Essay: The Paradox of Counter-Insurgency

By: Wilfred Greaves, Ph.D.,  The Mackenzie Institute 
Original Essay Found Here - Pages 10-13

The Challenges of Staying the Course and Maintaining the Commitment. 

During Op Athena, on 5 November 2009, Corporal Suzanna Long from the Canadian Police Monitoring Team interacts with Afghan children during a presence patrol in the Dand District. DND photo IS2009-3062-07 by Master Corporal Angela Abbey

More than 15 years after Western states first occupied Afghanistan, 13 years since the American-led invasion of Iraq, and at a time when Canada’s new Liberal government is assessing which complex UN peacekeeping mission it will contribute troops to, it is appropriate to reflect on the lessons learned in one of the most common recent forms of conflict: counterinsurgency operations (COIN). In particular, the limited strategic success of recent Western military interventions, considerable causality rates among allied militaries, and alleged violations of international humanitarian law as a result of substantial civilian casualties suggest that an appraisal of COIN doctrine is required.

The concept of military necessity is central to this appraisal because it determines what conduct by combatants is permissible towards civilians caught in areas of conflict. The test of military necessity is vital for determining whether civilian casualties, however tragic, conform to the laws of war. The challenge is that unconventional military operations such as COIN invert certain classical war-fighting principles, resulting in a paradoxical meaning of military necessity. The goal of a successful COIN is to provide physical security for the civilian population since only by winning popular support and denying it to the enemy can COIN succeed.[1] In this sense, minimizing civilian casualties from both insurgent and counterinsurgent activities is vital for the ultimate success of the mission. But operational success is only one necessary component for victory. The SWORD model of COIN, for example, identifies seven strategic dimensions that must be won for counter-insurgency to succeed. One of these is “the war to stay the course and maintain commitment” (or the ‘war at home’), namely the need for domestic support for the deployment of troops conducting a COIN mission.[2] Counter-insurgency missions take years to succeed, if not decades, because they require nothing less than the creation of legitimate political institutions and the political, economic, social, and ideological isolation of the insurgent enemy. Any factor that reduces domestic support for the mission will likely harm the mission’s longevity since political leaders are less likely to maintain long-term military commitments if they are unpopular or otherwise costly for politicians to support. These two criteria for success – civiliancentred considerations for the use of force and maintenance of domestic support for the mission – result in a paradox for determining military necessity in counter-insurgency operations. Placing the physical security of civilians at the centre of military decisionmaking requires exposing counter-insurgent soldiers to greater risk of harm. However, increased friendly casualties are likely to result in a loss of domestic support which also undermines the mission’s ultimate prospect of success. The heightened risks assumed by counter-insurgents, therefore, have negative implications for a successful outcome, given that relatively small numbers of counter-insurgent casualties can translate into significant changes in domestic support. The maintenance of domestic support thus becomes a necessary military objective in itself, complicating the doctrinal emphasis on shifting risk from civilians to counter-insurgents. The result is the paradoxical conclusion that minimizing civilian casualties and maintaining domestic support by minimizing counter-insurgent casualties are both militarily necessary for successful COIN.

Military Necessity and International Humanitarian Law International humanitarian law (IHL) doesn’t seek to prevent war, but to curb war’s worst excesses by moderating combatants’ conduct so that it conforms to a shared standard of ‘civilized’ warfare. Going back to the industrialization of war in the 1800s, “the principle has been more and more acknowledged that the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honour as much as the exigencies of war will admit.”[3] Between the mid-19th century and the First World War, IHL experienced a proliferation of treaties and statements which sought to restrict the use of military force only to that which was necessary for victory, such as the First Geneva Convention of 1864, the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Weapons such as soft-nosed bullets, explosive projectiles, or chemical and biological weapons that inflicted additional pain and suffering became prohibited. This established the precedent that there are restrictions on the conduct of war defined by generally agreed upon standards for military actions.

The modern conception of military necessity draws meaning not just from material considerations of what is necessary to win a war, but also from moral justifications of which actions are acceptable in the pursuit of victory. [4] It is, in effect, a question of legitimacy: are the military methods employed legitimate given the objective they are used to pursue? In this way, ‘necessary’ is a euphemism for ‘permissible’, based on how significant a combatant considers a military objective to be. In practice, the difficulty rests in the inherently subjective determination of which actions qualify as militarily necessary (and are thus permissible), and which do not.

The Geneva Conventions, for instance, do not precisely define ‘military necessity’, but instead offer a two-part explanation that informs the contemporary practices of many states. Legitimate military objectives are “limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose, or use make an effective contribution to military action, and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”[5] While explicitly stating that attacks deliberately targeting civilians are prohibited,[6] the Geneva Conventions also indicate that civilian casualties do not constitute a violation of international law, so long as the number is not “excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”[7] Military necessity, therefore, is based on a reasonable determination of the strategic importance of an objective and the calculation of an acceptable rate of civilian casualties relative to accomplishing it. As such, it defines the threshold for determining proportionality in combat, and distinguishes legitimate military actions from war crimes.

Because of its inherent subjectivity and the high stakes for soldiers and commanders involved in combat, military necessity has often been interpreted very widely. Policymakers, senior officers, and military bureaucracies have extended what is considered militarily necessary to include their preferred objectives, often by referring to broad strategic goals rather than discrete tactical ones.[8] This allows for the conceptual stretching of military necessity to include a variety of military actions and activities.[9] It also enables the concept to be adapted to reflect important changes in the nature of war, the legality and culpability of military and civilian officials, and the distinct victory conditions for waging a counterinsurgency.

Contemporary COIN Doctrine Contemporary counter-insurgency doctrine embraces the necessity of placing civilians at the centre of military operations. Perhaps the clearest example is the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, published in 2007, which states: “The cornerstone of any COIN effort is establishing security for the civilian populace. Without a secure environment, no permanent reforms can be implemented and disorder spreads”.[10] The Canadian Armed Forces also produced a counter-insurgency manual that drew on lessons learned in Afghanistan, though it was never published. [11] Though more equivocal than its American counterpart, it agreed that “the overall effect sought in a counter-insurgency is not the death or capture of insurgents, but more importantly, the provision of security to the population.”[12] As statements of military doctrine, these manuals underscore the extent to which success in COIN rests on the provision of human security for the receiving population, not with kinetic operations against the enemy.

According to Harvard University’s Sarah Sewall, who wrote the U.S. manual’s introduction and now serves as an Under-Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, “the civilian population is the center of gravity – the deciding factor in the struggle… The real battle is for civilian support for, or acquiescence to, the counterinsurgents and host nation government.”[13] Any action that alienates the local population is thus counterproductive to the counter-insurgents’ long-term goals, no matter how many enemy fighters are killed in the process. As a result, any civilian casualties benefit the insurgents, regardless of whom those civilians are killed by. If killed by intervening troops, support is lost among the local population, and if killed by insurgents, it demonstrates the inability of counter-insurgents to keep the population safe.

This undermines the conventional notion implicit in the concept of military necessity; that some civilian casualties may be acceptable because any civilian casualties are detrimental to the counter-insurgents’ goal of winning local support. The strategic onus to minimize civilian casualties rests squarely on counter-insurgents.

Effective COIN thus contradicts the tactics by which Western states have preferred to fight their recent wars.[14] Although international principles of legitimate military intervention expressly mandate that “force protection cannot become the principal objective,”[15] it was nonetheless a principle of Western combat operations for decades.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq altered this way of war by committing many Western states to the extensive use of ground forces for close combat and COIN operations, in which force protection was counterproductive for winning hearts and minds. This makes counterinsurgents less able to combat insurgents among the population, and suggests to the receiving populace that the counter-insurgents are unprepared to confront the same dangers the people have no choice but to face.[16] COIN doctrine underscores the futility of force protection as a guiding operational principle, since providing security to the civilian population requires that counter-insurgents accept greater danger by performing activities such as foot patrols, establishing forward operating posts, engaging with communities, and maintaining a visible public presence. COIN doctrine thus requires re-balancing the risks borne by soldiers and civilians.

COIN doctrine especially challenges the practice of “risk transfer”, which by “defying virtually every theory of counterinsurgency, military officials have pursued force protection even at the expense of mission accomplishment.”[17] The relationship between risk to soldiers and risk to civilians is zero-sum: less risk for one group entails more risk for the other. Risk transfer from soldiers to civilians has been practiced for decades, but is neither a natural nor inevitable aspect of modern combat.[18] On the contrary, “to a large degree, modern strategists fix the levels of risk that combatants and non-combatants face. Civilian casualties flow from policy preferences in predictable ways.”[19] It is therefore possible to redistribute the relative risks faced by civilians and counterinsurgents in order to support the objective of winning local support.

Contemporary COIN doctrine thus inverts the military calculus of valuing most the lives of one’s own soldiers and pursuing enemy fighters as the primary objective of military operations. This calculus does not – indeed, cannot – apply in COIN because the insurgent enemy is not easily distinguishable from the general population. Even if they were, the principal objective of counter-insurgency operations is not ‘defeating’ a conventional enemy. Precisely because the enemy can readily draw reinforcements and material support from the civilian population, is why securing public support is the primary objective. This imposes numerous operational, legal and political challenges upon states fighting counter-insurgencies, and alters the assessment of which actions will likely contribute to strategic success.

However, COIN doctrine is further complicated by the fact that success requires more than just tactical victory on the ground. It requires a popular perception that the intervening counter-insurgents are committed to defeating the insurgency over the long-term.[20] In the case of democracies fighting insurgencies, this commitment and how it is perceived by people in the receiving country can be affected by popular opinion at home. Since elected officials are often responsive to public pressure, and politicians, not generals, ultimately decide whether to sustain or abandon a military mission, maintaining domestic support is as equally important to the long-term prospects of success for a counter-insurgency as gaining local support. Problematically, domestic support can be undermined by casualty-aversion in the general public.

Although it is difficult to determine the effect of military casualties on democratic policy-making, casualties can awaken voters to the costs of a military engagement and incite resistance to the foreign deployment of troops, particularly if the mission is perceived as non-essential. “The further a particular war or military operation is removed from core national interests, the more the populace will be averse to casualties andthe more decision-makers will seek to avoid them.”[21] While circumstances vary, the long duration and elective nature of foreign counterinsurgents’ decision to intervene renders COIN more susceptible to public opinion than other types of military involvement. The consequence is that decision-makers need to minimize casualties in order to limit domestic opposition to the deployment of troops abroad.

The result of these competing imperatives is a paradox for effective COIN strategy. On the one hand, cothe unter-insurgency doctrine requires the intervener to accept more casualties in order to minimize the cost to civilians and maintain popular support in the receiving country. Higher numbers of friendly casualties can weaken domestic support for the mission, contributing to a stronger possibility of withdrawal without accomplishing the mission’s objectives. Such a withdrawal must be considered a strategic failure, and is an undesirable outcome for the counter-insurgents. On the other hand, an emphasis on force protection in order to mitigate domestic casualty aversion comes at the cost of civilian lives that decrease support for the mission in the receiving country. Given the nature of counter-insurgency, losing the civilian ‘centre of gravity’ is, by definition, likely to result in strategic failure. In both cases, it appears that this paradox constrains the ability of democracies to succeed at COIN.

This paradox raises the question of how to balance risks to foreign civilians in order to satisfy one aspect of counter-insurgency doctrine versus those to one’s own troops to satisfy another. Protecting civilians and protecting one’s own soldiers may both be militarily necessary for successful counterinsurgency, but can they be effectively reconciled? Ultimately, the concept of military necessity suggests that international humanitarian law provides an inadequate set of tools to guide military practice in counterinsurgency. In part, this is due to the inherent limitations of international law, since “the legal framework for regulating war does not contemplate asymmetric warfare waged by non-state actors and thus fails to regulate perhaps the dominant form of warfare for the 21st century.”[22] It is also due to the nature of counter-insurgency warfare itself, and the dual yet duelling objectives it demands of counterinsurgents. The provision of security for civilians is the ultimate objective of counter-insurgency, since only this will garner the local legitimacy that is “the single most important internal dimension of a [counter-insurgency] war.”[23] But as shown by recent examples of COIN operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, counter-insurgency requires some kinetic activities against the enemy. This exposes counter-insurgents and can weaken domestic support, prompting an early withdrawal or compromising the ultimate objectives. The paradox thus exists at the highest level of COIN doctrine. The competing imperatives of successful counter-insurgency indicate that decisions over the appropriate distribution of risk between soldiers and civilians must be reconciled through some standard other than international humanitarian law.

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Wilfrid Greaves holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, where he is an Instructor at the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict and Justice. His research focuses on Arctic security, natural resource extraction and climate change, Canadian foreign policy, and human security in complex peace operations. Examples of his recent work have been published in the following journals: Security Dialogue, Polar Record, and Critical Studies on Security.

References:

[1] Max G. Manwaring and John T. Fishel, “Insurgency and Coun - terinsurgency: Toward a New Analytical Approach,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 3, no. 3 (Winter 1992).

[2] Nils French, “Learning from the Seven Soviet Wars: Lessons for Canada in Afghanistan,” The Canadian Army Journal 10, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 36.

[3] Francis Lieber quoted in David Bosco, “Moral Principle vs. Military Necessity,” The American Scholar 77, no.1 (Winter 2008). Accessed at http://www.theamericanscholar.org/moral-princi - ple-vs-military-necessity/.

[4] Ibid, 51.1-51.2.

[5] Nobuo Hayashi, “Requirements of Military Necessity in Interna - tional Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law,” Boston University International Law Journal 28, no. 39 (2010): 41-140.

[6] ICRC, Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 Au - gust 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), of 8 June 1977 (Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 1996), section 52.2.

[7] Ibid, 51.2.

[8] Ibid, 51.5b. [9] Eyal Benvenisti, “Human Dignity in Combat: The Duty to Spare Enemy Civilians,” Israel Law Review 39, no. 2 (2006): 95-96; Thom - as W. Smith, “Protecting Civilians, or Soldiers? Humanitarian Law and the Economy of Risk in Iraq,” International Studies Perspectives 9, no.2 (2008): 147.

[10] See, for example, Aaron Belkin, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Is the Gay Ban Based on Military Necessity?” Parameters 33, no. 2 (2003).

[11] United States Department of the Army, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 42.

[12] DND, DRAFT: Counter-insurgency Operations Manual (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2007), 12. Commissioned in 2005 by then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, a draft version of the ‘counter-insurgency operations manual’ was released to the public in 2007. However, DND subsequently announced that it did not intend to release the document for publication or use by the Canadian Forces.

[13] Sarah Sewall, “Introduction to the University of Chicago Press Edition: A Radical Field Manual,” The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), xxv.

[14] Antulio J. Echevarria, Towards an American Way of War (Carl - isle: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004), 9.

[15] ICISS, The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Ottawa: Interna - tional Development Research Centre, 2001), viii. United States Department of the Army, 48.

[16] Hugh Smith, “What Cost Will Democracies Bear? A Review of Popular Theories of Casualty Aversion,” Armed Forces and Society 31, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 145.

[17] Smith, 146. See also Echevarria 2004, Reisman 2007, and Shaw 2005.

[18] Manwaring and Fishel, 281-284.

[19] Smith 2005, 492. For a more detailed discussion of this phe - nomenon in the context of Canada’s involvement in the Afghan war, see Peter Loewen and Daniel Rubenson, “Canadian War Deaths in Afghanistan: Costly Policies and Support for Incumbents,” Working Paper (2012). Available at http://individual.utoronto.ca/loewen/Re - search_files/war_deaths_vfinal%20.pdf.

[20] Manwaring and Fishel, 281-284.

[21] Smith 2005, 492. For a more detailed discussion of this phe - nomenon in the context of Canada’s involvement in the Afghan war, see Peter Loewen and Daniel Rubenson, “Canadian War Deaths in Afghanistan: Costly Policies and Support for Incumbents,” Working Paper (2012). Available at http://individual.utoronto.ca/loewen/Re - search_files/war_deaths_vfinal%20.pdf.

[22] William C. Banks, quoted in Bosco 2008.

[23] Manwaring and Fishel, 285

Operation Medusa: The Furious Battle that Saved Afghanistan from the Taliban

A book review by Brett Boudreau
Authors: Major-General (Ret’d) David Fraser and Brian Hanington

Publisher: McClelland and Stewart, 272 pages
Click to purchase from Amazon

It is now 2018, and the Canadian military ended its training mission in Afghanistan 4 years ago, wrapped up its combat operations there almost 7 years ago, and fought Operation Medusa nearly 12 years ago. During that long campaign, the Canadian Armed Forces transformed into an accomplished, middle-power combat force and the mission came to meaningfully impact the national political scene. The Canadian public also re-connected with the military – with a fervour unlike that for any military undertaking since World War II.

For about a decade, Canadians were subject to regular, daily media reporting about the Afghanistan campaign in its many guises and associated twists, turns and tragedies. A considerable number of books, periodicals, theses, articles and movies have dissected pretty much everything there is to know or of interest about the modern-day Afghanistan campaign.

As it turns out, however, in the book Operation Medusa, retired Major-General David Fraser and Brian Hanington have explored otherwise well-trod ground to produce a compelling and immensely readable first-hand account that sets out a panoply of new insights through Fraser’s unique perspective as operational commander. The pair recount in lush detail, and with crisp, precise prose the many challenges of command in modern-day conflict. They have given important reasons for those interested in current events, security and leadership to read and learn more about how a six-month period of the Afghanistan campaign molded and shaped the Canadian military of today (and indeed, NATO).

This book thankfully does not feature the hagiography that has served to diminish some other written accounts by general officers. This book is not about personality criticisms – excepting brief comments about one British brigadier, who also comes under fire in General Sir David Richards’ autobiography Taking Command (Richards wrote the foreword to Operation Medusa, and as the overall ISAF commander was Fraser’s boss during most of the time in question). Nor is this book it prideful boasting about penetrating insights and strategic acumen that somehow escaped other lesser commanders, or a personal history of life changing experiences in youth and military assignments that presaged later success: instead, it is about team work. The scene-setting is mercifully brief – the West was attacked by terrorists who were allowed to plot and plan from Afghanistan, and Kandahar was a challenging location where Canada could add strategic value to the Alliance mission – “and, so it began.”

Operation Medusa, the first large-scale ground combat operation in the Alliance’s history, is widely agreed to be the key engagement to date of the entire NATO campaign. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan and was the spiritual heart of the Taliban during their rule of the country from 1996-2001. By early 2006, the Taliban had massed several hundred or even thousands of fighters nearby in defensive positions amongst the population and terrain with which they were intimately familiar, and could move with impunity. The city, and province of the same name – and indeed the whole of the south of the country – was at risk of again falling under their direct control. The Taliban were determined to test the newly- arrived and under-strength international NATO forces, which up to that point had operated in Kabul and in the north and west of the country, all relatively safe.

Had the effort to rout Taliban forces failed then, it is probable that Kandahar would have fallen, and risked the loss of the entire South of the country, providing an immense psychological boost to the Taliban as well as being a devastating blow to Alliance credibility. A defeat here would also have emboldened other states, terrorist groups and state-sponsored malign actors to more openly challenge NATO, being viewed as unwilling to sustain combat casualties needed to win wars.

This account sets out the road to the battle and the fight itself, from the person most responsible to orchestrate the effort at the operational level. This perspective is a welcome addition to the existing literature, being distinct from soldier-against-enemy soldier tactics or the other end of the spectrum where higher headquarters are consumed with considerations of personalities, politics and grand strategy.

A number of factors argued against military success in southern Afghanistan in 2006. Non-U.S. NATO members were just starting to learn what they had gotten themselves into. Limited NATO forces operated in an area more than 200,000 square kms large, or nearly the size of the United Kingdom. Staff regularly dealt with more than 30 major operations and incidents a day including attacks by a resurgent Taliban. A skeptical population was disillusioned from years of continual war and withheld support to back whoever would emerge the winner. Afghanistan’s capacity to deliver effective governance did not exist, or was limited, or was affected by endemic corruption of local and national authorities. A schizophrenia also bedeviled NATO as it tried to square the circle between a U.S.-heavy counter-terrorism “close with the enemy and destroy” interest and an Alliance effort decidedly more geared to supporting reconstruction and development. Conditions on the ground were not yet conducive to that, and any efforts to make a difference were limited by a lack of officials with the requisite expertise from contributing nations.

The telling of this story does not pull punches about the challenges, including starting out with a Canadian military inexperienced in modern-day combat and commanding forces at brigade level (c. 5,000 soldiers) in significant, joint operations. Nor does it hold back from explaining how national caveats or restrictions on the use of a country’s forces affected the operation. Many nations did not want to dispatch forces to the south where there was direct combat, fearing that casualties would result in domestic pressures to pull out altogether. The combination of constraints meant the campaign was hobbled from the start by a mission of “arbitrary limitation”. As Fraser recounts, “during Operation Medusa many nations simply would not show up to fight at all. Planning was agony. Even when the operation was only days away, we weren’t certain who would support us at H-Hour [the start of a military activity].“

In the face of great stress, we also learn the importance of “lively discussions” among peers, subordinates and superiors as a means to explore the best way to achieve the mission and limit casualties in the face of a determined enemy – and how, after “disagreeing daily on how that should be done,” they just got on with it.

The tone, style and format – with 20 chapters and an epilogue named with one-word action verbs – set a brisk pace. The terminology is made entirely manageable through careful attention to clarity of language, supplemented by helpful descriptive notes for the layperson. This is an accessible read for all and while scrupulously balanced, is not without wry commentary. In describing the challenges of coordination and command for instance, Fraser writes, “Here’s a surprise: the complexity of joint action between governmental agencies from multiple countries working on foreign soil to serve populations whose languages they don’t understand on behalf of a nascent democracy at war with a terrorist insurgency using the proceeds of illegal drug production to acquire weapons from neighbouring states did not turn out to be as easy as our deputy ministers assumed.”

Readers may be struck by the paucity of support at the time in theatre by both CIDA (the Canadian development agency) and Foreign Affairs. Fraser recounts that in 2006, he had to make do with a single representative advisor from each of CIDA and Foreign Affairs, and only after making a case for the help. At this stage of the mission, departments struggled mightily to evolve expeditionary capability to give weight and purpose to the 3-D (defence, diplomacy, development) effort. The death of diplomat Glyn Berry in January 2006 when a vehicle he was travelling in struck an IED, set back efforts by Foreign Affairs for several months to deploy more civilians to theatre, as the department frantically examined duty-of-care issues and how to deploy staff safely in a raging counter-insurgency. It was not until 2008-09, following the recommendations of the Manley Panel that the Canadian civilian contribution improved from a handful of persons to a world-class effort of more than 100 from multiple departments and agencies. Sadly, these important lessons have not been captured in any detail from a whole-of-government perspective.

And, yes, current Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan features briefly, in a factual recounting of his important contribution drawing on his heritage and background as a police officer.

My one quibble is a desire for the book to have set out at least a short treatment of the effort, energy and attention expended in theatre to detainee handling during the period in question. Operation Medusa is neither the book nor the place for a detailed account of the Canadian-transferred detainee saga. Still, the challenge of dealing with detainees captured on the battlefield had been brought into stark relief by the American experience during the Iraq campaign, and was already a keen topic of discussion in the Canadian Parliament in early 2006.

The agreement signed in December 2005 by Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier and Afghan Defence Minister Rahim Wardak informed how Fraser operated with respect to Canadian-transferred detainees – recalling that NATO did not have their own agreed policy on the matter and so each nation followed different rules about what to do. By early 2007, those overseeing the effort in Ottawa understood the need to build Afghan capacity faster, and in May 2007 a new transfer arrangement was in place – reinforced by policy, standard operating procedures, a robust monitoring regime, training and better infrastructure. In November 2009, Fraser, along with his Canadian boss Lieutenant-General Mike Gauthier and Hillier testified to a special Afghanistan-related Parliamentary committee about the subject. There, Fraser recalled his remit before leaving for Afghanistan – the Canadian strategic intent, he was told by Hillier, would be affected by three things: careful attention to avoid Afghan casualties (‘civcas’), Canadian casualties, and detainees. It was a stricture that informed Fraser throughout his command.

Early in the book, Fraser surprises with the admission that prior to deployment he had studied and reflected on the prospect for casualties, telling Hillier in a PowerPoint briefing that the expected death toll would be “between forty and forty-two Canadians between February and November of 2006,” [it turned out to be 36] and was told “now take that slide out and never show it again.” Given the human and financial cost, the book inevitably and rightly concludes with the necessary “Was it worth it?” question. Entitled “Tally”, this chapter provides some of the book’s most important insights. Fraser sets out context to explain why he answers ‘yes’, assessing that, “Operation Medusa was a costly and necessary fight that achieved a temporary effect that allowed the coalition and the Afghans to move on. We did not lose this battle. Had we, the consequences would have been grave…. Operation Medusa gave hope and opportunity to people, two precious gifts we all take for granted in Canada. The Canadian men and women who gave their lives did not die in vain, and those who were wounded may bear their scars with well-deserved pride.”

In addition to the Canadian toll of 159 military and three civilians killed and thousands injured during the mission, should be added the dozens now known to have committed suicide following their tour and the hundreds more who have developed mental health injuries. And, the jury may still be out on whether Afghanistan is yet “saved” from the Taliban. But today, Afghans are now fully responsible for the country’s security, and the army, air force and police in 2018 are decidedly and without question much more professional and better equipped. They are not asking anyone to do their fighting for them. They are doing the fighting – and the dying. And, for the first time, there are tentative yet substantive feelers regarding reconciliation.

Operation Medusa is an overdue account and a memorable addition to modern-day military literature that will feature on staff college reading lists throughout NATO. It is also a wonderful primer on leadership. This is a notable work of non-fiction that will be surely be marked as a strong favourite to win a major national book award.

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Brett Boudreau (Colonel, Ret’d) is a Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the author of We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us, an examination of the NATO strategic communications effort during the 2003-2014 ISAF campaign, and is available online at https://www.stratcomcoe.org/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-us-analysis-nato-strategic-communications-international-security-assistance

Don Martin: Waving the White Flag on Canada as a Middle Military Power

By: Don Martin, CTVNews, Host of PowerPlay 

The most uplifting takeaway from my 2007 Afghanistan embedding with the troops was hearing how our soldiers had never been prouder to serve than being in combat against the tyranny of the Taliban.

But a decade later, that pride has gone along with the fall in our status as a middle military power.

We continue to negotiate to buy hand-me-down jets from the Aussies. Combat ship building languishes on the drawing boards as the price tag soars. And with new supply ships delayed by at least four years, the substitute vessel can’t actually venture into dangerous environments where the navy usually goes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reviews an honour guard at the International Peacekeeping and Security Centre in Yavoriv, Ukraine Tuesday July 12, 2016. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Sure there is a small training mission in Ukraine and a mid-sized Latvia deployment to deter Russian aggression.

And let’s not forget the mostly idle Operation Impact, a $370-million exercise monitoring Iraq for signs of ISIS life with zero actual impact on protecting the region.

But the final insult to Canada’s military status downgrade was a small CBC story this week.

Military documents revealed the defence minister couldn’t bring himself to send a tiny group of soldiers for UN peacekeeping duty in Colombia.

Consider the context of this unfathomable display of military risk avoidance.

Colombia is a country where two civil-warring factions have disarmed and declared a peaceful end to a 50-year conflict. That means it’s the peacekeeping equivalent of monitoring a Grade four class in the playground during recess.

Yet inexplicably Canada dithered, pondering the potential danger of the mission until the spots were filled by other countries which didn’t consider the world’s safest peacekeeping assignment too risky to join.

This has got to leave Canada’s war-hardened Chief of Defence Staff avoiding eye contact in the mirror.

Jonathan Vance didn’t sign up to watch countries like Jordan, Denmark, Holland and even Rwanda deliver peacekeeping in extremely dangerous Mali while Canada goes AWOL in offering to monitor the coffee grow in Colombia.

Two years after Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan began scouring the world for places to help, we still have 600 troops waiting for a reason to deploy.

Our 50,000-plus combat-ready troops, trapped on base by the government’s pacifist preference to avoid a world filled with conflict, must be mortified that all missions are seemingly impossible.

By refusing to accept even the softest assignment for blue helmet peacekeeping, the Canadian government has waved the white flag as a middle military power.

That’s the Last Word.

Steve Coll: Canada Had It Right in Afghanistan

By: Steve Coll, The Globe and Mail - Opinions

Steve Coll is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars, a staff writer for The New Yorker and dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His new book is Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016.
In the tragedy of the American-led war in Afghanistan, a turning point was 2006, the year Canadian forces turned up in Kandahar expecting to keep the peace, only to become embroiled in a bloody fight with the Taliban. Neither NATO nor U.S. intelligence prepared Canadian commanders for what they encountered; if Ottawa had known how far the Taliban's comeback had progressed – and how ambitious its guerrillas had become – the minority government led by Paul Martin, which agreed to the deployment to Kandahar in 2005, might have declined the mission. Intelligence about the Taliban's revival and intentions surfaced too late, and even then, in too many quarters, it wasn't taken seriously enough.

Canadian, U.S. and Afghan army officers sit with local Afghan elders during a meeting in the village of Small Loi Kola in the Panjwai district on June 23 , 2011.
BAZ RATNER/REUTERS

Early in 2006, Amrullah Saleh, then the head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country's principal intelligence service, decided to conduct a formal study of the Taliban's gathering resurgence, to inform Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his cabinet and allies of Afghanistan. He decided to interview active Taliban commanders personally. (There are few impermeable lines in Afghanistan's internal conflicts.) Mr. Saleh travelled to Zabul, Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar and other provincial capitals. His colleagues in regional NDS offices negotiated safe-passage agreements with Taliban commanders, who came in to talk to him. This sometimes involved paying the Taliban for their time and insights. Mr. Saleh's classified paper was completed in May, 2006, the same month Canada's Task Force Orion launched Operation Mountain Thrust, "to defeat the Taliban in their traditional areas." Commanded by Colonel Ian Hope, it was the first of a succession of operations intended to break the back of the Taliban's comeback around Kandahar, the movement's birthplace. Canadian forces fought hard, absorbed unexpected casualties and were often tactically successful, but trying to suppress the Taliban proved to be like "digging a hole in the ocean," as Canadian Major-General David Fraser, the top Canadian commander, put it.

Canada had run into a Pakistani covert operation to bring back the Taliban. In his paper, Mr. Saleh concluded that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, had made a decision in 2005 to support the Taliban more actively, with cash and other aid, backed by covert subsidies from Saudi Arabia. The consolidation of Mr. Karzai's government between 2003 and 2005 – a period when a new Afghan constitution was ratified and successful presidential and parliamentary elections were held – explained the timing of this Pakistani turn in policy, Mr. Saleh judged. He regarded Pakistan as an "India-centric country." In essence, he concluded, Pakistan's generals feared that Mr. Karzai's legitimacy would steer Afghanistan toward a durable role as an Indian ally, with international backing.

Soldiers of the U.S. 82nd airborne detain an Afghan man during Operation Alamo Sweep in southeastern Afghanistan on Nov. 7, 2002.
SCOTT NELSON/AP

His study predicted that the Taliban mobilization would intensify and that by 2009, the guerrillas would be advancing from rural strongholds to threaten major cities such as Kandahar. The paper forecast that the Taliban would mount a full-fledged insurgency that would bog down Afghan and international troops. This would turn out to be largely accurate, except that the Taliban drive on southern cities occurred even faster than that, at Canada's expense. The "Afghanistan government's legitimacy should not be brought down due to our inefficiency in knowing the enemy, knowing ourselves and applying resources efficiently," Mr. Saleh warned.

He passed his paper to the United States, and it seems likely that Canadian decision-makers and commanders saw it as well, but by then they were committed to the Kandahar campaign. They had to contend not only with the Taliban but with an Afghan President who discounted the seriousness of the insurgency. Mr. Karzairejected the study's findings. He ridiculed its predictions and asked Mr. Saleh to never again call the Taliban "an insurgency."

For years, Mr. Karzai clung to the conviction that the Taliban were a problem of international terrorism solely attributable to the ISI and that there was no indigenous cause of the revolt against his rule. He told U.S. General Stanley McChrystal in 2009, as the United States took charge of the war from NATO allies and dispatched tens of thousands of troops to escalate the fight: "An insurgency, as I understand the meaning, suggests there are citizens of a country who are fighting against their government because they think the government is illegitimate. Now, we are a conservative, simple Muslim people. If they are fighting against an illegitimate government, then who are you, the United States? You are propping up an illegitimate government. No. There is no insurgency."

Mr. Karzai believed, like many other Afghans, that the true story of the war – the essential problem – was not his government's corruption or legitimacy but the mysterious unwillingness of the United States to challenge the ISI and Pakistan. By the end of his time in power, Mr. Karzai had sunk into conspiracy thinking, concluding that the United States must want the ISI to succeed in destabilizing Afghanistan in order to justify maintaining U.S. military bases in his country.

American diplomats tried to dissuade Mr. Karzai of this belief, but until the end, he refused to yield. During a 2013 meeting, recalled James Dobbins, then the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said to Mr. Karzai: "Mr. President, between Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks, you have several million documents to examine – can you find any mention of such designs? Do you really think I would lie to you about this?"

"Maybe you don't know about the plan," Mr. Karzai replied, suggesting the existence of a "deep state" in America.

The truth was more prosaic. Distracted by the Iraq War and seeking to avoid deep entanglement in Afghanistan, the Bush administration was slow to recognize that it was being deceived by Pakistan's generals and spies. When it finally did wake up, toward the end of 2006, the Taliban had acquired momentum. The Bush administration and then the Obama administration conducted multiple reviews of strategy in Afghanistan but discovered few palatable options. If NATO launched an all-out war against the Taliban's sanctuaries in Pakistan, it would further destabilize a country containing dozens of nuclear weapons and at least that many terrorist groups. Instead, George Bush and then Barack Obama were sold on a counterinsurgency war against the Taliban inside Afghanistan, supplemented by a CIA-run drone war against Taliban encampments in Pakistan's western tribal areas.

Canadian forces held the line in Kandahar, of course, until the Americans poured in, in 2009. Some U.S. commanders were disdainful of Canada's "3-D" strategy of defence, diplomacy and development, which had suffered on contact with the Taliban early on, in 2006. Hubristically, the Pentagon believed that only American muscle could clear out Kandahar and other Taliban regions in the south and east. With greater numbers and a more unified command, the Americans did make some progress, at a high cost in lives and limbs, but gradually they also discovered that they were no better equipped than NATO allies to defeat the ISI's strategy – and that Maj.-Gen. Fraser's metaphor was apt.

Today, in the American-led war's 17 th year, U.S. and allied Afghan forces are still digging that hole in the ocean, hoping against all historical evidence that they can make enough progress on the battlefield to force the Taliban into a political settlement acceptable to most Afghans. The Trump administration has suspended aid to Pakistan in the hope that it will pressure the ISI to change course. The reaction in Pakistan since that announcement has been one of deep nationalist defiance.

Afghanistan has been at war for four decades. The only interlude of relative peace – apart from the years of smothering Taliban rule, which quieted many parts of the country – lasted from 2002 to 2006, years when many Afghans in exile came home to reclaim and rebuild their country. Counterfactual history is a fool's game, but if there ever was a chance to prevent Pakistan from interfering once again in Afghanistan through the ISI, and to incorporate significant numbers of former Taliban into constitutional politics, those were the years when it might have been done. And we can see now, in hindsight, that the framework of Canadian policy – security, reconstruction and active diplomacy to forge stable Afghan politics, backed by regional powers – was the right one. Instead, NATO failed to see what was coming out of Pakistan until it was too late and succumbed to hubristicAmerican strategy dominated by a Pentagon that repeatedly overestimated its capacity to change the course of the war. In its blindness, the alliance failed the many Afghans who relied on its power and promises.

Opinion: Whistling in the Graveyard of Foreign Invaders: Canada & Afghanistan

By: William S Geimer, Times Colonist 

Re: “Military support for Afghanistan urgently needed,” comment, Oct. 6.

Chris Kilford’s plea for “just a little more” Canadian involvement in Afghanistan came as no surprise. It is only the latest verse of a song the military establishment has been singing for decades, with the U.S. as choirmaster.

If not singing, Kilford is surely whistling in the graveyard of foreign invaders. Since 1838, the British twice, the Russians and the U.S. have failed to subdue a people who stubbornly insist on settling their own disputes, sadly often with violence.

Kilford labelling everyone not on the U.S. side as terrorists is a tired device that will not work this time. There is little to choose between the Taliban and the collection of warlords the U.S. assembled.

The history of Canada in Afghanistan reveals just how misguided is Kilford’s position. Canada was lured into the most dangerous area, Kandahar, by a three-part bait-and-switch formula that the U.S. is still using today in Iraq.

Part 1, Bait: Appeal to what Canadians think they are — humanitarians and peacekeepers. Canada was initially offered what was billed as quasi-peacekeeping work in relatively safe Kabul. Then-defence minister Art Eggleton described it as a stabilization mission to assist in opening corridors for humanitarian assistance. Then-prime minister Jean Chrétien chimed in: The principal role that we hope to play … will be to make sure aid gets to the people who need it. Of course, we don’t want to have a big fight there.

Part 2, Switch: Use the undue influence of the military establishment to get Canadians into “real fighting.” Canada’s generals are deeply integrated with and envious of their American counterparts. The defence ministry chief of staff during the height of the war observed that Canadian brass have always been preoccupied, almost obsessed with their relationship with the U.S. military. Canada’s generals and admirals tend to be more concerned about their relationship with their American counterparts than they are with their own political master in Ottawa.

That concern played out in questionable conduct by Gen. Rick Hillier. In 2005, the Kabul mission was due to end. Hillier wanted a combat role for Canadian forces. He had candidly reminded us all, remember, that Canadian forces were not a social-service agency. Their job is to kill people.

Then-prime minister Paul Martin was more concerned with Darfur. Before he would consider Hillier’s plan for Afghanistan, he demanded a guarantee that Canadian forces could perform both missions. Hillier gave it, but reneged. Soon, the bulk of the fighting, dying and alienating civilians was in the hands of only the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. Other NATO nations put restrictions on use of their forces.

Part 3, Justify: Emphasize whatever element of the formula seems to work at the time. Cabinet minister Bill Graham went on a speaking tour explaining that Canadians were rebuilding a troubled country, winning hearts and minds as “warrior diplomats.” At the same time, Hillier was touting the mission as one to “kill detestable murderers and scumbags” in Kandahar who threatened western societies. As late as 2011, then-governor general David Johnston was assuring us with Part 1. Canadian forces were rebuilding schools and ensuring the peace that would permit boys and girls to have an education.

Kilford’s pitch is a bit of a hybrid: Let’s support Donald Trump’s campaign to kill “detestable murderers and scumbags” by re-involving the Canadian military — but only to help the Afghans help themselves. (Of course, we don’t want to have a big fight there.)

Don’t buy it. Canadians did build schools in Afghanistan. Canadian troops often did try to help civilians. The recently unveiled monument here emphasizes that and is a welcome change from the misleading war memorials that dominate the landscape. But that is not why we were in Afghanistan.

Graham gave the real reason after Canada declined to send troops to Iraq or join the Ballistic Missile Defence Program: Foreign Affairs’ view was that there is a limit to how much we could constantly say no to the political master in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan. On every other file, we were not onside.

Kilford laments that “domestic political considerations” keep us from “doing the right thing.” Let us hope so. With an increasingly delusional leader to the south, this is no time to fall for the formula again.
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Retired law professor William Geimer is a U.S. army veteran and the author of Canada: The Case for Staying Out of Other People’s Wars.

Khan: Why Canada should Return to Afghanistan

By: Adnan R. Khan, Macleans Magazine 

The Iraq mission wasn’t all it was pumped up to be. In retrospect, Canada shouldn’t have left Afghanistan, which badly needs help. 

In April 2016, while on a tour of the frontlines in the fight against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, General Jonathan Vance, Chief of Defence Staff of the Canadian armed forces, made forceful pitch for why Canada needed to train Iraq’s Kurds.

“I believe [the offensive to re-take] Mosul will start this year,” he told CTV News. “The Zeravani commando isn’t formed yet. So as we form it and train it, they’ll have the weapons necessary to do the job they need to do. When the campaign to re-take Mosul will start and end, it would be ideal if we have the Zeravani commando ready for operations.”

Vance was referring to the Kurdish forces that were receiving the bulk of the training and assistance Canada’s Special Operations Forces had been providing since 2014. At the time, the Zeravani were expected to be at the forefront of the impending battle for Mosul. After withdrawing Canadian fighter jets from the international coalition in February 2016, the Liberal government had doubled-down on the Kurds, announcing it would send an additional 200 special forces to the region with the express mission of getting the Zeravani ready for what everyone knew would be a brutal fight.

It seemed like a prudent decision. Since it emerged in 2014, ISIS had proven itself to be the most dangerous terrorist group the world had ever seen. It had injected new blood into the global jihadist movement, attracting unprecedented recruits who either joined the group in Syria and Iraq or were inspired to carry out devastating attacks at home.

Mosul was its crown jewel, the place where its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, had declared a caliphate and the largest city under its control, with an estimated population of one million. Retaking Mosul would deal a near-fatal blow to the movement.

Meanwhile, in March 2014, Canada had officially ended its military mission to Afghanistan after 12 years and 158 dead soldiers. It was a bitter-sweet end to a mission that had pushed Canada into territory it had not ventured into since the Korean War: direct involvement in war fighting. Canadians had fought bravely in Kandahar, despite the overwhelming odds stacked against them. They had built up a reputation for fielding one of the best-trained militaries in the world.

By 2014, however, that mission had been reduced to a small contingent tasked with training Afghan security forces and was floundering in obscurity.

Under the Harper Conservatives, Canada’s military sights had begun to drift westward in 2011, away from Afghanistan and toward the Arab Spring in the Middle East and the conflicts arising from it. The Conservatives, with an almost obsessive focus on terrorism, had decided to go all-in, playing a key role in the mission to topple the Ghaddafi regime in Libya and, at least initially, supporting the Syrian opposition against Bashar al Assad.

History will judge the wisdom of those decisions but the early signs are discouraging. From 2011 onward, Canada’s stated mission—assisting democratic movements in the region—collided with the complexities of nation building. Libya fractured into mini-states ruled by tribal militias. Syria devolved into a civil war pitting dozens of armed groups against each other. By the fall of 2014, as ISIS rose out of the ashes of the Syrian civil war, the Conservatives shifted their focus again.

“Let me be clear on the objectives of this intervention,” Harper said of the decision to deploy special forces trainers, along with the fighter jets, to Iraq in a speech to parliament in early October 2014. “We intend to significantly degrade the capabilities of ISIL… Specifically, its ability either to engage in military movements of scale or to operate bases in the open.”

At the same time, the breakdown of security in Afghanistan had accelerated, particularly after the U.S. pulled its troops later in October. Many started to see Afghanistan as a lost cause, despite the significant progress that had been made in developing the country’s infrastructure and institutions.

Was this Canada’s WMD moment? In 2003, the U.S. under George W. Bush turned away from Afghanistan and poured its military resources into Iraq. The shift is now blamed for giving the Taliban the time it needed to regroup and rebound as an insurgent movement. Bush’s cohorts in the Republican Party initially used the spectre of weapons of mass destruction as justification for the shift. When those failed to turn up, it recast Iraq as a mission to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Canada has also struggled to find meaning in its Middle East pivot. Democracy in Libya, Syria and Egypt appears further away today than ever and even though the mission to destroy ISIS is succeeding, Canada’s contribution to the fight is looking more and more superficial.

Initially, things were going according to plan. The expertise Canadian special forces brought to the table was a valuable asset to the Kurds. While other NATO countries provided training to the Kurdish Peshmerga in purpose-built centres scattered around the Kurdistan Region, the Canadians embedded with Zeravani forces on the ground, at or near the frontlines, providing real-time guidance and support in real-life combat situations.

Not surprisingly, the Zeravani were transformed into a capable fighting force, arguably the best fighters Kurdistan now fields. They took the lead at the launch of the Mosul offensive in October last year, punching through ISIS frontlines and retaking territory north and east of the city. And Canadians were right there with them.

But then they stopped. In a deal brokered with Iraq’s central government, the Kurds agreed not to fight in Mosul. Instead, they set up their own positions kilometers away, watching as elite fighters from the Iraqi special forces confronted the bulk of ISIS forces.

Compared to what the Iraqis faced inside the city, the Kurdish advance was a cakewalk. The initial resistance they met collapsed quickly as ISIS fighters retreated to Mosul and dug in for the gruelling battles to come. Airstrikes helped the Kurds roll through largely emptied towns and villages and avoid the kinds of street-by-street, house-by-house confrontations the Iraqis would have to contend with.

Politically, things were not much better. Canada’s train and assist mission had a destabilizing effect on the Kurdistan Region. The focus on the Zeravani, a specialized commando force attached to the Interior Ministry, angered some Kurdish politicians. The ministry, like many of Kurdistan’s power centres, is controlled by the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party, a family affair run by the Barzani clan. Opposition parties, and some Canadian diplomats, complained to Maclean’s in 2015 that Canada, under the Harper Conservatives, was favouring one political party and, perhaps unwittingly, playing into the deep-rooted Kurdish divides that have plagued the region for decades.

More broadly, the support for the Kurds ratcheted up tensions with Baghdad, which accused foreign governments like Canada of stoking Kurdistan’s independence aspirations. In June, Kurdistan’s president Masoud Barzani announced a non-binding referendum on independence scheduled for Sept. 25, raising concerns that Canada may have armed and trained the military of a future breakaway state.

The Liberal government now appears to be coming around to the problems associated with supporting the Kurds. In March, Canada’s special forces shifted some of their focus to helping the Iraqi army in Mosul and a February 2016 deal to provide weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga has been put on hold indefinitely.

Still, the grand vision articulated by Harper, and later by General Vance, where Canadian-trained Zeravani commandoes would take the fight to the Islamic State, largely came to naught. In the process, Canada abandoned a mission in Afghanistan in which it had invested millions of dollars and where Canadians had sacrificed their lives.

Chris Kilford, a retired Canadian artillery officer and now a fellow at the Queen’s University Centre for International and Defence Policy, argues that Canada’s turn to the Middle East was probably inevitable given the public fatigue over the war in Afghanistan. And neither the Harper government nor the Liberals, he adds, could have predicted how events would unfold in Mosul.

“Should we have left [Afghanistan] when we did?” he says. “No. Should we still have trainers on the ground? Yes. But we have a bit of momentum now. We’ve put a lid on this massive issue known as the Islamic State. We can turn our attention to other places such as Mali, Libya and Afghanistan.”

It’s impossible to judge if Afghanistan would be different today if, instead of pulling trainers out, Canada had sent its special forces there instead of Iraq. What’s certain is that Afghan security forces have come to rely on their own special forces, largely trained by the U.S., to take the fight to the Taliban. According to Afghan defense ministry officials, their special forces only make up seven per cent of the Afghan military but have led 80 per cent of offensives. U.S. commanders say they are the most successful fighters on the battlefield, but they are being pushed to their limits.

Earlier this year, President Ashraf Ghani announced a plan to double the existing 17,000 special forces troops over the next four years. Kilford warns such an expansion will require a massive mobilization of resources.

“In Canada, the Liberals have decided to increase special forces personnel by around 600 over the coming years,” he says. “That means taking on around 1,800 recruits and whittling them down to the best.”

It was a mistake to turn away from Afghanistan and Afghans have paid the price for it. Canada should not compound the mistake by continuing to withhold the support the Afghan military needs at a time when successes in Afghanistan hangs precariously in the balance.

Training for the Kurds has only produced elite fighters without a war to fight. In Afghanistan, the war is still raging. And they need Canada’s help.

Trudeau Not Planning on Sending Troops Back to Afghanistan

LEE BERTHIAUME
OTTAWA
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has thrown cold water on suggestions the Liberal government wants to sign onto continental ballistic missile defence, or that it might send troops back into Afghanistan.

The question over whether Canada should be part of the U.S.'s continental missile-defence shield has been rekindled in recent days amid concerns about North Korea's growing nuclear arsenal.

Canada opted out of ballistic missile defence in 2005 following a divisive national debate, but many defence experts and parliamentarians, including some Liberals, want the issue reopened.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan has also resurrected questions about whether Canada will be asked to follow suit.

Speaking in Montreal on Wednesday, however, Trudeau appeared to close the door on both ideas.

"On those cases, we will always take the decisions in terms of what is the best interests of Canadians," Trudeau told reporters after meeting federal and provincial immigration officials.

"And our long-standing positions on those two issues are not going to be changed any time soon."

The comments on ballistic missile defence were the strongest yet from the Liberal government, which has largely sidestepped questions about its intentions in recent weeks.

Whether the prime minister has succeeded in finally putting the issue to rest is another question, however, particularly if tensions between Washington and Pyongyang continue to escalate.

At least one Liberal MP has said Canada should reconsider its decision not join the U.S. missile-shield system, as have both the House of Commons and Senate defence committees.

The Liberals had also said in their recent defence policy that they planned to discuss with the U.S. ways to improve North America's defences against, among other things, ballistic missiles.

Exactly what form those discussions will take – and what concrete measures will be taken to better protect the continent – remains unclear.

Trudeau's position on Afghanistan was less of a surprise, as he had previously ruled out a NATO request for Canada to send police trainers to the war-torn country.

The last Canadian troops left Afghanistan in 2014, and despite concerns about a resurgent Taliban, the Liberals have instead emphasized Canada's military contributions to Iraq and Latvia.

Still, it's uncertain how the comments will be received by the Trump administration and NATO, both of which have called on allies to redouble their efforts and help end the 16-year-old conflict there.

"We will ask our NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own," Trump said Monday. "We are confident they will."

Petrou: Canada Should Join Our Allies and Send Trainers to Afghanistan

By: Michael Petrou, CBC Opinion Column 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ruled out sending Canadian combat troops back to Afghanistan — despite requests from NATO commanders that member states contribute more soldiers to an ongoing mission.

"Canada has always been recognized as one of the go-to partners in NATO," Trudeau said, while essentially suggesting the alliance "go to" some other partner because Canada has already done its share.

This is a mistake. Afghanistan — a country that 158 Canadian soldiers died defending — is teetering on the edge of a dark abyss.

On Wednesday morning, a vehicle bomb in the diplomatic quarter of the capital, Kabul, killed at least 90 people and wounded hundreds. Reports suggested most of the dead are civilians. The Canadian embassy suffered "significant damage," according to a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, though Trudeau said Canadian embassy staff are safe and accounted for. More than 360 people have died in attacks in Kabul since last June. This attack appears to be the deadliest. 

Even without Canada's participation, Operation Resolute Support — NATO's support mission in Afghanistan — is NATO's largest current deployment, one that involves 13,000 personnel from member states and partner nations. It's a priority for the alliance. And Canada is particularly well-suited to it. Trudeau's past rhetoric suggests he knows as much.

While attempting to explain back in 2015 why he would end Canadian airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Trudeau said Canada would instead offer what it has "demonstrated tremendous ability at in Afghanistan and elsewhere: training local troops doing the fighting on the ground."

Now Afghanistan needs the sort of training Canada once provided; the training Trudeau says this country is so good at.
Lingering instability

Wednesday's atrocity in Kabul is only the most recent that Afghanistan has suffered in the past few months. The Taliban, which has denied responsibility for the bombing, is resurgent. A newly established branch of ISIS has launched numerous attacks in Kabul. Afghanistan's security forces are better than they once were, but are still unable to secure their country without help.

The "tremendous ability" Canada demonstrated in Afghanistan did not come easily. It grew out of more than a decade of battlefield and training experience, mistakes, learning, adjusting and sacrifice.

That makes the call to return there difficult to accept. Canadians can look at the ongoing insurgency, the corruption, the lack of a political settlement on the horizon and wonder what was the point of intervening there in the first place.

But this ignores what has been accomplished. For all the setbacks and frustrations, Afghanistan is a more hopeful place today than it was on September 10, 2001.

Far more girls school attend school in Afghanistan than would have if the Taliban still ruled Kabul. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)

Fewer infants and mothers die. Afghanistan's infant mortality rate was 95 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000. In 2015, it was 66 deaths for every 1,000 births. What's more, Afghanistan is no longer the base for international terrorism that it was before al-Qaeda was routed (though inroads made by ISIS could change that). There has been a peaceful and democratic transfer of power for the first time in the country's history. And while far fewer girls probably attend school than the Afghan government has claimed, it's clear that far more do than would if the Taliban still ruled Kabul.

Giving up on Afghanistan also avoids confronting just how long it often takes to end insurgencies and civil wars and rebuild nations. In Colombia, a peace deal last year concluded a conflict that had persisted for more than five decades.

Canadians soldiers carry prepare to leave the Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan, in July 2011. Canadian troops transitioned from a combat to a training role that year and withdrew from the country altogether three years later. (Rafiq Maqbool/Associated Press)

Progress in Afghanistan will be measured in generations. And long-term progress requires long-term commitments. Canadian soldiers' deployments in Afghanistan, generally six-month tours, were too short. Understanding a mission and nurturing relationships with locals take time, and a constant rotation of troops undermines this process. But over the years Canada was in Afghanistan, it built expertise and institutional memory. Afghanistan, and Canada's NATO partners in that country, would benefit from that now.

For a while, it seemed that Trudeau would instead put what Canada learned in Afghanistan to use in a United Nations peacekeeping mission somewhere in Africa, probably Mali, a country the UN is trying to stabilize in the face of an Islamist insurgency.

Trudeau appears to have developed cold feet of late, recently noting Canadians have a "difficult history in Africa as peacekeepers" and cautioning that he would not "fast-track" a decision to send Canadian soldiers there, despite previously expressing great eagerness to do just that.
Afghanistan needs Canada's help

Still, Canada's participation in a UN peacekeeping mission in Africa at least remains on the table for Trudeau, while a return to Afghanistan is something he says he won't consider.

Trudeau last year pledged to "revitalize" Canada's role in peacekeeping, something that would allow him to differentiate his foreign policy from that of his predecessor, Stephen Harper. And he likely sees Canadian participation in UN missions as a way to bolster Canada's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2021.

But such considerations shouldn't influence where troops are deployed. Canada's ties to Afghanistan are stronger than are those to Mali. The need for Canada's help is greater there. And Canada's obligations to NATO — despite Trudeau's evident fondness for the idea of peacekeeping, if not its messy reality — are more important than is Ottawa's commitment to the United Nations. Canada should join its closest allies and return to Afghanistan.

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Michael Petrou is a journalist and historian. He’s a fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, the recipient of the 2017 R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship and the 2018 Martin Wise Goodman Canadian Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
@michaelpetrou

Walkom: Canada Mulling a return to the Unwinnable Afghan War

By THOMAS WALKOM, Toronto Star 

A return to the Afghan War is one step closer. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has confirmed that NATO has asked Canada to send police trainers to assist Afghanistan’s struggling government in the fight against Taliban insurgents. He said Ottawa is seriously considering the request.

The trainers, if sent, could be either soldiers or police officers.

The NATO request is part of an effort by the alliance to quietly beef up its role in the Afghan war without inflaming public opinion back home.

Technically, the roughly 13,000 troops under NATO command in Afghanistan do not engage in combat. Their role is to train, advise and assist local Afghan forces.

But the war in Afghanistan is going badly for the government in Kabul. It faces not only its traditional Taliban foes but the terrorist group Daesh, also known as ISIS.

High-profile suicide bombings have rocked Kabul. The Taliban effectively controls large swaths of the countryside. The central government is shaky.

American Gen. John Nicholson, who heads NATO operations in Afghanistan, says he needs at least 3,000 to 5,000 more “advisers” to meet his military needs there.

In Washington, President Donald Trump’s administration is mulling over the question of how many more American troops to commit to Afghanistan (it already has roughly 8,400 soldiers there).

But Trump has also made it clear that he expects other NATO countries to pick up part of the slack.

Currently, Canada and France are the only NATO countries without troops in Afghanistan.

Canadian troops entered the Afghan War in 2001 and stayed for just over 12 years. Over that period, 158 Canadian soldiers were killed and hundreds more wounded.

It was the longest-running war in Canadian history. By the end, it was also one of the most unpopular.

In 2014, with an election year looming, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government ordered the last Canadian troops home.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is careful to couch any return to Afghanistan in minimalist terms.

Sajjan first raised the possibility in a CTV interview on Saturday, volunteering that NATO had made an “ask” for Canadian advisers to help train Afghan police and that Canada was actively considering the request.

He repeated this again Monday to reporters in Halifax. But he noted that Ottawa’s real military focus now is on the war against Daesh in Iraq and that, in any case, Canada’s military operations in Afghanistan ended three years ago.

Translation: Even if we accede to the NATO request, this will not be as bad as before.

But of course that’s the kind of optimistic thing governments always say at the outset of armed conflict.

When Canada first entered the Afghan War after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the stated aim was to honour its NATO obligations to the U.S. When Canada upped its military commitment in 2006, the stated aim was to ensure that Afghan girls could go to school.

Throughout, the experts told us that we had to take part in this war to maintain our credibility in NATO and to avoid irritating the U.S. In fact, what we became involved in was a complicated, vicious and ultimately unwinnable conflict where the line between friend and enemy was too often blurred.

So we shall see what the Trudeau Liberals have in mind this time. They have already expanded Canada’s role in the ground war in Iraq. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland talks glowingly of using Canadian “muscle” to promote Canadian values,

They plan to increase defence spending overall.

Perhaps they will remember how difficult it was to extricate ourselves the last time we involved ourselves in the Afghan War. Sajjan should. He fought in it.

Or perhaps they will calculate that the political benefits of satisfying a U.S. and NATO request are worth the risk.

After all, they could say, it’s just training. What’s so dangerous about that?

Sajjan: Canada Committed to Iraq for the Long-Haul; Afghanistan Training Mission a Possibility

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — The federal government is considering a NATO request to send police trainers to Afghanistan, but Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canada's military focus remains in Iraq.

"As any good allied partner does, we will look at that request," Sajjan said Monday after a news conference highlighting the Defence Department's new, 10-year defence policy, which was rolled out last week.

"Our focus right now is on our mission in Iraq and the region. We will be moving forward with that mission."

Sajjan said even though Canada continues to provide funding for development and security personnel in Afghanistan, the military mission there ended three years ago.

The conflict claimed the lives of 158 Canadian soldiers, one diplomat and one journalist between 2001 and 2014. Thousands of those who served there continue to suffer from physical or mental injuries, an issue that continues to make headlines across the country.

However, the United States and NATO are reaching out for more help in Afghanistan now that the Taliban appear to be making a comeback in the region. As well, the arrival of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has complicated matters. During the past year, the group has launched deadly attacks across the country.

As for Iraq, Sajjan says Canada remains committed to maintaining a long-term military presence in that country, but he followed up by suggesting some changes were in order.

"For Iraq ... we are in this as a reliable coalition partner, in for the long term," the minister said as he answered questions from reporters gathered at Her Majesty's Canadian Dockyard, along the west side of Halifax's sprawling harbour.

"We're going to make adjustments to the mission ... We have taken this year to review the evolution of the situation on the ground. We will be extending the mission, but we'll be making the final decision on this very shortly to outline what our contributions will be. One thing I can assure you: we will remain as a credible partner to make sure the coalition has all the right assets in place."

There are about 200 Canadian special forces soldiers deployed in northern Iraq. Though their mission is to train Kurdish fighters, they have engaged in gun battles in Iraq.

The federal government has confirmed that in March some of the special forces took part in the battle to reclaim the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIL.

In the defence policy overhaul, Sajjan has committed to adding 605 new elite special forces commandos.

Overall, the new policy commits Canada to spending an extra $14 billion over the next 10 years on defence matters — a 70 per cent increase for the department's budget.

The money will be used to put another 5,000 troops in uniform and, among other big-ticket items, offset the skyrocketing cost of buying new warships and fighter jets.

But much of the money won't flow until after the next election, and it’s not clear whether the spending spike would mean bigger federal deficits or spending cuts in other areas.

Sajjan noted that two of Canada's new Arctic patrol ships were under construction at the nearby Halifax Shipyard, and he said his new defence policy commits the government to spending up to $60 billion on building 15 new warships, which will replace much of the Royal Canadian Navy's aging fleet.

"We are excited for the economic growth and development that this policy means for Halifax, Nova Scotia and the broader Canadian defence industry," he said. More than 14,000 Nova Scotians are employed as part of a "defence team" that spends $1.3 billion annually in the province, he said.

Sajjan said the original budget for the Canadian Surface Combatant program in 2008 was set at $26.2 billion, which the Parliamentary Budget Office later determined was enough for only six ships.

"We need 15 and we are committed to 15 ships," Sajjan said, adding that the policy also commits the government to maintaining the navy's four problem-plagued submarines and to build two new support ships.

Liberals face tough questions on Afghanistan, interim Fighter Jets

By: Lee Berthiaume, Canadian Press 

OTTAWA — Although the Trudeau government launched its long term plan for modernizing the military last week, more immediate realities are tugging for attention on the Liberals' list of defence priorities.

In particular, two critical, short-term questions have emerged: what to do about the government's plan to buy "interim" fighter jets, and whether to take on a new role in Afghanistan?

The Canadian Press has learned that Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan met with the head of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. defence giant behind the F-35 stealth fighter, in Singapore earlier this month.

Word of Sajjan's meeting with Lockheed president Marillyn Hewson came as the minister told CTV's Question Period that the government is looking at "different options" for addressing a critical shortage of fighter jets.

The Liberals announced last November that they would address the jet shortage by purchasing 18 "interim" Super Hornets from Boeing, before holding a competition to replace all of Canada's CF-18s.

But that was before Boeing complained to the U.S. Commerce Department that Canadian aerospace firm Bombardier had sold its CSeries jet liners at an unfair discount with help from the federal government.

The Liberals have since threatened to scrap the Super Hornet plan because of the dispute, which took another turn Friday when the U.S. International Trade Commission said it would continue investigating.

Sajjan's spokeswoman Jordan Owens confirmed the minister met with Hewson at a defence summit in Singapore at the beginning of June, but could not immediately comment on the discussion.

However, a Lockheed official speaking on background said Hewson told Sajjan that her company was ready and eager to deliver F-35s on an urgent basis if required.

That would represent a marked turn in the ongoing saga to buy new fighter jets for Canada, after initially promising during the last election to not buy the stealth fighters.

The Liberals recently spent another $30 million to stay at the table as a partner in the F-35 project, while Boeing for its part has emphasized its long-standing economic and commercial ties to Canada.

Fighter jets aren't the only issue requiring an immeidate decision as Sajjan's office said Sunday that NATO has asked Canada to send police officers to Afghanistan to help train the war-torn country's beleaguered security forces.

"We just received this and are looking into it," Sajjan's spokeswoman, Jordan Owens, told The Canadian Press. "The door hasn't been closed yet."

The request comes as the U.S. and NATO seek to bolster the alliance's footprint in Afghanistan, where local police and military forces have struggled against a resurgent Taliban.

The situation has been complicated by the arrival of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has launched several deadly attacks across the country over the past year.

One NATO official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said alliance members will gather in Brussels later this month to announce what they can provide.

That puts Canada, which ended its military mission in Afghanistan in 2014, on the clock to decide sooner rather than later whether to dive back into the conflict.

Any decision to send Canadians, even police officers, back into Afghanistan is sure to stoke strong reactions given the heavy cost of Canada's military involvement in the country between 2001 and 2014.

Thousands of Canadians who served in Afghanistan during that period continue to suffer from physical or mental injuries, while 158 soldiers, one diplomat and one journalist were killed.

Canada also contributed billions of dollars in development assistance to the country - money that continues to flow in the form of about $150 million per year for aid and to pay the Afghan security forces.

Yet despite those investments of blood and treasure, peace and stability remain not only elusive, but increasingly scarce as Afghan security forces have lost ground to the Taliban, in particular.

Afghanistan, the sequel. Why would Canada return to a war it would rather forget?

By: Andrew Potter, Special to National Post |

Amber Bracken/PostmediaSoldiers disembark from their plane as they return home from Afghanistan at the Edmonton International Airport in Edmonton, Alta. on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013

The last time Canadians paid any serious attention to Afghanistan was just over three years ago. It was March 2014 when we ended our training mission in Kabul with a quiet flag-lowering ceremony in Kabul.

It wasn’t exactly the Fall of Saigon, but there was a definite sense of Mission Unaccomplished to the proceedings. For all our efforts, first in support of Operation Enduring Freedom to rout out al Qaeda, then as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force that had committed to bring stability, security, good governance and democracy to Afghanistan, the job was far from complete. But many of our close allies, such as the Dutch, had already headed for the exit, and with President Obama determined to end the war on his watch, the Americans were drawing down as well.

Afghanistan was our most ambitious foreign adventure since the Korean War, but it’s an adventure most Canadians, including their government, seem keen to forget. The American journalist Dexter Filkins wasn’t wrong when he called it The Forever War though, which is why the United States is readying a “mini-surge” of potentially 5,000 troops back into Afghanistan. Once again, they will be asking NATO countries to help out. And as Postmedia’s David Pugliese reported last week, Canada will be asked to chip in.

Cpl Keith Wazny / DNDA Ramp Ceremony was held at Kandahar Airfield on 21 July 2010 for Sapper Brian J. Collier, who was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device

If we agree, we’ll be sending troops back to a country we left after 12-year military presence that cost the lives of 158 soldiers as well as those of a diplomat, two aid workers and a journalist. We’ll also be returning to a country where we left behind a great deal of unfinished business.

It’s no surprise Americans are looking to beef up their troop levels in Afghanistan: the place is on the verge of collapse.

The Afghan government in Kabul controls less than 60 per cent of the country, and that number is going in the wrong direction. In the parts of the country that it does control, the government is widely seen as deeply corrupt and barely functional. The Afghan security forces that are doing the bulk of the heavy fighting against the Taliban are suffering jaw-dropping (and unsustainable) casualty rates. In one shocking incident in late April, 140 Afghan troops were killed in a single Taliban attack on a base in the north of the country.

The peace agreement with the Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his “triumphant” return to Kabul earlier this month is a sign of how bad things are going for the government. Meanwhile, ISIL’s franchise in the region is clinging to a foothold with about 800 fighters regularly engaged in terror attacks and assassinations, mostly against Shia targets.

The Americans might have blowed things up real good when they dropped the MOAB onto an ISIL cave complex near the eastern border with Pakistan, but many analysts expect that its most significant effect will be to draw more jihadis to the cause. Right on cue, five ISIL jihadists attacked a television station in Jalalabad this week, killing four journalists and two police officers.

In short, there’s a lot of bad news, and the best predictions are things will get worse.

In the face of all this, the mini-surge of troops will have a pretty modest mission. Strengthen the government and train and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, while trying to stabilize the deteriorating security situation. The aim would be give Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s government just enough credibility while bombing the Taliban hard enough to force some sort of peace deal.

The problem with this is that it was former Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s strategy for virtually his entire term in office, and it is the same strategy former President Obama pursued with his surge in 2010. Its failure was and always will be overdetermined because, to begin with, you can’t kill enough Taliban to force them to the table. If anything, what this does is play along with the Taliban’s parallel strategy, which is to kill enough western troops and Afghan civilians that we leave and then the Afghan government sues for peace. To ask which side has been more successful is to answer the question.

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The deep problem here is Pakistan. It isn’t just that Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas have served as the home base for the Taliban since they were chased out of Afghanistan in 2001. The Pakistan military has basically run the Taliban insurgency since then, using it as a proxy force to ensure the ongoing destabilization of Afghanistan. This suits Pakistan’s purposes fine, but it means that there can be no solution to the problem in Afghanistan without a solution to Pakistan. An additional 5,000 troops helping train Afghan soldiers to be Taliban fodder isn’t going to change that.

So where does Canada fit in? Our mission in Afghanistan was beset by confusion on many fronts: Why we were there, how we ended up in Kandahar, and what our ambitions were. Depending on who you ask — politicians, diplomats, soldiers, general public — you’ll get different answers.

As Carleton University professor Steve Saideman argues in his book Adapting in the Dust, Canada went to Afghanistan for the simple reason that it has always gone along with NATO missions. It would have been weird for us not to go in some capacity. We went big because wanted to show our bonafides to the Americans after refusing to get involved in Iraq. And we went to Kandahar because we wanted to make a real contribution that would allow us to have strong say in the campaign.

Manpreet Romana / AFP / Getty ImagesIn this photograph taken on July 2, 2009, US Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade wait for helicopter transport as part of Operation Khanjar at Camp Dwyer in Afghanistan's Helmand Province

As Saideman describes it, by these metrics our mission was a complete success: We earned combat cred with the Americans, we were able to keep the U.S. working within the NATO structure, and we punched above our weight in the alliance itself.

The problem with these metrics is they have nothing to do with Afghanistan or the Afghan people. They are entirely about Canada’s interests in alliance-building, continental politics and generally managing the Americans. They are, at best, only accidentally about fighting the war on terrorism, defending global security, fighting the Taliban or helping Afghan girls go to school.

And so Canada’s ultimate political strategy was always going to be at odds with the execution of the mission, which evolved from a counter-terrorism operation in the early going into a “whole of government” nation-building agenda in Kandahar. Our ambitions on this score can be traced through the quarterly reports to parliament that were issued from 2008 until the end of the combat mission in 2011, listing our priorities and ticking off our achievements.

The unfailingly optimistic tone of those reports held up right till the end, our faith in the strategy surviving our abandonment of it. As the last line of the last quarterly report put it: “As Canada begins to transition from Kandahar to a more nationally focused role in Afghanistan, we will continue to support the hopes and dreams of the Afghan people as they endeavour to rebuild a more peaceful and prosperous nation.”

Master Corporal Matthew McGregor/DNDA foot patrol of Canadian and Afghan soldiers near the village of Haji Baba

Or, to put it more colloquially, good bye and good luck.

Let’s be clear about this: Canadians made a number of profound commitments to helping Afghans, promises that many Afghans took seriously. At least they did until Canada’s political calculations changed and we simply downed tools and left. The Taliban weren’t defeated, the nation wasn’t rebuilt, but we’d done what we set out to do.

Maybe it’s this general sense of unfinished business that has led Canadians to pretty much forget that for 12 years, some of the best and brightest soldiers, diplomats, development officers and public servants this country has to offer risked their careers and their lives in, and more importantly, for Afghanistan. At the height of the troop surge in 2010, a senior Canadian civilian official at Camp Nathan Smith gave a rousing pep talk to the members of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (and to journalists), telling them, “This is the place, now is the time, and we are the ones” to fix Kandahar. It was melodramatic, but it captured the spirit of the Canadian mission.

Corporal Bill Gomm/DND

Today, our interest in the country is pretty much non-existent, the war is rarely mentioned except in the context of wounded warriors.

And that’s an attitude matched by the government. The simple but symbolic Kandahar Airfield Cenotaph remains wrapped up in a packing crate somewhere in Ottawa. The more substantial military memorial to the mission, to be situated down by the Ottawa River east of the Portage Bridge, was scheduled to be opened for the sesquicentennial celebrations on July 1. It has fallen into Ottawa’s version of bureaucratic hell. When, where and whether it will ever see the light of day is anyone’s guess.

Besides, why have a memorial to a war everyone wants to forget?

***

And now we’re being asked to go back. Assuming we’d actually be welcome, what’s in it for Canada? Or more pointedly, what’s in it for Afghans?

Assuming the Americans do ask us to pitch in, and assuming we agree, there’s no way we are going back to our old mission. The heady nation-building ambitions of 2010-2011 are done. We’ll be there as trainers, as part of what the Americans are pitching as an open-ended mission without the artificial deadlines that Obama imposed. Which means we will be there in the service of one of two possible outcomes, neither of which is terribly appealing.

One is that we help the Afghans keep fighting in a more or less perpetual fight against the Taliban.

The other is that we play a part in helping bring about a political solution to the problem. Practically, that means handing over a big chunk of Afghanistan to the Taliban, which in turn means a return to the days of mandatory burkas and beards, Sharia law and the ministry of vice and virtue. No music or movies, no kite flying, no school for girls.

This wouldn’t be the end of the world — we already live with versions of that in other countries. We helped fight North Korea to a stalemate long ago, and have lived ever since with the result. Nothing says that every country’s problem is our problem to solve.

The difficulty we have with Afghanistan is that for a period of time, we made their problems our problems, and we sent the best among us to help solve them. Then we left, and ever since we’ve been trying, and mostly succeeding, at forgetting we were ever there.

If we do return, we might forgive our Afghan hosts if they are so unkind as to remind us.
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Andrew Potter is the former editor-in-chief of the Ottawa Citizen.