style="font-size:15px;"> Layton’s position was derided by the Harper government and large segments of the media, but it resonated with many Canadians. This was demonstrated by an online poll on the Globe and Mail Web site the next day. Not only did 62 per cent of respondents support the proposition that “Taliban fighters should be included in a comprehensive peace process in Afghanistan,” the number of votes cast—43,039—far exceeded the usual numbers of votes in Globe online polls. The NDP leader’s suggestion was hardly radical, for as Winston Churchill once said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” Even former U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former U.S. Senate majority leader Bill Frist have mused openly about the need to negotiate with at least some of the Taliban.
Fourth, it is argued that NATO’s credibility is at stake. But if that is the case, why have so many NATO members refused to step up to the plate? There are twenty-six NATO countries, and Canada—with our relatively small population and military—has made the fourth-largest contribution of troops to the counter-insurgency mission and suffered one-quarter of the casualties.
And how much does NATO’s credibility matter? Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union—the raison d’être of the North Atlantic alliance—NATO is simply a collection of countries that may or may not choose to co-operate in any given situation. When the United States intervened in Afghanistan in 2001, it chose not to call on NATO for help.
Fifth, it is argued that Canada’s credibility would suffer if we withdrew from the counter-insurgency mission. It is certainly true that, within NATO circles, we would be expected to provide reasonable notice. And so we should. But does anyone regard France or Germany as less credible because they refused to deploy into southern Afghanistan? Does anyone regard Spain or Italy as less credible because they chose to withdraw from Iraq? As Senator Roméo Dallaire has explained, the biggest blow to Canada’s credibility today is occurring elsewhere, as we sit on the sidelines while a genocide takes place in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
Sixth, it is argued that Canada’s credibility in Washington would suffer. This is a serious argument. But it’s also the same argument that was advanced by those who thought Canada should join in the Vietnam War. It’s the same argument that was advanced by those who thought Canada should join in the 2003 Iraq War. All of which goes to show that Canadians are better judges of the Canadian national interest than Americans. As long as we provide reasonable notice, Washington has no reason to complain.
If these are the arguments in favour of the counter-insurgency mission, what about the arguments against? What are the costs— above and beyond the all-important cost in lost and shattered young Canadian lives?
First, there are financial costs. In May 2006, the Polaris Institute estimated “that the cost of Canada’s operations in the current fiscal year (2006–7) will exceed $1 billion, perhaps substantially, and will continue at that level as long as the Canadian mission lasts.” This $1 billion per year compares to the $1 billion over ten years that Canada is providing for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan, which works out to $100 million per year—or 10 per cent of what we are spending on the military mission.
Second, these financial costs constitute opportunity costs. One billion dollars per year could provide a great deal of development and humanitarian assistance, and not just in Afghanistan. Wisely spent, this money could save millions of lives, especially in disease-and famine-ridden sub-Saharan Africa.
Third, another form of opportunity cost concerns the other missions that the Canadian Forces cannot fulfill because of their current engagement. Later in this chapter, I will explain how Canada is missing two significant opportunities—in Lebanon and Dar-fur—to participate in, and even lead, UN peacekeeping operations in areas where Canada has a substantial national interest.
Now, some people might decry the opportunities in Lebanon and Darfur as unsuitable for Canadian troops because they constitute “mere” peacekeeping. For almost a decade, Canada’s generals, along with a growing collection of politicians and pundits, have asserted that peacekeeping is passé and counter-insurgency wars are the new reality. Yet the turn away from peacekeeping has been a choice rather than a necessity. In January 2002, the Globe and Mail reported that “Canada decided to send its troops into a combat mission under U.S. control in Afghanistan rather than participate in the British-led multinational force because it is ‘tired’ of acting as mere peacekeepers, according to a senior British defence official.”
Since when have the generations of Canadian soldiers who risked their lives patrolling the world’s conflict zones become “mere” peacekeepers? Yes, peacekeeping requires diplomacy and restraint, but it also takes considerable courage. Colonel Pierre Leblanc, the retired commander of Canadian Forces Northern Area, has told me how, when he was a young peacekeeper, there were nights when Canadian soldiers in Cyprus took fire from—and shot back at—both the Greek and Turkish sides of the Green Line.
The myth that “peacekeeping is for wimps” originates in the United States, and it found its ultimate expression in U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s October 2000 comment, “We don’t need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.” Every time I read about the death and destruction in Iraq, I think of this comment and wish the world had more properly trained and experienced peacekeepers.
When Canada, as a sovereign country, develops and deploys its military, it should seek to do more than simply duplicate the military capabilities of the United States. If we want to make a real and positive difference, adding a few thousand soldiers to the hundreds of thousands already engaged in aggressive U.S.-led missions is hardly the best strategy. Instead, we should build and use our military for missions—and they will often be peacekeeping missions— that the U.S. military is unable or unwilling to fulfill. Canada’s distinct history, our international reputation for independence and objectivity, our highly trained, experienced, diplomatically skilled peacekeepers—all these attributes enable us to punch above our weight, provided that we are not punching in the same place, time and manner as the United States.
Today, there is no shortage of peacekeeping missions where Canadian soldiers could make a valuable contribution. The UN is busier than ever, with more than 65,000 blue-helmeted soldiers from more than one hundred countries deployed in sixteen separate peacekeeping operations: in Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia and elsewhere. At the same time, the Canadian contribution has dropped precipitously, to the point where, as Steve Staples of the Rideau Institute has graphically explained, all of Canada’s current UN peacekeepers could fit into a single school bus.
To make matters worse, our declining participation has occurred just as peacekeeping is evolving to suit the strengths of the Canadian Forces even better than before. According to the UN, peacekeeping has become “multidimensional,” in that it increasingly takes place within the context of intrastate conflicts and “involves non-military elements to ensure stability.” In other words, modern peacekeeping is exactly what Bill Graham and the other members of Paul Martin’s government committed the Canadian Forces to do in 2005 with their “3-D Approach” integrating defence, diplomacy and development assistance. More broadly, our ongoing disengagement from peacekeeping stands in stark contrast to the development of the concepts of “common security” and, more recently, “human security” as leitmotifs of Canadian foreign policy.
Fourth, and wrapped up in the distinction between peacekeeping and counter-insurgency, is the question of our reputation—most notably the cost to Canada’s international reputation for independence and objectivity, and thus our ability to lead and persuade on a wide range of issues. Where would we gain the most: continuing with a failing counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan or leading a humanitarian intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur?
Fifth, there may even be a security cost to
