# Canadian Foreign and Defence Policy: After Afghanistan - Terry Copp



## FascistLibertarian (6 Jun 2007)

http://sdfdiscussionboard.ca/viewtopic.php?id=44

Good little article I thought some of you might be intrested in.

Canadian Foreign and Defence Policy: After Afghanistan


> If we were to list Canada’s foreign policy priorities issues related to international trade, environmental degradation, arctic sovereignty and national security would rank ahead of a commitment to supporting international peace and stability operations.  It has therefore been somewhat surprising to witness the developments of the past several years which have placed Afghanistan at the centre of Canadian foreign, defence and aid policy.  The origins of an Afghan-centric approach are clear enough.  Since the Ogdensburg agreement of 1940 Canadian governments have usually allowed good relations with Washington to trump all other interests and there is little doubt that the Chrétien government agreed to participate in Operation “Enduring Freedom” the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan to compensate for the refusal to sign on for the invasion of Iraq.  The decision to join ISAF, the NATO-led, U.N. mandated International Security Assistance force in the summer of 2003 involved a larger commitment but Operation “Athena”, as the Canadian forces called their mission to Kabul, was well within the tradition of previous stability operations conducted under UN or NATO auspices and it only occurred after the Bush administration dropped its opposition to NATO command in Afghanistan.
> The full story of the decision to shift the focus to Kandahar province, in 2005, has yet to be told.  Shortly before the official announcement Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, spoke of the Martin government’s intention to take a leading role in one of the most dangerous provinces of Afghanistan during our first major Afghanistan policy conference at Laurier.  Neither Graham nor the Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier could have anticipated the scale of the Taliban offensive in 2006 but they did appreciate the challenges of operating in the home base of the Taliban.  Some members of Graham’s audience recognized the announcement as a significant shift in our foreign and defence policy but the real concern, given the ongoing coverage of American treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq, was what would Canadian Forces do with captured Taliban fighters and suspects who were detained.  The consensus was that they would not be handed over to the Americans but to the Afghans.  An answer that then seemed satisfactory.
> Currently Canada is maintaining 2,500 military personnel in Afghanistan as part of Operation Athena in Kandahar under Regional Command South, 30 at the Afghan National Training Centre and 15 in Kabul serving as a Strategic Advisory team to the Afghan government.  Canada has also assumed responsibility for the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team one of 25 PRTs functioning in various parts of the country.  The current strength of our PRT is just over 300 including diplomats, development experts, police and the military.  A rifle company detached from the combat force is assigned for additional protection.  One of the key purposes of this conference is to evaluate the contribution of this and other PRTs and we look forward to hearing from those with direct experience.
> Canada, as a signatory to the “Afghanistan Compact” of February 2006 is pledged to support the ISAF mission until 2011 with a specific promise to maintain our combat forces in Kandahar to February 2009.  Politicians in all four major parties have seized on the 2009 date as crucial but leaving partisan politics aside we will need to withdraw or significantly reduce our combat group relatively soon to allow the army to regenerate and retrain.  An army of 15,000 men and women cannot sustain the regular deployment of half of its available strength and expect to remain an effective force.
> ...


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## pbi (8 Jun 2007)

I don't agree that we should drift back to the days of a lot of little missions scattered all over the place, nor should we engage in any silly, dead-end pursuit of "niche" capabilities that seems so inexplicably attractive to some people. Deploying an effective and complete CF joint force package to an important mission area should still be our focus for deployed ops, and I think it was a great mistake to shut down SCTF.

But, I do think we need to think very hard about the security of our own country, and what forces we need to do this. To me, it would be largely a navy/airforce job, but we would still need a very mobile army component as well. I recently attended a two-week seminar here at CFC on Canadian security issues-some of the presentations dealt with issues such as the effect of climate change and resource scarcity on Canadian security. There are potentially huge issues here, which could drive us very far from our historical focus on expeditionary ops to a much greater emphasis on our own physical security.

Cheers


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