Defence and Human Security

This being February, Canadians have once again been treated to the annual paean to the Avro Arrow. It is a memorial that leaves a question: Why has the Avro Jetliner never received the same attention?

A CBC web report had some Canadians in “mourning” this week over the demise of the Avro Arrow fifty years ago.[i] The Toronto Star had an A.V. Roe company worker who worked on the Arrow in the 1950s “gazing in adoration” at a replica of the experimental but highly advanced fighter aircraft now on display at the new Canadian Air and Space Museum.[ii]

The Ottawa Citizen carried an interesting and informative survey of Canadian aviation history which characterized the Avro Arrow episode as a “tragedy.”[iii] The Avro Jetliner made it into the story, but its demise is recorded only as a “disappointment.” Both planes represented advances in aviation that were unmatched at the time, both showed the extraordinary acumen of Canadian industry, and both were cancelled by government order and destroyed.

The Avro Arrow story is well known. A Canadian designed fighter aircraft, the Avro Arrow was tested and refined over a number of years, at great and growing expense. It could fly at almost twice the speed of sound, at very high altitudes and in all weather, and was highly maneuverable – ideal for intercepting Soviet bombers in Canada’s north.

On February 20, 1959 it was abruptly cancelled and all of the test planes destroyed and cut into pieces. Thousands of workers were laid off. Costs had been escalating and it was clear that it would be far too expensive to put into production if it had to rely on Canadian orders alone. The United States, the most likely customer, was not about to buy a centre piece of its military arsenal, an advanced fighter aircraft, from Canada and thus, the argument in Washington went, make its national security vulnerable to imports.

The story of the Avro Jetliner follows the same basic plotline.[iv]

The Avro Jetliner was not the first civilian passenger jet to fly; the British Comet beat it by two weeks in 1949. But it was the Avro Jetliner that set the standard. Designed to carry up to 40 passengers, it took its first flight on August 10, 1949. It continued to be tested and refined and by 1950 it had reached a speed of 500 miles per hour and an altitude of more than 39,000 feet.

The single Jetliner flew for seven years – used in various roles, including as a VIP transport and an aerial photo platform, it carried the world’s first jet airmail from Toronto to New York. It caught the attention of Howard Hughes who wanted to start a US production line under license and deliver the plane to his TWA airline.

On December 10, 1956 the Jetliner was abruptly cancelled and cut into pieces, with only the cockpit left intact.

Like the Arrow, the Jetliner involves a complicated story behind the simple facts. It was in particular a victim of the Korean War, during which all Canadian aircraft production facilities were pressed into service turning out aircraft for the war effort. The same pressure is also what prevented Howard Hughes from putting it into production in the US. In Canada the government decided to focus on producing the CF100 fighter aircraft.

A question endures. Why does December 10, 1956 not enjoy the same infamy as February 20, 1959?

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Emily Chung, “Remembering the death of the Avro Arrow,” 20 February 2009.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/20/f-avro-arrow.html.

[ii] Jason Miller, “Avro Arrow to spread wings in new museum,” 21 February 2009.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/591011.

[iii] Peter Pigott, “How 100 years of flight transformed a nation,” 23 February 2009.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/years+flight+transformed+nation/1319042/story.html.

[iv] Websites the tell the story include:

Avroland – http://www.avroland.ca/al-c102.html

Arrow Recovery Canada – http://www.avroarrow.org/Jetliner/JetlinerIntro.html

Wikipedia — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_Jetliner.

While Afghanistan will certainly dominate the talk at the 60th Anniversary NATO Summit in April, leaders are also scheduled to launch a process to review the Alliance’s Strategic Concept, a key element of which is a controversial and outdated nuclear doctrine.[i]

The Strategic Concept – the current version of which was adopted in 1999 – is the Alliance’s official statement of purpose and outlines its force posture and approach to collective security. Nine of its 65 paragraphs refer to nuclear weapons, the central claim being that the nuclear arsenals of the United States in particular, but also of the United Kingdom and France, are “essential to preserve peace” and are “an essential political and military link between the European and North American members They are supposed to keep your sexual life intact! viagra sales in india jealt.mx treats erectile dysfunction effectively, which is a condition characterized by the inability to achieve or maintain an erection for intercourse. This is because they normally have uncontrolled sugar in their blood system, which slows down the symptom of erectile dysfunction by inhibiting http://www.jealt.mx/servicios-dictamenes.html generic viagra discount PDE 5 enzymes and supporting cyclic GMP. This means there should be some form of sexual stimulation, whether it jealt.mx viagra without side effects is thinking about having great sex, or lightly stroking one another. Regular use of NF Cure capsule with Shilajit capsule improves vitality, cialis 5 mg vigor and energy levels. of the Alliance.”[ii]

Firmly rooted in east-west deterrence and nuclear war-fighting assumptions, NATO doctrine is markedly out of sync with the new anti-nuclear counsel from such Cold War stalwarts as Henry Kissinger, Helmut Schmidt, Richard Burt and a host of other government leaders and security professionals now calling for accelerated nuclear disarmament.

In his recent speech to the 45th Munich Security Conference, Mr. Kissinger reaffirmed his earlier call for the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, pointing out that “any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign policy objectives.”

Richard Burt, the senior arms control official in the Administration of the first President Bush, now works through the Global Zero initiative, supported by The Simons Foundation of Canada and a broad range of public figures, for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The group is pledged to work “for a legally binding verifiable agreement, including all nations, to eliminate nuclear weapons by a date certain.”

Even the Alliance leader is now committed, as the Obama White House website puts it, to pursuing the “goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

All of these statements represent a rather a large shift away from NATO’s claim that nuclear weapons are “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies.”

This recent wave of nuclear abolition statements by mainstream security professionals is rooted in two linked concerns.

First, the 20,000-plus nuclear warheads remaining in current arsenals, several thousand of them poised on missiles ready for firing at a moment’s notice, represent an ongoing threat of mass indiscriminate destruction to the point of global annihilation.

Second, that threat is heightened by the growing risk that nuclear weapons, as well as weapons-friendly technologies and nuclear materials, will spread to more states, and even to non-state groups.

NATO thus has the opportunity to fashion a new strategic doctrine that, on the one hand, takes full account of the threats posed by nuclear weapons, and, on the other hand, takes full advantage of the political momentum that is now finally available to allow states to get serious about doing something about that threat. Rather than continuing to insist, for example, that nuclear weapons “preserve peace,” NATO doctrine would do well to follow the new realism of former Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s assessment that “with every passing year [nuclear weapons] make our security more precarious.”

Inasmuch as all NATO members are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a good place to start would be for the new Strategic Concept to welcome the groundswell of calls for the world without nuclear weapons that the NPT envisions. Responding to those calls NATO should then reaffirm its commitment to implementing the disarmament and nonproliferation priorities and procedures elaborated through the NPT review process.

One important measure of NATO’s sincerity will be its handling of the 150-250 US tactical nuclear weapons that remain in Europe. If it were to take up the proposal of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt that those now in Germany be removed, and then also remove those in the four other European states that currently host them, NATO would earn important disarmament bona fides and give a major boost of confidence to a seriously flagging non-proliferation regime. It would also honor the longstanding international call that all nuclear weapons be returned to the territories of the states that own them.

Non-nuclear weapon states of the NPT that are not part of NATO rightly regard the removal of nuclear weapons from the territories of European non-nuclear weapon states as essential for full compliance with Article I of the Treaty. The NPT requires that “each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.”

The nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime is currently under severe stress. The failure of nuclear weapon states to fully implement the disarmament provisions of Article VI of the NPT, along with NATO’s ongoing claim that it plans to rely on nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future, has entrenched the double standard of nuclear “have” and “have not” countries. In the long run, that double standard is not sustainable. NATO cannot credibly claim that the security of NATO states sheltered within a peaceful Europe requires nuclear weapons, while at the same time calling on all other states, including those in conflict zones such as South Asia or the Middle East, to fully and unconditionally reject nuclear weapons.

At the coming Summit NATO has an opportunity to begin the process of reinventing its security doctrine, to take new initiatives to end its reliance on nuclear weapons, and to engage other states with nuclear weapons in the serious pursuit of reciprocal disarmament, and in the process revitalize the NPT.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] This article appeared in the February 18, 2009 issue of Embassy. http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/nato_summit-2-18-2009.

[ii] Detailed references for all quotes and sources are available in Ploughshares Briefing 09-1: Ernie Regehr, NATO’s Strategic Concept and the Nuclear Abolition Imperative. February 2009. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf091.pdf.

Some critics of Israel’s military action in Gaza charge that its extensive use of American-origin weapons violates US arms transfer laws. Whatever the merits of that particular charge, it is the type of issue that an arms trade treaty would regularly be called on to settle.

The proposed arms trade treaty (ATT), on which negotiations are about to begin at the UN,[i] is intended to ensure that international arms transfers are guided by obligations of States under the UN Charter and international law more broadly. The NGO Steering Committee that promotes an ATT articulates a foundational principle built on key elements of international law with direct relevance for arms transfers: “States shall not authorize international transfers of arms or ammunition where they will be used or are likely to be used for violations of international law, including: breaches of the UN Charter and customary law rules relating to the use of force; gross violations of international human rights law; serious violations of international humanitarian law; acts of genocide or crimes against humanity.”[ii]

The national arms transfer regulations of many countries already reflect that basic principle, as does the US Arms Export Control Act[iii] which provides that “Defense articles and defense services” can be provided to another country “solely for internal security (including for antiterrorism and nonproliferation purposes), for legitimate self-defense,” and to assist the recipient country’s participation in UN operations and related actions.[iv]

The US Foreign Assistance Act provides that, “no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of inter-nationally recognized human rights.” [v]

In the course of current Israeli attacks in Gaza, as well as previous Israeli military operations in Palestine and Lebanon, commentators[vi] and critics have argued that Israel’s actions violate self-defence and international humanitarian law requirements and thus its use of US-origin weapons violates American export conditions. Canadian foreign affairs analyst Eric Margolis says “Israel’s use of American weapons against Gaza violates the U.S. Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.”[vii] William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation and an expert on US arms transfers, wrote in 2002, for example that, “the use of U.S. weapons in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian authority appears to be a clear violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act prohibiting U.S. weapons from being used for non-defensive purposes.”[viii] In an extensive 2008 report Hartung documents Israeli use of US-supplied cluster bombs in Lebanon, also in possible violation of US export laws.[ix]

In 2007 US State Department officials sent a preliminary report to Congress citing “likely violations” of US-Israeli arms transfer agreements linked to Israel’s use of cluster bombs among villages in the 2006 attacks on Lebanon.[x]

Other reports from human rights organizations and the US State Department cite similar violations of international obligations – for example, the latter’s report on Israel for 2001 accused the Israeli Defense Force of “excessive use of force” and of deliberate attacks on Palestinian civilian institutions and civilian areas.[xi] A 2008 UN report refers to Israel’s failure to meet the obligations under international law of an occupying power.[xii]

Israel makes the opposite claims. In the case of cluster bombs in Lebanon, Israel says civilians were not targeted and were warned by leaflets dropped from aircraft in advance of any attacks. Israel describes its military actions in Gaza as entirely about self-defense – to halt rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and to prevent other kinds of terror attacks on Israel. Civilian casualties occur, they point out, not because of direct attacks, but as a consequence of direct attacks on legitimate targets that are in close proximity to civilians.

Current commentary and analysis cover the full range of interpretations, from Frank Gaffney’s insistence that “by any reasonable definition, Israel’s operations in Gaza are defensive,”[xiii] to Robert Fisk’s descriptions of specific attacks as “war crimes.”[xiv]

The legal questions at the heart of this heated debate centre on interpretations of basic, but not necessarily precise, concepts such as legitimacy and proportionality, self-defense and aggression, the thresholds that define “gross” violations of human rights or “deliberate” attacks on civilians, the definition of “excessive” use of force, and the severity and frequency of alleged violations of internationally recognized humanitarian law and human rights standards.

These are questions that are necessarily politicized and are unlikely, to understate the point, to yield to consensus in the context of current Israeli action in Gaza – the United States certainly will not charge Israel with violating US arms export conditions. But, difficult as such questions are, the proposed ATT will necessarily and regularly force them onto the public agenda. In fact, had such a treaty been in place now, it would at least have offered procedures and mechanism for examining possible infractions of international law, including the culpability of the supplier when arms are supplied to a State in which it could be reasonably predicted that those arms would be used unlawfully (possible US culpability is also relevant for Canada inasmuch as there are Canadian-built components in many US weapons systems).

A detailed and useful report on implementing an ATT, prepared by the UK NGO Saferworld,[xv] makes it clear that under any foreseeable arms trade treaty, arms transfer decisions will remain national. Even though the focus is international law, an arms trade treaty is unlikely to submit national export decisions to international adjudication.

Furthermore, compliance with such a treaty will be pursued largely through political and diplomatic dialogue, debate, and censure. Authoritative external legal judgments on compliance or noncompliance will not be the norm. Instead, treaty provisions for enhanced transparency and reporting, for consultation and mechanisms for raising formal complaints, and for monitoring transfers and weapons use will be put in place to generate close public scrutiny and thus create strong political incentives to comply.

Gradually, and with obvious difficulty, international consensus will have to build on the distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate transfers.

For now, a definitive answer on the legality or legitimacy of arms transfers destined to be used in operations like the action in Gaza will continue to elude consensus in the international community. But the fact that the role of arms suppliers is being raised, including the clandestine deliveries to Hamas, reinforces the importance of establishing a treaty which can provide institutional mechanisms through which to help determine facts, facilitate the debate, and thereby hold arms suppliers and recipients more accountable.

Notes

[i] The General Assembly, First Committee, resolution established an “open-ended working group” to pursue a “legally binding treaty on the import, export and transfer of conventional arms” based on the principles of the UN Charter and other existing international obligations – available at Reaching Critical Will: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/1com/1com08/res/L39.pdf

[ii] Compilation of Global Principles for Arms Transfers, the NGO Arms Trade Treaty Steering Committee, Amnest International, 2006, available at: http://www.iansa.org/campaigns_events/documents/Global_Principles_for_Arms_Transfers_2007.pdf. [iii] Sec. 502.Utilization of Defense Articles and Services. TITLE 22, CHAPTER 39, SUBCHAPTER I, §2754 Purposes for which military sales or leases by the United States are authorized; http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00002754—-000-.html.

[iv] US export laws are compared to proposed global arms transfer principles in greater detail in: Rachel Stohl, US Small Arms and Global Transfer Principles (Annex B), Ploughshares Working Paper 06-1, 2006.

[v] Sec. 502B, (US) Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87–195), p. 230, http://www.usaid.gov/policy/ads/faa.pdf.

[vi] Joe Parko, “Israel is illegally using U.S. weapons in its attack on Gaza,” OpEdNews.com, 28 December 2008, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Israel-is-illegally-using-by-Joe-Parko-081228-823.html.

[vii] Eric Margolis, “Israel Strikes at Obama,” 4 January 2009, Toronto Sun, http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/01/04/7912556-sun.html.

[viii] William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan, “US Arms Transafer and Security Assistace to Israel,” Arms Trade Resource Center, 6 May 2002, http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html.

[ix] William Hartung and Frida Berrigan, “US Weapons at War: Beyond the Bush Legacy,” December 2008, New America Foundation, http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/u_s_weapons_war_2008_0.

[x] “Israel may have broken US arms export laws: official,” Muzi.Com, 29 January 2007, http://lateline.muzi.net/news/ll/english/10034372.shtml?cc=35606.

[xi] “Israel and the occupied territories: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2001,” Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 4, 2002, US Department of State, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm.

[xii] “Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, General Assembly, 25 August 2008.

[xiii] Frank Gaffney, “Defensive action,” Commentary, The Washington Times, 6 January 2009, http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/06/defensive-action/.

[xiv] Robert Fisk, “Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask,” The Independent, 7 January 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html.

[xv] Making it work: Monitoring and verifying implementation of an Arms Trade Treaty, Saferworld, May 2008, http://www.saferworld.org.uk/publications.php/312/making_it_work.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(eregehr@ploughshares.ca)

[i] See the December 16 posting here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

Warnings of the disaster that would come of an American attack on Iran are plentiful, increasingly urgent, and persuasive[i] – but it is not at all clear that they are working on the one vote that matters. The NewsHour on PBS television ran a short feature on the growing irrelevance of George Bush, but on security matters he’s still very much in charge, and when it comes to Iran he still likes to say that all options remain on the table.

Iraq and Afghanistan notwithstanding, Pentagon planners and presidential advisors seem to have an inexplicable capacity to infuse their attack scenarios with an irrepressible optimism. In their computerized simulations, otherwise intractable problems, like Iran’s nuclear programs, are swept aside like so much hi tech chaff once the missiles start flying. The Christian Science Monitor recently observed that “perhaps the most egregious error policy planners make is their assumption that once wars are started, their outcome is predictable.”[ii]

It is true that some outcomes are predictable enough. No one could have doubted that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would lead to the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Nor could anyone doubt that if the United States attacked Iran it could manage to destroy, at least for a time, its nuclear programs, set its economic infrastructure back a generation, or overthrow its government. Regime destruction can be accomplished with dispatch – but after that all bets are off.

Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford has offered a careful and cautious account[iii] of the consequences of a concentrated air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and defence infrastructure. He rules out a ground offensive and a regime overthrow by the United states as unfeasible given American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He says “an air attack would involve the systematic destruction of research, development, support and training centres for nuclear and missile programmes and the killing of as many technically competent people as possible.” In addition, the attack would “involve comprehensive destruction of Iranian air defence capabilities and attacks designed to pre-empt Iranian retaliation. This would require destruction of Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities close to Iraq and of regular or irregular naval forces that could disrupt Gulf oil transit routes.”

Civilian and military casualties would be difficult to monitor, but would be in the many thousands, given that much of the technical infrastructure in support of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs is located in urban areas.

After the attack, he says, “Iran would have many methods of responding in the months and years that followed.” He includes disruption of Gulf oil supplies and support for insurgents and anti-Israel forces in the region. Rather than end Iranian nuclear programs, an attack would ignite Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions. Iran would emerge united and determined to build a bomb and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That would presumably occasion further attacks and propel long-term and widening confrontation in the region.

After that come the unpredictable consequences, including the environmental impact of exploding nuclear facilities – at this point with limited quantities of nuclear materials present – and various political fallout possibilities. President Bush and his army of upbeat advisors and analysts obviously did not anticipate that their 2003 attack on Iraq would be a major boon to Iran. But, says the former Ambassador and current Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control, Peter W. Galbraith, “of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran’s strategic victory is the most far-reaching.”[iv] Similar unintended consequences would also ensue from an attack on Iran.

Mr. Bush seems rather more aware of folly when the issue is the military action of others. It is almost touching to hear his kindly reprimand of Turkey for having the temerity to threaten attacks on northern Iraq in an effort to deny rebel Turkish Kurds sanctuary there. “There is a lot of dialogue going on,” he explained to reporters at the White House, “and that is positive.”[v]

To measure his own actions he uses a different calculus. There may, after all, be a lot of dialogue going on with Iran as well, but in this case he finds nothing positive in it. Talking to Iran, whether it is the Russians or the International Atomic Energy Agency, only emboldens it in its wicked ways.

Left to his own devices, and bolstered by the authors of triumphalist attack scenarios, President Bush is eminently capable of crowning his disastrous presidency with another military misadventure – this time in Iran. In other words, he shouldn’t be left to his own devices.

The Parliament of Canada would perform a worthy service in support of international stability through a unanimous and two-fold call: for the United States to unequivocally reject military action against Iran and for Iran to unambiguously resolve all outstanding issues with the IAEA and provide it ongoing and unencumbered access to all Iranian nuclear facilities and programs.

As an emergency statement onIranby a group of concerned Canadians puts it, “an aerial assault on Iran would be an environmental and human catastrophe that our already damaged world cannot afford.”[vi]

---

[i] Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher, “Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East,” The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, September 2007 (http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf).

Barnett Rubin, “Thesis on Policy toward Iran,” Informed Comment: Global Affairs, September 5, 2007 (http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/09/theses-on-policy-toward-iran.html).

Seymour M. Hersh, “The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?” The New Yorker, April 17, 2007 (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/17/060417fa_fact).

[ii] Walter Rodgers, “The folly of war with Iran,” The Christian Science Monitor,” October 16, 2007 ()

[iii] Paul Rogers, Iran: Consequences of a War, Briefing Paper, Oxford Research Group, February 2006 (http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers/pdf/IranConsequences.pdf), 16 pp.

[iv]Peter W. Galbraith, “The Victor?,” The New York Review of Books, October 11, 2007 Volume 54, Number 15 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20651).

[v]By Paula Wolfson, “Bush Urges Turkey to Refrain From Cross-Border Operations in Iraq,” Voice of America, October 17, 2007 (http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-10-17-voa49.cfm).

[vi] From an “emergency statement” of concerned Canadians. The statement remains open for signature through Jillian Skeet of Vancouver who can be reached at jillianskeet@telus.net.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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.