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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
The Existential Challenge The authors close their book by evaluating Canada’s remaining options in Afghanistan. Given the appointment in October 2007 of the Manley Committee to look at Canada’s options for Afghanistan, this analysis is a timely contribution. After identifying and airbrushing several policy options, they pose a more fundamental, existential challenge to the notion of expeditionary nation building stabilization forces: “To put the question bluntly, has the time passed when a Western army can intervene with force outside its own society?” 6 In other words, despite our best intentions, is what we want to do even within the realm of political possibility? This question strikes at the heart of our fundamental political question: How can our army fight and win complex wars in tribal societies that don’t live by our rules, rules that are so ingrained we don’t even notice them any more? The authors do an excellent job of tracing the historical path that determined our engagement in Afghanistan, identifying important institutional flaws in the Canadian foreign and defence establishments, and yet they find themselves unable to answer the most important question they raise: Is it even possible to do what we seem to want to do? Endnotes 1. Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar, (Toronto: Penguin Group, 2007). 2. 195. 3. 264. 4. Ibid. 5. 263. 6. 301. THE MESS THEY MADE: THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER IRAQ DYER, Gwynne, McClelland & Stewart; 1 st Edition, 2007. 280 pages. $21.99 CAN Reviewed by Gregory Liedtke There is little doubt that, while the military invasion was a resounding success, the American occupation of Iraq has been marred by an almost incomprehensible level of corruption, mismanagement, and overconfidence. The brutal civil war between the various religious and ethnic groups has dire implications for the integrity of Iraq and the stability of the Middle East as a whole. Despite the recent surge of troop strength, American political and military leaders appear utterly incapable of bringing peace and prosperity to Iraq. As author Gywnne Dyer argues in The Mess They Made, all this indicates that the Americans have clearly lost the war in Iraq and the real question is what will happen next? Overall, the picture presented is one of optimism, even if only in the long run. Dyer contends that the best solution is for the Americans to withdraw completely, leaving events in both Iraq and the greater Middle East to unfold as they will. The oil, he assures his readers, will continue to flow regardless of what might transpire. Aside from this commodity, the “region is of little economic or Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008 137
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The The Canadian Canadian Army Army
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial—Soldi
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EDITORIAL—SOLDIERS AS WRITERS Maj
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ARMY UPDATE—THE JADEX PAPERS Back
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AMBUSHES, IEDS AND COIN: THE FRENCH
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Since 1945, only one major expediti
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Casualties It is difficult to deter
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March 1846, in which the insurgency
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French fortified line around the De
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an unsustainable level while using
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The FLN clearly adjusted its milita
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The overall resort to a system of d
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proposed by researchers like La Cou
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MANOEUVRE WARFARE THEORY AND COUNTE
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is tempo—the ability of one force
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In Principles, Imperatives and Para
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Canadian draft placed a significant
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to safe havens with the Morice Line
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THE FUTURE OF CANADIAN AIRBORNE FOR
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Political manoeuvring and military
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sustainment air corridors, and to s
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offensive capability would be requi
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Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spr
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Immediately after the war, there wa
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transportable brigade group, includ
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spectrum, and included global opera
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strung soldiers of the unit adequat
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45. Sean M. Maloney, “The Mobile
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the super-power of the age. Few gov
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By 7 December 2001, the Taliban had
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ideology.” 51 With the overthrow
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obvious abilities is to make a grav
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We fight them with schools, educati
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TOMORROW’S FIREPOWER Captain Ian
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dominate the much larger and more c
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Even new terminology fails to re-es
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Effects Oriented. A complete close
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armoured squadron, administration c
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system. However, the development of
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31. Today, the role of the infantry
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somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000
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Definitions Before moving on to try
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It is already clear that consensus
Page 87 and 88: increase in the levels of global co
Page 89 and 90: contracting of MPFs to provide arme
Page 91 and 92: What has been demonstrated in this
Page 93 and 94: Domestic regulation in the US has t
Page 95 and 96: Concluding Remarks This article has
Page 97 and 98: the engagement of the Canadian Mano
Page 99 and 100: 42. Isenberg, A Fistful of Contract
Page 101 and 102: into Belgium, General Charles Foulk
Page 103 and 104: anks (mostly from the artillery),
Page 105 and 106: Shot from vantage point of Nixon in
Page 107 and 108: town. Following this, the much-cele
Page 109 and 110: Germans as to what was happening. F
Page 111 and 112: Canadian Military History (Spring 2
Page 113 and 114: On 1 August 1944, Major Dextraze co
Page 115 and 116: NOTE TO FILE—REACHING INTO THE OR
Page 117 and 118: In the years after 1945 OR became h
Page 119 and 120: narrow application. “If aircraft
Page 121 and 122: assistant” for the military. 34 T
Page 123 and 124: — BOOK REVIEWS — TERRIBLE VICTO
Page 125 and 126: CALEPIN D’ESPOIR DUFRESNE, Daniel
Page 127 and 128: as a “Villa Rogati dwelling” (p
Page 129 and 130: writes that the charge of the 21st
Page 131 and 132: Reserves the reader could put this
Page 133 and 134: superiority of numbers to overcome
Page 135 and 136: A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH WAR—ENDIN
Page 137: THE UNEXPECTED WAR: CANADA IN KANDA
Page 141 and 142: D-DAY: JUNO BEACH, CANADA’S 24 HO
Page 143 and 144: His dispassionate analysis of the b
Page 145 and 146: PEACEKEEPING INTELLIGENCE: NEW PLAY
Page 147 and 148: Thankfully, although hard-hitting i
Page 149 and 150: Chapter Four ends with the death of
Page 151 and 152: noting he did not fill the requirem
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