Evidence of meeting #21 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was international.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much. As usual, with such eminent witnesses and detailed presentations, it's difficult to cover everything in a short period of time. I was interested, Professor Hampson, in your analysis regarding the alternative conduct of the Afghan process with or without NATO. Perhaps that's in your paper and it will elaborate.
Professor Regehr, Project Ploughshares, as you pointed out in your paper, initially engaged in disarmament and challenging the international arms trade. We see in Afghanistan fairly low-level arms being used, thankfully, certainly, for Canadian soldiers and others.
Are there any particular areas--outside of nuclear disarmament, which I think is a case of its own--or concerns that you still harbour with respect to the international arms trade? Are there any active files that your organization is working on in that regard, and can you tell us about those?
11:50 a.m.
Co-Founder, Project Ploughshares; Adjunct Associate Professor, Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo; Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
Thank you.
The international arms trade is something on which there's been some reasonably positive news in the sense of international collective attention to it. As you know, through the UN now, there is actually negotiation towards an arms trade treaty, which would set some limits on it. I think the prominent concern is that in regions of conflict there is really no capacity to put clear restraints on the delivery of small arms and the circulation of small arms. In Afghanistan, the old northern alliance groups have been very active in refurbishing their arsenal, so there's a very active rearmament there, and that adds to big concerns about pull-down of international forces and what that would lead to. I've just been talking with a colleague about the fact that in southern Sudan, some of the militia groups are actively involved in rearming. I think within the context of these complex emergencies, it is extremely difficult to put any constraints on the accumulation of weapons by those who still like to look to them as being their fallback position if the political process doesn't go well.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
This is for you, Dr. Regehr, and for Dr. Hampson. We're focusing, of course, on what kind of role Canada would play internationally, and, in my view, hopefully in re-engaging in the UN process.
Can either of you tell us what particular expertise or attributes we have here in Canada that could be brought to bear, first of all, on the international peacekeeping process in terms of capacity building, perhaps through the UN, but also in terms of the kind of potentially unique contribution that Canada could make in operations?
I know that we have a particular type of combat operation in Afghanistan that is unusual for Canada in international matters, and controversial, but is that the way you see us going in the future? Or is there a role for Canada that's more in keeping with its traditional kind of contribution, but recognizing that we live in a different world than we did 25 or 30 years ago?
11:55 a.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
There is obviously a wide range of things that we can do. A lot of it is going to come down to what the political will or appetite is to do certain kinds of things.
I gave a brief example in terms of how we're using some of our naval assets in joint operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean to deal with the problem of piracy. That problem is not going to go away. Arguably, it's going to become a bigger problem, particularly if you see more states failing in the African subcontinent, but also in other parts of the world.
Secondly, I think Canada has a wealth of experience when it comes to combined operations. We don't have three-D just right, but we're probably better at it than some other countries.
As we look to the future--and I stress this in my remarks--international security management is increasingly going to be a pickup game, an ad hoc game involving a combination of perhaps international organizations, regional organizations, and sub-regional organizations, and coalitions of state actors. There are huge problems of coordination and leadership in those kinds of situations. Again, given our track record, I think we clearly have experience in mounting and helping with those kinds of combined operations.
When it comes to the old question about putting troops on the ground in classic peacekeeping kinds of ventures, I think we've moved a long way from that kind of world. In part, it is because the environments that we're going into or will be going into will be failed states, where social, sectarian, ethnic strife is spilling across borders, if things get that bad. That will require interventions with muscle.
In some parts of the world, the regional actors, the regional organizations, will be putting troops on the ground. That certainly seems to be the trend in sub-Saharan Africa. But when the AU does it or ECOWAS does it, that's not to say that they don't need all kinds of pretty sophisticated logistical support and backup, and that again is something we can do.
I also want to stress that there are multiple threats and multiple security challenges. It's very hard to predict. That creates a huge problem when it comes to where you invest scarce resources in terms of re-equipping our armed forces. I think that argues for a diverse approach, for not putting all of your eggs in one basket. And certainly, in today's world and with the kinds of instabilities we're seeing, it argues for not being wedded to what I would call a very old-fashioned view of how we do international peacekeeping.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
And thank you all for being here.
I've probably got three questions. I hope I can get them in.
First of all, Professor Hampson, you talked about the UN using NATO and others. You talked about the international divisions of NATO, which are clear. I would suggest there are huge international divisions, obviously, in the United Nations.
You talked about the success of UN operations. How much of that is attributable to who the UN has turned to, to carry out the UN mandate, people like NATO, as an organization, or the countries of NATO? Who else would the UN turn to? There is no UN capacity to do anything unless they turn to NATO or other organizations or groups of countries.
Noon
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
The fact is the UN is more than just the Security Council and the General Assembly. A large number of specialized agencies take the lead, for example, in electoral assistance management, in development planning, in humanitarian assistance and relief, in refugee relocation, and in drug interdiction, control, and management. There is a wealth of expertise. The UN is doing it. The UN has done it and it has done it successfully.
Our challenge, quite frankly, is to wrap our heads around that fact and recognize that there is a track record and there is a set of institutions that are worth investing in and that we can work with.
NATO is not in what I would call the state-building, reconstruction, peace-building business. It's a collective defence organization that has evolved into a security intervenor, and it can do it well, provided it sticks to that mission. But the problem in a place like Afghanistan is that this mission has changed; it has evolved. It's right now rather unclear exactly what the mission is. Our armed forces have been asked to do all kinds of things, and NATO has been asked to do all kinds of things, for which it, quite frankly, doesn't have a mandate or the capacity.
Noon
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I would respectfully suggest that it's been said to me, and others, I think, that the best tool we have in Afghanistan is the Canadian corporal with his hand out talking to a village elder. I'd suggest maybe particularly Canadian troops, but also Americans and Brits and others, do have a capacity for doing the development and capacity building and so on. In places like Afghanistan, obviously, they're doing it in a very difficult security environment. Acknowledging the good work they do in some of those organizations of the UN, it does take a number of soldiers with that additional capacity of the hand out and the smile and asking what they can do to help build your local capacity.
Would you agree or disagree with that?
Noon
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
I wouldn't disagree with the way you've characterized it if we're talking about the broader challenges of social, economic, and political reconstruction that takes you into areas, functions, responsibilities. With all due respect, our Canadian Forces are very effective in security management broadly defined, but to come back to something I said earlier, it's not an either/or proposition. We're increasingly going to have to look to regional organizations, international organizations, the specialized agencies of the United Nations system to operate in these very complex environments.
Noon
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Yes, and I guess I would agree with that, it's not either/or, and the Canadian Forces, for one organization, do a good job of both.
Mr. Regehr, General Vance said recently that insurgencies aren't defeated, they dissolve, and they dissolve over time, I guess, by bringing together government and the people. And it's becoming more and more clear that what we are doing in Afghanistan is trying to bring together the government and the people. And it's changed from purely, obviously, kinetic operations or more of an emphasis on kinetic operations to governance training and development, that sort of thing.
What do you see as a longer-term role for Canada in Afghanistan in that training development, capacity building, and so on? From your point of view, what should the Canadian Forces look like for peace operations down the road post-Afghanistan?
12:05 p.m.
Co-Founder, Project Ploughshares; Adjunct Associate Professor, Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo; Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, As an Individual
If I could just take up the first point about insurgencies dissolving, I'd have to say that it's not a rapid dissolution process in Afghanistan. One of the difficulties there is that it won't be dissolved by a general appeal to a population. There is an insurgency that has a political base, a political organization, in fact, multiple organizations. I think one of the lessons is that those organizations need to be engaged.
One of the experiences of engagement with insurgencies is that the more they are engaged at a diplomatic level, the more they modify their demands and move from the fringes into the mainstream. When diplomats first made contact with RENAMO in Mozambique, to use an example of an old conflict, those forces were heinous in the extreme and were understood to be that. There were no redeeming features of a political program on their part, but as we know, that force was ultimately engaged, fought an election, didn't win the election, and abided by the results of the election.
Obviously no two conditions are the same. But I think it reinforces the point made, including by General McChrystal, about a high-level settlement. This is not about a corporal making a deal with a village elder; this is about leadership making high-level political settlements, and I think that's one of the areas in which we've failed in Afghanistan.
In the future, when we talk about Canadian engagement in other theatres, I think that's a fundamental thing that we have to understand. We're not going into military operations primarily or into peace-building operations primarily, but we're going into a whole-of-government or three-D effort, the whole thing across. As Foreign Affairs has said, we should not be entering on a conflict prevention basis or an actual intervention basis without a very clear commitment to the high-level political engagement of our diplomats in the process.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Merci beaucoup, monsieur le président.
In the nearly 17 years I've been here, I think we share collectively a massive frustration about conflict prevention. Sometimes one wonders if we've learned anything from Rwanda at all.
Our ongoing challenge is how we move from this ad hoc approach you mentioned, Professor Hampson, to one that is organized and coordinated between diplomacy, development, and defence.
One of my questions is, do you think Canada has a role to play with, or is there an appetite for developing on the diplomatic side, a rapid reaction development team at a regional or sub-regional level? Is there an appetite to do that, and should Canada play a role in achieving that objective?
12:05 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
I think perhaps the term “rapid reaction development” is probably an oxymoron in that the sense that development is usually a long-term—
12:05 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
Oh, diplomatic. Okay.
Canada has been doing a lot of diplomacy, both on an ad hoc and an individual basis. General John de Chastelain, in an individual capacity, for example, has played a critical role in the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process. That has gone well beyond his mandate, the decommissioning of weapons, which has really been the bugbear of that conflict.
We have also been engaged in border management diplomacy through the Dubai process between Afghanistan and Pakistan, working very quietly behind the scenes. One can think of various Canadians in the past who have served as UN special representatives to various conflict zones, where they were playing an important mediation/conflict prevention role.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
This would be sub-regional diplomacy, though—for example, ECOWAS or the African Union. They would have their own sub-regional—
12:10 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
They have their own actors or institutional mechanisms and capacities as well, but often they're looking for help. They're looking for outside assistance, and sometimes it's impossible to identify an individual at the regional level who can play the independent, impartial mediation-brokering role. In terms of conflict prevention, what you're really talking about is robust diplomacy. You're also talking about mediation and negotiation skills.
We do a terrific job as trade negotiators, as mediators in the WTO, and I think we could perhaps be doing a lot more on the diplomacy side if there was an appetite for it.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
What would you need to do to strengthen Foreign Affairs to achieve that goal?
12:10 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
You put resources into it. You create self-identified mediation and conflict prevention units within the department. When we have done it, it's usually on a very ad hoc basis. It's improvised and it's not well resourced.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Should we have a database of that in advance, to be able to identify people with those linguistic and cultural skill sets?
12:10 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
Absolutely, and more than just a database; also identifying capacities within the federal government, the provincial government, and even at the municipal level, because often when you're dealing with these very complex situations, if you're dealing, for example, with a border management problem, as we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, one of the things the parties themselves look to is better mechanisms and instruments for customs and border management.
We have a huge amount of expertise with that in this country.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Keith Martin Liberal Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Are you tapping into the diaspora that lives in Canada?
12:10 p.m.
Chancellor's Professor and Director, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, As an Individual
Diasporas can be a double-edged sword. You may recall that Canada was asked to be the mediator of choice in the Sri Lankan conflict back in the late 1990s. One of the reasons we didn't become involved was because the government at the time felt it was too contentious domestically to be engaged, even though we were then the largest development donor of assistance to Sri Lanka, which is why they turned to us.
