Coercive missions are central to Canada's influence in global matters, regardless of the level of intensity entailed in those operations. Unfortunately, our understanding of the difficulties and costs associated with such missions has been dampened and confused by the prevailing balance of power through much of the last century. We deployed military forces in Europe in a coercive role, to dissuade the Soviet Union and its client states from invading the free and democratic western Europe. We deployed military forces in Cyprus and the Sinai for decades, in purely coercive missions. But with the spectre of war between the nuclear superpowers hanging over such conflicts, they never escalated to the point where the cost in blood and treasure to Canada was deemed too high.We should not confuse that lack of open warfare with success in our aims, however: the underlying conflicts in most of our peacekeeping missions still simmer beneath the surface. In that aspect, Afghanistan isn't so different from the Balkans. It's just that in one instance we've stuck around long enough to get them to at least temporarily forego violent resolution of their conflict, and in the other, we haven't.
Read the whole thing - especially if your name is Bob Fife, Jim Travers, Lawrence Martin or any other number of other mainstream pretenders and pollsters purporting to provide "opinion" and "analysis" to a Canadian public your industry has so thoroughly failed.
Sorry can't bother to filter through this moral exhibitionist feces...when I saw precautionary defensive policies tagged as "coercive" I know the author could never accept the justified violence of a defensive military action.
Another editor's desk military expert with a morbid self defense fear complex...these yellow scats are a dime a dozen.
WL, perhaps I have it backwards, but isn't Damian saying that these so-called defensive actions were in reality "coercive" and that we should not high-tail out of Afghanistan on the basis it is coercive and everything else Canada has done in the past 50 years was not coercive?
"No, instead of abandoning those missions, I'd suggest we simply gird ourselves for their realistic costs and prepare our society accordingly."
Damian Brooks
I too had to translate her verbiage and I'm not sure I understand her correctly.
She seems to have, and this was from a rapid reading only, three types of 'intervention'. There's a) a brute force war agenda, which would be quite successful in its agenda; and b) a coercive objective which I'm assuming isn't asking for surrender but for regime change; and c) compliance-dependent political objectives.
What puzzles me is that she lumps them all together as if they were categorically similar. But they aren't. Remember, the brute force objective in Europe in WWII took five years but the 'compliance-dependent', under the Marshall reconstruction plan took a generation. Same with Japan. Same with Vietnam, interestingly enough. It was brute force and coercive objectives - but the compliance took longer; communism has disappeared as a threat.
So- she's mixing up categories and ignoring time frames. At least - that's from a quick read; I may have missed something.
As for people like that idiot Travers, and Weston, and Fife and all the rest of them - they are brain-dead; their opinions are sitting in one of the old ice-boxes, sealed in undefrosted ice, all from the 1960s, 1970s. They aren't worth a moment's reading..but I confess I sometimes do, and then write angry letters to them; Travers objects to being called a Liberal and insists he is objective, fair and that I misread him.
"Coercive" is not a pejorative in the context of Sullivan's paper, it's another way of saying "compliance dependent." It's one end of a political objectives spectrum, with "Brute Force" at the other (see Figure 1 - Typology of Political Objectives about a third of the way through the post).
So, where evicting Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait was a "Brute Force" political objective, getting him to dismantle his WMD programs was a "Coercive" one.
The most important thing i saw was the issue of resolve.
We want to weaken the enemys resolve, not our own.
The press play a huge part in this effort.
All this talk of Canada pulling out and coming home from Afstan makes me sick. What makes me almost as sick are the flag-wavers who contend that if Canada abandons the mission without other NATO members filling the void it could well spell the end of NATO following which no Canadian would be able to look themselves in a mirror.
All this may well be true but before we stand about pointing fingers at other NATO members who are non-supportive we should bear in mind our own history within NATO. Remember the 70s, 80s and into the 1990s? Who was the NATO laggard? We were for goodness sake! With the exception of one small NATO member no nation of the alliance contributed less than Canada in terms of percentage of GDP dedicated to National Defence. We were perfectly happy to hide behind the skirts of the US knowing full well that "they'll take care of us". What a bunch of ingrates.
So please remind people what country formed the template for laggards in NATO based on our performance during the last 25 years of the Cold War. During those 25 years I was in the Armed Forces and there were many days when I found it difficult to look in the mirror or hold my head high whenever I reflected on how we studiously avoided shouldering our share of the NATO committment.
It's our turn to do some grunt work. Let's not screw it up by whimping out on our allies.
After cursory inspection, I've added Sullivan's paper to my low-priority reading list. A comment noted by Brooks is indicative of the strength of her reasoning:
"Materially weak but resolute targets can thwart a strong state’s ability to achieve coercive objectives simply by refusing to comply no matter how high the cost." (p.505)
Is this statement meaningful? Translate "Materially weak but resolute targets" as "A woman", "a strong state’s" by "a man's" and "achieve coercive objectives" by "***". (DISCLAIMER: any perceived offense derives from observational reality, not the poster’s intent).
As the analogy makes clear, Sullivan has no accurate conception of “cost”.
I found the piece Damian quotes more or less useless. It ignores the historic context around most conflicts and tries to quantify in a numeric way our "chances of sucess" ... the writer should stick to sociology.
I suggest people read history ... and especially the history of conflicts. You'll find your answers there and in the process you'll discover that we are likely to lose Afghanistan and Iraq simply because our people don't have the will to see the occupation of these regions to a satisfactory conclusion.
John Keegan defines the end of any war being the "loss of will" by one side. In most cases, and Keegan should know, this is exactly what happens. In total war conflicts (I refuse to use the terms as per the article because they are not supported or used by most historians)the will of the other side is battered out by violence and destruction. In post-modern conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, "our side" is restrained in that it is battling on behalf of the population it is occupying. We don't fight total war in these cases but "will" is still everything.
Once we wrap our heads around that, we can set more accurate goals by which to judge progress or lack there of. We were occupiers of one sort or another many times ... be it peacekeeping or post-WW2 occupation.
For Americans, it's important for them to understand that the internal fight they are going through right now goes all the way back to the birth of the United States of America ... it's been a festering wound in every major conflict the USA was in (Mexico, Cuba, Phillipines, Vietnam, etc.) ... the country is split between isolationists and those who believe in taking a proactive military role (some call this imperialism; although in pure terms it's not).
Canada, since the era of Trudeau socialism and since massive numbers of non-Anglo immigrants have landed, has slid to a more post-modern European model of opinion on this matter; pacifist. As a result, and given Western decadence and mind-numbing ignorance as far as history and war go, we will not muster the will needed to win Afghanistan. (Imagine the impact the likes of Dion and Layton have on national will to prevail ... and on the will of the Taliban to hang in there)
Note that it is primarily the Anglo-sphere doing the fighting in Afghanistan; but the conflict has poor support at home. For the others, it's even worse ... so they avoid the dirty work. In otherwords, there are very few nations left in the world to take on the ugly low-intensity conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, so we will lose simply because we don't have the will ... even though as Damian says, we hold all the cards.
The price of failure is simply to store it all up for a bigger greater conflict some day ... one in which total war may once again become a reality ... and total war is our gig so I'm not too worried for our side, I'm worried for the civilians on the other side who will suffer by a magnitude that far surpasses anything we are seeing in Iraq or Afghanistan today.
It's my opinion that any nation that goes into hysterics when 6 soldiers get killed by an IED, is a nation about to lose a conflict ... it's got the "will" of a ninny. But, don't back that nation into a corner because then total war becomes the only choice ... and we do total war very well.
paul - very good comments. thanks.
Speaking of conflict - have you ever noticed how the west hangs its hopes on "reformed Islam" as an end to the conflicts throughout the world? Everyone looks at the reformation that took place in Christianity and thinks to themselves "if only Islam would do the same". No one seems to realize that reformation in Christianity was an attempt to get back to the real meaning of Christianity. They took the Bible literally and used it to defend all their theological and social positions. Hence the expression Sola Scriptura. The Bible alone was used to cut through hundreds of years of church tradition and superstitions that had become part and parcel of the Catholic faith.
The same thing is happening now in Islam. Muslim men and women everywhere are searching their Qurans trying to get back to the basics of their faith. Fortunately for Europe reformist Christianity was predominately peaceful despite the power struggles that racked Europe during the transformation from Medieval to Modern Europe. Unfortunately for the world the opposite is true for Islam. The closer the Islamic fundamentalist gets to the original meaning of the Quran the more violent they become. If the west expects reformation in Islam to produce the anything equivalent of the Huguenots, Mennonites, Hutterites or the many sects of Baptist who would move half way round the world rather than pick up a weapon in self defence the west will be waiting a very very long time
especially if your name is Bob Fife, Jim Travers, Lawrence Martin or any other number of other mainstream pretenders and pollsters purporting to provide "opinion" and "analysis" to a Canadian public your industry has so thoroughly failed.
Is it their fault that conservative pundits do nothing more than obsess over who doesn't have enough magnets on their automobile?
Paul,
A thoughtful perspective on our will, but I have to disagree with your final statement.
"The price of failure is simply to store it all up for a bigger greater conflict some day ... one in which total war may once again become a reality ... and total war is our gig so I'm not too worried for our side, I'm worried for the civilians on the other side who will suffer by a magnitude that far surpasses anything we are seeing in Iraq or Afghanistan today."
Einstein said it best "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones"
If we leave the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to fester to the point it develops into total war, then even if we give whomever attacks us a very good thrashing we may wind up with several cities in the west that look very much Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes the civilians in these countries have lots to lose, but we ourselves have a great deal to lose as well.
Wow Robbie ... sometimes your drive-by bitchings lack even the wit of EMR twits.
CanuckInMI: I suppose that perhaps I under-stated my point, because by "backed in a corner" I had in mind that some of our cities would be hit by nukes, or that our economies would be on the verge of collapse because of "jihad" or some such crisis. I can't imagine Muslim nations matching our technology though; and so our reply to would be devastating. Of course we'd suffer ... that's what backed in a corner is intended to mean ... but the destruction we'd cause on the other side would be apocaliptic.
For me, that's what Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel are about ... saving Muslims from themselves and what will happen to them if they begin to suceed in their 1400 year old dreams. We won't lose!
OK men, we're about to launch Canada on another coercive foreign deployment. It's really, really important - or so a hysterical lobby group and/or group of self-anointed pundits has informed us - so pay careful attention as we review the major goals.
Mission 1: coerce a lotta dough from taxpayers pockets
Mission 2: slip most of the loot into the pockets of politically connected contractors, bagmen, lobbyists, swing ridings, ... the usual bunch, and keep repeating that "nothing but the best will do for our men"
Mission 3: keep hammering home that you're spreading peace and democracy throughout the world, you know, for the little children, blah blah, yadda yadda, whatever
Mission 4: wait for mission 3 to either deteriorate into a confused heap of misbegotten idealism, or die a slow death from neglect and apathy
Mission 5: repeat
Sounds like a plan!
The Taliban/Red Mosque have bought into the extreme Wahhabist doctrine of:
"God Bless Hitler"
http://www.n-tv.de/634520.html
Unfortunately, they have drank from a spiritually poisoned well. Whatever Islam may be about, Hitler has nothing to do with it. The sooner the Islamic community comes to grips with this little descent into madness the better.
It appears the Red Mosque adherents would however rather shoot it out than submit to President Musharraf.
40 militants killed in Lal Masjid attack
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/40_militants_killed_in_Lal_Masjid_attack/articleshow/2190529.cms
"It is the final push to clear the mosque of armed militants," Arshad said.
'He said estimates are that about 200 to 300 militants were holed up in the complex and the troops hope to finish it as early as possible.'
I fail to see why you need rocket propelled grenades, petrol bombs, grenades and AK47 if one is 'peacefully praying to God'. This small group of hotheads are hardly the example of a 'religion of peace.'
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP
Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden (Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Paul: I suggest people read history ... and especially the history of conflicts. You'll find your answers there and in the process you'll discover that we are likely to lose Afghanistan and Iraq simply because our people don't have the will to see the occupation of these regions to a satisfactory conclusion. John Keegan defines the end of any war being the "loss of will" by one side. In most cases, and Keegan should know, this is exactly what happens.
Actually, Sullivan fully acknowledges this point, and in fact is attempting to move beyond it. Rather than simply being content with existing theories that state that loss of resolve is the culprit “in most cases,” she proposes a theory that seeks to identify when, precisely, a military campaign is destined to fail due to an “asymmetry of motivation.” She goes on to argue that campaigns with primarily coercive (e.g., policy changes, such as adopting democratic governance) or moderately coercive (e.g., legitimizing and supporting the al-Maliki government) objectives have a higher failure rate because strong-state war-planners often grossly underestimate the extent of their weak-state opponents’ resolve to resist these objectives: “weak actors tend to select themselves into military contests with much stronger adversaries—either by initiating the use of force or refusing to make the concessions that would avert an armed confrontation—only when their value for the issues at stake and their tolerance for costs are extraordinarily high.” (502)
Related to that last point, about weak-state opponents’ extremely high cost-tolerance level and hence resolve, it seems to me that a key point in Sullivan's analysis is this: "Scholars and military leaders have argued that poor strategy choices, domestic political constraints on democratic governments, or failure to commit sufficient resources to the war effort can explain why strong states lose small wars. But differences between the requirements of wars in pursuit of brute force objectives and military operations with coercive aims suggest a more fundamental limitation on the utility of military force."(519) [emphasis mine]
This isn’t to say that, for example, “importing democracy” is undesirable or unachievable, or that brute force serves no legitimate purpose. Rather, the point is that such a coercive objective is exceedingly difficult to achieve—indeed, through any military strategy, but especially through mere military firepower. We are at risk of "losing Afghanistan and Iraq" NOT "simply" because we lack the requisite will, but for the more fundamental reasons that the stated (coercive) objective is largely unamenable to current (brute force) tactics. Unwillingness to acknowledge this point is what will lead to military failure, in Iraq and Afghanistan as in other abandoned asymmetrical conflicts of the past half-century.
"If the west expects reformation in Islam to produce the anything equivalent of the Huguenots, Mennonites, Hutterites or the many sects of Baptist who would move half way round the world rather than pick up a weapon in self defence the west will be waiting a very very long time."
Something I've thought most obvious and have also been pointing out for some time now. Thanks Joe.
Also Joe,
You might find the comment section on the July 8, 2007 posting
"The Advice of One Concerned." interesting.
A'adam: it still comes down to will ... there's and ours. We can't even muster the will to stick with Afghanistan, despite almost every single international body of importance saying it'll take decades of work to stablize the country. The writer simply goes to great length to state the obvious ... she doesn't move beyond historic analysis either; just tries to give it numbers, and she is simply parroting what as already been said again and again by others from the UN, to various think-tanks, to NATO, to individual governments, to the military itself. Anyone who follows the discussion of the past 3 years will have heard it all before ... again, and again, and again.
It's all for nothing though, if the public doesn't have the will.
Paul, I don't think your characterization of her observations is quite fair.
She's saying that will is more of a factor in some types of missions than in others. Where the goals are "Brute Force" oriented, like toppling the Taliban or the Baathists, "will" on both sides is less important than relative military capabilities. But where some degree of compliance on the part of the target is required to meet "Coercive" goals, "will" or resolve takes on a higher importance.
What she's saying is that the two separate schools of thought on what determines success in asymmetrical wars (will vs. strategy/military power) are off base: it's actually about whether your political objectives match up with your strengths or your opponents' strengths.
Damian: I understand that that is what she is saying ... I'm suggesting that her views have been expressed in different ways by many others. It's nothing new. What many are now calling asymmetrical warfare, is actually little more than "occupation" or whatever term you want to give. We've been doing it for a long long time.
The Peace movement and socialists have made "occupation" a bad (stigmatized) term ... so other terms have been invented, but the reality is that we are occupiers ... and for a good cause as far as I'm concerned. No different than Korea, Post-war Europe, the Golan, etc.
Having read much by military thinkers, I don't think that any in the West are out of touch with the modern reality ... even Rumsfeld spoke of long term protracted "soft footprint" conflicts. His last essay spoke in clear terms about exactly the same concepts expressed in the piece you quote. Military doctrine has embraced long term multifaceted conflicts which go way beyond might ... it's the public and as a result opportunistic politicians who have not. It's the pacifist public and leftist politicians who are into body-counts.
The piece you used is accurate as far as I'm concerned ... but nothing new in terms of what others have been saying since 911. I don't personally believe that there are "two different views". Will, strategy, and military power are all part of a complex mix to be applied in different doses, over time, to face different realities ... I doubt you'll find any "pro-Afghan conflict" organization or individual who thinks otherwise; including the military.
I doubt you'll find any "pro-Afghan conflict" organization or individual who thinks otherwise; including the military.
Everyone pays lip service to the other side of the equation, but most see either one aspect or the other as dominant, when it really depends upon what the objectives are. As far as the military's concerned, I don't think the U.S. armed services have fully grasped the implications of domestic will on 4GW, and I'm quite sure the CF hasn't.
I think that the reason why we have not seen any real terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11 is because such an attack would float support instead of diminshing it.
Admiral Yammamoto was right when he thought his attack against Pearl Harbour merely awoke the lion and AQ action now is limited to Iraq, Afghanistan and other states. Even the very inept attempts at bombs recently in Britain work towards improving isolationism in the US.
While the work we do in Iraq and Afghanistan is hard and expensive in lives lost, ours, theirs and the innocent, this is actually the cheap plan. We fail here, millions will die, mostly their millions.