Canada and the war in Afghanistan: NATO's odd man out steps forward

Abstract

At the Cold War's close, Canada was NATO's ‘odd man out’, contributing relatively little to western defence. Today, Canada is the third-largest contributor of combat forces to NATO's efforts in Afghanistan. Canada got into Afghanistan partly as an alternative to getting into Iraq. But fighting the Taliban also serves the Canadian national interest in combating terrorism and has dovetailed well with recent efforts to ‘transform’ the Canadian military and use it more effectively in overseas development efforts. However, the Canadian commitment to Afghanistan beyond the current February 2009 deadline is in doubt. Public support for the combat dimension of the Afghanistan operations remains weak.

Keywords:

• Canada
• defence
• foreign policy
• Afghanistan
• NATO

Notes

1. Address by the Honourable Paul H. Robinson, Jr, Ambassador of the United States of America to Canada, The Empire Club, Toronto, 25 February 1982, www.empireclubfoundation.com.

2. Canada, Senate, Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, Canadian Troops in Afghanistan: Taking a Hard Look at a Hard Mission (February 2007) 10, 15–16.

3. Research for this paper has been supported by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

4. John W. Holmes, ‘Odd Man Out in the Atlantic Community’, in Canada: A Middle-Aged Power (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 129.

5. Gerald Porter, In Retreat: The Canadian Forces in the Trudeau Years (Ottawa: Deneau & Greenberg, 1979); Peter C. Newman, True North, Not Strong and Free: Defending the Peaceable Kingdom in the Nuclear Age (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983).

6. Joseph T. Jockel and Joel J. Sokolsky, Canada and Collective Security: Odd Man Out (New York: Praeger, 1986).

7. Progressive Conservative Party transcript of radio interview, August 1984.

8. Canada, Senate, Standing Committee on National Security and Defence, Canadian Troops in Afghanistan, 15–16.

9. ‘Reconsider Afghan mission unless NATO boosts support: Senate’, CBC News, 12 February 2007, www.cbc.ca.

10. Harald von Riekhoff, ‘Canada and Collective Security’, in David B. Dewitt and David Leyton Brown, eds, Canada's International Security Policy (Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Canada, 1995), 242.

11. Canada, Minister of National Defence, 1994 Defence White Paper, 8.

12. For a recent discussion of this point, see chapter 2, ‘The Harmful Idealisation of Peacekeeping’, in J.L. Granatstein, Whose War is It? How Canada Can Survive in the Post-911 World (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2007).

13. Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Statements and Speeches 99/35, ‘Message from the Hon Lloyd Axworthy … 13 May 1999.’

14. Julia Brunnée and Adrian Di Giovanni, ‘Iraq: A Fork in the Special Relationship?’, International Journal (Spring 2005): 378.

15. Paul Cellucci, Unquiet Diplomacy (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2005), 135.

16. Granatstein, Whose War is It?, 74.

17. Canada, Minister of National Defence, Canada's International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Influence in the World: Defence (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2005), 5

18. Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahahar (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2007).

19. Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahahar (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2007)., 289.

20. Bruce Campion,-Smith, ‘Harper Softens His Tone on War’, The Toronto Star, 23 June 2007.

21. Bruce Campion,-Smith, ‘Harper Softens His Tone on War’, The Toronto Star, 23 June 2007.

22. Renée de Nevers, ‘NATO'S International Security Role in the Terrorist Era’, International Security 31 (Spring 2007) 50, 55.

23. Renée de Nevers, ‘NATO'S International Security Role in the Terrorist Era’, International Security 31 (Spring 2007), 63.

24. Renée de Nevers, ‘NATO'S International Security Role in the Terrorist Era’, International Security 31 (Spring 2007), 64

25. Charles Ritchie, Storm Signals: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1963–1971 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1983), 75.

26. Joel J. Sokolsky, The Power of Values or the Value of Power? American and Europe in a Post 9/11 World’, Columbia International Affairs On-Line, www.ciaonet.org (August 2003).

27. John-Andrew Pankiw Petty, ‘From Pearson to Harper: Canadian Realism Comes Out of the Closet’, Honours Thesis, Queen's University, April 2006.

28. Lawrence Martin, ‘It's about Time Mr Harper Listened to the People’, Globe and Mail, 25 June 2007.

29. Campion-Smith, ‘Harper Softens His Tone on War.’

30. Michael Byers, Intent for a Nation: A Relentlessly Optimistic Manifesto for Canada's Role in the World (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & Martin, 2007), 182.

31. Michael Byers, Intent for a Nation: A Relentlessly Optimistic Manifesto for Canada's Role in the World (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & Martin, 2007), 182–3.

32. See Joel J. Sokolsky, ‘Realism Canadian Style: National Security and the Chrétien Legacy’, Policy Matters 5 (June 2004).

33. Of course, having made up his mind to resist this challenge to Canadian automony, King ‘had no intention of asking Parliament to send a contingent’. See Kenneth W. MacNaught and Ramsay Cook, Canada and the United States: A Modern Study (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1963), 456. This was no doubt because bringing the matter to Parliament would have afforded the pro-Empire Conservative leader Authur Meighen, who supported the British on Chanak, the opportunity to attack the Liberals as being disloyal and call for the deployment of Canadian forces.

34. Campion-Smith, ‘Harper Softens His Tone on War’.