Inside this Issue“... a corner of Kabul that will be forever Canadian.” The concrete has since been repaired, the plaques cleaned and a fresh coat of paint will soon be applied.

Optimizing Canada’s Commitment to Police Reform in Afghanistan .....................................3Remembering the Fallen: Canadian Military History Lives on in Kabul ................................7What next for Canada’s tough new army? ...............................................................................8In Search of the Hinge: WAR POSTERS? From post cold war Balkans to current national security concerns ...................................9Why We Are In Afghanistan ..................................................................................................13Ash Thursday—Stranded in Baku .........................................................................................15A Response to LCol Kilburn ..................................................................................................16

Th e Jo u rn a l o f T h e roy a l Ca n a d i a n Mi l i T a r y in s T i T u T e

—LCOL CHRISTOPHER R. KILFORD

May—June 2010 Volume 70, Number 3

S ITREP

2 SITREP

Copyright © 2010 RCMI ISSN 0316-5620 SITREP may be fully reproduced in whole or in part for academic research or institutional purposes, provided that the author’s and the institute’s copyright is acknowledged. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute or its members.

From the Editor’s Desk

Royal Canadian Military InstituteFounded 1890

Patron

Her Excellency The Right HonourableMichaëlle Jean, CC, CMM, COM, CD

The Governor General of Canada

Vice Patrons

The Honourable David C. Onley, O.OntLieutenant Governor of Ontario

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty, MPPThe Premier of Ontario

General Walter J. Natynczyk, CMM, MSC, CDChief of the Defence Staff

His Worship David MillerThe Mayor of Toronto

Officers & Directors

LCol James Breithaupt, KStJ, CD, QC—President H/Col Gilbert W. Taylor—Vice President

LCol Reginald C. Scotland, CD—Vice PresidentLt(N) James P. McReynolds—Secretary

Mr. Gil Lamothe—Treasurer2Lt David Batten—Director

Ms Patricia M. Hind-White—DirectorLCol Diane M. Kruger, CD—Director

H/Capt(N) Chris Korwin-Kuczynski—DirectorDr. Michael W. Leahy—Director

Maj David T. Mezzabotta, CD—DirectorLCol Leo Morin, CD—Director

LCol Jenny M. Newton, CD—Director LCol C. Edward Rayment, CD—Director

LCol Michael A. Stevenson, CD—DirectorCapt John E. Thompson, CD—Director

Executive Director and Editor

Col (ret’d) Chris Corrigan, CD, MA

Past President

LCol Jeffery J. Dorfman, OMM, CD

Honoraries

Col (ret’d) John Clarry, MBE, ED, CD, QCHonorary President

LCol (ret’d) Bruce W. Savage, CDHonorary Curator

Mr. J. L. Granatstein, OC, FRSC Dr. Desmond Morton, OC

Honorary HistorianMr. Arthur ManvellHonorary Librarian

LCol J. Roy Weir , CD, AdeC, QC Honorary Solicitor

ChaplainsMaj The Rev Gillian Federico, CD

The Rev Martin KeatingsLCdr The Rev J. David MulhollandCapt The Rev Mark L. Sargent, CD

General ManagerMr. Michael T. Jones

Director of Communications/Assistant EditorMr. Eric S. Morse

Official Publication of the Royal Canadian Military Institute

426 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1S9

416-597-0286/1-800-585-1072 Fax: 416-597-6919

Editorial E-Mail: ccorrigan1@cogeco.caWebsite: www.rcmi.org

In the past few months the operational tempo of our armed forces has been remarkable:

• Op HESTIA, 12 January to 22 March: humanitarian operations conducted in response to the catastrophic earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti in Janu-ary. In total some 4,000 personnel were involved over the two-month operation that was the military component of a whole-of-government response that also involved Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Canadian International Development Agency.

• Op ATHENA, Joint Task force Afghanistan, has just seen another rota-tion involving 2800 pers being replaced involving a total of some 5,600.

• Vancouver Winter Olympics 12-28 February supported by 4,000.For a total of 13,600 deployed. Add to this the numbers that will be de-

ployed to support the G20 meetings to be held in Muskoka and Toronto in June. Typically on any given day we have about 2600 deployed on operations, 2600 returning from and another 2600 preparing to deploy out of a total deployable of 24,000. Why remarkable? In the past four months 13,600 pers, roughly 5 times the normal number, were deployed on operations. Clearly a testament to the ability of the Armed Forces to respond to the needs of the Nation.

Nathan Flight examines police reform in Afghanistan and Canada’s invest-ment in police mentoring by asking - has the investment has been well-focussed?

Chris Kilford, our Deputy Defence Attaché at the Canadian Embassy in Afghanistan, takes us to the Sherpur Cantonment Cemetery, the British Cemetery in Kabul, a short distance from the Embassy—originally built in 1879 for those killed during second Anglo-Afghan War, where the names of of 43 Canadian soldiers are listed, who lost their lives in and around Kabul between April 2002 and November 2006.

Eugene Lang and our own Eric Morse posit that our political leadership owes Canadians a conversation about the military as an instrument of Canada’s foreign policy.

Trudy Kearns, our resident War Artist, presents an interesting perspective on war art.

RCMI Member John Chapman, has forwarded an article by Michael Walsby from the December issue of Mars & Minerva—The Journal of the Special Air Service entitled “Why we are in Afghanistan”. Apparently this is an issue not unique to Canadians; in the UK they too lack understanding of why they are there. The author speaks highly of the exploits of Canadian soldiers from Vimy to the present in Afghanistan.

Like seven million other travellers stranded in Europe, your Editor had an extended stay in Baku, Azerbaijan—see his report from the scene.

Vincent Curtis writes a reply to Rory Kilburn’s Letter to the Editor in our last issue commenting on Vince’s article “Where Have All the Maneuverists Gone?”

Sincerely,

Colonel (ret’d) Chris Corrigan Editor and Chair of the Security Studies Committee

MAY—JUNE 10 3

The production of SITREP is made possible in part by the generosity of the Langley Bequest, which is made in honour of Major Arthur J Langley CD

and Lt (N/S) Edith F Groundwater Langley

Optimizing Canada’s Commitment to Police Reform in Afghanistanby Major Nathan Flight

As part of its commitment to the Government of Af-ghanistan, Canada has invested significant resources towards the betterment of the Afghan Police Institu-

tion. Several years on, it is prudent to evaluate whether the investment has been well-focussed. At the root of the issue are several questions; is present mentoring model effective? Is it having the desired stabilizing influence? And, is the Canadian model adapting to the changing circumstances effectively or quickly enough? To evaluate the issue, it is helpful to look at the body of lessons provided by other police forces involved in security sector reform (SSR) reaching back a half-century. Even a cursory review of these missions reveals that advance-ment of police reform in failed states is not an easy task. When juxtaposed against Canada’s Afghan mission the evidence sug-gests that our current approach is good but is not as flexible, or as far reaching, as it potentially could be. What is required is a new ‘optimized’ Canadian Forces/CIVPOL integration model that emphasizes a transitional approach to mentoring initiation, reinforcement, and eventual weaning of a profes-sionalized indigenous police force.

Resurrecting Failed States

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain there has been an escalating interest in the ‘failed-state’ phenomena, which has generated much critical thought concerning appropri-ate intervention models. Indeed, it has been suggested that, “Insecurity in the 21st century appears to come less from the collisions of powerful states than from the debris of implod-ing ones.” In a similar vein, Mark Turner and Martin Wolf, writers for the Financial Times, reinforce the immediacy of the matter by arguing that, “failed or failing states are among the great challenges of our age... They spread chaos to their neighbours and beyond. They are actual or potential sources of terrorism, organized crime, drugs, disease, and refugees... Something needs to be done. Yet nobody knows quite what.” The answer to the question “What to do?” is the subject of much comprehensive study. At the risk of oversimplifying the matter, published authors tend to render common conclusions

regarding the way forward. Foremost among these recom-mendations are the requirements for security system reform, governance reform (to include rule of law and democratiza-tion), development (essential public services, health, water, utilities), and the fostering of legitimate trade.

Successes and Struggles: Police Reform in Failed-States

Fortunately, many good international case studies pertaining to successes and struggles in police reform exist. Indeed, the International Peace Academy concludes that the rising number of organizations carrying out police reform evidences the increasing importance attached to it. We are cautioned, however, that this endeavour is not for the weak-willed, as emerging police forces are oftentimes cut off from the populations they are meant to serve and protect, with many acting and operating more like military contingents than public security officers. This is presently the case in most of Afghanistan.

Notwithstanding the preceding caution, there exists a body of lessons which aid in the formulation of best practices. From the British experience in Malaya (1948-60), we learn that training strong indigenous police leadership, supported by sustained mentorship, should have top priority. After this, schooling in the field of criminal intelligence received praise, as did the steady transition to a “Malayanization” of the se-curity force, and the weeding out of corrupt police officers. In the Cyprus campaign (1955-59) similar themes surfaced, particularly the need for professional indigenous police lead-ership, education, and human intelligence. In tandem, these case studies conclude that, “because of the small unit nature of the conflicts, the frontline counterinsurgency force was the police...effective counterinsurgency campaigns rely on good human intelligence, and no military unit can match a good police unit in developing an accurate human intelligence picture of their area of operations.”

Alice Hills, in her analysis of police reform in sub-Sahara Africa sees it a different way. She concludes that training and resources are insufficient in the absence of appropriate po-litical direction or sanction. The corollary is that a clear and consistent police mandate, combined with a governmental commitment to change, is the start-point for effective reform.

In looking at the American experience in Iraq, the main effort has been focused on combating corruption and abuse

Major Nathan Flight is the Commanding Officer of 2 Military Police Unit, and Provost Marshal Land Forces Central Area. He is currently completing his Masters in Public Administration through the Royal Military College. He has served in Kosovo (1999), Turkey (2005), and Aghanistan (Kabul—2003 & Kandahar—2008).

4 SITREP

among the police force. Indeed, a 2006 report from northeast of Baghdad found that 75 percent of Iraqis did not trust the police enough to tip them off to insurgent activity. In response, successful reform strategies include exposing police to posi-tive models of behaviour, standardizing mentoring across all sectors, the establishment of a Ministry of the Interior Ethics Centre, and the recommendation to create Internal Affairs and Inspector General Capabilities.

What is clear from all available evidence is that brief, ad hoc, training programs are doomed to failure. Similarly, to pursue strategies that run counter to the positive lessons learned from international missions is to accept a sub-optimal outcome. So what then is the best approach for Afghanistan?

Building Policing in Afghanistan: 101

Like Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan is not a good one. To reach the level of policing professionalism found in first world countries, ingrained institutional and cultural practices must be overcome. The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit and The Center for Strategic and International Studies join in their bleak assessment of the current state of Afghan policing and reform. Specifically, it is believed that many Af-ghans still perceive the Afghan National Police (ANP) to be part of the security problem rather than part of the solution. Chief among these concerns are examples of wide-spread corruption, local-level extortion, illiteracy, a propensity to not respect international norms regarding human rights, and general unprofessionalism.

Finally, and unfortunately for the cadre of ANP actually committed to change, the Afghan insurgency appears to be acutely aware of ANP vulnerabilities both individually and collectively. To that end, the ANP have become the primary target of insurgents where for example in 2006 alone, 627 ANP were killed. And the trend continues. Despite this despondent backdrop, however, certain recommendations have emerged. These include a call for a shared vision and strategy for the ANP, the development of a comprehensive rule of law strat-egy, making donor assistance conditional on Ministry of the Interior reform, prioritizing quality of ANP over quantity, and prioritizing fiscal sustainability of the security sector.

Canadian Mentoring Capabilities

Although Canada has had an active combat role in Afghanistan since 2002, the Canadian emphasis on police capacity building is relatively new. The introduction of a Canadian whole-of-government approach in the fall of 2007 coincided with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) vision of empowering Afghan institutions to stand on their own through focused professionalization and mentoring. As evidence of this, the Manley Report recom-mended to Parliament that, “Canada should continue with its responsibility for security in Kandahar beyond February 2009... but with increasing emphasis on training the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) expeditiously [Army and

Police]...as the ANSF gain capability, Canada’s combat role should be significantly reduced.”

In its initial follow-up to the Manley Report, the Inter-departmental Task Force highlighted six policy priorities for the region, the first of which is enabling the ANSF to sustain a more secure environment and to promote law and order. Specific to police development, the stated Canadian Objec-tive for 2011 is to expect that the ANP will demonstrate an increased capacity to promote law and order in key districts of Kandahar, supported by justice-sector and corrections ca-pabilities. At present, more than 600 ANP members have been trained in activities supported by Canadian CIVPOL (led by RCMP), while a Police Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (POMLT), led by the Canadian Forces, have improved the ANP’s ability to survive and begin nascent security activi-ties in two outlying districts.

The current Canadian CIVPOL effort is based on an RCMP management structure, co-located with the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team. The lead CIVPOL advisor answers directly to the Representative of Canada in Kandahar, more commonly referred to as the RoCK. The CIVPOL main effort has been shared between assistance to regional train-ing centres (RTC) in the delivery of a basic police course (10 weeks), as well as focussed mentoring of ANP within Kanda-har City proper. The small headquarters is responsible for the allocation of resources and initiation/tracking of significant [$4M+] projects aimed at supporting the emerging police force. This ranges from equipment acquisition, infrastructure improvements, and general policing advice at the provincial level. The CIVPOL organization has also placed a number of personnel forward in smaller operating bases with a view to mentoring district-level leadership and investigative capabil-ity. CIVPOL are predominantly led by the RCMP supported by additional Canadian civilian police officers. It goes without saying that these are professional peace officers, bringing a variety of police and investigative experiences to the mentor team. Their primary constraint, however, is that they do not enjoy complete freedom of movement in less permissive dis-tricts due to national caveats concerning the security of their persons, and the consequent liability.

The Police Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (POMLT) is a composite Canadian Forces sub-unit, com-prised of approximately an equal number of military police and infantry personnel. These mentors are deployed to the outermost sub-district police stations (SDPS), where they are embedded with groups of ANP ranging in number from eight and thirty. Their primary tasks are to mentor assigned ANP in survivability, policing, logistics, and command and control. It should be noted that, unlike the better-known American model, the preponderance of Canadian Military Police are badge-carrying police officers, representing the ideal hybrid of soldier/peace officer to be employed in this environment. The current composition is approximately 2/3 Regular Force [badge-carrying peace officers], and 1/3 Reserve Force [not all

MAY—JUNE 10 5

badge-carrying]. Of interest, there are the number of Reserve MP who are CIVPOL in their daily professions in Canada. What primarily differentiates MP from CIVPOL is enhanced training in small-unit leadership and combat skills [weapons, communications, medical, navigation, manoeuvres, deten-tion ops], and the CF tenant that they are employed under an unlimited liability clause, as are all Canadian Forces soldiers.

A third element, which is not police-specific, is a generic force protection (FORCEPRO) organization. Such a capability is presently employed in support of the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team, and enables mobility and protection to a host of civil-military actors, as well as Other Government Department (OGD) partners in and about Kandahar City. These include DFAIT, CIDA, RCMP, Corrections Canada, etc. The FORCEPRO organization is typically based on a mecha-nized (armoured) infantry sub-unit, whose size is dictated by the extent of the protection task. As a combat arms sub-unit they are inherently tactically mobile, self-protecting, and self-sufficient... as are the POMLT teams.

Towards an Optimal Solution

It is clear that certain activities are key to the develop-ment and sustainment of a credible and capable indigenous police force. These include (in no order of precedence), focussed efforts to develop indigenous leadership, instruc-tion on the collection and synthesis of human intelligence, mentorship by good example, and literacy training. In order to best influence leadership development there should be a host nation government-supported effort to talent spot young(er) leadership candidates and provide them with edu-cation and dedicated mentoring. This does not exist presently in Afghanistan. Finally, there is a need for the host nation to be forthcoming in describing the intended end state for its national police force. Indeed, this remains a subject of much debate, and is summarized by Wilder as the primary inhibitor to institution growth in Afghanistan. Specifically, “the most fundamental issue that must be resolved for police reform efforts to succeed in Afghanistan is the need for a shared vi-sion of the role of the ANP...the lack of a common strategy, five years after police reform began, is seriously undermin-ing reform efforts and complicating the task of coordination among actors in the sector.”

Most observers agree that the initiation of an interde-partmental task force for Afghanistan ought to be the ‘flagship’ for a renewed standard in Canadian whole-of-government cooperation. Indeed, the successes already achieved by the coordination of departments through Privy Council Office as well as Task Force Afghanistan are evidence of this positive synergy. An opportunity for significant improvement in the realm of police capacity building has yet to be exploited, how-ever. Such transformation would entail the forging of more direct relationships between the office of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal (the senior Military Police Commander and Advisor to the Chief of the Defence Staff), and the Executive

Branch of the RCMP on the subject of deployed operations generally, and interoperability specifically.

At a minimum, there is scope to share a better awareness of each organization’s inherent capabilities and capacities and to develop standardized Canadian mentoring and assessment concepts for application to failed-state tasks. Should these rec-ommendations be adopted, there will be gains in inter-agency communication, distribution of tasks, and ease of integration into Canadian Forces Task Forces-led operations due to the inherent familiarity of the Military Police organization, and the Army, with this operating environment. In short, there are many economies to be gained by harmonizing the collec-tive Canadian approach to police capacity building in failed states. Finally, whenever CIVPOL and CF police mentors find themselves in the same operational space it should be man-dated that their headquarters be co-located to ensure timely passage of information, to enable task de-confliction, and to promote informal interagency learning.

Optimizing the Canadian Model

With an understanding of the players and opportunities, the task turns to developing a Canadian police mentoring model for failed states that is relative, responsive, and progres-sive. Based on the broad range of international missions the leading assumption is that building police capacity is a long-term effort. It follows then, that a realistic model must be able to adjust as the situation changes. In considering this reality, there are five main criteria that define the mentor-space. These are: 1) the nature of the police task, 2) the relative maturity or existence of systems such as judicial and corrections, 3) the physical threat, 4) the degree of integration required by mentoring teams, and 5) the assessed state of the indigenous police leadership.

How then do these criteria apply to Afghanistan? Po-lice tasks in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment are more security–oriented, and less focussed on rule of law. Tonita Murray writes that, “...while state security is generally protected by military forces and intelligence agencies, civil security is the preservation of civilian police. While there is some blurring at the line of demarcation, as a general principle, police do not fight wars.” This is one conundrum posed by present-day Afghanistan. More often than not, the ANP are positioned to fight the insurgency, requiring a rethink of the mentoring methodology. A hasty transition to a rule of law paradigm is also impeded by illiteracy, a low educational base-line, and public confidence. Although the following list is not exhaustive, police tasks in COIN tend to revolve around the following activities; improvised explosives awareness, combat first aid, small unit tactics (fire and movement), cordons and searches of persons, vehicles, compounds, community patrols and information gathering, detainee operations, close protec-tion, and counter-terrorism. It is readily apparent that these tasks are not standard roles attributed to police in a western model.

6 SITREP

In its 2007 report the Afghanistan Research and Evalu-ation Unit (AREU) concluded that, “a civilian police force, no matter how well trained and equipped, will have little ability to uphold and promote rule of law in the absence of a functioning judicial system. “ It further concluded that the failure to adopt a more integrated approach to police and justice sectors at the onset, has led to a disparity in vision and incongruent delivery of resources and observable outcomes. This is certainly the case today in Afghanistan where it is of little value to shore-up evidence for a tribunal which most ANP and citizenry know will not occur.

There is a continuum of mentoring integration which spans embedded mentors on the left of the scale, and less-intimate mobile mentoring and site inspection visits on the right. For most practical purposes, the current need in emerging districts in the embedded approach. Indeed, the only mentoring model which has yielded substantial results in dangerous regions such as Kandahar Province is the direct and affiliated embed approach. This model is most successful for a variety of reasons; namely, the provision of enhanced protec-tion and motivation, the provision of visible role models, and ever-present oversight to ensure human rights are respected and corruption is not permitted to flourish. There is also a greater sentiment of commitment to outcomes which perme-ates a cohabitant relationship. At end state, the requirement for routine site inspections should be all that is required to ensure compliance with established policies and practices, as is the case with nearly all accredited police forces worldwide.

The leading lesson to be drawn from the writings on police reform in Malaya, Cyprus, Africa, Kosovo, and Iraq is the absolute requirement to encourage and enable solid indigenous leadership. As long as there is not a purpose-built leadership training program for the ANP, the prevailing cycle of nepotism and poor leadership will never be broken. Also key in the early stage of nation-building is the ability for third-party neutrals (in this case, Canadian police mentors) to be able to talent spot young men and women who show potential to become educated and otherwise lead and take care of the ANP assigned to their charge. Even if wholesale change is untenable, the training of leaders (whoever they

may be) represents the next and perhaps first quantum leap in Afghan police reform.

Canadian Options – Situation Dependent

The optimized model proposes three combinations of mentor assets, each recommended for a specific “Stage” or set of environmental conditions, based on the five criteria [Police Task, Systems, Threat, Integration, and Leadership]. These Stages are as follows:

Stage 1: CF Lead / CIVPOL in Secondary Roles . During this Stage of nation-building, the Canadian main effort for police mentoring would reside with CF elements, as would the planning and coordination of mentor plans and activities. The CIVPOL role would be restricted to permissive or secure zones within the operating environment, and would maximize their skill sets in such roles as instructing at training centres, and coordinating diplomatic and development efforts through DFAIT and Governance staff;

Stage 2: CIVPOL Lead - Supported by FORCEPRO / CF Retains Non-Permissive Areas. During this Stage, CIVPOL assumes the primary responsibility for the mentoring agenda in the tactical environment. Due to the fact that there will always be a degree of residual threat, there will be a require-ment for mobility and protection support provided by a FORCEPRO element. It is envisioned that CIVPOL would set mentoring and visit itinerary priorities, and FORCEPRO would be responsive to these requirements, in order to ensure these objectives are met. The CF would continue embedded mentoring in areas which remain less-permissive, or along critical approaches to secure centres; and

Stage 3: CIVPOL Operates Independently. As the threat picture dissipates and the capacity and initiative of the indigenous force have been proven, the mission may transi-tion to a model that requires no Canadian Forces support to police mentoring. At this stage, there would no longer be a requirement for embedded mentoring, which is an extremely manpower intensive endeavour. This state can be maintained for as long as the Canadian Government wishes to contribute or until such point that the security situation takes a turn for the worse.

The table on this page demonstrates the applicability of the three-stage model, as-sessed against the five criteria:

In general terms it can be said that Can-ada, in taking an inter-agency (CIVPOL/CF) approach, has fielded its police mentoring assets in a reasonable

Continued on page 14

CriteriaStage 1: Stage 2: Stage 3:

CF Lead / CIVPOL Sup-porting

CIVPOL Lead/ CF Sup-porting CIVPOL Independent

Nature of the Police Task COIN - Security Rule of Law Rule of Law

Systems Capacity [Judicial/Corrections] NASCENT EMERGING PROVEN

Threat HIGH MED - VARIABLE LOW

Degree of Mentor Integra-tion Embedded Mobile – Affiliated Mentors Mobile – Site Inspections

State of Indigenous Lead-ership POOR EMERGING STRONG

MAY—JUNE 10 7

Remembering the Fallen: Canadian Military History Lives on in Kabul

by LCol Christopher R. Kilford

Last August, in the British newspaper the Telegraph, Ben Farmer wrote “there is a corner of Kabul that is forever England.” He was referring to the Sherpur Cantonment

Cemetery in Kabul or, as the little blue and white plaque notes at the entrance, the British Cemetery. A short distance from the Canadian Em-bassy and about the size of a football field, the cemetery was built in 1879 for those killed during second Anglo-Afghan War. Among the many graves is that of Major John Cook, 5th Gurkha Rifles, who won a Victoria Cross as a result of hand-to-hand fighting with Pashtun tribesmen in December 1878. He was later killed during an attack on the Taht-i-Shah peak, one of sev-eral hills that surround Kabul.

Besides the many military graves, the cemetery also serves as a final resting place for those drawn to Af-ghanistan for adven-ture, exploration or simply to lend a helping hand to the Afghan people. The most famous civilian grave is that of Hungarian-born British archaeologist Aurel Stein, who passed away in Kabul in October 1943. In 2002, Éva Apor, from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, described Stein as “one of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century who specialized in Indian and Iranian Studies.” At 80 years old, he had come to Afghanistan to study the military campaigns of Alexander the Great, but passed away shortly after arriving.

LCol Chris Kilford CD, PhD, our Deputy Defence Attaché in Kabul, is a former Commanding Officer of 4 Air Defence Regiment, Deputy Director National Security Studies Program, Canadian Forces College and Executive Assistant to the Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Security and National Defence. He holds a BA from the University of Manitoba and a MA in War Studies, a Masters in Defence Studies and a PhD from the Royal Military College of Canada. He is the author of “Lethbridge at War” and “On the Way”, two books that chronicle the rich military history of that city.

Today, the cemetery is owned by the city of Kabul and is not part of the network of cemeteries recognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The result is that the British defence attaché office in Afghanistan has become the cemetery’s unofficial champion. The British

Embassy also ensured that Rahimullah, the cemetery’s caretaker for at least thirty years, was paid a small sum each month. Regrettably, he passed away in early March and now one of his sons has taken on the role. For the new caretaker, there are many graves and num-erous plaques to keep watch over. Indeed, the granite plaques adorn-ing the walls of the cemetery are of great significance and on the eastern wall the names of 43 Canadian sol-diers are listed – they lost their lives in and around Kabul between April 2002 and Novem-ber 2006.

Like much of the cemetery, the 300 metre eastern wall was in danger of tum-bling down, taking the Canadian plaques with it. However, the British and Canadian Embassy’s each contributed $5000 to a special fund in February 2010 so that extensive repairs could be carried out. Meanwhile, the British Embassy provided addi-tional funding to ensure the southern wall, where the names of all British war dead are listed, was also suitably repaired.

While in winter the cemetery can look a little bleak it is a different story in the spring and summer when the many trees and rose bushes are in full bloom under blue skies. The cemetery, said Ben Farmer is “an oasis of calm contemplation at the heart of a city scarred by conflict.” It has also become a corner of Kabul that will be forever Canadian.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members.

A view of the southern wall on which are numerous plaques dedicated to recently fallen British soldiers while at ground level

are the remains of headstones from the 1879 period.

LCOL CHRISTOPHER R. KILFORD

8 SITREP

What next for Canada’s tough new army?by Eugene Lang and Eric Morse

Sometime in mid-2011, after nearly a decade during which the Canadian Forces have had several thousand boots planted firmly on Afghan firmament, our troops

will come home. While last week witnessed some media speculation to the

effect the Americans might ask Canada to remain in Afghani-stan beyond that date in a training capacity, the government continues to maintain a steadfast public stance to withdraw the forces entirely on schedule.

There are valid reasons for this–mainly that after four-plus years of unexpected combat in Kandahar, Canada’s army is burnt out. Neither the politicians nor the generals contem-plated anything like a five-year mission in Kandahar at the beginning of this adventure. Many soldiers of this volunteer army are now on their fifth and sixth rotations. They need a break.

Yet ironically the army will emerge from the Kandahar cauldron far stronger than when it went in. The ranks of the regular force have swelled to 24,000, up from 19,000. They have better and more equipment than they did at the begin-ning of the Afghan adventure. The soldiers have become highly proficient warriors, led by a battle-hardened corps of officers and NCOs.

They are particularly adept at counter-insurgency warfare, insurgencies being a central challenge to peace and security in the world today. And while the growth in defence spending will be reduced as Ottawa comes to grips with its deficit, the defence budget is on track to continue rising for years to come. There will be no “peace dividend,” to borrow the phrase used to describe what many expected in the early 1990s at the end of the Cold War. That’s because the world is far from a peaceful place.

This new fighting machine Canada possesses, along with its warrior image, is foreign to Canadians. It makes a good chunk of our population and many of our politicians uncomfortable. But whether we like it or not, Canada has a finely honed army, forged and funded over nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan.

Yet the big question remains. After the army pulls out of Kandahar, and once it has regenerated in a couple years’ time, what do we do with it? This is the central unanswered – even unasked – question of Canadian foreign policy.

It should come as no surprise that there are more than enough uses and demands for an army like ours around the world. Indeed, if the post 9/11 Canadian conceit—“the world

needs more Canada” – is true, surely that means Canadian boots on the ground in the world’s failed, fragile and dissolv-ing states, of which there are a growing number.

Yet while our army is envied and respected the world over, Canada lacks any semblance of a foreign policy frame-work that might suggest to Canadians and the world how, where and when we might employ that force in the future. Not to mention whether the army will even remain a central instrument of our foreign policy.

This has happened before–the history of the Canadian military is one of emerging from World Wars I and II and Korea with world-class fighting machines, only to have the political leadership let them crumble due to neglect–both financial and intellectual.

The defence staff is well aware of this. Some now talk of re-engaging with the UN in peacekeeping, but this is little more than an attempt to grapple toward a military raison d’être that aligns with majority Canadian public opinion, which tends to mythologize any mission with the UN prefix.

The problem is that a generation of Canadian officers has been imbued with a distrust of the UN, its ineffectualness, its impossible rules of engagement, and its high-profile failures in Rwanda and Somalia.

Moreover, the current government seems to have no use at all for the United Nations, which it seems to see as a liberal talk shop incapable of grasping the nettle of real world problems. There is some truth in that analysis.

But if not UN peacekeeping missions, and given the prospect of a humbled and shackled NATO as a result of its probable failure in Afghanistan, what is our framework for deploying force going to be? The reality is that Canada is incapable militarily, diplomatically and politically of acting outside a multilateral coalition of some description.

At a minimum, our political leadership owes Canadians a conversation about the military as an instrument of Canada’s foreign policy. An honest conversation about the nature of our military today, the realities of the dangerous world in which we live, the imperfections of our international organizations, and how a Canadian contribution to international peace and security can fit with these realities.

None of this is happening in Ottawa today. We are just getting ourselves out of a war in Kandahar that we stumbled into. Yet it seems we still lack the foresight and planning to ensure we do not throw away what our taxpayers, our soldiers and our war dead have paid such a price to build, so that next time we might know what we are doing and why.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members.

Eugene Lang, co-author of ‘The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar’, was chief of staff to two Liberal ministers of national defence. Eric Morse, a former Canadian diplomat, is vice-chair of security studies at the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto. This article was published March 28, 2010 © The Toronto Star

MAY—JUNE 10 9

In Search of the Hinge: WAR POSTERS? From post-Cold-War Balkans to current national security concernsby Gertrude Kearns

Gertrude Kearns of Toronto has worked both officially and unofficially as a Canadian war artist for nearly two decades. She had a 2006 contract with TFA Roto 0 embedded in theatre in Kandahar and Kabul under Canadian Commander Col S P Noonan. An RCMI commission in 2007 and 2008 real-ized two large portraits of Chief Tecumseh and General Isaac Brock. In the War Art Collection, Canadian War Museum since 1995, she is represented by Sotheby’s Canada in their Toronto auctions. Work is in private, public and corporate collections in Canada; currently in the 2009-2012, eight venues across Canada “Brush with War: military art from Korea to Afghanistan”, under DND and the Canadian War Museum. With the support of General Andrew Leslie, she is commencing a second Afghan counter insurgency series later in 2010. She is the ‘unofficial’ war artist in residence at the RCMI and a SSC member, on the Boulter Award jury for 4 years.

Editorial in nature, propaganda-like in energy and attitude, with a bias towards chivalry and a hint of the devious, this series is about the nature of command perspectives in modern operations. From LCdr to Colonel to General and Defence Analyst this group of four Canadians creates a cross section of platforms spanning post cold war Balkans, Canadian security, and the current Afghan counterinsurgency.

This article is in part an artist statement, the term used in current art practise whereby the visual arts practi-tioner explains the intentions, ideas and contexts of his

work, in general as regards his practice, or as here specifically in relation to a particular body of work.

This series of posters (2004-2010) is a war art documen-tation of sorts using Canadian Forces individuals as subjects. These expanded portraits function on three levels: military portraiture, editorially tinged commentary, quasi historical records, inasmuch as each subject’s Canadian defence career is represented in the context of a specific yet verbally abstracted mission type. The one exception is the Col Brian MacDonald piece which is about the nature of defence analysis.

It is equally imperative that these works function in the contemporary art forum, establishing another viable cred-ibility. This age of irony with a penchant for nihilistic pre-disposition seeks integrated message and can be as crucial as any visually technical prowess. These posters seem to appeal to civilians even if the message remains somewhat unclear. Even when they function as ‘just guys in uniforms’, and by association the military in general, there is an existential ring of sorts which bridges civilian and defence interpretations.

These posters are the antithesis of traditional war post-ers, which targeted specific audiences for immediate results in the ‘war effort’. They were highly emotional sales devices via propaganda, not reliant on symbolism, humour or metaphor. “They were not meant to be archival or historical documents,…” McGill University Canadian War Poster Collection.

My intentions are contrary in every sense. These ‘posters’ are not made to be reproduced in quantity, understood easily, or sell anything. They need to be interpreted, and gradated through an inherent understanding of the concern in question. In other words ‘they are meant for a sophisticated audience’; these words came in response to a recent informal presenta-tion I made of this group in a Toronto think tank environ-ment. They cannot even hint at ‘real’ propaganda as they are not selling defence, not even questioning it. Rather they aim to express the hinge in operations via apparent oxymoron. However they are intended to ‘look’ like propaganda, to sug-gest some campaign is being waged as they are responding to the urgency of the times. Because these portraits are heroic in nature, they are meant to command attention and impart military ethos and the psychological and strategic rationale of modern defence sensibilities.

Suggested paradox and the general aesthete of each work are points of departure from historical military art into mod-ern expressions of ‘social commentary’ it has been said, but more significantly from my perspective, an attempt to make ‘defence commentary’. If they do not function in this respect, they are not successful.

Each poster idea evolved slowly, in the midst of other related work. My intention was to say as much as possible with the fewest words. A 1942 war poster study by the Toronto agency Young and Rubicon showed emotional appeal to be the most effective, whereas humour and symbolism were ineffective sales tools/methods. Relying on dry humour and contained emotion, these would have fared poorly in 1942!

The four subjects all agreed to sit for me and each has completely supported my decisions after the fact. None were commissioned drawings and I have retained all originals. Two of the final paintings based on the drawings are in collections. The Department of National Defence, or technically TFA Roto 0, owns the final canvas work of BGen Steve Noonan as Colonel in Afghanistan titled Real Deal, 2006 48 x 36 inches. The Canadian War Museum acquired the portrait of General Lewis MacKenzie MacKenzie/Sarajevo/ 1992, 2004, a large canvas painting 78 x 56 inches plus a small version of Peace/Kill.

Image #1 Peace Kill—Mackenzie 2004

“Fracture aptly describes contemporary life. We are fractured—nationally and internationally –along many socio-political and cultural fault lines. Conversely we are bound by our shared experience of difference……….Toronto artist Gertrude Kearns engages an aesthetic of conflict….Kearns visualizes the

10 SITREP

processes of mediation and negotiation of “self ” and “other” that we experience in contemporary life.’ (Hudson’s words (from a co-written article for ARS MEDICA vol. 1 no. 2, 2005) were also responding in part to two bodies of work, the 2002 UNdone:Dallaire/Rwanda and the 2005 United States of Be-ing: the John Bentley Mays Portraits, both series studying the depression and conflicted states of a general in theatre and a cultural writer). She continues in relation to the MacKenzie poster, ‘Kearns’s painting demonstrates the tragedy of the flesh that peace and kill can be suspended in such vivid contradiction.”

In the same article General MacKenzie’s words qualify the reality presented in the poster as reflecting in a basic sense the required post-Cold War approach to realize results “when there is no peace to keep and innocents are being slaughtered”. His emphasis on strength of leadership at command level did relate to perspectives discussed around the Rwanda mission.

One copy was printed shiny and slick at 6 x 3 feet, sus-pended on a black panel with heavy silver bolts and black rubber washers. It hung for a month in 2004 highly visible in the window of a contemporary Queen West gallery, Propeller. It garnered attention, and “Cool!” was the typical comment. It is interesting to evaluate that reaction from a generally

speaking non defence oriented arts audience. Before analys-ing it further it was often assumed I was “anti-military” and by extension anti-Canadian Forces. When I explained the meaning and context with enthusiasm, sometimes there was a backing off, as if I the artist was complicit in the very evil being represented.

Image #2 Plan Lead—Noonan 2006

With a quasi war/movie poster look, Plan Lead turns the traditionally serious military slag ‘lead from the rear’ into a contemporary working concept as it is juxtaposed with the idea of ‘plan from the front’ in reference to our current Afghan mission. I heard the former bandied about at HQ at KAF, well…alright just once! Regardless, I realized its potential.

It features a portrait of Colonel Steven P Noonan, Com-mander of Task Force Afghanistan Roto 0, 2005-6, punctu-ated above and below with large text in a distinctive font. The intention was to express a leadership reality, expressing what can appear a dichotomy but is to all intents and purposes the underpinning of contemporary warfare approaches in this particular theatre. And implies the question: What is the full

1. Peace Kill 2004, MGen Lewis MacKenzie (ret’d) Canadian Commander, Sector Sarajevo,UNPROFOR Yugoslavia 1992

2. Plan Lead 2006, BGen Steven P Noonan, Canadian Commander Task Force Afghanistan Roto O 2005-6

MAY—JUNE 10 11

extent of the notion of front.... and the resultant ‘taking the war to the enemy’ so we do not need to fight him at home….by extension what is the reality of our home front today?

The poster both challenges and applauds this foundation. In days of yore, when commanders could truly sit behind the lines, there is no behind the lines in any sense ‘over there’. And when the term asymmetric warfare is the catch phrase, the rationale of the poster is if there is no ‘front’ how can there be a ‘rear’? And as there is no understood rear, leadership can-not come from that perspective. It is therefore coming from a front of sorts. This reflects the flip take on things these days. ‘Leading from the rear’ today also means ‘putting an Afghan face ‘ on things. And who knows where that will take us. In 2006 when I sent Col Noonan the finished poster I was very relieved that he appreciated the text, replying by email. “You have created a working concept”.

Image #3 Waves Tides—Wong PAO 2009

I met LCdr Albert Wong (Navy) in Kabul when he was PAO for SAT in 2005-6 with TFA Roto 0. I sketched him in theatre; the second sketch of him in Toronto the following

year is utilized here.Cdr Wong professionally, and still as a civilian contin-

ues to contribute to the Afghan cause, hence Making Waves. Waves can be big or small. I am not trying to qualify the extent of any successes. This poster also suggests not solely him but The Canadian Forces in general. Looking at history in progress however one needs to ask the question: Turning Tides? Is it just a reasonable question? Or does it suggest more subversively the very real positioning against the mission in general as regards winning at all in the face of huge obstacles. However the geopolitics of the region could alter any tides in progress, I suggest also with the tide text, and become new tides in due course.

There are other extenuating meanings. It intentionally begs some questions, following in my oxymoron bent though more ambiguously here. Should it already be an oxymoron? “A wave is a disturbance that propagates through space and time, usually with transference of energy…” Wikipedia. How

3. Waves Tides 2009, LCdr Albert Wong, PAO Strategic Advisory Team, Kabul TFA Roto 0 2005-6

4. The Point is…. 2010 Colonel (ret’d) Brian S. MacDonald senior defence analyst, Conference of Defence Associations

12 SITREP

time on his watch reads just before 12; is it ‘nigh’ high noon or midnight? The interpretations and ambiguities behind strategically considered secondary details gave particular acuity in an editorial manner to the parallel process of pure portraiture over the course of four sittings. A refracted chess or checker board, our national and global security and the players involved, Canada continues by necessity to position internally and externally. Serious business. Strategic insight required.”

On January 13, 2010 Brian emailed (during a Security Studies Committee member’s response to the poster when I was asked if he was drawing or sheathing to which I replied that the ambiguity was the point):

“And it is also an artillery sword--as opposed to a cavalry sword or an infantry sword--for the artillery sword (named “Ubique”) is the most astute of all of the military swords, especially when it is called upon to deal with a collection of mendacious pens, which the diplomatic folks are far too well equipped with! But the diplomatic pens suffer from being innumerate, which places them at a distinct disadvantage to the artillery swords, particularly since the artillery swords understand spherical trigonometry!”

“Quo fas et gloria ducunt!”Oh such gallant defence of sword and slander of pen!In 2007 Peter Goddard, Toronto Star columnist wrote

about my abstract 1991 Gulf Crisis Series in a Headbones catalogue, “ ….Discipline, self-discipline and control were very much on the artist’s mind here as she was beginning to marshal her forces for the more overtly, militaristic “minds of might” work to follow more than a decade later…” Hoping there is much more to come.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members.

real is the possibility of substantially transferring skills and outlook in Afghanistan? Cdr Wong told me recently after I had emailed him the final, that he had periodically asked himself whether he was making any difference in the long run and that the text did define his outlook at times.. “….I’m sure there will be lots of people wondering what this means, but that is good as that starts a discussion…..”

Editing this article on Feb 19 at 0330 I check my Google alert for Afghanistan and read a Post-Star article quoting U.S. Representative Scott Murphy, Glen Falls, just back from the war torn region. “But we need to turn the tide so that people realize the Taliban are not winning and that we and the Afghan government are winning. And then we need to hand this off to the Afghan government.” Another very frequent use of the notion of tide within this context; pray we never need to say tidal wave, unless it’s a benevolent monster come to the rescue.

IMAGE #4 The Point is...—Brian S. MacDonald

Colonel (retired) 2010

Prior to adding text in 2010, the following accompanied the 5 x 3 foot portrait in photo format emailed to the War Mu-seum for my file in July 2009. I wrote: “This is a portrait of a Canadian senior defence analyst, of particular note to the artist a military intellectual engaged at national and international levels. His Canadian Forces background is represented for one via his tie, as a former senior aide-de-camp to the Gov-ernor General in Toronto in the latter 1980s, and The Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery by his sword. However the intention of the portrait is to reflect his person, his insights and to imply his defence concerns and the business of acting upon them. His sword is treated somewhat non-specifically, as without its design embellishments it can better suggest a slide rule, to gauge perceived threats and reactions. The point of the sword is hidden and off the paper anyway, an intentional analogy for sensitivities around the notion of threat. The

MAY—JUNE 10 13

‘Why We Are In Afghanistan’—a British Perspective

by Michael Walsby

There have been a number of instances in the media recently where soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been quoted as saying they don’t know why they are

there. Soldiers who don’t know why they are there are poorly motivated soldiers; therefore there is no excuse for it. Their su-periors should have told them why they are there, even though the brighter ones will have figured it out for themselves. Some soldiers, however, are not very bright, and for the benefit of these all soldiers going to Afghanistan should be told why they are being sent. In my view, they should also be required to write an essay on it to demonstrate they have understood.

Hardly any civvies understand why we are in Afghani-stan, which is scarcely surprising in a society obsessed with entertainment and where few can drag their eyes away from Big Brother, Eastenders and bon viveur TV gluttony pro-grammes for long enough to find out what is going on in the world. Let me remind you why we are in Afghanistan.

On l1th September 2001 Al Qaeda brought about the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York, and in doing so murdered over 2000 American civilians and 88 British, with most of them dying in a particularly unpleasant way. The organizers of this atrocity had bases in Afghanistan where they were training further cadres of terrorists to carry out more atrocities against America and her allies.

There is a principle in international politics which I call ‘the Hornet Principle’. All soldiers who have done jungle training, and especially the SAS, are familiar with the Hornet Principle. As anyone who has trained in Malaya or Borneo will tell you, nobody messes with hornets; the first sound of their menacing wing-beat will prompt any experienced patrol to do an immediate hundred yard dash - anyone foolish enough not to risks being stung to death. Hornets will not allow any interference with their nest, as any man or wild animal com-ing within twenty yards of it will rapidly find out. The result is that everyone leaves them severely alone.

An excellent example of the Hornet Principle in action was the Falklands War. The Argentines got badly stung, and that provided a lesson to them and to others that they will not forget in a hurry; letting them get away with it would have had the opposite effect.

Apparently the lesson was lost on A1 Qaedah and the Taliban, so we have to sting again just as hornets do to anyone who doesn’t learn first time.

The mindless majority, the empty-headed hordes of entertainment obsessed Big Brother and soap opera addicts, are under the illusion that we invaded Afghanistan. We did not. What happened was that we intervened in an existing civil war on the side of the anti-Taliban faction, which is not quite the same thing. The Taliban had never been elected, ran an oppressive and odious regime, and controlled the country, or

parts of it, by force and by tyranny. In addition, of course, they were sheltering an organisation responsible for the murder of 88 British citizens, while the leaders of their Afghan terrorist training camps were planning to murder many more. Even if no Brits had died in the Twin Towers our NATO obligations would have obliged us to respond to the attack on America: an attack on one is an attack on all.

An Army which is not properly motivated will not sting as hard as it should; neither will an Army which is almost entirely made up of non-combatants. The British Army in general is heavily overloaded with non-combatants—only about 2 percent of Army personnel have ever come under fire in the whole of their service lives!

As the Americans say privately, it also lacks dynamism and offensive spirit, but what would you expect of an Army which is poorly motivated, entertainment obsessed, under-mined by political correctness and burdened by too many non-combatants whose main function is to service the needs of other non-combatants? Although these criticisms are less true of the contingent in Afghanistan than of the Army in general, they are still true. With few non-combatants and more properly motivated fighting men out there, we could sting harder and earn the respect of our American allies which we failed to win in Iraq. In 22 SAS thirty years ago there were few if any non-combatants and I assume the same is true today. The whole Army needs to be organised on the same lines. The defence cuts most urgently needed are not the two new carriers which will one day save countless soldiers’ lives, but the layers of flab and complacency which have been allowed to grow under the influence of political correctness.

As most people know, another reason why we are in Afghanistan is to suppress the opium and heroin trade. So far we have not been very successful—more is being produced than when the Taliban were in charge. Part of the reason for this lack of success was the costly and unnecessary war in lraq, which siphoned off troops, funds and resources which could have been put to better use in Afghanistan. But we are where we are and there is not much point in deliberating how we got here.

Another widely touted reason for our presence in Af-ghanistan is to bring democracy to the country. In fact there was never any possibility that we could bring true democracy to Iraq or Afghanistan, neither of which are fertile ground for such a 20th century, Western concept to take root, but particu-larly in the case of Afghanistan we will probably leave them with something better than they had before. Even though it will not really be democracy it will be far better than the op-pressive rule of the Taliban. As for the cost to the Afghans in casualties, it is likely they would have lost just as many in their civil war had we allowed it to continue without interference.

14 SITREP

manner. Many of the tactical synergies which have been achieved, however, have come about as a result of relation-ships and coordination on the ground, and not by operational design. It stands to reason that the present model can be shaped to yield even greater efficiencies in the current conflict, and can be used as a baseline to formulate an intervention and mentoring model for future conflicts. The need for such transformation, however, must be recognized and initiated at the departmental level, as suggested in the foregoing recom-mendations. Only then will the institutional change bear the maximum return on police capacity investment, both in terms of personnel and resources. To emphasize:

• Institutionalize the direct liaison and partnered planning by DND [CFPM & Army] and RCMP;

• Co-develop a Canadian multi-agency mentoring concept for failed states;

• Exploit opportunities to share operational lessons, and to cross-train members (CIVPOL & DND) on operational skills;

• Exploit opportunities to cross train CIVPOL and DND junior and senior leaders on each other’s com-mand, staffing, and planning processes; and

• Train (in Canada) and deploy joint or affiliated Police Headquarters.

Police Reform in Afghanistan—Continued from page 6

In the end, the international experience in the twentieth century has made it clear that the task of nation building is not for the weak-willed. Likewise, the creation or retooling of indigenous police forces in support of the national security sector has proven to be a complex and demanding problem into which Canada has sent its uniformed sons and daughters. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to expect that a Republic such as Afghanistan will remain in a “Stage 1” state for a genera-tion or beyond. The critical policy path, then, is to harmonize political understanding and partner expectations regarding the pace of police reform in such environments. Of greater benefit, however, is the opportunity presented by the current situation to become surgically introspective in assessing our collective efficiency in the police reform endeavour. The ulti-mate proof of progress will be the emergence of a sound and formalized Canadian police mentoring model, supported by institutional change at home.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members

There are those who say we can’t win in Afghanistan. If winning is defined as the suppression of every last vestige of insurgency, they are undoubtedly right. There will be trouble along the Afghan-Pakistan border for as far ahead as anyone can see, but if we can reduce the power of the Taliban to a point where the Afghan Army can take over and push the insurgents back into their mountain hideouts, that will be victory of a sort and is definitely achievable provided the Afghan Government gets its act together and all NATO powers pull their weight.

As has often been remarked, the solution to the problem in Afghanistan is not solely military; it also requires hearts and minds to be turned away from the Taliban by develop-ment projects and good government, but the military aspect is the most important as it is the one on which all the others depend. Above all, people and communities who co-operate with the Allies and with the elected government should not afterwards be abandoned to face retribution from the Taliban as has happened so often in the past.

Students of history will remind you that previous invad-ers of Afghanistan have had a hard time and eventually been compelled to get out. However, as I have explained, we are not invaders and have no intention of staying longer than we need to. During the Russian occupation the insurgents were backed by the world’s greatest superpower together with many

other countries, which is not the case today. Our intention is to help the Afghans drag themselves into the 20th century—the 21st would be too much to expect—and to weaken the enemy enough for the Afghan National Army to take over defence of the country. We will leave Afghanistan a better place than we found it and no longer a training base for international terror-ists. Relatively few Afghans want a return to the tender mercies of the previous regime, so in this and other respects there is no historical precedent with which to make a comparison.

As population-wise, theirs is only a small country, the Canadians have only a third of the number of troops that we have in Afghanistan, yet they have suffered almost as many casualties. This suggests to me that their contingent includes more fighting men and fewer non-combatants than ours. From WW1 to the present day Canadian troops have had an enviable reputation as can-do, no-nonsense warriors, so perhaps we should take a leaf out of their book in Afghanistan.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not neccessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members.

The Editor thanks Mr Ray England, Editor of ‘Mars & Minerva—The Journal of the Special Air Service’ for his kind permission to reprint this article.

MAY—JUNE 10 15

Filed by Our Editor from Baku during the volcanic interruption of Europe—North America air service in April.

Our readers will recall that on April 15, the Eyjafjal-lajökull volcano in Iceland erupted spreading a vol-canic ash cloud making Europe a virtual no-fly zone

causing all airports to close and stranding nearly seven million travellers. As I write this I am one of the seven million. I hope that by the time you read this I have returned home from my latest adventure, this time in Baku Azerbaijan where I have now been for ten days.

This was intended to be my third week-long trip to as-sist the senior training staff officers of the Azerbaijan Army in developing their Army Training System. The workshop lasted four days and since its conclusion I have remained in my hotel like hundreds of others waiting for Baku’s Heydar Aliyev Airport to open.

I now have an appreciation for someone who is under house arrest…for me it’s ‘hotel’ arrest. Having already visited all the tourist sites, the mosques, the Orthodox churches, the Parliament, eaten at most of the restaurants, visited all the carpet shops, museums, art galleries I now wait. The staff at my hotel is exceptionally friendly and I now know them all by their first names as they believe I have taken up permanent residency with them. As no flights are coming in bringing travellers to the hotel, I am assured of accommodation forever. Fortunately the hotel is excellent and has a superb fitness cen-tre where I spend much of my day like a hamster but instead of on a wheel, on the treadmill.

I have resisted the temptation to rent a car and venture alone outside the city to visit the countryside – perhaps a short drive south to Iran or north to Russia or better still go west to the border frontier of Armenia and witness first hand the longstanding insurgency in Nagorno-Karabakh? Alas, my duties at RCMI do not include being the Institute’s war correspondent.

Long before I had awareness of Azerbaijan, a couple of years ago I had invited the Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Canada to RCMI for a Security Studies Commit-

Ash Thursday—Stranded in Bakuby Chris Corrigan

tee Roundtable to share with us the history, culture and con-temporary geopolitical issues in his country. By coincidence late last year my projects with the Center for Civil-Military Relations (see SITREP article Vol 68 Issue 5, Sep - Oct which describes my projects with the Ukrainian Armed Forces) expanded to include Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is nine hours ahead of and 6035 miles/9712 kilometres from Toronto. It is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. Due to its rich reserves in oil it was coveted by Hitler and was a German strategic object-ive during World War Two. The exclave of Nakhichevan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest. The majority-Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabakh region in the southwest of Azerbaijan declared itself independent from Azerbaijan in 1991, but it is not diplomatic-ally recognised by any nation and is still considered a de-jure part of Azerbaijan.

All things considered this unforseen imposed period spent in suspended animation has been rather pleasant. The Azerbaijan people are most hospitable—warm, friendly, gentle and reserved.

One can communicate home by email and Skype and read the Canadian news online. As there is nothing news-worthy from Canada on CNN or BBC, once again I am pleased that life in Canada is so benign with the exception of the hockey playoffs. From within Canada issues can appear vital but from outside they are mundane. One needs to spend time outside Canada to truly appreciate our Canada and how fortunate we Canadians are. I hope I’m home by Labour Day!

Postscript – Our Editor returned home on 25 April.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members

16 SITREP

Vi n c e nt J . C u r t i s ( “ W h e re Hav e Al l t h e Man e u -ve r i s t s G one ? ” , Januar y — Febr uar y 2 0 1 0 ) re spond s to LCol Kilburn’s Letter to the Editor (March–April 2010).

In previous papers, I emphasized how important it is to maintain a high level of philosophical rigor when expounding a theory on anything. Maneuver Warfare,1 the Theory of Fourth Genera-

tion Warfare2, and Effects Based Operations3 have been refuted by examining in detail the internal contradictions and logical failings of these military theories. For any theory, military or otherwise, to be true it has at a minimum to be internally consistent and logical; and then it must solve the problem it sets for itself. Every true theory has to satisfy the Law of Non-Contradiction, which holds that a thing cannot both possess a quality and not possess that quality at the same time and in the same respect. A theory that contradicts itself cannot be true because reality is not self-contradictory. LCol (Ret’d) Kilburn fell into the trap of contradicting himself repeatedly in his defense of Maneuver Warfare.

For example, he holds that insurgency is the quintessential form of maneuver warfare. His view contradicts the works of Leon-hard4, Hooker5, Lind6, and others who have all held that the quint-essential example of Maneuver Warfare is blitzkrieg. The AirLand battle concept is often called “uber-blitzkrieg,” in reference to its theoretical heritage. In the leading works of Maneuver Warfare one nowhere finds reference to guerilla warfare as a terrific example of operational maneuver. Comparing the speed and shock of blitzkrieg with the slow pace and relative lack of intensity of guerrilla warfare would lead one to conclude that guerrilla warfare was the opposite of maneuver warfare in some way. This is contradiction number one: guerrilla warfare cannot both be a quintessential example of maneuver warfare and be its opposite.

He contradicts himself again in his analysis of Grant’s cam-paign against Lee. I concede that Grant’s tactical maneuvers in that campaign, particularly at Cold Harbor and the Crater, were what fixed on Grant the label of attritionist. And LCol Kilburn agrees with me that it was Grant’s operational maneuvers rather than his battle tactics that laid Lee’s army low. But Maneuverists hold that their theory is the diametric opposite of attrition. Grant is held up by Maneuver Warfare theorists as the quintessential attritionist, the example not to be followed, and against which Maneuverists con-trast themselves favorably. Well, if attritionist and maneuverist are opposites, then LCol Kilburn holds that Grant was simultaneously an attritionist and a maneuverist; certainly superior to the victor at Chancellorsville in operational maneuver. This is contradiction number two.

LCol Kilburn is quite right that I employed the Clausewitzian point of view in explaining how the center of gravity concept can be usefully employed at arriving at courses of action. That is not a refutation; Clausewitz was the first to postulate the center of gravity. One can see in Clausewitz’s work a familiarity with the philosophical methods of Immanuel Kant, who in turn, exhibits familiarity with the methods of Aristotle. These are not inconsiderable names in philosophy, against which I would place the names of the theorists LCol Kilburn had in mind, whoever they were. In his center of gravity concept, Clausewitz postulated that there is some one thing

that is most important, and it was essential to simplify the problem enough to discover what that one most important thing was. That most important thing (of which there can be only one) he called the center of gravity. LCol Kilburn, in his reference to nodes, does not appear to understand that there can be only one most important thing, that thing being, for example, that which enables the nodes to exist as ‘nodes’ in the first place. It is not necessary that that one thing be a ‘node’ at all. I hold that the most important thing about the Taliban is not that they have a base in Pakistan, but rather their claim of superior moral piety; and if that were taken from them they would be reduced to the status of warlord, with which Afghanistan is quite familiar.

Finally, I did not say we should throw out the ability to fight peer wars because they will no longer occur. That was Lind.7 The current doctrine of the Canadian army (Adaptive Dispersed Opera-tions) holds that they will not likely occur before 2020 and I agree with that assessment. In the here-and-now in the war we are actu-ally fighting, peer-to-peer is not applicable, and therefore Maneuver Warfare is not applicable. Nevertheless, I believe that what I call Napoleonic scale warfare ought to be the basis of our fundamental training, and that we adapt our methods to circumstances in the world as we find it.

Physics is still looking for its theory of everything, which physicists call Unified Field Theory. Maneuver Warfare is the theory that victory can be most cheaply attained through ‘maneuver’. Maneuver Warfare is not, as its proponents believe, the ‘theory of everything’ in military science; and the contradiction inherent in saying that guerilla warfare is blitzkrieg proves it is not. Maneuver Warfare fails to solve the problem it sets for itself, and in trying falls into self-contradiction.

LCol Kilburn demonstrated that the theory of Maneuver Warfare cannot be true. Its adherents contradict themselves when the term ‘maneuver’ is turned to mean anything. A theory whose central concept can mean anything means nothing, explains noth-ing, and forecasts nothing. Maneuver Warfare is not the universal theory of warfighting its adherents claim it to be; it is a belief in some vague concept of ‘maneuver’ pushed into an ideology.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members

Notes1 Vincent J. Curtis “Understanding Schlieffen” CAJ 6.3, 20032 Vincent J. Curtis “The Theory of Fourth Generation Warfare” CAJ 8.4, 20053 Vincent J. Curtis “Effects Based Operations: Air Force Gem a Rock in Army Rucksack” CAJ 11.2, 20084 Robert Leonhard “The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and AirLand Battle” Presidio Press, 1991.5 Richard D. Hooker, Jr Ed. “Maneuver Warfare: An Anthol-ogy” Presidio Press, 1993.6 William S. Lind “Maneuver Warfare Handbook” Westview Press, 1985.7 William S. Lind, et al “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation” Marine Corps Gazette, Oct 1989.

A Response to LCol Kilburnby Vincent J. Curtis