National Defence Committee on May 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Good morning and welcome to the 17th meeting of the Standing Committee on National Defence. Pursuant to standing order 108(2), we continue our study of the role of Canadian soldiers in international peace operations after 2011.

We have with us Mr. Jack Granatstein.

You have the floor, Mr. Granatstein for five to ten minutes, and after that the members of our committee will be able to engage in discussion with you. Thank you for being with us.

[Dr. Jack Granatstein, Senior Research Fellow, Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen.

I first wrote on peacekeeping 50 years ago, when I was a fourth-year cadet at the Royal Military College. I did a long undergraduate thesis on the subject. I was then a true believer in the virtues of peacekeeping, but within half a dozen years I had become a skeptic. Fifty years later, I'm afraid I remain a skeptic.

Why is that? The reasons are pretty clear: the political paralysis and continuing administrative inefficiencies of the UN; the overwhelming lack of political will in New York to resolve crises that have led to peacekeeping operations that never end; the Canadian public's belief that peacekeeping is cost-free, when in fact it has resulted in the deaths of more than 120 Canadian servicemen; the Canadian public's belief that all that is required for peacekeeping is a blue beret, a belief that has greatly impacted the Canadian Forces for decades as governments have eagerly seized on this myth to cut the defence budget; and finally, the public attitude that persists that all the Canadian Forces should do is benign blue-beret peacekeeping, rather than robust operations of any kind.

Nonetheless, Canada did do peacekeeping, and the Canadian Forces were very good at it. It was never a major priority of the government and the military, however, no matter what white papers may have said or what Canadians believed. UN and other peace operations never absorbed more than 10% of budgets and personnel.

Moreover, we did peace operations not out of altruism, but because they served western interests, as at Suez in 1956, the Congo in 1960, and Cyprus in 1964. We did them because we had an expeditionary military geared to operating with NATO, a force that had good logistics and communication skills while not many other smaller states did. And we did them because the public liked peacekeeping. It did not divide Canadians the way the world wars or Korea had, for instance.

It's a cliché to say that the world has changed since the end of the Cold War, but like most clichés, it's true. It has changed, and so have peace operations, which are now much more robust and much more difficult. The United Nations record in dealing with peace enforcement is, if anything, worse even than its spotty record in handling the more benign forms of peacekeeping. That is, of course, why the UN has increasingly subcontracted its operations to organizations such as NATO or the Organization for African Unity. Generally, these organizations have fared better. NATO more or less resolved the situation in former Yugoslavia and is trying to do so in Afghanistan. The OAU, its members' militaries much less effective than NATO's, has had no success in Darfur. I see no sign that the UN will be able to mount effective, robust operations at any time. Certainly the operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo offers little reason for optimism.

My pessimism is not meant to suggest that Canada should opt out of all peace operations. There are two things that should determine whether we participate: the country's national interests and the capabilities of the Canadian Forces.

Our national interests are pretty clear. Canada must defend its territory, its people, and its unity. It must work to strengthen the economic welfare of its citizens. And as a liberal democracy, Canada must cooperate with its friends in advancing democracy and freedom. These interests require that we focus first on our own territory, then on North America and the western hemisphere, and then on areas of the world like the Middle East or southwest Asia, where conflicts are likely to expand and threaten us all.

As an aside, the Afghan mission, not a peace operation, is justified, in my view, because the region is so volatile, and there are nuclear weapons in the neighbouring states.

As another example, nearer to us, Haiti cannot be allowed to slip further into chaos. We have national interests at play there. Alongside these national interests, we have humanitarian values that must be considered, as is true in both Afghanistan and Haiti.

But we can do nothing without a capable military. At the beginning of the 1990s, for example, the Canadian Forces was in a state of rust-out, its strength sapped by overuse and a failure to invest in equipment. The budget cuts after 1995 made matters worse, and it has taken Herculean and expensive efforts to rebuild capacity.

We now have a small, very capable army, navy, and air force, but the operative word for all three is small. The CF has been strained to the breaking point by the efforts involved in sustaining a 2,800-person force in Afghanistan. Twenty years ago, Canadians talked optimistically of deploying a brigade overseas. Today we struggle to sustain the commitment of a force half the size.

This is not good enough for a nation of Canada’s standing, and if we want to be able to play a role in peace operations or in coalition operations of any kind or in the defence of Canada and North America, we are far from finished the rebuilding of the Canadian Forces. The situation is better than it was in 2005, but until numbers are increased, and ships, aircraft, and armoured vehicles are contracted and acquired, the process of rebuilding will not be complete.

What is clear to me is that it is important that we carefully consider national interests and capabilities in every deployment we wish to make. Not every UN operation is good. Not every non-UN operation is bad. Some people have suggested that only the UN is good and that everything touched by the United States must be bad. This is flatly wrong. The proper test to determine Canadian participation is an assessment of national interest and Canadian Forces capability. Will it serve our interests, broadly speaking, to participate? Can we do the job? Those are the key questions to ask.

In the Congo and Darfur I believe that the answer was and is no, notwithstanding the humanitarian needs. White troops that are dependent on a long logistical chain and troops that require special training and equipment are what we have, and they are not necessarily useful there. Better to make a cash contribution or to offer aid than to deploy the CF on the wrong mission.

We should, however, be willing to offer military assistance to peace operations if there is strong political will at the UN or among our allies. We should be willing if the funds are committed. We should be willing if the host nation or nations agree to accept foreign soldiers on their soil and demonstrably want to resolve the crisis. We should be willing if the exit strategy is clear or if a withdrawal date is stated in advance by the UN or by our Parliament. We should be willing if the Canadian Forces can do the job and if the mission serves Canada’s interests. And it must be taken as a given that we should be willing if the troops we deploy will have the right equipment and training and the requisite numbers to achieve the operation’s purposes.

Only if these principles are in place should the Government of Canada send its men and women abroad. In other words, let us not any longer rely on platitudes and myths. Let us be honest and modest. We are not a moral superpower. We are not divinely gifted peacekeepers. We are not neutral. We ought never to make virtually automatic commitments to the United Nations or other peace operations. Again, from 1956 to 1967, we did. We need, instead, hard-headed, realistic assessments of our situation and interests, and Parliament should be required to approve all deployments. Public support is essential, and the House of Commons must be involved in such decisions.

If Canada wishes to play a role in future peace operations, some of which will certainly involve combat and casualties, then the government must provide the requisite funding to ensure success. So a peace operation, yes, but only if it is something we can do and something that is right for us.

The task of the Canadian government, any Canadian government, is to properly assess the factors involved and to provide what is needed to make successful operations a certainty.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

I will give the floor to Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Granatstein, it's very good to see you. You never disappoint, I must say, in terms of your comments. I appreciated very much what you had to say.

We really have a situation where, on the one hand, Canada may be called upon because of NATO, the EU, or just western powers, in general, to respond to certain issues. The other side of the coin is our support for international law, human rights, humanitarianism, and the sorts of traditional Canadian values in terms of our foreign policy. In your comments you mentioned that maybe it's sort of like the Australian model, suggesting that we maybe need to stay closer to home in this hemisphere.

Could you elaborate? I certainly concur with you that we need to have.... We have the armed forces at a high tempo at the present time, and we don't want to lose that. But at the same time, the national interest is dictated by what we believe is in our best interests in the hemisphere.

I was interested in your comments particularly with regard to Haiti. Could you expand on why you think that is important?

What about this issue of NATO versus some of the more traditional things we talk about--international human rights? How is it that we come down on one side or the other on issues such as that?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Thank you, sir.

First, you talk about tempo. I don't think we can sustain the present tempo. The army cannot, in my view. We need a period of R and R to stop people from doing five deployments in Afghanistan, which will be the case by the time we get out. We can't sustain that. The tempo is something that must be slowed, whatever happens.

I obviously have a preference for a NATO operation over a UN operation, simply because it will be better led. It will be more efficient. It will probably be more politically attuned to us than the United Nations has been. UN operations, by and large, have been a shambles, and there's not much chance of them improving, given the political realities in New York. If there are two operations on the table, I would take the NATO one rather than the UN one for the practical command, control, and political reasons.

My preference is that we think in terms of the hemisphere first. We are part of the western hemisphere. We are part of North America. The government's current defence policy is called the Canada First defence strategy. It does not seem to me that is misnamed. That should be our policy. What affects us? What is directly in our interest?

Something close is in our interest, in general, more than something on the other side of the world. I qualified that in my comments by saying that some parts of the world are very dangerous and we have a clear national interest in stopping war from exploding. But in general, in North America, the Caribbean, the hemisphere, that's where our interests should lie.

A place like Haiti, which is in chaos, and was in chaos before the earthquake, is a threat to us because of the flood of illegal immigrants it can produce, because of the chaos it can engender, because of the disease and the generalized mess that can spread everywhere. It is not in our interest to permit that; it's not in our interest to see that continue. If we can help, then clearly we should.

Does that require the military, necessarily? Perhaps not. Perhaps it needs a more focused, better-funded CIDA to go in and do a major job of work in a place like Haiti. Those are questions the government has to decide. But I think that location, that crisis, is something of real concern to us.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

So the need for political economic stability in the region is obviously critical.

We hear this term a lot around here called “whole-of-government approach”. Could you comment on that?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

One wishes it would work. We have serious tensions between the Department of National Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs. We have tensions between both of those places and the PCO and the PMO. We do not seem particularly able to get our act together, and it would be a good thing if we could, obviously. I'm not quite sure how one achieves this, but we have not exactly distinguished ourselves thus far in achieving a whole-of-government approach to Afghanistan, for example.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

The other term that's used, whether or not we can continue that, is the so-called three-D approach.

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Again, I think that's what we should strive for. We do want to have, as much as we can, all of the arms of government working together and cooperating in a mission. That is what we should be striving for. It's very hard to achieve, because we don't necessarily have the people, the money, the abilities at home and abroad to make this work very effectively.

We're not alone in this. Almost no country seems to be able to do it. It's pretty tough to get all arms of a western government to cooperate with each other. But I think it is a goal we should strive for and should continue to strive for. We should be working to force our arms of government to cooperate together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bachand, the floor is yours.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Granatstein. First, I would like to ask you a few questions about Afghanistan.

In your statement, you justified our involvement in Afghanistan on the basis of our national interests, that is to say that it is a volatile region and that its neighbours have nuclear weapons.

It is the first time I hear this. Usually, people would say that we went to Afghanistan with a UN mandate to restore peace there had been compromised by the presence of the Talibans and of al-Qaeda.

Do you believe that the fact this region is volatile and its neighbours have nuclear weapons is the definition of our national interests and justifies our involvement in Afghanistan?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Yes, I do. I think it serves our national interest to try to pacify...to help to pacify that region.

With Iran with nuclear weapons, with Pakistan with nuclear weapons, with the Taliban crossing the Afghan-Pakistan border as freely as they do, this is a very serious concern to us as a member of the world community--to us, who are worried about a region that is critical, that can explode, that can lead to a global war if we're not careful. That has to be a concern to us.

Sure, we're in Afghanistan for other reasons. We went in first because of al-Qaeda. We do have substantial concerns about the human rights of people in Afghanistan. We dislike chaos and terrorism, and we should, and do, try to combat them. But I think we need to see the big picture as well. The big picture is scary people with nuclear weapons. That has to be a concern to us.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Did I hear you say that Iran already has the nuclear bomb?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

If it doesn't happen right now, it will within the next one to two years.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

If I understand correctly, you say that national interests can change. At the beginning of a conflict--as was the case when we went there in 2002—we may say that we went there to restore peace and to fight al-Qaeda and the Talibans.

How do you take account of the possible evolution of our national interests during the conflict? Is your new approach about weapons and about neighbours having nuclear weapons part of our new national interests?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Sir, I don't think our national interests change. Almost by definition, national interests stay the same for long periods of time.

Canada's national interests are to defend our territory, our people. That's our first and basic national interest. It's true for any nation, anywhere.

The second national interest is that we want to be as well off economically as we can make ourselves. That continues.

The third national interest is that we are a democratic state. We have historically worked with our friends to protect and advance democracy and freedom. That, it seems to me, is what we are doing today in Afghanistan. The tactics may change. The reasons we're doing certain things may change. But in my view, the basic interest is and must remain the defence of freedom and democracy at home and in the world.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Do you believe that Canadian soldiers should stay in Afghanistan after 2011? If not, do you agree with Parliament's decision to end the role of the combat group in 2011?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

I didn't think that Parliament decided we should stop the combat group in 2011; it said we should take it out of Kandahar.

I began my answer to Mr. Wilfert by saying that I thought our troops had been over-extended, in effect, that we had put too much of a strain on the army in sustaining the battle group in Afghanistan. I do believe that. I think a very good case could be made for bringing the battle group home, but I do not think we should get out of Afghanistan completely. It would make very good sense for us to maintain the provincial reconstruction team with a military component. It would make very good sense for us to keep our operational mentors and liaison team in Afghanistan. It would be very good if we provided more trainers for Afghanistan, and I would like to see us keep our helicopters there, which are of great use to our friends and allies. In other words, I think we have spent enough money and enough blood that we deserve to stay in Afghanistan to help finish the job.

We may not be able to do it with an infantry battle group, but I think we should stay in other areas.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Earlier, you talked about subcontracting tasks to NATO and to the African Union. I would like to know what you think of the European Union having taken over from NATO in Bosnia. There are tensions at this time between NATO and the European Union because the EU is developing up its own ESDP—its own European Security and Defence Policy.

How do you view the cohabitation of NATO and the European Union?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

It's an uneasy cohabitation. The EU did not have great success in trying to deal with the former Yugoslavia's crisis. NATO had to go in and do the job.

The idea of trying to duplicate NATO's functions in Europe strikes me as a needless and wasteful effort on the part of the Europeans. It probably can be made to work, but to my mind it's not worth the effort. NATO functions, and it functions well. It is a good thing. It needs fixing in some areas, particularly in the areas that concern us, frankly. I was involved in a study that came out a month ago on what needs to be done to fix NATO. I think there are things that can be done to make it work better, but the idea of duplicating it by creating a European Union security force strikes me as a waste of time and effort.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you. Merci.

Mr. Atamanenko, you have the floor.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your knowledge with us, sir.

With regard to Afghanistan, I'll just ask a couple of questions. In your opinion, what can we learn from our mission there? You've touched upon this already. You mentioned it was in our national interest to pacify Afghanistan. Is that, in your opinion, synonymous with a military victory? If not, then how do we do that?

With regard to NATO being a subcontractor of sorts for the UN, this is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Now it's in Afghanistan, and theoretically it could be in other parts of the world. Do you see that as a role for an organization that was developed to counter the Soviet threat?

In regard to NATO's participation in Afghanistan, one of my criticisms has always been that it's not fair to have a number of countries and only a handful of them doing the brunt of the work and suffering heavy casualties, while the others have other missions. I am wondering what your thoughts are on that. Once we belong to an alliance, should we not all take part and share in all of the work that has to be done?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Let me deal with the NATO question first, if I may.

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I mean, the implicit point you're making is that everybody should contribute, and contribute equally. I agree entirely. If NATO makes a decision to go out of area or to have an operation in the North Atlantic treaty area itself, then it seems to me that when that decision is taken it must be made clear that all the members participate equally. If you can't contribute troops to fight, then you pay more money, then you make a serious contribution in other ways. But there is no shirking. It's either an alliance or it's not. That was one of the absolute main points in that study that I referred to, that the Conference of Defence Associations and the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute released last month. I think it's critical that NATO operations be borne equally by NATO.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

So in the future, if we undertake a similar operation, would it be then your advice that we lay conditions down and say either we all go into combat or we don't?

[Dr. Jack Granatstein]

Yes, that would be my advice. But I think we have to be clear that it'll bounce back on us because there will be an operation that we may not want to fight in, but we will then be in the position of being dragged along by the rest of NATO. So it cuts two ways.

Yes, our friends and allies have let us down in NATO, but let's be clear: we have not always been the best of NATO allies in the past ourselves.

Should NATO go out of area? Ideally not, but who else can? That's the question. It seems to me that in some cases—Afghanistan is a perfect example—NATO was really the only thing that was willing to do it. Why? Because it served the national interests of the member nations of NATO, including Canada, because that area was too volatile to be allowed to slide further into chaos. So it seems to me that it's a good thing that there is some organization that is willing to do those kinds of dirty jobs. The United Nations couldn't.