The Canadian Army Journal

136
Methodological Problems with Recent History
There are methodological problems that mar the account itself. It is questionable
whether the chief of staff of former Liberal defence ministers is in a position to make an
objective assessment of events. Not surprisingly, the senior members interviewed, such
as John McCallum and Bill Graham, are all portrayed with impeccable explanations of
their motives. Nearly all of these explanations are transmitted unquestioned to the
reader as historical fact. The unique nature of the interview data makes it difficult to
question the accounts given without access to the other players involved and
documentary evidence. This asymmetry of information allows the authors to lend great
credence to single-source accounts, a method which is risky when reconstructing from
human memories, accounts of events that are otherwise undocumented. An indication
of some carelessness with the facts is the blatantly false claim that over forty-five
soldiers died “in the first few months” of the mission in Kandahar. 2
The Emperor Has No Clothes
One of the most important contributions this book brings to the defence community
is a critique of the defence establishment and the public service’s ability to achieve
results demanded by its government and its citizens. The fault lines between the
departments are exposed. The dysfunctional bureaucracy in Ottawa has a debilitating
effect when Canada’s strategy is to leverage governance, development and security
lines of operation in an integrated approach to both reconstruction and counterinsurgency
operations. In such a world, the political leaders feel let down by their
experts and exposed, naked, in a policy world seemingly beyond the reach of their
leadership. Canada’s Foreign Service is portrayed as so dysfunctional that the
government had to have its new 2005 foreign policy paper written by an Oxford
academic with no official public service role. Defence is heavily criticized for the quality
of the advice it gave successive Liberal defence ministers: “The advice that Canada’s
political leaders received from officials in National Defence was persistently wrong and
consistently immune to correction even when the evidence didn’t fit. What explains this
obsession with the United States?” 3 For the authors, the answer lies in the seduction of
privileged access to the latest toys and information in the defence market. Furthermore,
“The CF relies on the U.S. military not only for doctrine but also for technology,
equipment, training, and most of all, for approval.” 4 What the analysts ignore is that on
a more fundamental level, Canada’s security is guaranteed by the United States; their
capabilities, and their paternal interest in keeping Canada safe. If Canadians cannot
imagine a dangerous world where we are vulnerable, it is likely because we are
unwittingly shaded under the umbrella of American military hegemony: Having been
sheltered for so very long, we no longer recall the vagaries of living in a dangerous world.
This is not to say that we owe the Americans a great deal for their protection, as the
former American Ambassador to Canada states, “It is overwhelmingly in our interests to
work with you.” 5 Canada’s military leaders realize that Canadian national defence and
sovereignty is intimately linked to our continental situation; NORAD, NATO and other
military level links render our national defence establishments highly intertwined. These
structural links are not the fault of the defence community, rather the result of longstanding
political arrangements that have been maintained over sixty years of
government policy.
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008