European Affairs
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Would that we had a simpler world:
one in which conflicts end cleanly, the
UN Security Council authorizes intervention
by well meaning peacekeepers,
and former antagonists step back, lay
down their arms and welcome them.
And the peacekeepers are accompanied
by aid workers and civil-society experts
who rebuild democratic governments
and viable economies. And everyone
lives happily ever after.
Sadly, the world does not work like
that. Conflicts tend not to end cleanly.
The choices governments must make in
dealing with international crises are very
difficult, often between a bad alternative
and a worse one. The risks of intervention
are huge in terms of both human
life and political life. And of course there
are risks of inaction, too; but those are
much harder to measure.
In Canada, there is considerable debate
about our current deployment of
2,300 soldiers in southern Afghanistan.
Casualties are mounting and the purpose
of the mission, with its focus on security
in the dangerous Kandahar area,
is being challenged. Another debate continues
in Canada over the world’s failure
to take meaningful action in Darfur and
what should be done about it.
Let me start with some very basic
questions:
1. Should force ever be used to confront
leaders who are killing their
own people?
2. Should democratic countries ever
use military force as part of their
efforts to combat terrorism?
3. Should Canada ever be engaged
militarily abroad in the pursuit of
its own interests and values?
Unhesitatingly, I say yes to all these
questions.
But that’s the easy part. The harder
part lies in deciding on what military engagements
are to be taken: Where and
for how long? With what mandate? With
what mission? With what resources?
In 1999, when NATO countries debated
the decision to take military action
to combat then-Yugoslav leader Slobodan
Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo, I remember we asked one of
these very basic questions: “Can a dictator
be permitted to kill his own people?”
NATO answered that question by
launching air strikes against Milosevic. It
decided “in practice” to act, even though
it could not agree on the “theory.” The
then-19 members of the alliance had differing
reasons in deciding to act. There
was no unifying legal basis for their action.
The UN Security Council had not
explicitly authorized the use of force:
Russia would have vetoed it. Yet NATO
acted – rightly and successfully, in my
view.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said
at the time: “No government has the
right to hide behind national sovereignty
in order to violate the human rights and
fundamental freedoms of its people.” But
many were troubled by the lack of a
common set of rules to govern such actions,
necessary as they may have been.
After Kosovo, the UN General Assembly,
spurred by Canadian leadership
on the issue, set up an International
Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty. That commission developed
the concept of the responsibility to protect.
The main theme was that “states
have a responsibility to protect their own
citizens from avoidable catastrophes –
from mass murder and rape, from starvation
– but when they are unwilling or
unable to do so, that responsibility must
be borne by the broader community of
states. There must be no more Rwandas.”
The “responsibility-to-protect” doctrine
has been widely, although not universally,
supported. And a very obvious
case has been staring us in the face for
over three years – Darfur. Darfur has
been called a “genocide.” An estimated
200,000 people have died.
The Government of Sudan is complicit
in this tragedy. If ever there was a
classic case for responsibility to protect,
Darfur is it. Yet action to date has been
shamefully weak.
An ill-equipped African Union force
of 7,000 has been largely ineffective. It is
struggling and has just recently extended
its commitment to the end of the year.
The Security Council has authorized a
UN peacekeeping force, but Sudan has
refused to accept it and China’s veto has
ensured that the UN does not push
Sudan too hard. China protects the
Sudan government to ensure a steady
supply of oil.
The truth is that very few countries
with real military capabilities want to intervene
in Darfur. They don’t want to
take the military and political risks. They
don’t want to invade Sudan. And African
sensitivities about so-called “neo-colonialist”
Western forces are a convenient
reason to support the African Union’s
presence, as Canada has done very extensively,
but not to push for much more.
There should be no illusions. A
Western force in Darfur would involve
bloodshed and sacrifice. There would
likely be fighting and casualties. And the
op-ed pages that have called for action in
Darfur could then well be debating “how
did we get into this mess?”
Governments are right to be very
cautious about the use of force. And it is
much safer to make speeches about
“never again” than to engage in a long
and costly military struggle.
And even if Canada were willing to
send combat troops and to pressure
Sudan into acquiescence, who else would
join us? The United States is so tainted
by its presence in Iraq that its direct involvement
would probably be toxic and
counterproductive. So it would have to
be the usual suspects – our European
NATO allies plus a few others. But I
sense little willingness on their part to
engage militarily in a robust operation in
Darfur.
Especially not with the other demands
that are being placed on Western
military forces in other trouble spots –
like Afghanistan and Lebanon (and Iraq
for the unfortunate few countries that
are left). That doesn’t mean that public
pressure shouldn’t continue. It should.
Perhaps positions will change. But I am
not optimistic on this one, especially
after three years of dithering. History
will not judge the international community
well on Darfur.
This brings us to the broader issue of
deployable troops, resources, and burden
sharing in this turbulent world.
Canada has a remarkable history of
peacekeeping, including Lester Pearson’s
1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on
the Suez crisis. However, the era of
straightforward peacekeeping in relatively
benign environments is largely
past. Some in Canada now argue that
Canada should stick to traditional, old fashioned,
safe peacekeeping. They do
not like the more muscular and dangerous
approach that Canada and NATO
are pursuing in Afghanistan. Sadly, they
are out of touch with contemporary reality.
Peace building environments are less
permissive, more hostile than they once
were. Troops engaged in these complex
tasks need to be highly trained and capable
– as Canadian forces are. But few
countries have forces of this quality. And
thus the most demanding tasks tend to
go to the most capable countries.
As a wealthy country with a population
of 32 million, with interests all over
the world, it should not be a stretch for
Canada to field at least 3,000 soldiers for
extended periods of time anywhere in
the world.
The case of Afghanistan is an example
of the new peacekeeping environment.
A mission that once was widely
supported in Canada has become controversial. Each soldier or civilian killed
or injured is a human tragedy and the
casualty level has been growing.
The origins of Canada’s mission in
Afghanistan are in the events of Sept. 11,
2001. Within hours NATO invoked, for
the first and only time in its history, Article
5 of its treaty: An attack on one is
an attack against all. Canada has been in
Afghanistan virtually from the outset –
both in a fighting role alongside the
United States and in peacekeeping and
Peace building. We are now part of a
force that is UN-approved, NATO-led,
and to which we have committed ourselves
until February 2009. And we are
deployed in the most dangerous part of
Afghanistan – Kandahar and the south.
As is often the case in missions like
this, circumstances evolve and goals become
crystallized. To me, the key task
for now is to keep the Taliban from returning
to power; to reduce the threat to
the security of the country. Some in
Canada argue that we should be focusing
on the “softer” side of development
rather than the “harder” side of security.
Building a prosperous democracy
in Afghanistan, while desirable, is a very
long-term proposition indeed. Canada
has been enormously generous in its aid
to Afghanistan – our largest aid recipient
in the world. But if the security situation
regarding the Taliban is not stabilized,
no progress will be made on the important
broader goals of nation-building.
Building schools and hospitals only to
have them destroyed is futile. So the security
focus is the right one, for now.
We mustn’t forget that the Taliban
were one of the most reprehensible
regimes we have seen on this planet in
decades. Women were oppressed, girls
were not permitted to go to school, historical
monuments were blown up. Life
was deprived of any joy under the dark
shadow of this regime. Terrorism was
harboured and nourished and we all
know the results. Anyone who thinks
that all we have to do is negotiate with
the Taliban is naïve.
Part of the problem in Afghanistan
is with burden- sharing in NATO.
Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. have undertaken
the most dangerous tasks while
some of its NATO allies, like Germany
and France, have put caveats on their
soldiers’ deployments that limit their interoperability
and restrict them to less
risky and less crucial tasks. This issue has
to be addressed urgently.
Some have argued in Canada that
Afghanistan is not our war and that we
have no interests there. This is wrong
and short-sighted. Does Canada not care
about violation of human rights or the
nurturing of terrorism? Are we not engaged
in the world and vulnerable ourselves?
Of course we are. And are we
suited only for the exercise of soft power
and unsuited for the exercise of hard
power when it is needed? Of course not.
Canada must do its part in meeting the
global challenges of combating terrorism
and protecting human rights.
And arguing, as some do in Canada,
that this is President Bush’s war and that
this is all about the United States, is intellectually
dishonest. We mustn’t confuse
this multilateral mission with an
unpopular and misguided U.S. campaign
in Iraq. Indeed, one of the many downsides
of the U.S. involvement in Iraq was
that it followed too closely on the heels
of the Afghanistan mission and, as a
consequence, the U.S. never committed
adequate resources to finish the task in
Afghanistan.
Could Canada do Darfur as well?
Yes, we could. But we would need real
engagement by other serious allies, especially
from Europe. And democratic
countries would have to push Sudan
much harder. This is not an issue of resources.
It is an issue of political will on
the part of all democratic countries.
That holds for Afghanistan too.
Clearly, Canada should not bear a disproportionate
burden in any of these
dangerous missions. But we must not retreat
at the first signs of danger and
naively wish for a simpler, risk-free
world. Demands have changed from the
early years of peacekeeping for which
some seem still nostalgic.
When it comes down to it, each government
has only one well of political
capital to draw on, one set of armed
forces to deploy, and one budget to
spend. Each government has to judge
how, where, and to what extent, to engage
its assets. In doing so, leaders must
determine their countries’ interests and
values, and must assess competing demands
in a turbulent world. That is what
Canada is doing.
We are blessed in Canada in many
ways. Among these are our remarkably
capable and professional armed forces.
Their engagement in Afghanistan, and
perhaps someday in Darfur, is a key part
of Canada’s contribution to a world that
needs them. For a country with global
interests, as ours certainly is, this is part
of our world citizenship.
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