Defence and Human Security

Worst-case scenarios and the F-35

It’s not surprising that F-35 briefings by officials in the Department of National Defence (DND) point to growing dangers in a threatening world – that’s their job. Nor is it surprising that DND wants the most advanced fighter aircraft money can buy – it’s been that way since the Avro Arrow. Those are  understandable impulses, but how do you convert them into good security policy? At least it’s not too late to ask the question.

Among several interesting findings in the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report[i] on the likely costs of the F-35 fighter aircraft is the unambiguous statement that, despite the Government’s announcement of the purchase, no contract has been signed, no legal obligation to buy it exists, and no financial penalty or other costs would be incurred if the decision to buy was reversed. There is therefore no reason not to revisit the mission and requirements and to consider other options.

The primary mission set out by the Government is, as it has been since the 1950s, to patrol Canadian airspace so that, together with sea and land forces, security forces can “be aware of anything going on in or approaching [Canadian] territory.” Beyond that, the forces are tasked to deter threats and respond to contingencies, in Canada and North America.

Internationally, the mission is to contribute to international peace and security and the stated requirements are open-ended: “This will require the Canadian Forces to have the necessary capabilities to make a meaningful contribution across the full spectrum of international operations [the same phrase used by the Liberal Defence Policy statement of 2005],[ii] from humanitarian assistance to stabilization operations to combat.”[iii]

And it is in imagining potential combat environments that worst-case thinking is given free rein. Combat scenarios pitch Canadian fighter aircraft against an array of state-of-the-art air defence systems as well as the very latest in fifth generation fighters – Russia’s new version being exhibit number one of the kind of thing Canadian fighters must be prepared to face.^[iv]

To that are added warnings of land-attack cruise missiles (LACM). The US Air Force says, for example, that “the cruise missile threat to US forces will increase over the next decade. At least nine foreign countries will be involved in LACM production during the next decade, and several of the LACM producers will make their missiles available for export.” Among them are Russia, China, India, and Pakistan^[v] – and so the argument is that they could spread and could potentially be fired from off-shore aircraft at targets in Canada and other theatres of operation, with very sophisticated fighter aircraft a primary defence.

Such scenarios, which officials set out in much greater detail, in turn lead to a list of what DND calls “High Level Mandatory Capabilities,” a series of operational characteristics or capabilities that it says the next fighter aircraft must possess to meet all contingencies. There are at least eleven such features, eight of which, says DND, can be met by “fourth generation aircraft,” like the current CF-18:

• Range: A specific range is not mentioned, but it “must be capable of flying long distances” without air-to-air refuelling;
• Air-to-air refuelling: In-flight refuelling is nevertheless required to extend that range in certain instances;
• Speed: Again, no specifics, except to say that it must be capable of intercepting other fighter and bomber aircraft;
• Endurance: Must be capable of “combat air patrol” within “a range of geographical locations”;
• Deployable: Similarly it must be capable of being deployed globally “in a full range of geographic, environmental, climatic and threat conditions”;
• Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance: The new fighter is to have “superior” capability in each of these “during and following the deployment of weapons”;
• Weapons: It must be capable of firing a “range of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons in all weather conditions, day and night, in threatening and non-threatening environments”;
• Growth potential: It must be capable of receiving upgrades to enhance operation capabilities, as well as survivability and interoperability.

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But there are three additional characteristics, says DND, which can be met only by fifth generation fighters, i.e. the F-35:

• Survivability: “The aircraft must be capable of defending itself and its crew by employing a range of self-defence technologies and minimizing the risk of detection, engagement and damage in threatening environments” – meaning stealth.
• Interoperability: “The aircraft must be capable of effectively operating in joint (land, sea and aerospace) and combined environments with Canada’s allies.”
• Sensors and Data Fusion: “The aircraft must be capable of accurately detecting, tracking, identifying, prioritizing, engaging and assessing a range of air-to-air and air-to-surface contacts in all weather conditions, day and night, in permissive and non-permissive environments.”

So, there we have the constructed context – an expansive statement of threat and an ambitious definition of requirements. It is the job of security planners to prepare for the unforeseen, but to get a true picture of risk, threat needs to be tempered by probability. And to get a true picture of need, requirements need to be balanced by competing calls on resources.

So, how probable are the threats? What is the likelihood that Canada will or should be drawn into foreign high density combat environments against the most advanced of military capabilities? One way to answer that question is to ask how often that has happened in the past 30 years (during the life of the CF-18s) – and the answer is never. In fact, fighter aircraft are rarely deployed abroad by Canada, not because they haven’t been available, but because fighter aircraft have little utility in expeditionary peace support operations. Indeed, Canada’s CF-18 fighters, have been deployed beyond Canada’s borders on only four occasions: 1) 26 were deployed to the 1991 Gulf War; 18 to the 1999 NATO operations in Serbia/Kosovo; in 1997 six CF-18s did a three-month tour out of Aviano, Italy to conduct air patrols over Bosnia in support of NATO ground forces and to protect airborne warning and control aircraft; and in June 1998 six CF-18s went to Aviano to support peacekeeping forces in Bosnia.^[vi] In none of those instances did they face sophisticated air defence capabilities or fighter aircraft [nor is that the case in Libya today (27 March 2011)].

What is the likelihood of Canada facing attacks in North America by the most advanced military capabilities? It certainly didn’t happened in the past 30 years, and the likelihood of it happening in the foreseeable future is even less – given that those dazzlingly effective fifth generation Russian fighters are now on our side. The primary airborne threat we do face comes largely in the form of small civilian aircraft carrying contraband. In effect, the day-to-day activity of NORAD, the Canada-US organization that monitors the air approaches to Canada, is to lend aid to the civil authorities in their drug interdiction efforts. Similarly, the more extensive operations related to the Olympic and the G8-G20 meetings were also assistance to civil authorities.

What are the opportunity costs of buying aircraft at a minimum of $150 million per copy, plus twice that much to operate them for 30 years?[vii] Prudent security planning ought at least to ask what peacebuilding capabilities and diplomatic resources could be financed, even by the equivalent of the cost difference between fourth generation and fifth generation fighter aircraft.

As argued in this space before,[viii] ongoing monitoring of Canadian airspace is certainly essential, as is the capacity to physically confront and intercept isolated intruders. But a wealth of experience tells us that the threats to and from within our national airspace can be met with a reliable surveillance and modest interception capability.

The current Government’s preference for “fifth generation” capability does not translate automatically into need. Domestic surveillance and air defence notably do not require stealth or other advanced capabilities. Internationally, Canada is in a position to decide what kinds of missions to pursue – indeed it must be highly selective since we obviously can’t do everything. There are many other non-military and military ways for Canada to make significant contributions to international peace and security.

At the very least, we need a thorough debate – and the report of the Parliamentary Budget Office confirms that it’s not too late. 

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i] An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (March 2011).  http://www2.parl.gc.ca/sites/pbo-dpb/index.aspx?Language=E.

[ii] “A Role of Pride and Influence in the World: Defence,” Department of National Defence, 2005, p. 26.

[iii] Canada First Defence Strategy, Department of National Defence, Ottawa. http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/pri/first-premier/index-eng.asp.

[iv] Steve Gutterman,“New Russian stealth fighter makes first flight,” Reuters, Moscow, 29 January 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/29/us-russia-fighter-idUSTRE60S0UW20100129.

 [v] “Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat,” National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 2009. Available at: http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/NASIC2009.pdf.

 [vi] As documented by Dan Middlemiss in “A Military in Support of Canadian Foreign Policy: Some Fundamental Considerations,” Centre For Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova. http://www.cdfai.org/PDF/A%20Military%20In%20Support%20of%20Canadian%20Foreign%20Policy%20-%20Considerations.pdf.

 [vii] An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (March 2011).  http://www2.parl.gc.ca/sites/pbo-dpb/index.aspx?Language=E.

 [viii] http://disarmingconflict.ca/2010/10/14/the-f-35-canada%e2%80%99s-air-defence-needs-compared-with-what/.

The US military-industrial complex fifty years later

On January 17, 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned Americans that an emerging “military-industrial complex” would wield unhealthy and unwarranted influence – “economic, political, and even spiritual”—0ver their political life if it was left unchecked. 

The warning came in Eisenhower’s extraordinary farewell address to the nation, days before John F. Kennedy entered the White House. He described the unprecedented “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.”^[i]

A half century later it is clear that Eisenhower’s warning was both prescient and ignored. For what was unprecedented then remains unmatched today in the resources it consumes and the policy options it forecloses.

A globalized military-industrial complex now boasts more than 20 million men and women in uniform (another 54 million reservists are available), and with the arms and equipment they use, military forces cost some $1.5 trillion annually – spending that, adjusted for inflation, is now well over the highest levels of the Cold War era.[ii] Military industries, though concentrated in a few countries, are literally spread around the planet and sustained by, and in many cases dependent on, capital budgets of at least $400 billion annually.[iii]

But, as Eisenhower predicted, it is in the United States where this complex is most entrenched. US military spending, including the costs of current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, is expected to reach at least $712 billion in 2011 – in real term a post-World War II high. If nuclear and other defence-related programs in other departments of government are added, including $122 billion for veterans, US military-related spending will reach $861 billion this year.[iv]

The Pentagon supports a network of suppliers and contractors to the tune of about $300 billion per year, and the industry relies on another $25 to $50 billion annually in export sales to other countries.

One arrangement that helps to assure a continued convergence of military and industrial interests and world view is the high incidence of retiring senior military officials signing on as senior executives of corporations doing mega-business with the Pentagon. Many, while working with Pentagon suppliers, also serve as paid consultants to the Pentagon. A recent major investigation by The Boston Globe elaborates at length on this “revolving-door culture,” pointing out that “from 2004 through 2008, 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star officers went to work as consultants or executives.”[v]

The influence of that melding of military and industrial interests comes most clearly into public focus when, as is currently the case, there are prominent calls for spending to be brought under control and reduced. Eisenhower was not a conspiracy theorist, but he understood that when the gargantuan US military establishment became allied through shared interests to industrial elites, and was then supported by an intellectual army of strategic analysts and a national messianic spirit that understood America as destined to lead, it would have a profound impact on shaping American values and ambitions, and on models for global interaction.

So even though the US can already claim as much military capacity, measured in resources and technology, as all of the rest of the world combined, and even though its top military “rival,” China, spends only a fifth of what the US does on military preparedness, calls for military spending restraints in the US are predictably met with dire warnings of American vulnerability and the loss of American leadership in the world.

Newsweek headed its look at US Defense budget prospects with the heading, “The Risky Rush to Cut Defense Spending” – adding a tagline that “no one has figured out how to make cuts without jeopardizing security.”[vi] Polls show majority American support for defense spending cuts, but any “rush” to act on that has yet to materialize. Even after the recent announcements of cuts by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, spending on the core defence budget will continue to expand, if modestly, over the next few years[vii]  — indeed some analysts assume that Gates is using heavily publicized pre-emptive cuts (to the rate of growth) to forestall actual and significant cuts which he said would be “potentially calamitous.”  

Much of mainstream commentary in the US continues to lament “pressures across the board to reduce our level of expenditure at precisely a time when our challenges, at the very least, are getting more complicated.” They invoke everything from the dangers of North Korea, to the continuing gap in missile defence, to the political threats from Wikileaks to dramatize US vulnerability. Spending cuts are themselves understood as “attacks” – the Financial Times, speculating on the impact on defence industry stock prices of any cuts (by which they really mean slowed increases), referred to the need for debate on “the why, where, what and (against) whom” of defence spending cuts.[viii]

And when the tabloid press get involved the silliness is boundless. A new York Post column, referring to the Gates restraint package, put it this way: “Call it President Obama’s ‘conditional-surrender Pentagon budget’ – and bad news for the US economy.” And the Post ran it all under the headline, “Don’t let O disarm our military.”[ix]

As to the policy options that the military-industrial complex forecloses, we can again turn to Eisenhower and a speech from the early days of his presidency: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ^[x]

The truth of that lament is confirmed in the current Republican House “principle” that any new spending must be paid for, not by tax increases or even closing tax loopholes, but by cuts to spending in other government programs. Since security spending is largely exempt from austerity measures, the cuts will be focused on discretionary social programs. Furthermore, any savings in defence spending are to be “reinvested” in other defence programs. The costs of tax cuts, on the other hand, are exempt from this pay-as-you-go rule.[xi]

The cost to other urgent programs is illustrated by the continued impoverishment of climate change programs. Increasingly identified as having serious security implications, US spending on climate change responses is increasing significantly – even so, defence spending dwarfs it at a ratio of 41 to 1.[xii] What the ratio should be is hard to say, but the comparison does have something to say about priorities – or at the very least it confirms that the environment-industrial complex has yet to infiltrate the centres of power in Washington.

Perhaps the most telling comment on priorities comes from New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. Referring to “a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy,” he says that “the U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service.”[xiii]

To say that military spending is sacrosanct is simply to acknowledge the truth of Eisenhower’s 1960s confession that the influence of the military-industrial complex is felt in every city, state, and federal government office, not to mention in every Congressional office and in quite a few University and Think Tank research offices.
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(A shortened version of the above appeared in The Record of the Waterloo Region, 14 January 2011.)

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i] Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961. Available at: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm.

[ii] The Military Balance 2010, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (London, 2010), p. 462f.

[iii] SIPRI Yearbook 2010: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, p. 268.

[iv] Todd Harrison, “Analysis of the FY 2011 Defense Budget,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. http://www.csbaonline.org/4publications/publibrary/r.20100629.analysis_of_the_fy/r.20100629.analysis_of_the_fy.pdf.

[v] Bryan Bender, “From the Pentagon to the private sector,” the Boston Globe, 26 December 2010. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/12/26/defense_firms_lure_retired_generals/?page=full.

[vi] Douglas Schoen, “The Risky Push to Cut Defense Spending,” Newsweek, 8 January 2011. http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/08/the-risky-rush-to-cut-defense-spending.html.

[vii] Gprdon Adams and Matthew Leatherman, “A Leaner and Meaner Defense,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2011, available at The Stimson Center. http://www.stimson.org/summaries/a-leaner-and-meaner-defense/.

[viii] John McDermott, “Defence stocks on the defensive against budget cuts,” Financial Times, 10 January 2011. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2011/01/10/453876/defence-stocks-on-the-defensive-against-budget-cuts/.

[ix] Arther Herman, “Don’t let O disarm our military,” New York Post, 10 January 2011. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/don_let_disarm_our_military_Vg8BTKN1WuODmeW4fCfumL.

[x] Dwight D. Eisenhower, from a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. Available at: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dwight_D._Eisenhower/.

[xi] Robert Greenstein and James R. Horney, “House Republican Rule Changes Pave the Way For Major Deficit-Increasing Tax Cuts, Despite Anti-Deficit Rhetoric,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5 January 2011. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3359.

[xii] Miriam Pemberton, “Military vs. Climate Security: The 2011 Budgets Compared” (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, October 25, 2010). http://www.fpif.org/reports/military_vs_climate_security_the_2011_budgets_compared.

[xiii] Nicholas D. Kristof, “The Big (Military) Taboo,” The New York Times,” 25 December 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html.

The responsibility to protect the people of Côte d’Ivoire

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect warns that “an escalation in the situation [in Côte d’Ivoire] could easily lead to the commission of mass atrocities….”[i] Protection is far from guaranteed, but the international  effort to date is serious.

All the ingredients for long-term strife punctuated by explosive violence are in abundant supply in the Ivory Coast: north-south regionalism that reflects an economic divide, ethnic conflict, a north-south Muslim/Christian divide, xenophobia borne out of a history of illegal immigration, and most recently of course a contested presidential election in which each of the final two contestants has access to partisan armed forces.

The current crisis, in which the descent into major fighting has thus far been avoided, has already imposed huge costs on the people of a country still trying to recover from the last civil war. The UN reports that violence has claimed the lives of nearly 200 people and investigators have found evidence of extrajudicial executions, torture and arrests.[ii]  A week ago NGOs working in northeastern Liberia estimated that some 30,000 refugees had arrived from Côte d’Ivoire, many of whom were “reporting widespread violence and intimidation from both Ivoirian government troops and soldiers from the former rebel Forces Nouvelles operating in the west.”[iii] In the midst of deeply entrenched poverty, the crisis is putting food prices on the rise – doubling in some cases.[iv] The public unrest and political chaos are currently blocking a nationwide vaccination drive against yellow fever.[v]

A National Post columnist, in another run at the failures of the UN, complained that “once again the UN finds itself with a problem that has no apparent solution”[vi] – but that is exactly where the most intractable problems are taken. The UN and the international community are indeed already deeply involved in the crisis: through the presence of UN peacekeeping forces, a succession of Security Council resolutions, the African Union,[vii] the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),[viii] and most especially a declared commitment to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, when their own governments fail to do so.

Protection from that list of crimes means preventing them, which is the point emphasized by Francis Deng and Edward Luck, special Advisers to the Secretary-General respectively on the prevention of genocide and the responsibility to protect. In a public statement on the crisis in Ivory Coast they said the protection responsibility “entails the prevention of those crimes, importantly including their incitement,” and they warned all the involved parties “that they are accountable for their actions under international law.”[ix]

The UN Security Council similarly reminded Ivorian leaders that they “bear primary responsibility for ensuring peace and protecting the civilian population” and called on the UN peacekeeping forces to assist local authorities in that mission and to “implement [their] protection of civilian mandate.”[x]

There is inevitably reluctance to formally invoke the “responsibility to protect” (R2P), not least because it is taken by some as code for military intervention. The UK Independent newspaper launched a pre-emptive headline against military action with the declaration that “the last thing Ivorians need is an invasion”[xi] – which is a sentiment that could be appropriately applied to all states virtually all the time, but which offers rather slight help in sorting out the means by which the international community might best act on its R2P obligations.

To date, it is worth noting, the international community has been pursuing its responsibility cautiously but seriously in the spirit of the R2P doctrine approved by the UN in 2005.

International intervention or assistance is already partly military, inasmuch as UN peacekeeping force of over 9,000 international military and police personnel are already deployed there through the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoir (UNOCI),[xii] including a few hundred seconded from UNMIL in Liberia. More may be added, but the primary focus is on the diplomacy envisioned under Chapter VI and non-military coercion under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

In Chapter VI diplomacy the international community has been united in calling for the election results to be respected, for President Laurent Gbagbo (a southerner) to step down, and for election winner Alassane Quattara (a northerner) to assume that role. Measures under Chapter VII include a military embargo, a ban on diamond exports, frozen bank accounts and other assets, and travel bans against key individuals.

Louise Arbour of the International Crisis Group reflects the general wariness of the international community when she says “a military solution to the crisis in Côte d”Ivoir is unlikely.”[xiii] ECOWAS and the AU have clearly put military intervention, beyond the UN forces already there, on the table, but neither is keen, or has the ready means, to go that route. So, for now, we are seeing R2P in a prevention mode in Ivory Coast, along the lines envisioned by the framers of the 2005 R2P commitment.

The outcome is far from certain, and it is an uncertainty that holds the well-being of millions of people in the balance.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes
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[i] “Open Statement on the Situation in Côte d’Ivoire,” Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 17 December 2010. www.globalr2p.org.

 [ii] BBC News, 28 December 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11916590.

 [iii] “Back to square one?”, IRIN, 30 December 2010. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91496.

 [iv] “Political impasse sparks food price hikes,” IRIN, 28 December 2010. http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportID=91472.

 [v] “Chaos blocks yellow fever vaccination drive,” IRIN, 5 January 2011. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91530.

 [vi] Kelly McParland, “The UNs dilemma in Ivory Coast,” National Post, 2 January 2011. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/02/kelly-mcparland-the-uns-dilemma-in-ivory-coast/.

 [vii] Communique, African Union, 9 December 2010. http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/index/index.htm.

 [viii] Extraordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government on Cote D’Ivoir, 24 December 2010. http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Conferences/2010/december/situation/Final%20Communique_Eng.pdf.

 [ix] “UN Secretary-General’s Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect on the situation in Côte d’Ivoire,” United Nations press release, 29 December 2010. http://unclef.com/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/Special%20Advisers’%20Statement%20on%20Cote%20d’Ivoire,%2029%20.12.2010.pdf.

 [x] Resolution 1962, United Nations Security Council, 20 December 2010 [S/RES/1962 (2010)]. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N10/702/17/PDF/N1070217.pdf?OpenElement.

 [xi] Adrian Hamilton, “The last thing Ivorians need is an invasion,” The Independent, 30 December 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/adrian-hamilton/adrian-hamilton-the-last-thing-ivorians-need-is-an-invasion-2171654.html.

 [xii] Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2010, A Project of the Center on International Cooperation (Lynne Reinner Publishers, Boulder and London, 2010), pp. 89-94.

 [xiii]  Louise Arbour, “Open Letter to the United Nations Security Council on the Situation in Côte d’Ivoir. 20 December 2010. http://www.crisisgroup.org.

Holbrooke’s final command on Afghanistan

“You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.” These are said to have been the last words of US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke.[i] He didn’t say how to do it, but he left behind enough other words to make clear his view that the focus of his country’s efforts would have to shift from fighting to talking.

In a tribute to Holbrooke, Canada’s Chris Alexander, who offered extraordinary service in Afghanistan, both as Canada’s Ambassador and as Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, called his passing “a tragedy for Afghanistan.” Interestingly, Alexander then went on to say, in The Globe and Mail, that Holbrooke “had seen enough to know that reconciliation could never involve the appeasement of terrorists with little to lose, now bent on wrecking both the Afghan and the Pakistani states.”[ii]

There is little doubt that Holbrooke did not favour an appeasement strategy, indeed it’s hard to imagine that anyone might, given the World War II etymology of that term, but, intended or not, Alexander’s account of Holbrooke’s rejection of appeasement should not be taken as evidence that Holbrooke also rejected negotiations or diplomatic engagement with the Taliban and other elements of the Afghan insurgency.

Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars,[iii] portrays Holbrook as having joined Vice President Joe Biden in opposing escalation of the war through a military surge (Location 2968).[iv] While he didn’t then see the way open to high-level treaty or cease-fire talks with the top Taliban leadership, he expressed frustration with much of the background briefing that failed to acknowledge a central truth — namely that America would not produce a military victory in Afghanistan (L2963).

The recent White House review of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan,[v] as well as President Barack Obama’s accompanying statement,[vi] once again makes clear that the defeat of the Taliban is not the objective. Instead, President Obama has defined the core objective as defeating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and as preventing it from threatening the US or others from that base.

Indeed, it can be credibly argued that the Taliban and their Pashtun base are central to keeping al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in the future. In the long run, only the Pashtun community can ensure that al Qaeda is not harboured in its midst.

And, according to Woodward, Holbrooke understood that keeping al Qaeda out of Afghanistan did not require that the Taliban also be kept out of Afghanistan. He agreed with Vice President Biden that “even if the Taliban retook large parts of Afghanistan, al Qaeda would not come with them” – it was a conclusion that, Holbrooke remarked, might have been “the single most important intellectual insight of the year” (L2970).

The question thus becomes not whether the Taliban return to governance in some form in some parts of Afghanistan, but how that return is to be managed so as to preserve hard won constitutional and practical gains in human rights, especially the rights of women and access to education for females. Holbrooke may not have answered that challenge directly, but he was on a promising track when he urged that much more emphasis be placed on good governance at provincial and district levels, instead of focusing only on Karzai and Kabul (L4094).

As difficult and irascible as Holbrook apparently sometimes was, by all accounts he would have continued to be a major asset in pursuit of the goal that was his final command – “you’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.”

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Notes

[ii] Christopher Alexander, “Afghanistan: A critical task Holbrooke would want us to finish …,” 15 December 2010 (Former Deputy Special Representative to the UN Secretary General in Afghanistan and formerly Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/afghanistan-a-critical-task-holbrooke-would-want-us-to-finish/article1838231/

[iii] Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars, Kindle Edition.

[iv] Instead of page numbers, these references are to Location numbers in the Kindle edition.

[v] “Overview of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review,” The White House, 16 December 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/16/overview-afghanistan-and-pakistan-annual-review,

[vi] President Barack Obama, Statement by the President on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Annual Review, 16 December 2010, The White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/16/statement-president-afghanistan-pakistan-annual-review.

From training to a diplomatic surge in Afghanistan

If Canada’s newly announced post-2011 military mission in Afghanistan is to amount to more than training Afghan forces for perpetual war, it needs to be Add the right supplement to enhance the nitric production in the blood vessels and blood flow into the levitra sales online supplementprofessors.com tissues, the organ gets denser and gains volume. It is the pills approved online pharmacy sildenafil by FDA for curing impotence in men. It’s a vital method to solve sexual cheapest viagra in uk supplementprofessors.com dysfunction. Specifically, exposure of even powder from a broken Propecia tablet to the skin of a pregnant cialis soft canada woman can cause abnormalities of the external genitalia of a male fetus. accompanied by a parallel diplomatic surge in pursuit of a political settlement of the conflict.

Read further at the Globe and Mail online: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/since-we-cant-beat-the-taliban-focus-on-reconciliation/article1803418/.

Afghans support negotiations while rejecting insurgency

In an enviable display of political maturity, Afghans express overwhelming support for negotiations with insurgent groups, even as public sympathy for the insurgents and their aims and methods is in significant decline.  

This is one conclusion to be drawn from the 2010 survey of Afghans conducted by The Asia Foundation.[1] The survey addresses, as it does annually, a broad range of issues; the findings on attitudes towards reconciliation and negotiations are especially timely in the context of recently reported speculations about political initiatives.

The survey found that “83 per cent of respondents support the government’s attempts to address the security situation through negotiation and reconciliation with armed anti-government elements.” A year ago that support stood at 71 per cent.

While support for negotiations increased by more than 10 percentage points, the level of sympathy for the insurgents with whom negotiations and reconciliation are sought dropped by 16 percentage points. The level of “sympathy with the motivations of armed opposition groups” fell from 56 per cent in 2009 to 40 per cent in 2010. The majority of the 2010 respondents (55 per cent) say they have no sympathy at all for armed opposition groups, a significant increase over 2009 when only 36 per cent they had no sympathy for insurgents.

A population that is losing sympathy for the Taliban is increasingly interested in negotiating with them. Thus, almost three quarters of all respondents (73 per cent) think that “the government’s reconciliation efforts will help stabilize the country.”

All of this suggests that Afghans are comfortable with the notion that the pursuit of peace requires that you talk with your adversaries – those with whom you have the deepest, most fundamental differences.

Not surprisingly, support for negotiations is highest in those areas where respondents are most like to declare that they have “some level of sympathy with the motivations of armed opposition groups” – and that sympathy is highest in the South West (where 52 per cent), the South East (50 per cent), and the West (50 per cent).  Support for negotiation and reconciliation is thus highest in the East (89 per cnt), South East (85 per cent) and North West (85 per cent). Support for negotiations is lower in the Central/Hazarajat region (78 per cent), but is obviously still very high.

Reintegration efforts also enjoy broad support – that is, 81 per cent agree with programs that offer government assistance, including the provision of jobs and housing, to those insurgents who lay down arms and want to reintegrate into society. That is up from 71 per cent in 2009.

Musli sya: This ingredient is effective in providing relief from general debility and the go to link order cialis online roots of this ingredient is to improve blood supply in reproductive organs and solve many of the erectile dysfunctions. Discussing the current health will be helpful for a certain user yet it may be unhelpful for another. cialis sales uk cialis properien discover content In keeping with the fast pace of our life, our medications can reach our doorstep at our will. This is the only way viagra sildenafil that gives them a reason of avoiding depression that they have erectile problem and they find online remedies to solve this problem. Overall, reconciliation and reintegration programs have strong support among both men and women – 88 percent support from men and 78 percent from women.

The survey also indicates that the high level of support for negotiations does not imply any acquiescence to the limits on personal and public freedoms that are broadly associated with insurgent aims. Support for talks is matched by 81 per cent support for “the democratic principle of equal rights for all groups to participation and representation.” Support for “allowing peaceful opposition” stands at 83 percent.

A variety of gender-related issues were also addressed in the survey. It found, for example, that 87 per cent of respondents say they agree that women should have the same opportunities as men in education. The survey reports that 81 per cent of Afghans support equal rights under the law, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion.

Support for negotiations, therefore, is not evidence of diminishing support for the freedoms that Government and international military forces say they are fighting for; instead, it is fair to say that Afghans simultaneously reject the Taliban, value freedom and equality, and favour negotiations.

It seems Afghans have the idea that prospects for achieving freedom and equality, and peace, are better at the negotiating table than on the battlefield.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[1] “Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People,” Key Findings, The Asia Foundation. http://asiafoundation.org/country/afghanistan/2010-poll.php

Canada’s Afghanistan mission after 2011

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is said to be planning to set out his Government’s plans for the post-2011 Afghanistan Mission in advance of the Summit Meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government in Lisbon on 19-20 November 2010.^[i]

The context for setting future priorities for Canada’s Afghan mission is not only Canada’s impending military withdrawal, it is also the admission, made almost two years ago by Mr. Harper, that the war in Afghanistan will not lead to the defeat of the insurgency.^[ii] More recently, Richard Holbrook, the US special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the same,^[iii] as have many others.

That means that the objective of the current military surge is not to defeat the insurgency, but to set it back on its heels. A stalled insurgency, the reasoning goes, would create more favorable conditions for weaning fighters away from the insurgency (reintegration^[iv]) and for inducing their leaders to seek negotiations with the Government of Afghanistan and its international partners to end the war (reconciliation^[v]).

Not all agree it is a workable strategy. Matt Waldman, formerly of Oxfam in Afghanistan, writes in a US Institute for Peace briefing that “field research indicates that the coalition’s military surge is intensifying the conflict, and compounding enmity and mistrust between the parties. It is therefore reducing the prospects of negotiations, which require confidence-building measures that should be incremental, structured and reciprocal.”^[vi]

The implication is that the priority now should be to upgrade diplomacy and to focus on improved governance, services, and reconstruction measures, especially in those areas of the country where the insurgency is not a strongly debilitating presence. In other words, programs and activities that build confidence in a stable future, rather than intensified fighting, are what is needed to set the stage for the serious pursuit of a political settlement. The years of military effort to downgrade the Taliban have parallelled the insurgency’s steady ascent. So much so, says Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani author, journalist, and expert on the entire region, that the Taliban are now a nationwide movement.^[vii]

The debate about the impact of the “surge” will not be quickly resolved – for example, the New York Times has run prominent stories of new success in routing the Taliban^[viii] — but Ahmed Rashid goes on to say that despite the significant advances and spread of the insurgency, the Taliban may have hit both a military and political wall: “Taliban leaders may also realize that they are now at their apogee. They are a nationwide guerilla insurgency, but they cannot take or control major population centres given NATO’s firepower. There is no populist insurrection they can lead against US forces as there was in Iraq – the majority of Afghans do not want the return of a Taliban regime.”^[ix] 

If this analysis is correct, Afghanistan fits the classic “hurting stalemate.” The Government of Afghanistan and its international partners, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) cannot defeat the Taliban and the Taliban cannot defeat the Government and its international security backers. It’s a stalemate that is politically and economically hurting both sides and calls out for a political solution.

That, in fact, is the central reality that should guide those planning Canadian policy for Afghanistan after 2011.

In August a leaked Government draft^[x] proposed that after 2011 Canada focus on four priorities (down from the current six):

•           Securing a future for Afghan children and youth,

•           promoting regional diplomacy,

•           advancing the rule of law and human rights, and

•           delivering humanitarian assistance.

All are worthy and urgent. The reconciliation priority would, in this approach, focus on regional diplomacy – also very important and essential to future stability.

But the political way out of the currently stalemated war has a chance of being stable and durable only if that political process is transparent, inclusive of Afghans from all sectors of society, and respectful of the civil and human rights that are acknowledged around the world as basic to stable governance and the safety and well-being of people. Any such political process must be Afghan led, as Ottawa has rightly insisted, but Canada and the international community have an important role to play in encouraging a constructive and inclusive process.

So how should Canada shape its post-2011 mission in Afghanistan?

In the first instance, as a country that has invested heavily in the future of Afghanistan and has acknowledged at the highest level that the war is not winnable and that diplomacy is required, Canada needs to find a public voice to actively encourage pursuit of a transparent and inclusive reconciliation process.

Second, an important way for Canada to engage more directly in support of reconciliation efforts would be for the Foreign Minister to appoint a special diplomatic envoy on Afghanistan.^[xi] In addition to monitoring and supporting regional diplomacy, part of the mandate of the envoy should be to encourage the Government of Afghanistan, as well as civil society, to develop mechanisms for an inclusive and consultative approach (Canada has used special envoys in other contexts, for example in Sudan during the negotiations toward the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to monitor and observe talks and work with an international Friends of Sudan Group). 
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Third, given that Afghan civil society has already emphasized that for the people of Afghanistan to have confidence in a reconciliation process it must be transparent as well as inclusive, Canada should pledge financial support for building up the institutional capacity of Afghan civil society to engage actively in any forthcoming peace process. For civil society to be an effective participant it must have the organizational capacity to monitor the reconciliation process, to hold public forums and consultations, and to generally give leadership to citizen involvement in a process that will forge a new future for their country. That capacity can obviously be aided by financial support and international partnerships and Canada should make both a focus of its support.

And finally, community-level reconciliation, reintegration, and confidence building throughout the country are important, both to address local conflicts and concerns and to generate local support for and input into a national process. Canadian financial support for Afghan and international organizations that bolster local governance mechanisms, peacebuilding, and dialogue, and that have a capacity to work with traditional and informal authorities at local and district levels, should be part of our support for the reconciliation process. Ownership and leadership are not confined to national structures. Recognition of the traditions and advantages of decentralized governance in Afghanistan, along with the significant potential for local and informal authorities to serve as vehicles for conciliation, is part of the process of encouraging Afghan ownership of any reconciliation processes.

Canada is not positioned to play a decisive role in the move towards talking and reconciliation in Afghanistan, but we can most certainly play an important supportive role. And that support should be an increasing, indeed central, part of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan going forward.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i] Murray Brewster, “Afghan counterterror role might fly with war-weary Canadians: Diplomat,” Toronto Star.com, Canadian Press, 31 October 2010.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/883785–SOMNIA.

 [ii] Canada’s Harper doubts Afghan insurgency can be defeated, CNN.Com, 1 March 2009. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/02/canada.afghanistan/index.html.

 [iii] CNN, Afghanistan Blog, 25 October 2010. http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/holbrooke-nothing-close-to-formal-peace-talks/.

 [iv] In the Afghan context, reintegration is understood, not as a post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding enterprise, but as a tactical counterinsurgency initiative. It is pursued as a war-time effort to persuade rank-and-file insurgents to quit fighting and lay down their arms in exchange for promises of personal safety, immunity, employment, and other financial incentives.  A recent US Congressional Research Service report puts it rather directly: the focus is on the “reintegration of fighters amenable to surrendering.”Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy,  The United States Congressional Research Service, 21 July 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL30588.pdf.

 [v] In the Afghan context, reconciliation is diplomacy that seeks to engage insurgency leaders in pursuit of a political settlement that will end the fighting.

 [vi] Matt Waldman, Navigating Negotiations in Afghanistan, USIP PeaceBrief 52, 13 September 2010.  http://www.usip.org/publications/navigating-negotiations-in-afghanistan.

 [vii] Ahmed Rashid, “Meeting the mullahs takes more than meets the eye,” The Globe and Mail, 22 October 2010.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/meeting-the-mullahs-takes-more-than-meets-the-eye/article1769959/.

 [viii] Carlotta Gall, “Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region,” The New York Times, 20 October 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/world/asia/21kandahar.html.

 [ix] Ahmed Rashid, “Meeting the mullahs takes more than meets the eye.”

 [x] Steven Chase, “Ottawa maps out post-combat role in Afghanistan,” The Globe and Mail, 24 August 2010.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-maps-out-post-combat-role-in-afghanistan/article1682861/.

 [xi] The Liberal Opposition encouraged the Government to use the occasion of the January 2010 London Conference to announce the appointment of a Canadian special envoy to lead Canadian efforts related to governance and reconciliation and, more broadly, Canada’s post-2011 involvement in Afghanistan. “Liberals call for special envoy to Afghanistan,” http://www.liberal.ca/newsroom/news-release/liberals-call-for-special-envoy-to-afghanistan/.

Finally, we’re all talking about talking to the Taliban

“I told you so” is an unbecoming political posture, but NDP leader Jack Layton could certainly be forgiven such thoughts when the subject turns to negotiating with the Taliban.

Prime Minister Harper and his Government once thought it clever to ridicule Mr. Layton’s early call for talks. He didn’t understand the real world they said – next he’d propose having tea with Osama Bin Laden. But now Mr. Harper insists that “it has always been our position that [talks with insurgents are] part of an eventual solution, and that it’s not simply military action alone.”[i]

Well, would that it were so.  In 2007 Mr. Harper’s Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier, put it this way: “Canada does not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason.”[ii]

In 2006, while others were insisting that wars end through negotiation, the Government aligned itself with commentators from Rex Murphy[iii] to theWestern Standard (going after Liberal Ujjal Dosanjh for adding his voice to the call for negotiations) [iv] who managed only to deride 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”[v] – and since we are fighting the Taliban, was the subtext, why would we negotiate with them?

Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada joined Mr. Bernier and the Harper Government to cast the refusal to talk as a general principle: there cannot be “peace talks between an elected government and heavily-armed gangs of militant school-burners.”[vi]

But, happily, that’s all in the past; the point now is to welcome the reversal and to encourage the Harper Government in its new willingness to support talks and to help, as it now says Canada will, provide Taliban negotiators with safe passage to negotiating venues.

Mr. Harper is right to voice the cautions that he added to his support for talks;[vii] these are cautions that advocates of negotiations have been noting all along – especially about the importance of preserving the advances in civil and human rights that at least some elements of the Afghan population have enjoyed since the fall of the Taliban Government in late 2001. But there is a fundamental difference between clear negotiating principles and objectives, on the one hand, and negotiating preconditions on the other.

It is a distinction that was made clear in President Barak Obama’s support for talks. He had already signed off on support for talks earlier this year, “as long as Taliban leaders, at the end of the process, agreed to renounce violence, lay down their arms, and pledge fidelity to the Afghan Constitution.”[viii] These are obviously essential conditions for a peace agreement – they need to be in place “at the end of the process,” not as precondition to starting the process. The requirement that the fighting stops and that all parties commit to the rule of law is a minimum one for any peace agreement.  

The requirement for support for the constitution cannot preclude the possibility that the process could yield an amended constitution (there is, after all, plenty of argument for a constitution that allows for greater decentralization of government), but the fundamental point is that an end to fighting and respect for the rule of law are the aim of the negotiations, not a precondition for them.

Active support for the current talks about talks is a major step forward. This is very, very early in the reconciliation process. There is a lot of talking now to be done, and it doesn’t take many visits to Afghanistan to recognize that it will involve a lot of that tea.  Canadians encouraged by the move toward talks might want to raise a cup in honor of Jack Layton.  
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Notes

[i] Jonathan Montpetit, “Canadians would let Taliban leaders get to Kabul peace talks,” The Record, Waterloo Region, Canadian Press, 23 October 2010.

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

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

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

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

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

 [vii] John Ibbitson and Steven Chase, “Taliban deal would need to meet strict conditions, PM says,” The Globe and Mail, 23 October 2010.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/taliban-deal-would-need-to-meet-strict-conditions-pm-says/article1770034/

 [viii] Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger, and Eric Schmitt, “US Aids Taliban to Attend Talks on Making Peace,” New York Times writer Sanger and others in the Pakistanpal Blog, 14 October 2010. http://pakistanpal.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/u-s-aids-taliban-to-attend-talks-on-making-peace/

Preparing for “Canada’s next battle”

The Globe and Mail’s feature on the role and make-up of Canada’s post-Afghanistan military[i] is premised largely on the claim that Canada’s Afghan-tested army is what the world now needs more of. The following, submitted to the Globe as a letter to the editor, offers a brief counterpoint.

It is true that “security needs have evolved” (“Canada’s next battle,” Oct 22). In fact, the way most vulnerable people around the world now experience insecurity is through chronically unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably attend such conditions of insecurity.

The primary way to address these insecurities is through social, political, and economic measures that in the long-term produce conditions of durable stability.

That peace support and protection operations frequently require a competent military component is true – but planning appropriate military preparedness needs to be conditioned by two critical realities. First, military operations in Vietnam, Afghanistan,[ii] Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name but a few, tell us there are clear and predictable limits to the utility of military force in the pursuit of peace in failed state contexts. Second, maintaining high cost military establishments at the expense of effective social and economic measures essential to mitigating human insecurity undermines the pursuit of international peace and security.

Canada is in a good position to get that balance right. Since we don’t face imminent or foreseeable military challenges to our sovereignty, territorial integrity, or internal order, we can responsibly maintain more modest levels of military preparedness than some. That in turn means our international peace and security tool kit does not need to be dominated by military capacity. We have options.

For example, Norway focuses a major portion of its international peace and security capacity on diplomacy and development assistance.  Its ratio of development spending to military spending is about 1:2. In Canada that same ratio is 1:4. Getting closer to the 1:2 ratio would allow us to make a more salient and effective contribution to international peace and security.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes
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[i] Campbell Clark, “Canada’s next battle,” The Globe and Mail, 23 October 2010. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/military/canadas-next-battle/article1768573/

 [ii] The limits to the utility of force are convincingly illustrated in the opening five paragraphs of the Globe and Mail Story:

“The wire that surrounds the sprawling, city-sized base at Kandahar Airfield is being pushed back to make room for more rows of armoured vehicles, barracks and arsenals. The surge of thousands of additional U.S. troops is complete and a new campaign for war-scarred Kandahar is on.

“The main Canadian battle group of about 1,000 troops, which once fought across Kandahar province, is now concentrated in one tough rural district, Panjwaii, fighting alongside more U.S. and Afghan soldiers in a push to clear out a few hundred hard-core insurgents in a hide-and-seek war. But locals who braced for coalition offensives earlier this month have seen Canadians clear insurgents out of Panjwaii villages such as Zangabad and Talokan several times in recent years, only to see the Taliban return after their exit.

“’Many Taliban and many ordinary people were killed, many gardens and orchards destroyed, and many soldiers killed,’ Door Mohammad, a 49-year-old taxi driver from Talokan said three weeks ago, before the latest offensive. ‘At the end, the post was empty, and the Canadians gone, we don’t know where. And now Talokan area is an important place for the Taliban … there is sort of Taliban-like government like the last time.’

“Few would bet there will be a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Kandahar city when Canadian combat troops leave next July. A last rotation of Canadian Forces troops will dismantle equipment and ship it home. By then, senior Canadian officers in Kandahar hope the surge will have dramatically changed the momentum, but U.S., coalition and Afghan National Army troops will fight on.

“Afghanistan has been a tough war – the 152 fallen Canadian soldiers, billions spent, years of seemingly fruitless attempts to displace the Taliban, and the gnawing sense Afghans’ lives have not improved.”

…except in the UK

While global military spending seemed recession proof as it continued its upward climb in 2009 (see previous post), fiscal reality has finally closed in on the UK in 2010 – and the Ministry of Defence will not escape the consequences.

Military spending is to be cut by 8 per cent (well short of the average of a 19 per cent cut across all departments)[i] over the next four years.[ii] All the services – Air Force, Army, and Navy – are to see significant cuts, as will civilian staff. Notably, the final decision on the long-planned renewal of Trident nuclear forces has been put off to 2016, and in the meantime there will be a reduction of nuclear warheads from 160 to 120.

Commentators and analysts have been largely critical of a process that has reduced defence policy making to a budget making exercise, but the Guardian singled out the changes to the nuclear deployments as part of the good news: “CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] welcomed [Prime Minister Cameron’s] decision to reduce Britain’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 25%. The delay in the decision to start construction of new submarines to replace the Vanguard class which carry the Trident nuclear deterrent is also welcome – but only as a precursor to scrapping these weapons, which even Tony Blair now acknowledges can never be used independently.”[iii]

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

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[i] Thomas Penny and Gonzalo Vina, “Osborne to Slash Jobs, Tax Banks in U.K. Budget Cuts,” Bloomberg, 20 Oct0ber, 2010. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/osborne-pledges-8-billion-reduction-in-u-k-debt-costs-amid-spending-cuts.html.

[ii] “Defence review at-a-glance,” BBC News, 19 October 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11574573.  Richard Norton-Taylor, “Strategic defence review means end of Iraq-scale military interventions,” guardian.co.uk, 19 October 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/19/strategic-defence-review-military-cuts.

[iii] “Defence and security review: Groping for a strategy,” The Guardian Editorial, guardian.co.uk, 20 October 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/20/defence-and-security-review-strategy.