H-Diplo Roundtable XIX, 37 on Beyond Afghanistan: An International Security Agenda for Canada

George Fujii Discussion

 

 

 

 

2018

 

H-Diplo

@HDiplo

 

Roundtable Review

Volume XIX, No. 37 (2018)

28 May 2018

 

 

Roundtable Editors: Thomas Maddux and Diane Labrosse

Roundtable and Web Production Editor: George Fujii

 

Introduction by Thomas Maddux

 

James Fergusson and Francis Furtado, eds.  Beyond Afghanistan:  An International Security Agenda for Canada.  Victoria:  University of British Columbia Press, 2016.  ISBN:  9780774831987 (hardcover, $95.00); 9780774831994 (paperback, $32.95).

 

URL: http://www.tiny.cc/Roundtable-XIX-37

Contents

Introduction by Brian Bow, Dalhousie University.. 2

Review by Petra Dolata, University of Calgary.. 4

Review by John Mitton, Dalhousie University.. 12

Editor’s Response by James Fergusson, University of Manitoba, and Francis Furtado, Ottawa.. 16

 

 

© 2018 The Authors.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

 

F

or more than a decade after 9/11, military intervention in Afghanistan absorbed most of the attention and resources of the Canadian government’s foreign and defence policy establishment, and of Canadian foreign and defence policy academics as well. This collection of essays, edited by James Fergusson and Francis Furtado, brings together many of the country’s most prominent academic experts on foreign and defence policy to survey Canada’s opportunities and constraints in the ‘post-Afghanistan’ era.

 

The two reviewers, Petra Dolata and John Mitton, provide a good overview of the collection, and raise some serious questions about its limitations as a starting place for thinking about what is ‘beyond’ Afghanistan.

 

Dolata’s very thorough review works its way through the entire volume, summarizing and commenting on every chapter, and offers a fairly deep critique of the volume as a whole. She focuses mostly on the limitations of the volume as a “foundational” survey, noting the disproportionate attention to NATO; the extensive consideration of historical background at the expense of more thorough discussion of contemporary policy choices; the conspicuous lack of attention to ‘new’ security challenges like terrorism and environmental disruption; and the lack of clarity about ‘beyond Afghanistan’ as an organizing theme for the volume.

 

Mitton focuses instead on looking for threads running through the volume, and finds a few. In addition to the obvious things—i.e., the attention to regions and problems outside of Afghanistan, the effort to place contemporary debates in historical context—Mitton points to the contributors’ shared interest in thinking about the “limitations” of Canada’s foreign policy, and the need for policy-makers to think sensibly about what they can actually accomplish in the world, given the constraints on government resources, domestic political attention, and supportive international partners. Each contributor offers a sense of perspective on what Canada can accomplish in any given region or with respect to any given problem, but, as Mitton points out, the volume as a whole does not provide us with much perspective on priorities and trade-offs across these different domains.

The authors’ shared commitment to busting myths, along with the editors’ focus on putting contemporary problems in a broader historical perspective, could be seen to be one of the abiding (and unifying) preoccupations for the generation of scholars that dominates this volume. (The two women who contributed to the volume—Andrea Charron and Bessma Momani—are also the only representatives of a younger generation of Canadian foreign and defence policy experts.) One could argue that one of the chief strengths of this collection—the impressive roster of highly-respected, influential, and deeply-knowledgeable senior scholars—is also a significant liability. While there are some important differences of perspective among the contributors, there is also a certain overlap of worldviews and approaches. This comes out most clearly in the cluster of five chapters on Canada and NATO, which tend to ask similar questions, and do not leave the reader with the impression that there is much of a clear-cut, high-stakes debate about the answers to those questions.

 

Having said that, however, there are ways in which this return to ‘traditional’ ways of thinking is very welcome. Much of the recent scholarship on Canadian foreign and defence policy has obsessed about questions of perspective, wandered off into narrow niches, or fixated on sterile ‘technical’ debates, so that it (collectively) has little to say about core policy debates, public attitudes, or both. This collection can therefore be seen as a useful corrective, in the sense that it guides the reader ‘back’ to thinking about the most pressing policy challenges in each region or issue area; puts each of these into historical context, thus puncturing lazy hype about the supposed ‘newness’ of many of these challenges; and—in most chapters—thinks seriously about where Canadian policy is being shaped by forces “out there’, in the world, or by our own politicking and preoccupations. Beyond Afghanistan is therefore important as a kind of traditionalist touchstone for contemporary debates, and should serve as a reference point for new research on Canadian foreign and defence policy in the Justin Trudeau/Donald Trump era.

 

Participants:

 

James Fergusson is the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies and a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba.

 

Francis Furtado served for over twenty years with the Government of Canada and currently works as a consultant in Ottawa.

 

Brian Bow is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for the Study of Security and Development at Dalhousie University. He has published widely on Canadian foreign policy, Canada-U.S. relations, North American regional politics, and U.S. foreign policy.

 

Petra Dolata is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the History of Energy at the University of Calgary. She has published on Canada’s foreign and Arctic policies, transatlantic relations, and the concept of energy security.

 

John Mitton is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University, as well as a Doctoral Fellow at Dalhousie’s Centre for the Study of Security and Development. He is currently a Fulbright visiting researcher at the University of Southern California. His research interests include international relations theory, international rivalry, coercive diplomacy and civil conflict. His work has appeared in Contemporary Security Policy, Canadian Journal of Political Science, International Journal, and the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies.

 

 

Review by Petra Dolata, University of Calgary

T

his timely book, co-edited by James Fergusson, an expert on Canadian foreign and security policy who specializes on non-proliferation and arms control, and Francis Furtado, a practitioner who served for over twenty years with the Government of Canada and now works as a defence consultant, is dedicated to Dr. Paul Edward Buteux, one of Canada’s leading scholars on nuclear weapons and NATO, who died in March 2012. Until his retirement, Buteaux taught at the University of Manitoba, where he was instrumental in founding the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, which he headed until 2006 and whose current Director is Fergusson. In a way, this book pays homage to Buteux’s oeuvre. It focuses on NATO (Part 1) as well as on nuclear weapons and deterrence (Part 3).

 

However, these discussions are embedded into a larger, more topical context. Taking the end of Canada’s combat role in Afghanistan as a starting point, this edited volume intends to “re-examine Canada’s international security policy” (xiii). With new administrations in Ottawa and Washington, it may indeed be time for such renewed assessment. Yet, this re-examination is driven by a more specific purpose. Based on the assumption that traditional areas of Canadian defence and security policy “have been neglected and will return to shape future Canadian security policy,” the editors call for investigating these traditional issues which include “great power politics, interstate rivalries, and weapons of mass destruction” (xiii). Further arguing that Afghanistan was an example of the new “post-Cold War international paradigm” that overshadowed “traditional national security interests,” they see these latter concerns returning (xiii). For Fergusson and Furtado, events in the Ukraine and the resurgence of Russia as well as the rise of China, the U.S. pivot to Asia, and returning security challenges such as nuclear weapons and missile defence constitute clear signs of a changing international security environment which resembles more the traditional, Cold War, landscape.

 

Closely linked to this argument of the return of traditional security issues are two aims which speak to the past, present, and future of Canada’s defence and security policy. First, contributions in the volume were required to assess where Canada stands at the moment. Second, in the absence of a comprehensive government statement on Canada’s international security policy, contributors were encouraged to look towards the future and also provide advice on how such a policy should look like. Hence, the volume is “designed to highlight the evolution of Canadian policy over the past fifteen years and to provide a map of where Canada might go in the future” (xiv). It is structured accordingly, with the first part devoted to the recent history of NATO and the following parts taking a more regional (Part 2) and functional perspective (Part 3). The focus on NATO is explained by the organization’s long-standing function as a “central pillar of Canadian international security policy” besides Ottawa’s relationship with the United States (xv). While this may historically be true, it demands a more thorough justification. By dedicating the first five chapters to NATO, the editors are already engaging in a value judgement about the importance of this transatlantic institution, whose existence was questioned at the end of the Cold War and is now under pressure from the Trump administration. It seems rather limiting to devote one third of the publication to highlighting NATO when the aim is to re-examine what constitutes the new international security environment. It also leads to a much longer historical perspective than the fifteen years that were mentioned before (xiv). While I agree that it is useful to look back at the creation and evolution of NATO to make an informed judgement about its potential future importance for Canadian policy, this choice carries the risk of focusing too much on the history without making those links to the present and future explicit. As will be outlined below, a number of chapters in this volume are very strong and insightful with regards to their historical analyses, but they do not offer sufficient in-depth discussion of post-Afghanistan Canada.

 

The question of the chronological focus is also highlighted by the volume’s title Beyond Afghanistan. The editors could have discussed their choice of the title in more detail. Does the ‘beyond’ indicate only that the volume discusses the nature of the international security environment after Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan or are these discussions also directly related to the actual experience of Canadian involvement in Afghanistan? More importantly, should not any discussion of Canada’s international security policy include musings about what constitutes international security in the twenty-first century beyond military involvement in Afghanistan? What becomes clear throughout the chapters is that while all the authors have something to contribute to the discussion of a future International Security Agenda for Canada (subtitle), many of them do not address how their contributions speak to the idea of Beyond Afghanistan.

 

The first part, entitled “Canada and NATO,” brings together a number of eminent scholars in the field and serves as an excellent introduction to the evolution and nature of NATO’s significance for Canadian international security policy. Denis Stairs’s historical analysis of NATO’s importance for Canada sets the stage for subsequent chapters in this section.[1] He reminds us of the origin of the Alliance as an “enterprise in military deterrence” (10) and of Canada’s ability to punch above its weight in the early post-World War II period (16). Stairs traces the history of Canada and NATO by aligning Canada’s interest to a regional (continentalism) or transatlantic model (21). These opposing models are informed by the two-pillar structure of NATO, with Western Europe being one and North America the other pillar. Adding the transatlantic dimension of the Alliance, Stairs modifies this twin-pillar structure into a triple one. He argues that North America was not only spatially a separate pillar, but that North America’s presence in Western Europe constituted a third pillar (14). More importantly, arguing that the security threat during the Cold War was civilizational he maintains that NATO was an institution for “collective defence, not collective security” (17). It is unfortunate that Stairs does not use this observation to critically engage with the concept of security more generally or link it with his previous discussion of NATO Article 2, the so-called Canadian article, which through its emphasis on economic and social well-being introduced a much broader understanding of security (12-13). While this is a commendable historical analysis of Canada and NATO, the chapter does little to examine how exactly the security environment during the past fifteen years has changed (or not changed) this role of the Alliance for Canada.

 

The second chapter by Douglas Bland[2] offers a more systematic analysis of the evolution of NATO by discussing the Alliance as a structure, which “transforms policy ideas into functional outcomes” (26). Made up of three components—actors, organization, and decision-making process—any change in the structure will also impact the nature of policy ideas, thus rendering NATO a “dynamic structure” (27). This conceptualization allows Bland to explain the early shift from political to military institution in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a shift that he traces in minute historical detail. He also employs it to argue that “[t]he purpose and ideas that created the 1952-54 amalgam of actors, organizations, and processes no longer pertain” and to call for “a new structure, better suited to the North Atlantic Alliance in the current era” (27). Revisiting the so-called Foulkes Plan which encouraged NATO to create several Regional Planning Groups in 1949, Bland suggests this type of structural regionalism and hence a “return to the two founding ideas of the North Atlantic Treaty of a Europe defended by Europeans and supported by North America within a regional alliance structure” (40) as an appropriate response to the changed security landscape after the end of the Cold War. However, he does not discuss how European efforts at such regional approaches (European Security and Defence Policy, and now Common Security and Defence Policy) have evolved and impacted the structure of NATO since the end of the Cold War. The article remains equally vague about how and why NATO will have to win Canadian citizen’s trust (44). Do Canadians question NATO? Do they even care? Finally, Bland’s assumptions about further regional U.S.-Canadian defence cooperation, including research, capability development, and procurement (43) seem very optimistic. Like Stairs’ preceding chapter Bland’s contribution is much stronger when discussing the historical development than applying these insights to the present security landscape. Overall, his investigation of changes in the structure after the end of the Cold War remains rather general and vague.

 

Filling in this void while also addressing regionalization within NATO is Danford Middlemiss’s contribution, which constitutes the third chapter in Part 1.[3] Based on the author’s Ph.D. thesis and some documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, it discusses the significance of Canada’s intervention in Afghanistan as part of the Alliance effort through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Examining “the ‘NATO factor’ in Canadian decision making with respect to Afghanistan,” Middlemiss intends to provide an assessment of the relevance of NATO for future Canadian crisis intervention (45). His detailed discussion of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan serves as a useful backgrounder while he also successfully debunks some myths about Canada’s policy. For example, he convincingly deconstructs the notion that Canada’s decision to take on the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), which was considered to be the result of bureaucratic infighting, was “a well-advanced and well-coordinated Ottawa planning effort” (53). He concludes by concurring with other commentators who noted the emergence of a “multitier NATO” and that “Afghanistan revealed NATO to be increasingly a highly discretionary, opt-in/opt-out mechanism rather than a true organization for collective defence” (59). Middlemiss’s detailed history of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan partly supports this argument and helps us understand the future role of NATO for “a smaller military ally” (60) such as Canada. However, it might have been useful to go further back and include a historical analysis of Canada’s role with respect to the NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Finally, Middlemiss provides a number of interesting insights into the aspect of regionalization within NATO. At one point, he argues that the European NATO members tried to “Europeanize” the intervention in order to push their own European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) and that this regional agenda-setting within NATO revealed that Canada could not “readily shape the fundamental nature and rules of the organization to its liking” (48). Here, it would have been useful if the chapters had spoken more towards each other since Middlemiss contributes a very different angle to the regionalization argument that Bland had just put forward in the previous chapter.

 

While Bland and Middlemiss are hesitant to see NATO continue to play the same kind of role in Canadian international security policy, David Haglund argues in his chapter[4] that “it remains the central institutional player in this arena and will be so unless and until the United States itself chooses to reassess, radically, its own interest in the alliance” (63). Arguing that reports about the waning role of NATO are neither “credible” nor “new” (63), he revisits the cycles of “deadism” (64), that is, the many times that NATO was declared dead. Explaining that the Alliance always defeated its own impending demise through taking on a new role, Haglund traces NATO’s metamorphoses after the end of the Cold War. These “redesigns” were mainly based on broadening the concepts of defence and security (66-67). Canada mirrored this transformation by redefining the original aim of collective security as common and then cooperative security (72-73), thus bringing it back into sync with NATO. Yet, for the post-9/11 and post-Afghanistan case, Haglund acknowledges that Canada has begun to realize that while it “has always liked NATO” which “remains Canada’s most beloved international security organization,” the changed international security landscape has brought challenges to the fore that may not be addressed in any multilateral framework. One example he mentions is the Arctic, which is the topic of Andrea Charron’s contribution to the volume.[5] Again, it would have been better if individual chapters linked more explicitly to each other. Haglund is the first author in the book to hint at the broadening and deepening of the concept of security. Unfortunately, he does not push this point further when discussing current Canadian policy.

 

While not engaging with the concept of security per se, the last chapter in the first part is possibly the most conceptual.[6] Alexander Moens analyzes Canada’s relationship with NATO as that of a liberal democracy which regards other liberal democracies as so-called “reference states” (81). These reference states provide some guidance with respect to countering security threats. Historically, Great Britain, the United States, and the European Communities have all played that reference role for Canada while NATO offered the “twin benefits of a reference group and military readiness” (89). According to Moens, NATO would only become obsolete if security threats no longer existed, and NATO’s existence is closely linked to its dual function of being an “international reference group” (82) for dealing with such threats and providing military action if needed. Because of Canada’s limited diplomatic influence and military power, NATO is especially important for Ottawa as a referent besides the United Nations (UN) and the United States. Unfortunately, Moens fails to fully develop the concept of reference states and hence does not sufficiently address the qualitative differences between states such as Great Britain and the U.S. and suprastates such as the European Communities/European Union (EC/EU) or collective defence organizations such as NATO. At what point does a liberal democracy such as Canada consider any of these as legitimate referents? And why do some states not qualify as referents? For example, Moens mentions the ideational gap with respect to security thinking between India and Brazil on the one hand and Euro-Atlantic states on the other (88). It seems that underlying his argument is the assumption that there exists a transatlantic value community, something that Thomas Risse had introduced as an ideational argument to explain the persistence of NATO.[7] These shared values of liberal democracies would explain the “historical record of NATO’s unity of purpose and military adaptability” that Moens is referring to (87). This may also explain why Canada was open to joining European Security and Defence Policy operations (94).

 

All five chapters in the first part help us understand how Canada and NATO intersect and what role the Alliance has played in Canadian international security policy and to some extent what role it will or should play in the future. The second part, “Canada beyond NATO Europe,” brings together pieces that look at Canada’s security and defence policy towards the Arctic, the U.S. and the Western hemisphere as well as its relations with China and the Middle East. Andrea Charron begins with an area closest to home, the maritime Arctic. Discussing current challenges to the region’s security and safety she asks “whether the Arctic is in need of protection, and, if so, is NATO or any other international organization the best to undertake it relative to Canadian interests?” (97). Revisiting the recent history of Artic institution building as well as the role of Russia and China as potential threats to Arctic sovereignty, Charron concludes that the very nature of these challenges, which are mostly not military in nature may factor against NATO involvement. More importantly, Canada itself spoke out against including the Arctic as part of the 2009 NATO summit declaration (103). Instead, security-related institution building continues under the umbrella of the circumpolar soft regime of the Arctic Council, as the case of the so-called SAR agreement (Agreement on Cooperation in Aeronautical and Maritime Search and rescue in the Arctic) of 2011 shows.

 

Charron concludes her discussion with outlining the Canadian military involvement in protecting the Arctic calling for better coordination of these efforts with other government departments and possibly NORAD. This demand for a more coordinated and comprehensive approach points toward an important aspect of the changed international security landscape which is particularly pertinent to the Arctic. Charron mentions that “major concerns” in the region “are centred on the lack of housing, infrastructure, and services” (109). In another instance, she introduces security challenges beyond sovereignty including climate change, food shortages, and energy security (105). And when discussing the SAR agreement, she explains that this is the first security-related agreement by the Arctic Council, which, according to its mandate, excludes security matters. Only under this condition was the United States willing to join the Arctic Council, when it was founded in 1996 (102). These are important observations which highlight how the very nature of security has changed to include challenges that go beyond the state as the referent and include issues that cannot be addressed by the military. It is unfortunate that Charron’s article does not discuss these aspects more systematically.

 

The following chapter by Joseph Jockel and Joel Sokolsky, both well-known experts on U.S.-Canadian defence relations, returns to the traditional conceptualization of security and outlines the recent developments of NORAD and its role for Canada.[8] Thus, their discussion of the Arctic differs from Charron’s, highlighting the U.S. 2013 National Strategy for the Arctic Region and the Coast Guard’s Arctic Strategy (119-121). Unfortunately, no reference is made to Charron’s chapter. They use this case and others to make a more general statement about the “inertia” and “uncertainty” surrounding NORAD (122). They argue that the differences between homeland defence (provided through NORAD) and homeland security (provided through national organizations) and the prioritizing of the latter over the former has created this uncertainty and has downgraded NORAD to “its former status as a benign geostrategic backwater” (134). It is, of course, difficult to foresee the future but it seems that the authors are sometimes too certain about the trajectories, for example when they insist that “the Joint Force of 2020 will be leaner and smaller” (126) or that the “United States will continue to honour its NATO commitments” (124). The election of Donald Trump and the May 2017 NATO summit have at least raised some serious doubts about that.

 

The following chapter by Hal Klepak on Canada’s defence and security policy in the Americas[9] as well as the last chapter in this second part by David Dewitt and Bessma Momani on the Middle East[10] are insightful and informative, providing detailed narratives of Canada’s engagement with these regions. However, both lack a more systematic and conceptual discussion in how far this analysis helps us understand what Canada’s international security agenda will look like after Afghanistan. Klepak focuses on this question only in his conclusion, suggesting that “it will be necessary to for the United States and Canada to understand this simple but powerful change [of disappearing rightist and conservative governments] in the political landscape of the hemisphere” (150). While Dewitt and Momani spend more time on present and possible future Canadian engagement in the Middle East, they provide more of an “overview and some brief analysis” (162). Reminding readers of the history of Canadian involvement is important and serves as a primer, but the rather vague and not always substantiated discussion of Canada’s future role with regards to the region does not always add up to a thorough examination. For example, what is the evidence for Canada’s keenness “to synchronize its foreign policy with its economic trade interests and foreign aid programs” (175)? More importantly, how do these linkages, as well as the “global economic wealth shifts from ‘the West to the rest’” (175), change the international security landscape? Again, the authors avoid a more conceptual discussion of what it means to reconcile military and economic interests in a changed security environment. The one chapter in the second part that attempts to address Canada’s future foreign and defence policy more conceptually is that of Kim Richard Nossal.[11] In this rather short contribution he introduces the idea of Canada being “astrategic” with respect to China (151), arguing that Canada’s China policy is not based on coherent ideas but rather on electoral politics and ad hoc measures. For Nossal, the reason for this “astrategic” approach is “Canada’s proximity to the United States” which “has conditioned Canadians to avoid thinking about world politics” (151). He even goes so far as to claim that this has led “Canadians [to] no longer think about world politics in realpolitik terms” (160). He then outlines the recent policy toward China, highlighting the importance of individual actors such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and lamenting the lack of discussion of the “larger strategic issues of great power transition,” (155) which would prepare Canadian decision-makers for the challenges that a rise of China will bring to international security. Nossal’s argument hinges on understanding foreign policy-making by looking at the systemic level, in his case through Great Power Transition Theory. Only on this level does Canada’s China policy look “astrategic.” If one were to focus on the domestic and bureaucratic factors of foreign policy, it looks much more like a case of competing strategies that intersect to produce this type of outcome. Comparing Canada to the United States is also not helpful, as the two countries occupy very different places in the international system. It might have made more sense to have compared Canada’s policy to that of other middle powers such as Germany.

 

The third part of the book is devoted to issues that contribute to the international security landscape and transcend geographical areas. The first chapter in this section by Francis Furtado uses the well-known idea of myths in Canadian foreign policy to discuss Canadian defence capabilities and the role of the Canadian military in the new security environment.[12] He argues that there has been a “steady acceptance of the notion of combat-capable forces as the touchstone of Canadian defence policy” (194) and he calls for an end to mythologizing the Canadian military as either “peacekeepers” or “war fighters” (195). What is overlooked in this plea is the durability of such myths in public opinion due to their historical significance. The following three chapters all speak to Paul Edward Buteux’s scholarship on nuclear weapons and deterrence. Douglas Alan Ross provides a lengthy discussion of current nuclear weapons developments and U.S. and NATO approaches to addressing these before analyzing what this means for Canada.[13] With reference to continental defence he sees an important future role for NORAD, which seems to contrast the verdict of Jockel and Sokolsky. Again, it would have helped if chapters referred to each other as this could have provided further useful analytical insights. In his contribution, Gordon Vachon discusses Canada’s role in arms control and disarmament and traces the government’s evolving policy in this issue area.[14] Essentially, he uses this portrayal in order to criticize the Canadian government for having “lost its focus” (229), lamenting that the “’golden years’ of the 1980s and 1990s and Canada’s particularly active engagement” (227) are over. In the final chapter, James Fergusson takes the discussion on deterrence a notch further, analyzing the importance of strategic defence and military space for Canada.[15] Calling for a more comprehensive approach which combines nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defence (BMD), and military space into one strategic “policy basket” (230), he contends that Canada has “adopted a type of ‘separation doctrine’” to disconnect the contentious BMD issue from the other issues. Outlining the difficult bilateral U.S.-Canadian relationship with regards to missile defence, he shows how until today Canada has not moved on strategic defence and is not part of U.S. missile defence programs. He juxtaposes this bumpy relationship with the story of the military space issue which he summarizes as a success story in which “Canada’s small contribution to U.S. military space is emerging as a valuable political and strategic asset” (243). He concludes by foreseeing a continuance of the “separation doctrine,” expecting Canadian niche contributions in military space and non-commitment in missile defence. Unlike Jockel and Sokolsky he is much more optimistic about the future of NORAD. Once again, references in the chapters to others in the volume would have been valuable.

 

Finally, the topics in this part of the book address re-emerging traditional security issues, and the absence of new security challenges is noticeable. What about terrorism, climate change, or cyber security? If, as the conclusion states, this book is about “tracing the evolution of Canadian international security policy over the past twenty-five years,” (249) then the focus on traditional security challenges seems rather limiting. Similarly, equating “international security investments” with military capabilities (254) fails to recognize the much more complex nature of security threats in the twenty-first century, not all of which can be countered through these military means. Reminding readers that these issues have “flown under the radar of public debate” does not mean that these traditional issues “now form the material for future policy discussions” (250). That seems to be more of an underlying assumption than an empirical observation and it ties in with an understanding that security remains the domain of the defence portfolio. Notably, the conclusion refers to most of the authors in the book as “members of the strategic studies community” (258). For some, that reflects a more traditional understanding of security. That in itself is not a problem, but the book does not explicitly argue for this perspective and its title could lead the reader to think that this volume is about much more than that. The volume thus cannot be considered a comprehensive “foundation for understanding future issues” (249) or a review of Canadian international security policy (xv). Rather, it proposes a specific argument in that debate, one that relies on a specific lens on these issues. That lens is thoroughly developed and narrated throughout the many insightful and extremely knowledgeable chapters, but it remains a lens and not a foundation.

 

 

E

very so often a scholar may remark, while reading a particular piece of work, that the argument or subject matter might have been “better suited as a” book (if an article), research article (if a book) or policy brief (if a book, article, or anything else)—which is to say, the work might have been more effective as something other than it is; a different form suggested by the content of the work itself. Rarely is it remarked that a piece might have worked better as a collected volume. A ubiquitous if occasionally derided medium in academic publishing, the collected volume is unique insofar as it brings together multiple perspectives and areas of expertise in the examination of a particular theme, topic, or area of interest. Sometimes this form works in the service of the topic or theme; often, it does not. Typically this can be measured by how hard the editors have to work in the introduction to make the case for a coherent volume. Canadian foreign policy (CFP), the subject of the collected volume Beyond Afghanistan: An International Security Agenda for Canada (edited by James Fergusson and Francis Furtado), is not only well-suited for such a medium, it might very well be the most effective way to offer an overview and discussion of the topic. The essential nature of CFP is, in a sense, metaphorically realized in the disparate and more or less loosely-connected chapters of such a collection.

 

The well-worn (though ironically vague and underspecified) classification of Canada as a “middle-power” testifies to this condition.[16] If American foreign policy is traditionally conceptualized and discussed in terms of grand strategy and macro doctrine, its Canadian equivalent is the purview of specialization and specific policy domains; if the former fosters ‘capitalization’ (as in the ‘Reagan Doctrine’ or ‘Détente’) the latter is expressed by caveat and contextualization. CFP, and even more narrowly Canadian security policy, has multiple dimensions, connected more by function than grand design—from the intricacies of alliance politics in NATO and elsewhere, to regional approaches and orientations, to budget considerations and military appropriations, which are themselves contingent on discussions regarding capabilities demands in different sectors—continental defence, overseas force projection, air, marine, space, etc., and which are similarly connected to strategic orientations and the intricacies of alliance commitments, to domestic political debates and priorities, which loom over all. Beyond Afghanistan touches on all of these considerations as well as others; it is kaleidoscopic by necessity, and therefore the potential pitfall of the medium, chapters from many different authors on several different topics, is rendered as a strength. 

 

To be sure, this format encourages reading à la carte. Those interested in the relationship between Canada and NATO have several chapters to choose from in Part I, ranging from brief histories of the alliance (separate chapters by Dennis Stairs[17] and Douglas Bland[18]) to considerations of Canada’s current and future role within it (Danford Middlemiss[19]; David Haglund[20]; Alexander Moens[21]). Part II deals with even more variegated concerns ranging from arctic security (Andrea Charron[22]) to NORAD (Joseph Jockel and Joel Sokolsky[23]) to Canadian approaches to various regional environments including the Americas (Hal Klepak[24]), East Asia (Kim Nossal[25]) and the Middle East (David Dewitt and Bessma Momani[26]). Finally, Part III introduces questions of arms control and disarmament (Douglas Ross[27]; Gordon Vachon[28]), the militarization of space and ballistic missile defence (James Fergusson[29]) as well as an overview of domestic political debates regarding foreign defence and security policy (Francis Furtado[30]).

 

This parcelling into three parts or sections is only partly useful; there is almost as much variation within as between them. Yet considering the volume as a whole does suggest several themes which might be said to unite otherwise disparate contributions. As the title of the book suggests, each topic is approached either implicitly or explicitly with Afghanistan in mind; or, more precisely, with the end of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan as a reset or way-point after which Canada’s approach to any particular issue might be re-evaluated, re-started or in some other way reconsidered. Somewhat ironically, those interested in Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan itself will find little of interest; one should emphasize the word ‘beyond´ when reading the title.

 

A second thread common to most if not all contributions is the recognition of the limitations of Canadian power; which is to say, the limits of what Canada can do with respect to any particular issue. It is important, ultimately, that ‘limitations’ not be read solely in a negative sense. the word ‘negative’ here meant to imply the preclusion of action or agency, not the value judgement it typically conveys; an absence as opposed to a presence. The recognition of limitations is prerequisite to a program of action. Even the United States must contend with what it cannot do (admittedly a smaller domain than for most) before determining what it will do. The key consideration for Canada is not letting its limitations distort the manner in which foreign defence and security policies are contemplated, discussed, and implemented. Each of the chapters discusses an aspect of CFP in which real and productive contributions can be made, or in which real and pressing challenges should be confronted in sober, rational ways. Yet because these considerations remain at the margins of the broader Canadian political discourse, they are in danger of being captured by other priorities and interests, such that the ‘agenda’ which the book proposes cannot be completely or efficiently realized.

 

Two chapters, in particular, speak more or less directly to this danger. Kim Richard Nossal points to the “astrategic” nature of Canada’s approach to the Asia-Pacific region, and in particular the rise of China. The word “astrategic” is meant to denote a foreign and defence policy that ignores real and important international pressures and challenges and is instead guided by “a mixture of personal and idiosyncratic ideas about the world, electoral gamesmanship, and ad hoc responses to external pressures” (Nossal, p. 151). Importantly, Nossal is not simply criticizing the content of Canada’s approach to this important world region; his critique is more fundamental: Canadian policy has been guided by concerns other than the challenge itself (which is to say, the strategic implications of a rising global power). This is all the more damning, as it underscores that the relative indifference to foreign affairs on the part of the Canadian public—as well as the eagerness with which policy-makers use CFP to further other, presumably domestic, agendas—and challenges the ability of those who think, write, and care about Canadian foreign affairs to craft a robust and reasonable CFP agenda—the very purpose of the volume considered in this roundtable.

 

Francis Furtado offers a similarly sobering and insightful commentary when he discusses the dueling foundational ‘myths’ that are typically associated with CFP. On the one hand is the well-known ‘peacekeeping’ legacy (typically associated with Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson) in which Canada acts as a responsible and largely neutral if not benign power on the international stage. The ‘mirror-image’ myth standing in opposition to this is, according to Furtado, that of a ‘war-fighting’ Canada, distinguished by its tenacity in major combat stretching from the two worlds wars, through Korea, up to recent experiences in Afghanistan. Far from being neutral, Canada is in this view a country fighting for good and against evil around the globe.

 

Ultimately, the tension between these two myths is that between different beliefs as to the essential nature of Canada, in a way that moves the juxtaposition beyond merely the international realm into the domestic and even cultural. As Furtado himself points out, conversations within the community concerned about CFP (scholars, commentators, public servants) have changed very little over the last several decades, as the realities—which is to say limitations—facing Canada have themselves remained relatively constant. It is the broader public that has seized upon and perpetuated these myths, sped along by willing political cyphers (the myths themselves more or less grafting on to the left-right political divide).

In this sense, the ‘astrategy’ that Nossal identifies with respect to Canada’s approach to a rising China is mirrored by the essential lack of strategy that defines the peacekeeping versus war-fighting debate. One suspects that partisans of either position are more concerned with what each orientation ‘says about Canada’ than they are with the effectiveness of either in dealing with international realities. Indeed, the myths are essentially useless as guiding principles for any of the challenges or opportunities discussed in the book, a point Furtado makes clear. Remember, Canada does not do broad themes or big ideas on the international stage. Yet by insisting on such myths both the public and the politicians who perpetuate them undermine the incremental if important contributions Canada can realistically make with respect to world affairs.

 

The contributions to Beyond Afghanistan make this essential point—sometimes explicitly as in the cases of Nossal and Furtado, more often implicitly in straightforward assessments of particular ‘silos’ of CFP. There are important debates to be had with respect to CFP; they simply are not altogether glamorous or, presumably as a consequence, likely to grab public attention. This is lamentable not merely for book sales, but also in its demonstrable effect on the trajectory of CFP itself. Compilations such as Beyond Afghanistan cannot reasonably expect to inspire a wholesale national conversation on the intricacies of Canada’s role in international affairs. The book can, however, hope to be read by those policy-makers whose job it is to steward a responsible and realistic Canadian agenda abroad.

 

Ideally, Canada should allow its limitations and its relatively modest ambitions to free itself from unrealistic expectations and/or partisan politics; in so doing, CFP could be about maximizing Canada’s contributions in a smart, efficient, and productive manner. Like the volume itself, this would be turning what might be typically considered a drawback (the stitched-together quality of an edited collection) into a strength (a relatively comprehensive review of the myriad dimensions of CFP). In the case of Canada, relative limitations in terms of power might allow it to pursue a modest but effective agenda internationally, perhaps doing less but doing it well, and always letting the realities of the particular policy domain dictate action rather than interests or priorities which lie outside of it.

 

The volume itself might be accused of being a book for ‘wonks’; it is most likely to be read by those already interested in matters of CFP—a relatively narrow audience. So be it. CFP requires a wonkish approach—less grand narrative, more attention to detail. Specific arguments as opposed to a sweeping thesis, like a text with many authors.

 

 

A

s anyone who has undertaken the task of editing a volume knows, there is little fun in it. Besides the mundane tasks of reading the chapters multiple times, responding to the peer reviewers and the demands of the publisher, and getting the authors to meet deadlines, an editor faces the more daunting tasks of ensuring that the various chapters fit together under an overarching theme, and that the volume covers all the expected relevant areas. The best laid plans which initiate the process usually lie in degrees of ruin at the end, and the editor is left near the conclusion of the process to knit the volume together in the introduction and conclusion (followed by swearing that one will never do this again).

 

This lament is not an attempt to accept with humility the critiques provided by reviewers, in this case Petra Dolata and John Mitton, and simply reply that any volume will never satisfy or meet the expectations of everyone (not forgetting that academics are wired to expose failings). Rather, it is to sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’; the critiques which need to be substantively addressed from those which are a function of the aforementioned process. Thus, for example, Dolata questions the meaning of the title Beyond Afghanistan; in this case the title came from the publisher. The original title was After Afghanistan. Perhaps we editors should have balked at the new title, but after the arduous journey from beginning to end, all we could think of was the end. Although whether “After would have been more satisfying than “Beyond” also is an open question. Similarly, perhaps if the authors had engaged each other’s chapters, the volume would have been tighter, but then again, we would likely still be editing.

 

More to the point, Dolata is quite correct to recognize that the origins of the volume lie in its dedication to the late Dr. Paul Buteux, which is reflected in the large NATO and strategic sections. In this case, she is also right to question implicitly the place of the second section of the volume, which provides country/regional studies (notwithstanding Buteux’s concerns with Canada-U.S. relations). That the choice of authors was directly linked to members of the academic community who had known and worked with Buteux for many decades, and part of the small defence and security community of Canada. Thus, the contributions reflected each author’s expertise within this community, and the structure the editors’ attempt to bring coherence to the volume.

 

This, in effect, explains the coverage of the volume. As such, Dolata is correct that the volume fails to address new security challenges. But, then, as she also notes, its overarching focus is on the return of traditional security challenges to predominance. What is missing, as Dolata points out, is a clear analytical exposition on why the volume avoided discussing new security challenges (although terrorism is not new, and cyber may be simply understood as a new manifestation of electronic/counter-electronic warfare). The answer is simply that most of these new security challenges, which came to prominence as a ‘luxury’ unique to the post-Cold War era are likely to return to the defence and security margins. Like terrorism in the 1970s, which captured some significant political attention, it never did truly compete with the attention focused upon the Cold War and American-Soviet relations as the defining lens. The new challenges will not disappear, but the attention and resources devoted to them on the international defence and security stage are declining significantly. They are likely to drift back to the margins.

 

Certainly, this argument can be empirically debated, as Dolata suggests. But this is likely to be as fruitful as the ongoing debate on American decline, where the empirical evidence meets the behavioral/perceptual evidence. It all depends on what one measures relative to what one perceives. Recall, for example, the situation of the first decade or so of the Cold War. The United States was clearly superior and the only real global power, but that did not matter. The actors perceived, believed, and acted as if the Soviet Union was a relative equal. Bipolarity emerged first in the minds of the actors, long before it became an empirical reality.

 

In this vein, Dolata also correctly points out that the volume is framed in the traditional sense that security remains the domain of defence and armed force per se. She does not really question the underlying assumption that traditional concerns have largely taken a back seat to the new challenges. This, perhaps, is nowhere more evident than the secondary place that nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence took over the last several decades. Traditional concerns have gone from being first among equals during the Cold War to a ‘backseat’ since then.

 

The real problem, however, is the expansion of the scope and breadth of security is evident not just in international, but also national political discourse over the last decades. Whether the phenomenon of 'securitization’ that proliferated in the academic world to broader politics has been useful is certainly open to debate. But it has contributed to the neglect of traditional defence and security issues. It has had all the earmarks of faddism, which has long plagued the field and discipline.

 

Finally, Dolata doubts that the volume provides a “comprehensive foundation for understanding future issues” or is a “review of Canadian international security issues.” However, neither in the introduction or conclusion do we suggest it is comprehensive, or a full scale, review. Nor do we suggest that the security issues, which have dominated Canadian policy over the past decades, will disappear entirely. Rather, we posit that significant changes have occurred in international politics, which are related to a world of peer competitors (Great Power politics), rather than preferred competitors. It is for this reason, which is not directly contested, that the volume is designed to provide a foundation. If the absence of a Canadian foreign policy White Paper from the new Trudeau government, and the recent Defence White Paper, Strong, Secure, and Engaged is any indication (recalling that the volume was completed before the fall 2015 and the 2016 U.S. presidential election), one might conclude that the volume has failed at least for the time being.[31] Or perhaps Canada, dependent as it is on the U.S. to protect its interests, has the luxury of playing on the margins, and having its policies driven primarily by domestic political considerations, which, ironically, have only marginal domestic political utility.

 

This, then leads to John Mitton’s perspective on the volume, centered upon its success not because the chapters are well-integrated together, but because its “disparate and more or less loosely-connected chapters” reflect “the essential nature of [Canadian foreign policy] CFP.” Whereas assessments of U.S. foreign policy (and by implication all great powers) concentrate upon grand strategy, those of small powers like Canada concentrate upon limitations, in which issue-area linkages are functional at most, but not strategic. But, one needs to be careful here. As Mitton notes, great powers face limitations, and issue-area linkages may well be more functional than strategic. Conversely, small states like Canada do possess a grand strategy. It is just that Canadian governments never communicate it clearly, which is part of their grand strategy. In other words, the difference may well be more a difference of degree, than kind. Regardless, he is correct that the overall tie that binds is not just traditional defence and security, but also the reality of limitations, which, if official Canadian rhetoric is to be believed, is often forgotten in official circles.

 

As a final point, I am, of course, in no place to respond on behalf of the individual authors. This is best left to them. We as editors take solace in the overall positive tone provided by the Dolta and Mitton. In the end, the reviews indicate that for all the suggested shortcomings, the volume succeeds. Perhaps it might then provide a foundation for an overarching review of issues largely neglected during the Afghanistan/post-Cold War era. In this regard, one should recall, for example, that the NATO debate was all about NATO and Afghanistan, not about the relevance and significance of the alliance for Canada. Whether the volume will eventually have a significant impact upon future Canadian policy considerations remains to be seen. But the traditional issues evaluated in the volume will.


Notes

 

[1] Denis Stairs, “Way Back Then and Now: NATO and the Canadian Interest,” 3-24.

[2] Douglas Bland, “From Foulkes to Foulkes: Transforming the Structure,” 25-44.

[3] Danford Middlemiss, “Afghanistan and After: The NATO Factor in Canadian Defence Decision Making,” 45-61.

[4] David G. Haglund, “The Alphonse Karr Version of Canada and NATO,” 62-79.

[5] Andrea Charron, “Arctic Security: Keeping NATO Out, Russia and China Down, and the United States In,” 97-109.

[6] Alexander Moens, “NATO; Canada’s Indispensable Alliance,” 80-94.

[7] Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation among Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

[8] Joseph T. Jockel and Joel J. Sokolsky, “Ten Years into Forever: NORAD’s Place in Canada-US Defence Relations,” 110-134.

[9] Hal Klepak, “Is Time out of Joint? Growing Challenges for Canada in Inter-American Defence and Security Affairs,” 135-150.

[10] David Dewitt and Bessma Momani, “Canada and the Middle East: Working within Multilateralism,” 162-179.

[11] Kim Richard Nossal, “An ‘Astrategic’ Power: Canada, China, and Great Power Transitions,” 151-161.

[12] Francis Furtado, “Still in the Water Supply: Myths in Canadian Defence and Security Policy Debates,” 183-196.

[13] Douglas Alan Ross, “From Prague to Chicago to Honolulu: Toward Nuclear Abolition and a Renewed Canadian Role in American and NATO Nuclear Deterrence,” 197-218.

[14] Gordon Vachon, “A Reason for Hope, No Reason for Optimism: Canada, Arms Control, and Disarmament,” 219-229.

[15] James Fergusson, “Off the Radar: Strategic Defence and Military Space,” 230-248.

[16] For a discussion of Canada and the concept of a “middle power” see Adam Chapnick, “The Canadian Middle Power Myth,” International Journal 55:2 (June 2000): 188-206.

[17] Dennis Stairs, “Way Back Then and Now: NATO and the Canadian Interest,” 3-24.

[18] Douglas Bland, “From Foulkes to Foulkes: Transforming the Structure of NATO,” 25-44.

[19] Danford Middlemiss, “Afghanistan and After: The NATO Factor in Canadian Defence Decision-Making,” 45-61.

[20] David Haglund, “The Alphonse Karr Version of Canada and NATO (or Plus ca Change),” 62-79.

[21] Alexander Moens, “NATO: Canada’s Indispensable Alliance,” 80-94.

[22] Andrea Charron, “Arctic Security: Keeping NATO Out, Russia and China Down, and the United States In,” 97-109.

[23] Joseph Jockel and Joel Sokolsky, “Ten Years into Forever: NORAD’s Place in Canada-US Defence Relations,” 110-134.

[24] Hal Klepak. “Is Time out of Joint? Growing Challenges for Canada in Inter-American Defence and Security Affairs,” 134-150.

[25] Kim Richard Nossal, “An ‘Astrategic’ Power: Canada, China, and Great Power Transitions,” 151-161

[26] David Dewitt and Bessma Momani, “Canada and the Middle East: Working within Multilateralism,” 162-179.

[27] Douglas Alan Ross, “From Prague to Chicago to Honolulu: Toward Nuclear Abolition and a Renewed Canadian Role in American and NATO Nuclear Deterrence,” 197-218.

[28] Gordon Vachon, “A Reason for Hope, No Reason for Optimism: Canada, Arms Control, and Disarmament,” 219-229.

[29] James Fergusson, “Off the Radar: Strategic Defence and Military Space,” 230-248.

[30] Francis Furtado, “Still in the Water Supply: Myths in Canadian Defence and Security Policy Debates,” 183-196.

[31] Department of National Defence (Canada), Strong Secure Engaged Canada’s Defence Policy (2017), http://dgpaapp.forces.gc.ca/en/canada-defence-policy/docs/canada-defence-policy-report.pdf.