Justin Massie

Regional strategic subcultures: Canadians and the use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq

The ongoing debates surrounding Canada’s post-September 2001 international security policy raise fundamental questions regarding the nature of Canada’s strategic culture(s). On the one hand, to argue, as some have, that Canada’s national unity is threatened by regional or linguistic divides about the legitimacy of the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests the absence of a pan-Canadian strategic culture. Canada’s military operation in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar has been criticized by the Bloc Québécois (BQ), the Liberal Party, and the New Democratic Party (NDP). Had an election occurred in the spring of 2007, Chantal Hébert commented, foreign policy would have been a contentious issue. It could have “turned into a referendum on the future of the Afghan mission,” with the likely event of strengthening “the Bloc Québécois’ hand in Quebec and consolidat[ing] Liberal and NDP support elsewhere, all at the expense of Harper’s dream of a majority” (Hébert 2007). In July 2007, in the wake of the largest overseas deployment of Quebec-based troops since the Korean War, others feared strong reactions in Quebec to the death of soldiers named “Tremblay,” “Gagnon,” or “Potvin,” a sentiment considered most likely to be exploited by Quebec separatists (Castonguay 2007). Regarding the war in Iraq, Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Bernard Landry saw in the March 2003 protests in Montreal the expression of two solitudes: “It means that there really are two nations in Canada. Those who did not know it see it well. [...] We see here...that the Québécois form a nation and that this nation must accede to international instances” (quoted in Larocque 2003). Another interpretation of the “two solitudes” was provided by Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh, who observed that “more and more, Canada is becoming a two-nation country: the Ottawa nation – with its aggressive anti-Americanism – and the nation of Alberta” (Robitaille 2003a). Indeed, while the Bloc and the PQ were pleased with former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s decision to forgo a role in the American-led Iraq war, Alberta’s Premier Ralph Klein sent a personal letter to George W. Bush congratulating him for his “exemplary leadership” and linked Iraq to the threat posed by international terrorism (Alberts 2003; Robitaille 2003a). These regional/linguistic divisions could in fact account for historian and former Liberal MP John English’s observation to Chrétien that “the decision to stay out of the war has averted a potential major national unity crisis” (quoted in Goldenberg 2006: 297). On the other hand, recent developments regarding Canada’s war in Afghanistan suggest the existence of common principles shared across the country vis-à-vis the legitimacy to use military force internationally; that is, a pan-Canadian strategic culture. For instance, BQ leader Gilles Duceppe recently softened his position regarding the war. While he threatened in December 2006 19

Au service de l'unité : Le rôle des mythes en politique étrangère canadienne

L’un des aspects curieux de la politique etrangere canadienne est que plusieurs des images qu’entretiennent les citoyens (et bon nombre de dirigeants politiques) tiennent en fait du mythe. Par exemple, que le Canada est un pays pacifique, abhorrant le recours a la force militaire; qu’il contribue genereusement et de maniere desinteressee a l’amelioration des conditions de vie des plus defavorises de la planete; ou encore qu’il agit activement comme mediateur, entre les grandes puissances, ou a l’occasion d’operations de maintien de la paix, et que ce role lui confere une influence internationale. Les mythes ne sont pas une construction accidentelle. S’ils persistent a travers le temps, c’est qu’ils ont pris racines dans un terreau fertile. Il s’agit donc de repondre aux questions suivantes : Quels sont les principaux mythes en politique etrangere canadienne? Comment sont-ils articules? Et surtout, quelles fonctions exercent-ils? Cet article offre une reponse liberale-constructiviste a ces questions. Cette combinaison permet de cerner l’une des fonctions identitaires principales qu’exercent les mythes en politique etrangere canadienne (PEC), soit celle de contribuer a l’unite nationale.1 L’analyse est divisee en trois parties. Il convient d’abord d’examiner comment l’approche constructiviste en Relations internationales peut rendre compte de l’existence et de la fonction des mythes en politique etrangere. L’explication qui en ressort permet, dans la seconde partie, de mettre en lumiere les principaux elements de l’identite liberale canadienne et de cerner un des roles qu’y jouent les mythes. Enfin, la troisieme partie aborde trois des principaux mythes de la PEC en mettant en lumiere, quoique tres brievement, le processus par lequel ils ont vu le jour, sont entretenus et remplissent leur fonction identitaire en ce qui a trait a l’unite nationale.

Why Democratic Allies Defect Prematurely: Canadian and Dutch Unilateral Pullouts from the War in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT Why do some democratic allies prematurely withdraw from ongoing military US-led coalition operations? Why are some democratic allies more reliable than others? This article proposes a multifactorial integrated framework consisting of several causal mechanisms drawn from ideological, domestic, and alliance explanations of premature defection. It compares and contrasts two neglected case studies, namely the Canadian and Dutch withdrawal of combat troops from NATO’s counterinsurgency mission in southern Afghanistan. The comparative analysis finds that democratic institutional designs, parliamentary war powers, leadership turnover, as well alliance dependence and threat perceptions did not play a meaningful role in both cases of premature defection. It rather finds that domestic elite consensus interacted with electoral calculations to account for pullout choices. Right-wing ideological beliefs held by state executives also slowed down the decision to withdraw, and alliance pressures interacted with domestic elite consensus to account for commitment renewal into a noncombat mission. The article concludes with some implications for the theory of democratic alliance reliability.

Canada’s war for prestige in Afghanistan: A realist paradox?

This article provides a comprehensive assessment of Canada’s prolonged and sizable military engagement in the war in Afghanistan in light of confounding expectations set by realism. It argues, from the perspective of neoclassical realism, that United States unipolarity, domestic elite consensus on an Atlanticist security policy, and executive autonomy vis-à-vis public dissent best account for Canada’s evolving Afghanistan policy. These necessary conditions can be generalized to apply to past and future allied coalitions of the willing to help make sense of Canada’s alliance burden-sharing.

United West, divided Canada? Transatlantic (dis)unity and Canada's Atlanticist strategic culture

Could a growing transatlantic rift regarding the use of military force outside Europe propel the political break-up of Canada? The first part of the paper argues that, in addition to its liberal-democratic values, Canada’s bicultural national identity accounts for much of its Atlanticist international security policy. The second part of the paper examines the prevalence of this Atlanticist strategic culture in the face of two contemporary cases of transatlantic (dis)unity, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in order to assess the potentially disruptive nature of transatlantic discord on Canada’s political unity. It finds, somewhat counter-intuitively, that transatlantic unity - rather than disunity - could more probably generate national unity crises in Canada in the event of continuing ‘out-of-area’ military operations undertaken by NATO allies. This is mainly because of a growing tendency among Quebec’s sovereignist political elites’ to mobilise Quebecers’ distinct attitudes regarding overseas military expeditions.

Has Québec Become a Northern Mexico? Public Opinion and America's “Long War”

In contrast with Mexico, a consistent pattern of anti-Americanism has never been present in Québec, but there has been an ostensible upsurge in anti-American sentiment recently. This article asks whether Québec has become a “northern Mexico” with respect to societal attitudes displayed toward the United States. To answer this, we first explore the argument that Mexico is effectively an axiomatically anti-American land. We then examine public opinion in Québec, with a view to contrasting it with Mexican views, especially on the all-important question of the use of force in international politics. We argue that Quebeckers show themselves to be more supportive than Mexicans of the idea that the “international community” in certain instances does have both a right and a duty to intervene in the domestic affairs of states.

Ideology, ballots, and alliances: Canadian participation in multinational military operations

ABSTRACT The decision to employ force abroad is often a contentious political decision, where partisanship plays a crucial role. Prior to military intervention, political parties usually make their ideologically distinctive preferences clear and seek to implement them once in power. What remains unclear, however, is how ideology affects the decision to use military force. This article contends that alliance and electoral calculations constrain the ability of political parties to implement their ideological preferences with regards to the use of force. It examines a “most likely” case for the partisan theory of military intervention, namely Canada’s refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq and its decision to commit forces to the war against the Islamic State. It finds that only in combination with alliance and electoral calculations does executive ideology offer valuable insights into Canada’s military support to U.S.-led coalition operations, which contributes to our understanding of allied decision-making.

In or out? Canada, the Netherlands, and support to the invasion of Iraq

ABSTRACT How do democratic allies manage their participation in U.S.-led coalition operations? This article compares the Canadian and Dutch management of domestic and international expectations of support to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It argues that the decision whether to support coalition operations often does not amount to a simplistic “yes” or “no” answer. It entails a management process involving several strategies, as well as a wide range of mutually inclusive support options. Canadian and Dutch management of support to coalition operations reveals that similarly core U.S. allies misunderstood U.S. expectations, mismanaged their countrys stance by sending confusing signals to both their domestic and international audiences, and adopted varied trade-off strategies. The study of multinational coalition operations should thus conceptualize political and military support separately, but examine their causal interrelationships and measure them on a qualitative, case-specific continuum, in order to properly understand the variations and trade-offs involved in the allied management of support to military coalitions.

Southern (Over) Exposure? Quebec and the Evolution of Canada’s Grand Strategy, 2002–2012

ABSTRACT One of the most persistent themes in the debate on Canadian foreign policy over the past few decades concerns the influence Quebec is thought to possess over the design and implementation of Canadian foreign and defense policy. Our purpose in this article is to situate this general debate within a more specific context, of Canada’s grand strategic choices as they principally involve the country’s security and defense relations with the US. To do this, we adopt somewhat of a “counterfactual” tack; to wit, we inquire whether, in the absence of Quebec from the Canadian confederation, we should expect to have seen a fundamentally different grand strategy fashioned by Ottawa, one with different significance for relations with the US. We focus on two specific cases, both of which have figured prominently in recent Canadian–American strategic relations: the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. We conclude that while there is something to the claim that Quebec can and does boast of a certain “specificity” in the matter of Canada’s grand-strategic preferences, it is hardly the same thing as arguing that the country without Quebec would have adopted policies on both Afghanistan and Iraq that were fundamentally different from the ones it chose to follow.

The French in the heart of North America? ‘Civilisation rallying’, national unity, and the geopolitical significance of 1917

This article addresses the role that ‘civilisation rallying’ (sometimes known as the ‘kin-country syndrome’) had in the orientation of both North American countries, Canada and the United States, towards the First World War, with special emphasis upon how France was being reconceptualised in debates taking place in each. France may have been ‘ousted’ from the geostrategic reality of North America back in 1763, but it had an uncanny way of failing to disappear. In fact, you could almost say that as strategic actors about to play an ‘independent’ role in global and European affairs, for both Canada and the US it was a case of France’s having been ‘present at their creation’. But while France figured in both North American countries’ kin-country rallying, it did so for different reasons. Notwithstanding the differences, the pull of a transatlantic ‘collective identity’ whose European point of reference for the North Americans was France (along, of course, with Britain) was packed with tremendous policy significance, and never more so than in the critical year, 1917.