Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/368881
40 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014 www.vanguardcanada.com b booKShelf tive, you have full freedom to authorize and conduct operations as you see fi t. In the interest of national situational awareness, whenever possible you are to inform me in advance of the con- cept of operations for any planned operations, particularly those likely to involve signifi cant contact with the enemy." Fraser's freedom of action was particularly useful when he led Canadian forces during their most intense combat since the Korean War – Operation Medusa in the summer of 2006 (Horn 2010).... explaining the evolution of Canadian behavior At fi rst glance, Canada presents a puzzle for our approach (and many others as well) given that it became one of the most for- ward-leaning efforts in the most dangerous areas of Afghani- stan despite being led by a minority government from 2004 to 2011. Under a minority government, one would have expected coalition government–type behavior, with the party leading the government having to compromise with the other parties on the Afghanistan mission to stay in offi ce and avoid or win confi dence votes. However, Canadian minority governments were actually empowered by the inability of their parliamentary opponents to work together to restrict the CF in Afghanistan. minority government and Divided opposition In theory, the formal commander in chief of the Canadian forces is the governor general, who is technically an agent of the king or queen of Canada. In reality, the prime minister is empowered by Canadian governing institutions to make decisions in times of confl ict and has generally delegated military decisions to the CDS. Usually, Canada's prime minister is quite powerful, having been delegated signifi cant authority from the majority party in Parliament. The parliamentary rank and fi le have little infl uence over daily confl ict decisions and exercise practically no oversight over military operations. Indeed, members of Parliament do not even have security clearances, greatly restricting their access to pertinent information. That Parliament was a relatively weak player when it came to military deployments may seem surprising given recent Canadian election results. The majority Liberal Party government elected in 2000 was followed by minority party rule under the Liberals in 2004 and the Conservatives in 2006 and 2008. One would think that minority government cabinets would be sensitive to opposition party concerns, if only to avoid no-confi dence votes, giving Parliament signifi cant infl uence over how the military was used (Lagassé 2010). That was not the case, however, in large part because the makeup of the four major political parties made it nearly impossible to form a stable opposition coalition. The two main parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, were on opposite sides of most issues. The Bloc Québécois party was not an ap- pealing or viable partner due to its separatist agenda, and instead was a spoiler to the hopes of a left-leaning coalition of the Liber- als and the New Democratic Party. The result was that Canadian prime ministers, even when leading minority governments, were in a strong position to make policy, or delegate that authority to a trusted surrogate – in this case the CDS. That said, because Canada's was a minority government, Parlia- ment had to periodically reauthorize the overall Canadian mission in Afghanistan, which, in theory, allowed it to exert some infl u- ence over the conduct of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had to ask Parliament to extend the mission in Afghanistan on a couple of occasions, with the last mandate expiring in 2011. The Liberals were suffi ciently divided on Afghanistan that Harper was able to get enough votes for short extensions of the mission. Moreover, failing to authorize Cana- dian participation is a very blunt stick. Yet even somewhat less blunt alternatives, such as caveats, were not required by Parlia- ment. There was some brief discussion during the 2008 mandate debate about restricting the CF from engaging in offensive opera- tions, but this did not get very far. Instead, the day-to-day man- agement of Afghan operations was left in the hands of the CDS and his subordinates. Technically, the governor general selects the CDS, a four-leaf offi cer, upon the advice of the prime minister. In reality, the prime minister selects the CDS, who serves at the pleasure of the prime minister. The CDS then decides how Canadian forces operate. That said, the CDS must consider what the prime minister will tolerate or else be replaced. As such, the CDS consults the min- ister of defense and those under the minister. But when trying to understand Canadian behavior, then, we must look to the prime minister's trusted agent, the CDS. Indeed, a striking feature of Canadian efforts in Afghanistan was that nearly all of the decisions and dynamics were intramilitary. When asked, Canadian civilians and offi cers largely concurred that the civilians delegated to the senior military leadership nearly all decisions except for those to deploy to particular places at particu- lar times. Recent Canadian deployments seem to meet the ideal type of Huntington's (1957) objective form of civil-military rela- tions: the prime minister decides where the Canadian forces de- ploy and the CDS determines how they will operate once they get there. The CDS along with other top offi cers (the deputy chief of the defense staff prior to 2006 and the commander of the Cana- dian Expeditionary Forces Command since then) determined the fl exibility of the forces on the ground, including caveats. Excerpted from NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fight- ing Alone by David P. Auerswald and Stephen M. Saideman. Copyright (c) 2014 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission. To order: press.princeton.edu