are a credible vehicle for expressing those grievances. That is why Afghans increasingly see ISAF, not as a force to support the government of the people of Afghanistan and to build security, but as “taking sides in a civil war situation between two groups competing for power in Afghanistan.”

It is appropriate to be cautious about accepting any one interpretation or perspective as the complete truth, but realism demands attention to the warnings of serious failure and requires a more credible response than a call for more soldiers, and now tanks.[xi]

A pre-requisite to peace is that Afghans become persuaded that their government has the interests of all Afghans at heart. In turn, that means dealing with those political-military entities outside of government that represent the genuine grievances of Afghans – a group that by all accounts now includes at least elements of the Taliban. It is certainly true that conditions need to be right for successful negotiations, and it is not for observers in distant Canada to name the people, places, and times for such talks. But it is entirely appropriate for outside observers to insist on the principle that the Afghan government and its backers talk to their declared adversaries in search of accommodations that respect the needs of Afghans and international standards of human rights.

If, as Defence Minister O’Connor now agrees, there is truly no military solution to the conflict,[xii] it is a conflict that must finally be disarmed – by eschewing counter-insurgency military strategies that further undermine the credibility of the Government, by setting the stage for negotiations to draw in the representatives of dissident communities and regions, and by putting a lot more effort into humanitarian and reconstruction assistance.

There is little we can be sure of regarding the future of Afghanistan, but one thing we can safely predict, the war in Afghanistan will not end without negotiations with fighters we now know only as “the Taliban” or “drug war lords.” In any armed conflict, if significant stakeholders believe that peace will entrench a political order that leaves them indefinitely marginalized, they will prefer war to peace – and as we are repeatedly reminded, Afghans wrote the book on the futility of trying to militarily defeat determined insurgencies.

Notes

[i] CBC News, The National, “Why are we in Afghanistan?” (www.cbc.ca/national/rex/rex_060907.html).

[ii] “Dosanjh: negotiate with terrorists,” Western Standard.ca, Sept. 1/06 (http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2006/09/dosanjh_negotia.html).

[iii] “With the Taliban, Globe and Mail, Sept. 1/06 (www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060901.ESHORT01/TPStory).

[iv] Omar Samad, “The Afghan mission is not a failure,” Globe and Mail, Sept. 6/06.

[v] Project Ploughshares, 2006 Armed Conflicts Report (http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-TitlePageRev.htm).

[vi] “Uganda: Landmark peace talks stumble,” IRINnews.org, Sept. 8/06 (www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=55489).

[vii] Bill Schiller, “Force alone won’t beat Taliban, Canada’s defence minister says,” The Record, Sept. 8/06.

[viii] UN Security Council Resolutions 1368, 1386, and 1510.

[ix] Civilian deaths which turn the population against pro-Government military forces are a predictable consequence of counter-insurgency wars, and the current Operation Medusa is apparently no exception. Graeme Smith, “Civilian deaths reported in Operation Medusa,” Globe and Mail, Sept. 8/06.

[x] The Senlis Council, Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban, September 2006 (http://www.senliscouncil.net/).

[xi] Campbell Clark, “Canada sending 15 tanks, 120 more troops,” Globe and Mail, Sept. 11/06.

[xii] Schiller, “Force alone won’t beat Taliban, Canada’s defence minister says,” The Record, Sept. 8/06.

Some may regard a United Nations Charter call for the demilitarization of security as having 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
• more than 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 will 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 will 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.

This latter imperative, the control over the instruments of violence or, in other words, disarmament, is increasingly urgent just at the time when the global mechanisms to pursue it are in serious disrepair. More on that another day.