Thank you for your question.
It covers a massive body of knowledge and work, but I'll try and boil it down for you.
As we contemplate operations, as we contemplate engaging in an operational area of any type, there are a number of military objectives at stake. Gender-based analysis plus essentially ensures that we consider all aspects of the vulnerable population as we contemplate those military objectives.
In other words, if we don't peer through the lens and assess the military challenge ahead of us without looking at the population that's often hidden from us, particularly in a counterinsurgency environment or an environment where we are trying to set the conditions for the re-establishment of governance, the capacity for development to occur.... Essentially, what we try to do is set the conditions for the re-establishment of the social, political and economic fabric. It's one of the principal tasks of the military. If you conduct your operations such that you jeopardize that to occur, you could not only harm vulnerable populations, but you also may not be addressing some of the very factors that are causing society to have been torn apart or be suffering through an insurgency.
We learned this first-hand in Afghanistan. In nations like that, you typically only deal with one part of the population, namely, the male part, and oftentimes, only a narrow band of males who speak English. If you go into a country that is having a nationwide crisis, that has been at war for 30 years, that is suffering immensely, and sits at the bottom of any United Nations indices on human growth and development, and you only speak to the male English speakers, you're probably not speaking to the most virtuous and needy part of society.
To be able to be a positive factor in helping to solve the military crisis in a counterinsurgency or anything that involves the population, we learned very quickly that you have to take account of civil society and all of the things that are represented by some of these vulnerable populations.
On my sense of the way ahead, I'll give you a particular case in point.
We contemplate what will happen in Iraq in the months and years to come as the coalition turns its mind towards the operations necessary to liberate Mosul from ISIL. Mosul is a city of 750,000 people, which has been invested by ISIL, in terms of its defence, for 14 to 17 months. It will potentially require a significant effort for Iraqi security forces to free that town.
Through our train, advise, and assist function, one of the things I think we can do in the assist role is provide aid. We don't have total knowledge, which is one of the reasons that indigenous forces are best used to take care of the business themselves. They have to look at that city, how to free it, liberate it, and ultimately how to help it sustain whatever goes on through the lens of everybody involved, including the vulnerable populations. I think that will be incredibly important. This will manifest itself in the military operations of the coalition in terms of how to handle a massive exodus of non-combatants and refugees.
What is the best way to do that? How do we anticipate what might happen to them at the hands of ISIL as they try to leave, as human shields try to depart, and so on? How do you contemplate an operation where there's a vulnerable population that may be subject to considerable use of chemical weapons as long as the last stand holds? I'm painting a picture for you of what could come to pass.
All that is to say we understand better now—we've had a fair bit of practice at it through our UN experiences in Afghanistan and now in Iraq—these conflicts that don't lend themselves to an end, because two militaries clash and the fighting is won by one side or the other, and then they sort of get on with rebuilding things. It doesn't work that way anymore. You are in among the population. The population is in jeopardy.
Finally, as we look at how Canada will engage in operations in the future, we find that one of the things we can bring to bear, as we are doing in Iraq, is to enable efforts as countries try to maintain stability or re-establish stability, whether under the auspices of the UN Security Council resolution or not. If we are called in to support or help, we have enablers. Our best enablers, of course, are Canadians who understand not only conflict but also best practices.
Equipment is good, but people are really good. If we have Canadian Armed Forces members equipped to help, whether they're conducting UN operations or conducting security operations or even operations such as those the Iraqi security forces are doing in Iraq, and, among the other things we do, we aid them in this domain and assist them in the planning and contemplation of vulnerable populations while operations are being done, then I think we will achieve greater success in the end. It's not necessarily a function of making the military solution happen quickly and easily; it's hard, and what you leave behind is actually more important. Something better has to occur as a result of the military operation. So this is one way of making sure that happens.