THE AFGHANISTAN DEBATE WARMS UP

James F. Keeley and John R. Ferris

This issue of The Journal of Military and Strategic Studies presents a number of pieces focusing on Afghanistan and on Canada’s involvement there. The Afghanistan deployment has become one of the most significant exercises of Canadian military power abroad since Korea, much more so than the1991 Gulf War or the Kosovo operation. As such, it has generated a considerable amount of press commentary, and controversy within the public realm as well as within the ranks of the Liberal party, which in the form of the previous government initiated our involvement.

A previous editorial addressed several arguments that were inadequate or ill-considered as a basis either to oppose or to sustain that involvement. This issue seeks to contribute to the public and policy discussion in a more positive way, by providing a set of articles of varying perspectives which will illuminate the nature of Canada’s involvement and the issues it presents, both in the field and at home.

At home, for example, any government justification for our presence in Afghanistan must cope with strong tendencies in Canadian popular thinking, such as:

1. Many Canadians still are strongly wedded to the image of the Canadian military as peacekeepers, operating essentially as neutrals to separate two warring foes. This very traditional concept of peacekeeping, increasingly challenged in its own right over the last decade and a half in the Balkans (but also as early as the 1960s in the UN’s Congo operation), obviously does not fit Afghanistan, where we not only bear arms and use them vigorously, but do so in support of one side in that struggle. Whether or not, or under what conditions, Canadians will accept as legitimate or necessary the use of force outside of this old and limited concept of peacekeeping will have significant implications for future Canadian involvement in UN peacekeeping operations, much less operations of other types.

2. There may be some confusion in Canadian minds concerning our involvement in Afghanistan and its connection – or lack thereof – to US operations in Iraq. It may be that a disinclination to make distinctions – to see both as American wars – and a negative view of the United States overall, contributes to Canadian un-ease. Whether the Afghanistan operation can be distinguishable from other conflicts, including those that may, with or without good cause, be lumped under the more general sobriquet of “the war on terror,” will be a significant factor in shaping public thinking and thus government policy.

3. It maybe that, much as the American public saw little stake in Somalia in the early 1990s, and thus little reason to risk American blood and treasure there, the Canadian public sees little public interest to be served in our current involvement, or perhaps in any significant Canadian involvement, in Afghanistan.

In the field, a variety of actors supports the Afghani government, which itself does not possess a well-defined, highly-coherent or highly-capable state apparatus, but rather reflects political coalitions and coalitions with local strongmen. NATO is there. The US is there in various forms and through various agencies. A legitimate question to ask as a consequence is whether an overall concept of and control over operations unites these actors into a coherent whole. The alternative may be a set of actors pursuing disparate objectives through uncoordinated means, and tripping over each other on a regular basis. The question of handling opium growing and trading operations in Afghanistan might serve as an example.

We hope that the articles in this collection will shed some light on these and other issues.