Posted on 07/24/2003 9:49:47 AM PDT by knighthawk
Canada's next government will face an unavoidable foreign policy crisis. It must find a way to protect Canada's interests and to act responsibly without military means in a world where military capabilities are increasingly central to foreign policy. However, the lack of the hard assets of international affairs is only the underlying cause of this crisis, but not the immediate dilemma confronting the next prime minister. Rather, the next government will find itself trapped by the defence policies and commitments of the outgoing government but unable during its term in office to find a policy fix to avoid the coming crash in military capabilities and its inevitable crippling effect on foreign policy.
There can be no doubt about the weakness of Canada's Armed Forces -- a fact presented to political leaders by the Senate, the House of Commons, academics, and non-governmental organizations. Assessments in the Defence department confirm these open reports and some predict even worse outcomes soon. Practically, the lack of military assets will mean no Canadian commitment to Europe (naval commitments to NATO are already suspended); no commitment to "coalitions of the willing" anywhere, or to United Nations missions of any consequence; and only limited participation in North American defence and sovereignty operations in Canada.
As troops deploy to Afghanistan, the Minister of Defence, John McCallum, has warned the government that the Armed Forces are overburdened. The chief of the defence staff, General Ray Henault, declared candidly that the Canadian Forces will be "limited in [its] ability to provide any sizable land force contribution elsewhere on the international scene for 12 months following the deployment." In other words, for at least the next two, and more likely three, years the next prime minster will be disarmed and unable to influence international security decisions, even when they weigh directly on Canada's interests
The reality is that all the major assets of the Canadian Forces are failing together. People are over-stressed and leaders are retiring early because of the strain. Critical capabilities are in trouble and fixing equipment alone will do little to repair the whole. The coming foreign policy crisis developed not only, nor even mainly, from the employment of the Canadian Forces. The future problem is caused by the failure of governments to provide the necessary funds to rebuild and sustain military capabilities, especially after 1990 when commitments forced a relentless, unplanned increase in usage rates. The deployment to Afghanistan has finally picked the cupboard clean -- unintentionally one assumes -- handicapping the next prime minister's freedom to put a personal stamp on foreign policy.
So what can the next prime minster do to avoid this foreign policy crisis? The government could stop sending all but token forces overseas, but this would only confirm Canada's impotence. The government might cut some military capabilities to bolster others. However, past policies cut any reserve and a new round would cut into sparse "core capabilities." One fact is plain, the looming foreign policy crisis caused by the lack of military capabilities cannot be solved by cutting the few capabilities that remain.
Canada, some suggest, could select "niche roles" for the Armed Forces and reinforce these. But too often the things such advocates usually want to do are not things the world wants doing. What, then, should the Canadian Forces be prepared to do? Prudence and experience suggest that the Canadian Forces will be ordered to do in the next 10 years the same types of things that it has done in the past 10 years -- providing small and medium land, sea, and air combat units to use coercive means to help stabilize unruly parts of the world.
The government might try to spend its way out of the crisis. In the early 1950s the Cold War demand to build a credible force of some 120,000 people equipped with modern arms from a small base took several years, even though the government committed vast resources to this mobilization. Overcoming today's problem would take a comparative effort, but even then it would not redress the immediate foreign policy crisis. Time, not money, is the master of this situation. It takes time, in many cases years, to change policy goals into military fact, to train leaders, build ships, acquire equipment and to fashion operational capabilities from the separate pieces.
Thus, the next prime minister will have to live with a diminished role in international security affairs and diplomats will have to manage the consequences. Nevertheless, the next prime minister could take charge of the reconstitution and transformation of defence policy and become known as the architect of future government's bright accomplishments in international affairs. This, perhaps lesser legacy, should be accepted as a national duty, not shunned as unworthy of high office.
In 1967 Paul Martin Sr., then minister for external affairs, proudly set out Canada's position in international affairs. Many nations he said "had an appetite for power without teeth," but Canada during the Cold War "had developed both the appetite and the teeth for a new international role." After 1970 other Canadian leaders misunderstood or cared less about the critical connection between appetite and means and the teeth were intentionally allowed to decay. This heritage of decline from the high confidence and purpose of Canada's place in the world before 1968 has come to a predictable, dispiriting conclusion. Time will tell whether Canada can find a leader able to retrieve its tradition of leadership on the stage of world affairs or whether the nation will permanently settle into the general assembly of toothless, rhetorical powers.
Douglas Bland is Chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University.
A nation that is incapable of defending itself is ine big trouble. A nation that cannot "help stabilize unruly parts of the world" is probably doing itself a favor.
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