In light of this fossil-fuel focus, it is somewhat odd that Canada is still home to the Globe Conference, North America’s largest gathering on business and the environment, which is held once every two years. Globe 2012 – which took place in March in Vancouver – counted more than 10,000 participants. Several countries – including China, Germany, Japan, the U.K., Dubai, France, Spain, Australia, and others – sent major delegations to the conference, all of which lobbied hard for the their clean-technology champions and did their utmost to attract new green investment and economic activity to their shores.

Amidst all of this, how did our federal government stack up? Unfortunately, not very well. The only federal representation at Globe was Environment Minister Peter Kent, who gave a speech that focused on shortening environmental assessments for resource development projects (think Keystone XL and Northern Gateway), touted the federal government’s much-criticized sector-by-sector approach to greenhouse-gas emissions, and mused that Canada’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol was made because “a cow is a cow is a cow … and none of them are sacred.” Understandably, this message did not resonate with an audience of professionals intent on leading the charge to a low-carbon economy.

Interestingly, however, the lack of federal leadership at Globe meant that other actors naturally took on the mantle of representing Canada. B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake was omnipresent at the conference, touting British Columbia’s aggressive and increasingly successful efforts to build a cleantech cluster. The Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance – a new partnership of oil-sands producers collaborating to improve environmental performance – was brilliantly represented by its chief executive, Dan Wicklum. Even David Helliwell, the founder of scrappy Canadian cleantech success story Pulse Energy, was publicly praised as a leader and innovator by the CEO of one of America’s largest electrical utilities.

Looking at the conference through the eyes of a Chinese or European visitor, two visions would have emerged: a federal government reluctant to lead on these issues; and both provincial and private-sector actors who are not waiting for Parliament, and are intent on innovating and finding solutions to environmental problems on their own. By ceding the space to other actors at Globe, the federal government signalled that it increasingly does not expect to be engaged on the transition to the green economy. It should not be surprised, therefore, if our foreign partners and competitors increasingly take the hint and increasingly work around it.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Which new entrepreneurs are pushing the boundaries in reimagining transportation?

I think there are a lot of interesting innovations at the margins of the transportation system. There are a couple of companies that are coming out of the Waterloo region that I think have interesting innovations in the transportation space. One is Miovision, which is focused on transit signal timing. It fits into a larger smart highway/smart road opportunity that I think is sometimes overlooked.

Are such companies receiving the support they need? What policies would ensure that this type of innovation in transportation is promoted?

The best policy would be a carbon tax that would create an advantage to reduce emissions from transportations. Beyond that, [these companies] need support through programs like the Scientific Research and Experimental Development program. My fear is that the redesign of this program (which is to be announced this week) will be less advantageous for early stage companies, but we shall see.

Cities have no money or power, yet are the ones bearing the brunt of transportation costs. How can we address this jurisdictional issue?

I do think that higher levels of government will have to provide financing for the municipal levels of government. I also think we will need to look at new revenue tools, particularly things like road tolls or high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.

Does Canada currently have the consensus around building a green economy that it needs for the government to push for green transportation initiatives like high-speed rail lines?

Probably not yet, or at least not to build that kind of a program. But I think the right politician can begin to sell the vision of a transformation, looking at smaller, but effective, steps towards a green economy. I think smaller measures, like a small carbon tax and new charges to build transportation infrastructure, are possible in the short- to medium-term.

What provincial governments are most progressive on this issue? What does yesterday’s Ontario budget mean for green transportation in the province?

Ontario, I think, has been pretty good on this, though current budget realities make it difficult. I am not sure I know yet what the recent budget will mean for transit.

Canada is a unique country when it comes to transportation, due to its large size and wealth of natural resources. From which countries should we take lessons on reimagining transportation?

Good question. I am not an expert on international transportation, so, in truth, I don’t really know. But if I had to guess, [I’d say] a lot of European countries provide some good ideas, given their high density, high capacity of rail and public transit, high levels of active transportation (in cities like Copenhagen, bikes are the [most popular] mode of transport), and energy policies that promote efficiency.

It is time to admit that the frontline military operation is no longer viable. Winning Afghan hearts and minds, so integral to the COIN doctrine, is simply not possible in the contemporary operating environment. Ending the combat mission, however, does not mean turning our back on Afghanistan. We have seen the blowback from such neglect in the 1990s, and I firmly believe that a replay of that horror is in the cards if the West washes its hands of Afghanistan once again. The following are some broad steps that the U.S., NATO, and the international community should take in the coming months to shift course:

1. End major combat operations over the next three to six months, and pull back forces from rural areas to main NATO bases like Bagram and Kandahar Air Field. The bulk of those frontline combat forces should be withdrawn by the beginning of 2013, retaining only enough troops to protect major NATO installations and to provide support for the NATO training mission.

1. Launch a major diplomatic offensive with three prongs:

    

   • Mend fences with the Karzai administration and push hard to finalize an agreement that would enable a residual U.S. force to be based in Afghanistan on a long-term basis. Restarting the Bush administration practice of weekly communications between the U.S. and Afghan presidents and providing Afghanistan observer status in the trial of Bales are steps that could be taken immediately to calm tensions. The United States (and the West, more generally) has to end the squabbling with Afghan President Hamid Karzai – a relationship the Obama administration has badly mismanaged – and reinvest in his leadership. Karzai is the democratically elected leader in Afghanistan, however flawed the election was, and whether the West likes it or not. Karzai is a political survivor trying to bolster his support base in advance of a NATO exit. His harsh statements about the West following the Panjwai massacre should be understood in those terms.

    

   • Work to re-establish talks with the Taliban and help bridge the gap between the Karzai government and the militant group. The fact that the Taliban opened an office in Qatar shows that they are serious about negotiations. Their suspension of talks after the Panjwai massacre shows that they are in the driver’s seat of the process; the U.S. should retake the initiative and push to restart talks.

    

   • Redouble efforts to develop a robust regional co-operation framework with Afghanistan’s neighbours and major regional powers, including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian states, and key Gulf countries. None of these actors want to see the return of full-fledged war in Afghanistan, even if they are reluctant to see a long-term U.S. presence. There are several regional initiatives ongoing, but none have produced more than polite statements on paper. The U.S. and its NATO partners must deploy some serious diplomatic muscle, perhaps under UN auspices, to secure regional guarantees of non-interference and co-operation. There is no doubt that this will be difficult in light of the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program and the mini-Cold War between Islamabad and Washington (that must be de-escalated). There is more common ground in the region over Afghanistan than is often assumed.

    

2. The training mission in Afghanistan must continue for at least five more years with ongoing security co-operation beyond that. Trainers and mentors withdrawn from Afghan police and army units following the Koran burning and the violent incidents it triggered should be redeployed once tensions have subsided. A dedicated trust fund should be endowed and adequately funded to support the equipment, training, and recurrent budgetary costs for the Afghan security forces for at least a decade. This is a great deal cheaper than maintaining high levels of NATO troops in the country and the only way to ensure that the Afghan security sector does not crumble from the inevitable budgetary crunch that will emerge when western aid and attention declines.

1. Maintain current levels of development aid focusing on areas of the country where there is a permissible security environment. Attention must be dedicated to strengthening governance and service delivery at the sub-national level, providing a much-needed peace dividend to restive communities. Aid should be channelled through Afghan government institutions, NGOs, and private-sector businesses as much as possible. The benefits of building local capacity through such aid practices outweigh inevitable losses from aid leakage due to corruption and mismanagement.

1. Western states should encourage the Afghan government to devolve greater power and political authority to the local level. The unitary state experiment in Afghanistan has not been a successful one, for the most part, and greater attention must be given to decentralization and shared sovereignty that would empower local leaders, both state and non-state, to govern and exercise their authority under the overarching umbrella of the central government. This is not something donors can do, but they can encourage their Afghan counterparts to consider it. It may require constitutional changes, but it will better reflect realities on the ground.

This shift in approach is fraught with dangers, and is no panacea for Afghanistan’s current predicament. In fact, it may simply be too late to preserve some of the laudable achievements of the international engagement and turn the sinking ship around. It is not, however, too late to take steps to avert a civil war that will have disastrous consequences for the Afghans and the whole region.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Jeffrey Sachs, author of The End of Poverty, believes the next World Bank president should be a development expert. And so the macro-economist from Columbia University has decided to run for the presidency himself.

Earlier this month, Sachs published an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled, “How I would lead the World Bank.” Since then, he has picked up endorsements from Bono and Bill Gates, from Haiti, Bhutan, and Namibia. Now, he is seeking Canada’s endorsement.

Below, Sachs explains why Canada should endorse his candidacy and four development experts — Peace Dividend Trust founder Scott Gilmore, Michael Shank of the Institute for Economics and Peace, the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Mark Weisbrot, and University of Ottawa’s John Sinclair — debate Sachs’s merits as potential World Bank president.

Jeffrey Sachs has broken the mould by lobbying for the presidency with blogs and op-eds. His efforts have gained him endorsements from several small developing countries. And now this appeal to Canada. He is certainly an articulate and well-informed thinker on development issues, even if he has no experience leading an organization like the World Bank. But most commentators say he can expect no sympathy from the U.S. government. Are his efforts fated to become just a circus act? Will the ringmaster proclaim Sachs’s self-declared candidacy null and void?

Are other very competent people simply refusing to risk becoming clowns in a ring?

The World Bank is the giant in development co-operation. When it seeks a vice-president, it advertises in The Economist, but for a president, there is not even a job description. Where is “transparency”? What is “merit” for this job? What sort of competition is being held when interest in, let alone knowledge of, international development is not a core criterion? A recent McLeod Group open letter to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty suggested, “what is needed is superior leadership skills and geo-political credibility,” arguing that the bank is already technically well-managed.

There is a semblance of a competitive process. A shortlist of three names is to be developed, with the World Bank Board holding formal interviews in mid-April. That body normally works by consensus, but its voting structure is seriously imbalanced, favouring the industrialized North at the expense of emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil.

But is this all a sham? Are we about to see another coronation, an American hand-picked by U.S. President Barack Obama? Despite the promises of fairness, are senior U.S. and European officials already doing a lot of arm-twisting to ensure there is no serious challenge from the developing world, or even from an American non-insider such as Sachs?

Jeffrey Sachs’s solo bid at least opens the door a crack, but much more is needed for effective global governance in today’s multi-polar world.

And where does Canada stand in all this? What about Jeffrey Sachs should make Canada want to endorse him?

Sachs has an agenda to reform the World Bank. He believes the World Bank can do more to reduce poverty and help meet the Millennium Development Goals than it is currently doing, by focusing more energy and resources in fewer areas (education, primary health care, treating and preventing infectious disease, and supporting smallholder agriculture); by moving the World Bank away from support for fossil fuels and towards support for renewable energy; by leveraging resources outside the bank; and by mobilizing public opinion. An important part of being the World Bank president is having the power of the “bully pulpit”: as president, Sachs will use that power to engage public opinion in helping to meet the challenges of development.

Sachs has a track record for promoting reform. I have known Sachs since 1998. Since that time, I have known him to be a consistent and effective public advocate for debt cancellation for the poorest countries, for ending the World Bank’s promotion of “user fees” that impeded access to primary education and primary health care, and for making essential medicines available in poor countries.

His campaign for the presidency is already reforming the World Bank: At the time that Sachs announced his public candidacy, press reports were indicating that the U.S. Treasury intended to try to re-impose the ancient regime whereby the U.S. Department of the Treasury would select the World Bank president in consultation with Europe, and no one else. By announcing and running a public campaign, Sachs has opened up the process to public scrutiny and debate. By actively soliciting the support of developing countries, Sachs included those countries in a process from which the U.S. Department of the Treasury had sought to exclude them.

To have an “open, merit-based process,” one must have candidates. By running for World Bank president, Sachs has ensured that we have candidates. “Jeff is showing here the way forward for those around [the] world who have candidates who are qualified, a way of putting those names in play,” says Colin Bradford, former chief economist at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “The person the board of directors selects had better be at least as good as the names surfacing in public.” Now, Bradford said, “that person needs to be at least as good as Jeff Sachs – otherwise it will be a sham.”

If Canada is not yet ready to join the countries that have already endorsed Sachs, then it should back the recent statement of Mexico’s finance minister, currently chairing the G20, who welcomed Sachs’s candidacy and reaffirmed Mexico’s support for the transparent, merit-based process that the G20 promised.

The freedom of religion has often fallen prey to this and other tyrannies. Whether it is the power and authority of a majority religion or that of a secular state, religious freedom (especially for unpopular and outspoken minority religions) is often overlooked. Despite constitutional assurances in over 90 per cent of all nations with a constitution, religious freedoms are routinely denied through formal legislation and social pressures – or the promised freedoms are simply ignored. Recent data collections by Freedom House, the Religion and State Project at Bar Ilan University, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and the Association of Religion Data Archives at Penn State University all reach similar conclusions: Religious freedoms are routinely denied in the majority of countries, and egregious violations are common.

But the consequences of denying religious freedoms go far beyond houses of worship or the lives of a few religious minorities. In The Price of Freedom Denied, Brian Grim and I find that these freedoms are embedded within a much larger bundle of civil liberties. Denying freedoms for expressing religious beliefs quickly erodes freedom of speech, and restricting the assembly of religious groups opens the door for curtailing the activities of other groups, as well. The denial of religious freedoms is tightly intertwined with the denial of many freedoms. In particular, political freedoms, gender empowerment, and a general measure of civil liberties all hold strong associations with religious freedoms.

Despite holding much in common with these liberties, however, the enforcement of religious liberties is frequently complicated by the distinctive relationship religion holds with the larger society. First, religions are typically organized into formal institutions that have the potential for mobilizing popular support and forming alliances with the state. The potential for organizing popular support often threatens the state and results in increased restrictions. Likewise, alliances between the state and dominant religions result in increased pressures to restrict religious competitors. Second, religions can often appeal to the shared history and culture of their country as motives for denying religious freedoms and even justifying violence. Many national and cultural identities are so closely interwoven with, or against, selected religions that ensuring religious freedoms for all is perceived as challenging the cultural identity as a whole. In the end, religious freedoms rely on the same institutions as other human rights for support and protection, but religions hold distinctive and complex relationships with the state and the larger culture. 

Moving beyond the loss of liberties, Grim and I also find that the price of denying religious freedoms includes violent religious persecution and social conflict. More recently, Jaime Harris and I show that even when religion is not the primary motive for social conflict, denying religious freedoms often results in increased segregation of religious groups and an increase in discrimination against such groups, especially minority religions. As a result, the contact between religious groups is reduced, grievances surge, and the potential for future violence increases when freedoms are denied.

Yet, ensuring religious freedoms, or any liberty, is neither easy nor convenient. Democracy is often treated as a panacea for social ills and the protector of civil liberties, but de Tocqueville’s warning on the “tyranny of the majority” should not be ignored. Open and free elections might ensure that the majority’s will is heard, but this offers little comfort to minorities losing liberties.  Likewise, constitutional guarantees mean little when they are ignored or overruled by the actions of the majority or the state. Based on initial results, Robert Martin and I are finding that an independent judiciary is far more important for securing constitutional promises of religious freedoms than free elections or even government effectiveness are.

Whereas religious restrictions are often justified as an effort to ensure social harmony, the consequences are just the opposite. Religious freedoms serve to defuse potential violence and the lack of freedom is associated with increased violence. At first glance, this proposal might seem overly simplistic or even naïve. But on closer inspection, it is built on a principle of self-interest.  As shown by Pew Forum global surveys, people value their own freedoms more than those of others. Yet, when freedoms are uniformly secured for all, the freedoms for even the smallest minority become the freedoms for all. Simply put, I have more motivation to support your religious freedoms when your freedoms are my freedoms.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

The World Bank needs someone committed to ending poverty – someone who knows development. Its mission – to “help reduce poverty” – suggests that the president should not be a political post but a person who can move development policy in order to address poverty, fix financial systems that exacerbate it, and prevent climate change from disrupting further poverty-reduction progress.

Consider the current levels of poverty and income inequality: They are at record levels in the U.S. and problematic abroad, with over one billion people living in extreme poverty – on less than $1.25 a day – and another 2.5 billion without basic sanitation.

Consider the broken economic systems of the developed and developing worlds, and the deleterious impacts they have. The fall of Greece, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, and the imminent ripple effects in even poorer countries, forecasts the kind of cleanup with which the bank will be tasked.

Consider climate change’s disastrous impacts on global development and poverty. That the costs of climate disasters in the U.S. surpassed $50 billion last year alone illustrates a dangerous trend. Hurricanes, tsunamis, and floods are on the rise. Sachs’ frequent work in Bangladesh, a country victim to much flooding, means he knows this reality all too well.

If the World Bank brings on board a Washington or Wall Street figure that lacks development expertise, these dynamics are not going to change. On the other hand, given Sachs’ wealth of experience in all three of these areas – poverty, economics, and climate – there is no better candidate. The bank needs someone who knows the inner workings of the UN, the bureaucracy of slothful government agencies, the good intentions of development-minded non-governmental organizations, the innovation of forward-thinking economists who will not recycle old bank habits, and the plights of the poor, be they in Kenya or Kathmandu or Kansas.

Jeffrey Sachs knows all of these environments intimately and can effectively mobilize them for the greater good. A quick read of his New York Times bestsellers on international development – The End of Poverty and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet – and you understand immediately that this man is committed to doing everything in his power to eradicate poverty within his lifetime. This is the kind of person we want running the World Bank.

First, Sachs is the chief proponent of the top-down, centrally planned, western-imposed model of poverty reduction that has so spectacularly failed over the last 50 years. He has never seen a developmental challenge too large, too persistent, or too complex that it can’t be fixed with the simple application of more money. Sachs and his discredited “spend more” approach have been relegated to the corner, the hapless punching bag for people like NYU professor Bill Easterly and other champions of aid reform.

Second, the job of World Bank president is actually a diplomatic one. Sachs is not a diplomat; he is an ideologue, an angry lecturer. Watching him negotiate a eurozone debt crisis would be like watching Mad Money’s Jim Cramer provide marriage counselling. It would be strangely entertaining, but ultimately loud and ineffective.

Finally, the ability to run an organization with 13,000 staff, 100 offices, and $178 billion in capital is not something you can just pick up. Writing books, lecturing grad students, and giving TED Talks doesn’t prepare you for a job like this. For the sake of the World Bank, for the sake of the world’s poor, keep Dean Martin away from the good scotch.

Jeffrey Sachs Responds:

Of course, the U.S. has always viewed the World Bank presidency as a place for bankers, defence department officials, diplomats, and political appointees. Yet, the results of that viewpoint are poor. The World Bank is adrift, has modest financial resources, and is losing its intellectual heft and internal morale. It needs dynamic leadership that is up to the tasks of 21st-century sustainable development.

I have always had great admiration for my southern neighbour, Canada (after all, I was raised in Detroit, and enjoyed travelling due south to Windsor, Ont.). Canada is not only a country forged out of a global citizenry, but is also one that has taken on great global challenges. The first book that I read in economics as a freshman student years ago was Lester B. Pearson’s Partners in Development. Pearson’s spirit of can-do internationalism has remained with me to this day.

I have proven my ability to work with all cultures and countries, having visited more than 125 countries and worked professionally in the majority of those. I have worked with leaders in India, China, and many other countries on daunting problems of economic development, and have won their confidence in my recommendations. During the past decade, I have led the advisory efforts on the Millennium Development Goals and helped in key ways to develop many of the successful strategies that are now leading to a historic drop in disease and deprivation in Africa. I was a decade ahead of the curve, forecasting Africa’s turnaround when most people said it was a hopeless case. That is why African leaders around the continent are supporting my candidacy.

I am running not only on my strong record, but also in comparison with other potential candidates. Other leading names do not have track records in development, sustainability, or help for the poor. They do not have expertise beyond economics, business, diplomacy, though sustainable development today is also about public health, agriculture, climate, and much more – areas to which I have devoted my time, study, and  action. If we are to succeed in fighting poverty, controlling diseases, battling hunger, and fostering a modern, sustainable infrastructure for the 21st century, we need experienced leadership. I offer that, and seek Canada’s support.

The commander was enraged.  He sent 20 of his best soldiers to bring back his daughter and kill his wife. As they went, one of the soldiers said to the others, “Aling’s mother is a good woman. She has helped us many times when we were injured or needed comfort. Why should we not follow her instead of the commander?”  They too escaped, joining Aling and her mother at a rehabilitation centre in Pajule, Pader District. 

Some days later, having heard that his soldiers, wife and daughter were in the nearby centre, the commander dispatched another 70 soldiers to attack the place, ordering them to kill everyone.  As they got nearer, the soldiers surrendered their guns to the local officials.  They too followed the lead of Mama Aling, the mother of the child who asked if it was not time to go home.

Since the early 2000s, the Ugandan initiative, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), a Ugandan initiative, has recorded some of the worst human rights abuses that have taken place during the war, and the efforts of people like Mama Aling to stop them.  JRP documents the stories of ordinary people caught between the warring parties - of those pressed into fighting against their will, and those who are born of circumstances not of their choosing.  The organization got the help of dozens of persons in displaced camps who, for years, volunteered to keep track of, and record, what was happening there.

At the height of the war, the original JRP team walked, rode bicycles and boda boda (motorcycles), and travelled in the backs of trucks to reach areas that no international journalist or advocate would go to.  At the time, people weren’t permitted to travel even a few kilometres our to town after curfew.

Members of the JRP team – who are about the same age as Jason Russell, the maker of the Kony 2012 film – document the memories of massacre survivors.  They record stories of sexual violence and the ways women and men resist armed soldiers. They speak to parents whose children are still missing. They listen to commanders who surrendered and who regret the atrocities they committed. They try to move beyond the good-guy-bad-guy model, recognizing the extraordinary circumstances in which soldiers commit violence against others, as children who grew up in war and were forced to fight.

Sometimes this work is overwhelming. It often feels like documentation and advocacy is not enough. At some point, each member of the team has held heads in hands and wept following an interview, or after meeting a community. After the tears, they gather courage and write it all down. Then they go and talk about it with local officials and request a resolution.

They publish reports and news articles, do tours and hold radio programmes in order to bring the voices of communities to national and international debate and attention. This isn’t always an easy task.

In 2007, Boniface Ojok, the project’s coordinator, met with the LRA and government representatives to the peace talks. He sat in between the heads of the two delegations and told them what he has seen and learned about justice from people on the ground.  

Co-founder Michael Otim put his life on hold for more than two years, attending each and every peace talk between 2006 and 2008 as an advisor to a delegation of cultural and religious leaders.

JRP’s advocacy is not just with officials and leaders, however.  It also engages the communities most affected by the war. JRP’s members utilize oral history, dance, song, drama, poetry, radio programs, community dialogues and public marches to share what they have learned at national debates, and to promote ownership of advocacy. They help survivors found their own advocacy groups, and when resources are available, they bring survivors to meet with officials and leaders.

For example, JRP supports storytelling sessions among a group of war-affected women Gulu, a town in northern Uganda. These sessions provide a space in which women can speak freely about their memories of war and the challenges of daily life. As word spread about the group, so many women wanted to join that new groups started to form.  On International Women’s day this year, IRP formally launched the Women’s Advocacy Network, with over 200 members.  The group’s chairperson, Evelyn Amony, spent more than 10 years in captivity. She believes she survived the war to tell her story, and to help others tell theirs.

This is courageous and exhausting work, but JRP is not alone. Hundreds of local and national organizations work to document and remember, and to insist on justice. There is Human Rights Focus (HURIFO), for instance, which operated as the only human-rights organization in the region for many years.  There is also the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, an interdenominational group (Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican and Muslim) that has repeatedly met with the rebels and government in attempts to persuade them of the need for peace talks.  

There is Alice Achan, who rallied her community together to build a shelter for the hundreds of children who escaped rebel captivity but had no where to go, and no way to find their parents.  In the shelter, she loved and nourished each one of them until they could be reunited with their families. Then there is the Concerned Parents Association, which formed after 139 girls were abducted from St. Mary’s College in Aboke. Women like Angelina Atyam travelled the world over and back (she even met Oprah!) to find their children.

During the nearly 10 years I have worked in Uganda with advocates, survivors and researchers, I have never heard them lobby for military intervention.  In fact, the opposite is true: Ugandans have consistently insisted on an amnesty process for rebels, recognizing that many soldiers were forced into combat as children. Most prefer to talk peace rather than wage war. It is common knowledge that the first to be killed in military raids are the most recently abducted kids.

This is not to say that Ugandans do not want to stop Kony, or that they do not want justice. Nor is it to say that local leaders are perfect and know all the solutions, or that they speak with one voice. This is not the case. 

The point is, Ugandans, along with people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan and many other countries around the world, are working for peace in both extraordinary and ordinary ways that are often off “the grid”.  

They do so that the world is a better place for their children – so that it is better for Jason Russell’s children – and they do it without ever being called a hero.

So alongside the current media hubbub around Kony 2012, how about celebrating the heroism of thousands of Ugandans like Aling, Boniface, Evelyn, and Alice, building peace and working for justice despite the war.  How about #Ugandans2012?

Photo courtesy Reuters.

•  Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire explains why #Kony2012 describes a situation that no longer exists.
• The Ugandan government responds to the #Kony2012 campaign, insisting that it should be preceded with a disclaimer noting that this is how things used to be.
• Anywar Ricky Richard, a former child soldier in the LRA and founder of Friends of Orphans, explains how negotiations from 2006 to 2008 have brought relative peace to Northern Uganda in a piece for National Geographic.
• TMS Ruge, Ugandan co-founder of Project Diaspora, describes how #Kony2012 hijacks the voices of those we are trying to help in an op-ed for the New York Times.

• Musa Okwonga, a Ugandan journalist and musician, writes about Invisible Children’s “top-down prescriptiveness” in an op-ed for The Independent.
• Jacob Acaye, the protagonist of the #Kony2012 film, in an interview with The Guardian, defends Invisible Children. 
• Victor Ochen, Director for African Youth Initiative Network Uganda, sees four major problems with #Kony2012.
• Charles Okwir, abducted by Joseph Kony’s LRA 20 years ago, explains why a military solution will not solve the Kony problem. 
• Stephen Oola, a peacebuilder in Uganda, poses a series of questions about Invisible Children.
• Angelo Opi-Aiya Izama, a journalist and researcher in Uganda, says calling the #Kony2012 campaign misleading is an understatement.
• Ugandan-born, London-based consultant Ida Horner argues that #Kony2012 has opened up old wounds in Uganda. 
• Frank Odongkara of Kampala wrote a poem, “Mocking a Mocking Bird” about how #Kony2012 makes him feel. 
• Evelyn Apoko, a Kony victim, reacts.

Photo courtesy Invisible Children.

For countries everywhere – from the 20-member Arab League to the European Union, the United States, and Canada – the question now is: What can we do about Syria?

The question is both morally and strategically important. If democratic nations sincerely believe that there is an international “responsibility to protect,” then why would that apply to Libya and not to Syria? If military intervention was necessary and defensible in Kosovo and Kuwait, if two interventions were justified politically in western countries against Iraq, then how is Syria different?

Strategically, the situation is different from Libya. Former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi could easily be portrayed as a mad man; Syrian President Bashir al-Assad cannot. At this point, however, Assad is not fully in control of his army, some members of which are reportedly unwilling to fire on civilians, and his attempts to hold on to power have resulted in a repression that most international commentators believe, in the end, will prove impossible.

How Assad will leave, if he indeed will, and how many of his own people will be killed in the meantime is the moral difficulty overhanging those in the democracies wondering what can be done.

The question of what can be done, or perhaps what ought to be done, is one not only for governments, but also for those who elect them and the think tanks and lobby groups that would attempt to influence foreign policy.

One surprise about the escalating repression in Syria has been the lack of popular noise against it. Both protest movements and intelligentsia in countries like Canada have responded to the Syrians’ attempts to create a democracy for themselves with a “seen that before” kind of complacency.

Air strikes were needed to help the Libyans, and while the future style and substance of democracy in Egypt is far from clear, the Arab Spring has appeared to have an inevitability to it that may have inured us to the real repression in Syria.

The occasional, and largely jubilant, group of Syrians and Syrian supporters demonstrating in Toronto’s Dundas Square has hardly hit the national psyche. Protests by Canadians of Tamil descent a couple of years ago had far more impact.

Until recently, the rhetoric of politicians has hardly raised the national temperature. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, in Tunis for a meeting of the Friends of Syria, pledged foreign aid and called on Syria to allow safe access for humanitarian assistance.

But having ruled out military intervention, the White House is at last becoming more blunt. “It is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government,” Obama said in Washington, adding that it is “absolutely imperative for the international community to rally and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition. It is time for that regime to move on.”

But how will the regime move on if no one pushes it, and how many will be killed in the process?

Military intervention is a hard choice. Syria is an ally of Iran, and a major influence on Lebanon and the proxies Hamas and Hezbollah that threaten Israel. With Libya, there was little fear of spreading the conflict – with Syria, the opposite is the case.

But none of those strategic matters lets off those who believe in a moral or legal responsibility to protect, or those whose role is to advise and pressure governments on what they should do.

Canada could, and should, have its own role. It was a major player in the intervention in Libya, and earned its military spurs in Afghanistan. What should it say and do now?

What, also, should our politicians do? Parliament is a place for debate. Would it be too much to ask that our politicians take a day to debate the latest development in the most important international political change of the century? How about a similar day in both Houses of Congress?

As for those, like the Canadian International Council, who would advise and attempt to bring solutions on foreign policy to government, their duty is to influence by the power of words – to study, write, blog, raise awareness, and possibly point the way to responsible action. Syrians want the freedom to exercise the rights we have every day to make our views known and influence policy. We should be using our rights to demonstrate what those rights may do. There will be no solution if we don’t look for one.

This article has been endorsed by the following:

Arfan Ahmad is president of the Canadian International Council’s Windsor-Essex branch.
Paul W. Bennett is president of the Halifax branch.
Duane Bratt is the president of the Calgary Branch.
Jo-Ann Davis is the president of the Toronto branch.
Joan Euler is the president of the Waterloo branch.
Nicholas Hirst is the president of the Winnipeg branch and a member of its national board.
Kyle Matthews is the president of the Montreal branch.
John Noble is the president of the National Capital (Ottawa) branch.
Daniel Sutherland is the president of the Saskatoon branch.
Mark Williams is president of the Hamilton branch.
Grant Winton is the president of the Edmonton branch.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

T.E. Lawrence (better known as Lawrence of Arabia) was not talking about the ongoing conflict in Syria, but rather the Arab Revolt of 1916. Yet, his warning seems more pertinent than ever. The international community has heard repeated warnings that external interference in Syria could have profound and far-reaching effects. The Russian ambassador to the UN cautioned that “such approaches lead to a never-ending circle of violence,” while China’s Middle East envoy made it clear that international interference “would be a huge disaster for the people involved, the region involved, and it would have a negative impact on world peace as well.”

It is not simply prejudiced nations that fear what the future of Syria means for stability in the Middle East, and the world. In his reply to this week’s Rapid Response question, Middle East expert Matthieu Aikins noted that “Syria is more like Iraq than Libya,” and cautioned that a civil war in Syria could quickly escalate into a much larger Iran-West confrontation. Kyle Matthews of the Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies calls Syria “a hornet’s nest that no country wants to contemplate engaging in.”

As Assad’s grip on power seems to be loosening, and the American director of National Intelligence declares, “it’s a question of time before Assad falls,” it is time to seriously consider what a post-Assad Syria might look like. The region is far too complicated for anyone to make predictions with complete certainty, but here are a few: 

Interactive graphic created by Cameron Tulk, research by Anouk Dey.

With thanks to Ioana Sendroiu, Amjad Iraqi and Molly Grove for their help.

The reporting of the violence in Syria is, in MacKenzie’s eyes, another example “of the Western proclivity for anointing a ‘good’ side and vilifying a ‘bad’ side” in a conflict. In an attempt to peer behind the biased western media curtain, MacKenzie notes that Assad and his ruling clique come from the Alawite religious sect that makes up just 10 per cent of the majority Sunni Syria, with the implication that they are somehow a minority under threat. The fact that the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for four decades, heavily favouring its co-religionists at the expense of the wider population, does not seem to deserve mention in MacKenzie’s analysis. Like many recent opponents of western engagement in Syria, MacKenzie cites a Doha Debates poll from early January that found that 55 per cent of Syrians support the Assad regime in spite of the upheaval. What he neglects to mention is that the poll (conducted by YouGov Siraj) only interviewed 97 Syrians, many of whom were outside the country. I would hardly call this an adequate sample size.  

The central argument for MacKenzie, like other standard bearers of non-intervention in the Middle East, is that radical Islamists have infiltrated the Syrian opposition. Accordingly, if the West were to sign up with the opposition, we would be siding with “al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood” just as we supposedly did in Libya. Such notions, presented with no evidence whatsoever, represent one of the great myths of the uprisings in the Middle East – that somehow radical Islam is driving them. While there is no denying that the fractious assemblage of opposition forces in Syria and other Arab states contain Islamist elements, they are by no means a driving force in the movements that represent, above all, a reaction to decades of authoritarian state oppression.

Contrary to what MacKenzie may claim, a humanitarian catastrophe is indeed unfolding in Syria, and the international community should not sit idly by while it deepens. Where MacKenzie is right is that a direct military intervention is not feasible, for a variety of political and strategic reasons that myself and others have explained elsewhere. Pressing Russia to hold its Syrian ally to account is one approach that should be taken – and the Russians have shown increasing impatience with the Assad regime in recent days – but others should also be considered: applying an array of robust and targeted sanctions and even blockading Syrian ports; using limited force to create a safe zone or humanitarian corridor for Syrian civilians and opposition groups; and even arming Syrian opposition forces. All of these options carry risks, but with the situation deteriorating and the spillover effects for an already volatile region profound, the window of opportunity to act may be now. It is certainly convenient for us in the West to pretend that what is happening in Syria and across the Arab world is not as serious as it seems, and that it is first and foremost an Arab problem, but, unfortunately, this logic denies the facts and the responsibility of wealthy, stable states like Canada to contribute to global peace and security.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

What can Canada expect to achieve by promoting religious freedom abroad?

Religion has a track record of providing good things like hope, love, freedom, and morality in many places for many people. It is a very important part of their lives, and not for bad reasons. Many people around the world organize their lives around their religion. It’s their community, their friends, and their networking. And we don’t want to tamper with that unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s a wonderful thing for these people.

However, religions should not be allowed to have practices, no matter how traditional they are, that violate fundamental laws. For instance, there should be no human sacrifice, and there should be no polygamy. Those are simply not to be tolerated, and you couldn’t have religious freedom [with them in place]. It’s the practices that are on the boundaries of what is acceptable to people that raise interesting problems.

Would atheists be protected by an Office of Religious Freedom?

That depends on what’s being protected according to these principles. Will the office protect the right of free assembly and the right not to be interfered with?

Atheists ought to be protected. If the freedom to have no religion at all isn’t included in the freedom of religion, then that is a bad policy. That said, there is only a miniscule portion of atheists in any population that I think would need any protection, as only a small fraction of them belong to actual atheist groups.

Is there a difference between a government promoting religious freedom within its borders and abroad?

So long as a government is promoting religious freedom within its own borders [as well], there does not have to be. Promoting religious freedom abroad is no different than promoting free elections, justice, equality for women, and fair labour practices for children around the world. These are all worthy national and international goals, as is religious freedom. Of course, religious freedom is a more hard-edged issue in some ways, in that some countries clearly have a long tradition of religious intolerance and this policy cuts against that.

In establishing an Office of Religious Freedom, will the Canadian government implicitly place religious freedom above other human rights?

The government implicitly elevates religious freedom: If you have a special office for one [human-rights issue] and not for the others, that does raise a question. Why not for all? Why not have an office that promotes human rights in general? Why should you single out religion if you are not already willing to defend the rights of, say, women, or gays and lesbians, and so forth?

There are certain human rights that conflict with religious freedom. The most pervasive and serious is a child’s right to access information about the world. I think that many religions attempt to shelter children from knowledge of other religions, or even the history of their own religion. They want to closely control the information that children growing up in that religion have. That’s a very serious issue. The state should not permit a religious group to say, “We forbid our children to learn how to read,” for instance. That would clearly be outside acceptability. But some might say it is a matter of religious freedom. I don’t think that case has ever come up, but if it did, you could say that it is a form of child abuse to deny your children the ability to read. In [situations like that], the promotion of the right to read for children everywhere should take precedence over protection of religious freedom.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

The question can best be answered by posing it in another way: What can Canada contribute by promoting religious freedom abroad? Before Canada created its office, the United States operated the only diplomatic program explicitly charged with promoting global religious freedom, and its activities inevitably became bound up with its status as a superpower. Thus, critics see ulterior motives or find cases of inconsistency or hypocrisy where U.S. strategic interests clash with its human-rights policies. Because Canada’s foreign policies are not tainted in this way, it is in a position to uphold international law on religious freedom with great clarity. By making this contribution, Canada will gain the admiration and respect of a growing global network of human-rights groups, religious-freedom advocates, scholars, religious dissidents, and heroes of conscience.

There is also a powerful national-security rationale for supporting international religious freedom. We know from the latest research that militant religious movements and transnational terror networks spring from societies that deny religious rights or persecute religious minorities. In a world of fervent religion, the only antidote to violent fanaticism is expanding regimes of tolerance where religious energies are channelled into civil-society engagement and healthy competition, where religious communities, in the words of the Quran, can “vie one with another in virtue.”

Would atheists be protected by Canada’s office?

Yes. The reigning document for international law on religious freedom, which Canada’s office will uphold, is Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

As is clear in this declaration, robust religious freedom recognizes the rights of persons to explore, question, or change their religion or beliefs. Not only does this declaration implicitly protect the rights of doubters or non-believers, but empirical evidence on the ground also suggests that religious skeptics are most safe where religious freedom is robustly protected. Atheists or questioners are most vulnerable in theocratic states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, or in autocratic regimes that curry favour with dominant religious communities to stay in power.

Is there a difference between a government promoting religious freedom within its own borders and abroad?

Yes. There is a difference between a government protecting religious freedom within its borders – through constitutional or legal provisions – and advancing it abroad through diplomacy. The difference lies in the fact that a government is able to enforce domestic laws that protect the freedom of conscience, belief, and religious exercise, and by that means educate citizens about the value of toleration and pluralism. A nation does not have that enforcement power abroad, so it must rely on the diplomacy of moral suasion and appeals to the self-interest of other sovereign states. But a key lever is international law, which clearly establishes religious freedom as a universal right that all members of the United Nations are obligated to uphold.

In establishing an Office of Religious Freedom, will the Canadian government implicitly place religious freedom above other human rights?

No, because human rights reinforce each other. Governments and international organizations launch all sorts of special human-rights campaigns and programs – for women’s rights, worker’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights, refugee rights – so there is precedent for special emphasis. Moreover, the promotion of human rights internationally is always vulnerable to strategic calculations of nations, so to the extent that religious-freedom advocacy brings new energy to rights campaigns, it will enhance the broader human-rights cause. Critics of the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act, which established the State Department Office, commonly expressed the concern that it would elevate religious freedom above other human rights. But eventually, secular human-rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, came to welcome the American initiative because it brought new religious allies to the human-rights cause.

Religious freedom is a potent human right because it encompasses so many other rights – the freedom of speech and assembly, of belief and conscience, the right to own property and form civil-society organizations, and the right of democratic participation. Moreover, we know from research by Brian Grim and Roger Finke that religious freedom vitally contributes to civil liberties, democratization, women’s status, economic development, inter-religious amity, civil peace, and regional stability. It is also a critical check on the abuse of state power, which was why James Madison and other formative thinkers viewed religious liberty as the “first freedom” worthy of its pride of place in the Bill of Rights.   

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Is the trend toward “state capitalism” tightly linked to the rise of emerging economies?

Once they get big enough to compete internationally, firms from G20 emerging markets face an intensely competitive international trading and investment environment dominated by global giants. States do seek to give leading domestic companies a boost during this globalization process. This is generally true whether or not the firms are state-owned. Two thirds of the Fortune 500 companies from emerging economies have some level of state ownership. In my comments, I am going to address Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

In the Jan. 21 issue of The Economist, Adrian Wooldridge refers to “state capitalism” as economies in which corporations are partly owned, and fully controlled, by the state. These state-owned enterprises are alleged to be captured by the elites and serve the purposes of the elite or the party, depending on the country. Due to the pervasive influence of politicians, these firms are characterized by micro-management, cronyism, loss-making, low productivity, corruption, and an inability to innovate.

To begin with, we need to recognize that the economic diversity and scale of institutions and companies in China is difficult to grasp. At any given moment across a range of situations, statements can be both true and not true. These sweeping generalizations are not completely inaccurate, but they are missing the detail and context necessary to make sense of what is going on. While it is certainly possible to find instances of the above features of “state capitalism,” in my view, the converse is closer to reality. If micromanagement, cronyism, etc. were the defining features of Chinese SOEs, it would be difficult to account for their success.

The 121 nationally supervised SOEs are profit-driven to their core, and widely understood in China to be the most competitive and best-managed of China’s companies. If the state has a goal, it is for SOEs (and entrepreneurial firms) to globalize rapidly and compete head-to-head with global competitors in international markets. SASAC evaluation criteria are overwhelmingly financial, and financial performance drives executive compensation. The executive suite is made up of a party-appointed chairman and other executives drawn from within the SOE. These party-appointed leaders move from one SOE to another, with the majority of them carrying the rank of minister. Their career mobility lies in the corporate vision and leadership qualities they bring to bear at a succession of SOEs.

Allowing the market to decide [has been] the fundamental principle driving growth in China over the past three decades. The power of the market to decide winners is so internalized that Chinese executives express a certain bafflement that the government or party would have the time or inclination to direct SOE decision-making and strategy. SOEs are pushed to compete [against each other, domestically, and] internationally against the major rivals in their field. Neither the bureaucracy nor the party seeks to micromanage how that is done in detail.

Deng Xiaoping’s advice at the beginning of reform was, “study what the West has to teach us.”  For the past 40 years, Chinese students, government officials, and business people have consciously set out to learn from the West – in many sectors, there is now a sense that China has achieved international standards and may be improving on that. The pattern has been to study many sources, synthesize them, and adapt [the ideas] to their own system. Innovation is now identified as a key requirement for a sustainable society. We will see whether a generation of learning, synthesizing, and adapting is an effective foundation for innovation. Chinese strengths include a long decision horizon, planning, and effective co-ordination of resources. China educates more engineers each year than we have in total. Although the emphasis on innovation is recent and there is thus little to go on, it would be overconfident, to say the least, to assume that SOEs won’t be contributors to innovation. Entrepreneurial firms will no doubt be innovative as well.  

SOEs are starting to invest globally – including in Canada. Should Canada treat these companies differently than it does typical foreign investors? What threat do they pose to Canada?

Like many other countries, Canada has laws governing major foreign investment by foreign companies. The Investment Canada Act focuses on acquisitions for control of an existing Canadian company in its effort to ensure that foreign investment brings net benefit to Canada.  The SOE Guidelines include more detailed provisions to deal with applications by companies owned by foreign states. As I note in my paper, the publicly listed arms of these SOEs are subject to the rigorous financial reporting, transparency, and governance requirements of the New York, London, and Hong Kong stock exchanges. As I understand it, proposed investments in Canada by these listed arms are not generally subject to additional governance requirements. When the non-listed arms seek to invest, I think undertakings on these points are apt to ensure an appropriate level of transparency and Canadian governance is maintained.

There is an ongoing undercurrent in the debate on Chinese investment suggesting that China is a potential rival to the supremacy of the United States and the West in general, and that its SOEs may therefore behave in hostile ways. Let us take the concern that in a period of global scarcity of a commodity, the Chinese state might order SOEs to ship produce from Canada to China at prices below the prevailing price in Canada. Canadian transfer pricing rules and administration are designed specifically to prevent exports at below-market prices. Another fear expressed is that the Chinese state might push an SOE to somehow disadvantage a Canadian market or a Canadian company for whatever reason. Again, Canadian competition and other laws are in place to discipline any such move. In short, Canada has the necessary laws and enforcement capability to protect our interests.

It is worth noting that such behaviour would be contrary to the SOE corporate interest. It would put at risk corporate and financial integrity by undermining the good name and relationships that take decades to establish. These companies are contending for global position and leadership. Such a move would directly damage the entire web of commercial relationships, to say nothing of lawsuits, security investigations, etc.
There are parallels between the suspicion and resistance that Chinese firms sometimes meet in OECD countries and the reaction to overseas investment by Japanese manufacturers in the 1980s.  The Japanese focused on establishing strong relationships with local communities, spreading the economic benefits of their businesses. This is the best means to dispel cultural misunderstandings.

Collaborating with Chinese firms, accessing their supply chains, and connecting with their management networks are all sources of potential advantage to Canadian firms in dealing with Chinese SOEs and other investors in Canada. Canada is short on capital to develop not just its natural resources, but also its technologies and human resources. Our great strength is the diversified nature of investment from overseas.  
China may well be moving from high growth (GDP growth of 10 per cent over 30 years) to something somewhat slower. Society and government are in rapid transition. The Investment Canada Bureau within Industry Canada (which implements the Investment Canada Act) has the tools to achieve net benefit for Canada. In recent years, the Investment Canada Bureau has demonstrated its intention to challenge foreign companies that do not fulfill agreed undertakings.

The economic rise of East Asia carries both threats and opportunities for Canada. The economic shift has already occurred – the issue is how we adapt to it. Trade and investment with China is just one element. The principal insight of liberal capitalism is that markets will allocate resources more efficiently than governments. China’s admittedly unique development model doesn’t challenge that core thesis. Theirs is an intensely competitive economy and society. 

There can be little doubt about the rise in Asian energy consumption with its attendant purchasing and investment power. The International Energy Agency, which has been closely following Chinese energy SOEs for over a decade, notes that they were both substantially independent of the state and driven by the imperative to compete successfully with their global rivals.

How do you evaluate Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trip to China, and the deals he signed there?

Prime Minister Harper did sign many deals – the uranium [deal], FIPA, the renewal of the energy framework, various agricultural commodity agreements – all very helpful both to Canada and the Canadian business community. Harper also witnessed the signing of many private-sector deals. These occasions assist companies to bring negotiations to a conclusion and get needed coverage in China and Canada for their deals. There was considerable press coverage in China. Strong relationships at the top leadership and ministerial level are important to all bilateral relationships, but especially in China. To make the most of the business, social, and cultural relationships, these have to be cultivated and developed over time. To gain credibility in China, Canadian government and business both need to work on concrete initiatives that carry through with the intent of [establishing] broad government-to-government agreements.

Does the rise of state capitalism necessarily mean the decline of countries that relied on liberal capitalism to triumph? 

My research suggests that behaviours described as typical of “state capitalism” are far from characteristic of Chinese SOEs. If Chinese SOEs did suffer from rampant micro-management by the state (or party), non-commercial orientation, loss-making, poor productivity, and corruption, then western companies wouldn’t have much to worry about. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

We are in the midst of a change in global economic power with the states of East Asia (not just China) and other G20 emerging markets taking a greater role. Changes in relative power are unsettling, but it is hard to see what is gained by mischaracterization of the competitors. A response based on clear-sighted understanding rather than half-truths will take us further in the long run.

China spent the last 30 years learning and adapting to western technology and management.  Other emerging-market economies have done the same with varying forms of support from the state. They all have legitimate global economic interests to pursue. The “state capitalism” mindset seems to assume that the status quo prior to their rise is somehow superior to what might evolve as the interests of a wider range of countries are brought to bear. Multilateral institutions are likely to be the best defence of the international trading and investment system created by liberal capitalism. China is generally regarded as an active and compliant participant. 

With respect to energy and the global shift in supply and demand, Canada needs to consider a global energy strategy – not a continental one. We need to recognize the rise of Asian energy consumption (China, Japan, South Korea, etc.) and diversify our customer base. Prime Minister Harper’s recent trip to China, and the parallel initiatives of Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, suggests a growing grasp of the momentous global changes of which Canada and China are a part.

The development of Canada’s natural resources represents the lion’s share of our recurring exports and hence an important source, not the scourge, of our standard of living in an intensely competitive world.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

First, is there a strategy in place for dealing with conflicts between religious freedom and the protection of other human rights? In Canada, we are quite clear: The oppression of women or vulnerable minorities will not be tolerated in the name of religious freedom. But how will the new Office of Religious Freedom respond when the issue is interference with the right claimed by religious groups in other countries, for example, to marry young girls off long before adulthood, or to impose rules that blatantly discriminate against women in religious courts, or to ban gays from places of worship? 

There must be protocols in place for handling the inevitable conflicts between the exercise of religious freedom and other human rights. And these protocols must be consistent with Canadian values, which include, but are not limited to, religious freedom. 

Secondly, are we confident that the office will promote freedom of religion, not religion itself?  The advocacy of human rights is a legitimate activity for government, but the direct promotion of religion is not. Indeed, the promotion of religion by government would be unconstitutional: It is crystal clear in Canadian law, as articulated by the Supreme Court of Canada, that freedom of religion includes the right not to follow any religion at all. The right to reject religion is every bit as solidly protected in Canadian law as the right to follow the faith of one’s choosing is. Is the Office of Religious Freedom going to advance both with equal gusto, or is its real reason for existence to promote religion? 

Finally, why are we focusing on freedom of religion instead of freedom of conscience and religion? The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees both “freedom of conscience and religion” (emphasis added). One of the rights people hold most dear is the freedom to live according to the values they believe are paramount – that is, to live as their conscience indicates they should. For some people, those paramount values relate to ideas about the creation of the world, the supernatural, or the divine. The values felt most binding by others relate to environmental protection, paying homage to animals their culture depends upon (such as the buffalo or bear), or the ethical imperatives of social justice, such as the need to eliminate poverty. All such frameworks of belief – both the religious and non-religious – are matters of conscience, and all need to be supported by an office devoted to freedom of conscience and religion.

Unfortunately, one has reason to doubt that the government is undertaking the careful thinking necessary to run a sophisticated Office of Religious Freedom. It is worrying that organizations such as Amnesty International Canada, which have significant expertise on clashes between human rights and religious freedom globally, were not invited to a recent consultation on the creation of the office. 

Canadians need to know that the Office of Religious Freedom is going to be informed by really good thinking. Freedom, rights, conscience, and religion are all much too important to be treated in a cavalier fashion.

Photo courtesy Reuters. 

To defend religious freedom no more implies its superiority to other human rights than to defend any such right implies its superiority to others. Properly understood (and there’s no reason to conclude that the present government understands it improperly) freedom of religion implies the other basic human rights. All are aspects of the autonomy of the individual, so to defend any is to defend that autonomy, and therefore (in principle) all the others. To establish an Office of Religious Freedom is therefore wholly without prejudice to any other human freedom.

Here the crucial point to grasp is that religious freedom has never meant freedom to practice illiberal religion (i.e. any religion that seeks to employ coercion, whether of its own adherents or others). You can’t persecute under the mantle of freedom from persecution, and it’s precisely freedom from religious persecution for which “religious freedom” is shorthand. In a clash of dogmatic and intolerant sects (of which there are still many in the world today), neither party can invoke the protection of the principle of religious freedom.

 Neither, however, can any sect claim protection that violates any human right in its efforts to propagate or maintain itself, for any such violation amounts to illegitimate coercion on behalf of religion. The best way to understand religious freedom is precisely as freedom from such coercion. 

From this, it follows that religious freedom equally protects the religious and the non-religious.  The believer can no more coerce the atheist than the atheist can coerce the believer. I don’t fault the Harper government for not billing its new entity as the office for the Equal Protection of Believers and Non-Believers. However, to defend religious freedom is, in fact, to vindicate such equal protection. Who benefits from the purging of all coercion from the realm of religion? Obviously not the religious only. 

There is, of course, one sense in which the establishment of an Office of Religious Freedom does “place religious freedom above other human rights,” but that sense is neither improper nor sinister. All governments choose their fights, and then their fights within their fights. For the Harper government to create such an office is not to turn its back on other human rights. It’s merely to indicate that it will focus a portion of its limited resources for international human-rights promotion on issues of religious freedom. 

Consider this decision as analogous to one to create an Office of Freedom of the Press or of Freedom of Assembly. Would either such decision have aroused such animus? Neither of these freedoms is less fundamental than freedom of religion, but neither is either of them more so. All belong in the bundle, as necessary aspects of the human autonomy that we mentioned at the beginning. All three freedoms, moreover, are subject to massive violation in many parts of the world today. All are in sore need of white knights to ride to their defence. All, indeed, are in need of far larger squadrons of these than Canadian diplomacy (and the new office with its limited budget) have to deploy. Is the Harper government then to be faulted for choosing to employ its few drops of influence in one bucket rather than many? Or for choosing the issue that is most likely to command the enthusiasm of a large fraction of its supporters? Not by me it isn’t.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

UBC Professor of Law Pitman Potter evaluates Prime Minister Harper’s trip to China and advises on how Canada can pursue its national interest when faced with the challenge of state capitalism:

 (Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Is the trend toward state capitalism tightly linked to the rise of emerging economies?

Yes, because we’re talking about countries that are growing from a low base and want to play rapid catch-up, and because political leaders need relatively pliable governing institutions to permit the state to play such a large economic role. China is by far the most important player here. Russia and the Gulf Arab monarchies have a long history of resource nationalism, and a democracy like Brazil can dabble in some aspects of state capitalism in the energy and mining sectors. But if a country of China’s means and potential weren’t driving this trend, I doubt we’d be talking about it.

There is also a question of definition here. Eurasia Group defines state capitalism as a system in which governments dominate crucial economic sectors to bolster their domestic political positions. Norway has both a national oil company and a sovereign wealth fund, but its government does not meet this definition of state capitalism, because it is not directly involved in using these relatively transparent institutions as political instruments. It’s not the tools but how they are used that makes the system.

The recent Economist special issue on state capitalism noted that the global measure of economic freedom has been in decline for the last three years. Is the rise of state capitalism, and the concomitant decrease in global economic freedom, simply a reaction to the economic crisis of 2008?

Yes, but the economic crisis isn’t finished yet. Most markets have stabilized, and our sense of vertigo has eased, but both the crisis of confidence in the eurozone and the sluggishness of the U.S. economy are residual effects of the 2008/2009 market meltdown. For that reason, it’s too early to argue that state capitalism has enjoyed lasting gains. We should also look closely at this idea of economic freedom. Not every regulation should be treated as a form of protectionism. Intelligent (and therefore limited) regulation of key sectors is crucial to their stability. Without well-designed and properly enforced rules of the road, liberal capitalism is destined to make state capitalism look ever more appealing to those willing and able to invest in it.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are starting to invest globally, including in Canada. Should Canada treat these companies differently than it treats typical foreign investors? What threat do they pose to Canada?

Yes, these companies should be treated differently, because many of them are different. That’s not to say that they should be barred from Canadian markets. I wouldn’t presume to tell Canadians how they should define their country’s security. But some state-owned companies are less transparent than privately owned firms operating in the same sector. Those that fit this description merit a closer look.

That said, barring SOEs or sovereign wealth funds from investing in local markets can come with an opportunity cost. There are good reasons to welcome many of these proposals. Beyond the commercial advantages some of them can provide, partnerships can be formed that serve the long-term interests of Canadian companies operating abroad. New relationships with Asian SOEs can help Canada balance its trade portfolio away from excessive reliance on the U.S. economy and toward new opportunities across the Pacific. That diversification will serve Canada’s long-term economic interests.

These companies don’t deserve scorn; they deserve scrutiny.

Among the 10 countries with the largest oil reserves in the world, Canada is the only one without a state-owned oil company. Would Canada be shrewd to become a player in the SOE game?

Look at the rest of the world’s national oil companies. China will continue to rely on CNPC, Sinopec and CNOOC to provide the oil needed to keep China’s economic engine humming, but can they adapt quickly enough to meet the needs of a shifting 21st-century energy environment? Saudi Aramco is a formidable institution, but its success and political influence make it a formidable obstacle to greater diversification of the Saudi economy. Petrobras is a leader in deep-sea drilling, but the Brazilian government has given it a degree of responsibility in developing that country’s offshore oil reserves that might make Petrobras a much larger and less efficient company, preventing Brazil from profiting from its oil wealth as fully and quickly as possible. Is Mexico well served by the legal and political protections provided to Pemex? And how long can Venezuela’s PDVSA continue to produce enough oil to keep the Chavista movement in power?

Partnering with someone else’s national oil companies can be profitable. Creating one of your own can create problems that become progressively harder to solve.

Does the rise of state capitalism necessarily mean the decline of countries that relied on liberal capitalism to triumph?

No, because liberal capitalism in its various forms has been lurching from boom to bust and back again for centuries, and state capitalism has yet to prove its staying power.

There are many ways to approach this question, but there is one crucial attribute that provides liberal capitalism with a thousand lives while threatening the foundation of state capitalism: creative destruction.

Survival depends on ability and willingness to change. As we know, change often comes at considerable human cost. Industries die, workers are displaced, and lives are transformed. This formula gives liberal capitalism its dynamism. Authoritarian governments, however vital they are today, are inherently brittle. As state-owned companies grow larger, they develop the ability to defend their interests at the highest levels of government and within bureaucracies. In some cases, those within the political elite develop considerable personal stakes in their success. They do not adapt when they can – and then cannot when they must.

China’s government can still call on considerable cash reserves. The Kremlin can still afford to create its own opposition parties. The Saudi royals still have plenty of oil to sell. But when these governments and their state-owned companies are forced by circumstance to adapt, there is good reason to doubt that reliance on state capitalism will have served them well.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

How does the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index work?

Basically, what it tries to do is measure the extent to which individuals and families are free to make their own decisions. We have 42 separate variables to capture that, and they are fro

m third-party sources, which is important: We don’t create the data that goes into this report, and that means it’s objective, that we can’t influence the outcome. Anyone with an internet connection can collect the same data and come to the same results that we do.

We look at five areas:

1. Size of government. This is an important factor,  as government reduces the room for free economic exchange.
2. Freedom to trade. You should be able to buy and sell from anybody in your own country (and anybody in any other country, for that matter).
3. Sound money. Your property can be expropriated every bit as much due to inflation as through taxation.
4. Rule of law. This is absolutely essential. A market economy and economic freedom cannot take place where there is not an impartial and strong rule of law. Otherwise, the rich and the powerful will squeeze the economic freedom out of the poor and the weak.
5. Regulations in three areas: 1) Credit markets. You should be able to borrow from, and lend to, whomever you wish. 2) Labour markets. You should be able to work for, or hire, whomever you wish. 3) Business. You should be able to start, and close, a business whenever you wish.

The index shows a decline in global economic freedom over the last couple of years. Is this a result of the rise of state capitalism?

Well, the rise of state capitalism is just one factor of 42. So it’s not a powerful influencer in terms of the Freedom Index, at least at this point. I think it’s quite an unfortunate trend. All the research on state enterprises – and there’s been a ton of it – shows that they are less productive than private-sector enterprises and, even worse, that they get used for political reasons, which means they benefit the powerful in the political system and actually penalize the less powerful. The last thing you want is a politicized global economy, or even a global economy that’s more politicized than it is now.

The states with powerful governments and less powerful populases are often the least responsible of the global powers, China being an example of that right now. There’s also a false analysis behind the success of these things. There’s been considerable talk of the Chinese model, which involves a lot of state ownership and state strategy. And it is true that China’s been growing rapidly. But what the economic research tells us is that changes in economic policy – in other words, the rate of change of economic policy – is primarily responsible for the rate of change of economic growth. Coming from a dismal economic structure, China’s rate of change to better structures has been quite strong, so its economic growth has been quite strong. But that’s been experienced by many other countries that ultimately had to further liberalize their economies or hit the ceiling. So I don’t think there is any Chinese miracle and I don’t think there’s a Chinese model.

If economic change starts happening at a slower rate in China, do you think the growth in China will decrease from its really miraculous levels?

Sure. As I said, that’s what happened to all developing countries as they went forward. Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore all went through huge growth phases and then, as they became developed and were no longer able to copy existing economic strategies, they had to find their own way. Japan is another example. The growth slowed down. There’s no reason at all to believe that China will be any different and, right now, China is facing a significant number of internal problems, as we all know.

In that case, how do you think Canada should approach Chinese investment in Canada, particularly in the form of state-owned enterprises?

I think Canada and other nations need to be very wary. I think there are a number of people on my side of the street who believe in free markets who are open to investment from state-owned enterprises. But frankly, I don’t think they’ve thought it through. If free marketers in Canada object to Canadian government ownership of Canadian enterprises, which we do, why wouldn’t we object to Chinese government ownership of Canadian enterprises?

Canada hasn’t seriously entered the state-owned enterprise game. Should it?

Of course we shouldn’t have state-owned enterprises. When have they succeeded in Canada in the past? Petro Canada … it was good to sell that. Did the various state-owned airplane makers work out? No. But Bombardier’s working out. It makes no sense at all – all it will do is politicize our economy and weaken our export growth.

How is the trend in global freedom showing in Canada? It seems that in the last few years we’ve become less free. Is this just a series of minor fluctuations, or is this a more significant trend?

Minor fluctuations. I always caution people that data are not a sharp dot but rather a fuzzy smudge. So even if nothing has changed, you’ll almost have quantum fluctuations in the data, jumping up and down. We’ve probably become a little bit less free. Government spending has taken off under the Harper government, but I wouldn’t say we’ve seen anything truly significant. Our rate of loss of economic freedom, which is very small, is less than that of a lot of other nations in this financial crisis.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

For one thing, like many Latinate terms, it tends to distance the observer from the emotional impact of what’s going on. “Collateral damage” is a neat term that doesn’t involve a discussion of what’s actually happening, which is that innocent people are being killed or murdered, and that’s what I think, in some ways, this should be called.

The term also denies intentionality – it refers to the unintentional side of warfare – when a great deal of this mortality is intentional. I’m not saying the U.S. military goes out to kill civilians, but there are many cases in which the military knows that civilians are at risk and are likely to be hurt or killed, and they go ahead with their missions anyway.

For example, consider any bombing that takes place: Long-range artillery can be at up to three miles – they don’t know what’s at the other end of a three-mile trajectory, but they go ahead and do it anyway. The U.S. military tries to avoid this sort of thing, but it does happen, and it happens often enough that it is a moral outrage.

In short, I don’t like to use the term collateral damage because it doesn’t convey what’s actually going on.

In 2007, General David Petraeus’s tactical changes acknowledged the strategic problem of civilian casualties and sought to reduce them. Did these tactics succeed?

The problem is not just attitudes toward civilians – though that’s a serious problem that continued after Petraeus took command in Iraq. He had just published a new field manual for U.S. operations in the army, which acknowledged that many of the military’s actions were alienating Iraqi civilians because they were not treating them well.

It comes down to an old military debate about counterinsurgency, which goes something like this: In order to fight the insurgency, one has to get close to the population. This reflects the modern nature of warfare, in which you’re not fighting armies that are uniformed and identifiable – you’re fighting insurgent groups that often hide among civilian populations, so you have to get close to the people, earn their trust, help them with development projects, speak their language, honour their cultural preferences, and so on.

But the fact is (and any senior officer would acknowledge this), in the first years of the war in Iraq, the U.S. military was not sensitive to local cultural norms, and was roughing up a lot of Iraqis (often unnecessarily) – detaining them, arresting them, putting them in horrible prisons, shooting them, forcing them to migrate, etc. And this indeed fuelled the insurgency.

If you had a cousin who was killed in your town, allegedly by a U.S. soldier, your reaction, especially if you were a young man, would be to take arms against the occupier to defend your community. We know this from interviews with people who have been detained – they become fighters because they think they are defending their communities. And we may objectively disagree with that, but that’s what they think they’re doing, and it’s important insight. I think Petraeus, along with other members of the senior military officer corps, recognized that.

Petraeus tried to change it, which is very hard to do in the middle of a war. By that stage, we didn’t have enough troops to undertake counterinsurgency operations. They did make an attempt to change local perceptions of the U.S. military and how they were operating in these Sunni Arab districts. But by 2007, it was already civil war: Most of the violence was Iraqi violence, which was very hard to stop.

In Afghanistan, I think they did a better job from the beginning, knowing the history of resistance to occupiers. But Afghanistan is a difficult terrain, and U.S. soldiers don’t speak the local language. There were so many barriers that it was not likely to be a successful mission.

Would it make a difference to American attitudes toward Iraq if journalists spoke openly about the hundreds of thousands, rather than tens of thousands, of Iraqi deaths since 2003?

I’ve puzzled over this quite a bit, and I continue to puzzle over it, because every week, it seems, I see some mention of the death toll in Iraq being in the tens of thousands – sometimes predicated with the term “at least.” I think it makes a difference what you say about the level of mortality, even though people can become inured to these numbers very quickly.

The goal is to have a real discussion about the lessons and consequences of the war in Iraq, and the major consequence is what happened to the Iraqis. Some, making pro-war arguments, will say, “Tens of thousands of people died – that’s too bad. But we got rid of Saddam Hussein – that is good. We got rid of a monster. People in Iraq are liberated; they can make their own future. Tens of thousands – that was probably worth it.”

If the number of people who died in Iraq were a million or a million and a half, it would be much harder to make that claim. 1.5 million casualties would be three times the number Hussein himself killed in Iraq – he is often said to have killed about 400,000, many of them Kurds. The moral standing of American victory would be very hard to sustain.

So the next time this situation arises (which it will), in which large numbers of U.S. troops are being contemplated for deployment, we might think twice about what we’re doing if we can talk about the enormous human consequences of this war – not just death, but also tremendous disruptions in health care, education, and so on.

We’ll never know the exact number of people who have died, and that number may not resonate with the American public no matter what it is. I still prefer to have a discussion that has some sense of the reality of what happened. The scale of destruction was enormous, and we need to come to terms with what happened as a result of the invasion.

Do you think the new media make it more, or less, difficult to have an honest national discussion about America’s wars?

There’s been a lot of speculation about the new media. Twitter and Facebook were not prominent during the main phase of the Iraq War.

In any case, the media that are driven by individuals rather than news organizations, for the most part, were adding a lot of opinion – some of it good, analytical, and worth reading. Juan Cole, for example, a professor at the University of Michigan who is an Arabic speaker, added quite a bit. But most of what was expressed on the internet – particularly on blogs – was just opinion. It was using reports from The New York Times, The Guardian, and other news sources, and making a comment about them.

There was very little worthwhile information that came via the blogs – and virtually none came from the Iraqi side, except for blogs that were written by Iraqis, which was a change from the wars in Vietnam and Korea, of course. There are very few personal narratives, even today, in English about the Korean or Vietnamese experiences of these wars that occurred on their own soil. I think that’s a great pity and a great gap in our understanding of what happened, and it’s one reason we don’t fully consider the human consequences of war.

The Iraqi blogs (at least the ones in English) represented a particular slice of Iraqi society: young, educated, western-oriented Iraqis. Nevertheless, they were informative and provided a great many day-to-day accounts of what was going on. But those were not widely read by Americans.

Apart from those blogs, I don’t think the internet offered much that newspapers didn’t.

How was the Libyan war similar to these other wars?

What’s most interesting about Libya is not necessarily similarities to previous wars but the irony that the U.S. laid its entire justification for military action on the protection of civilians, which was not true of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Vietnam (Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction; Afghanistan, the pursuit of Osama bin Laden; and Vietnam, preventing the Communist takeover).

Humanitarian rationales are always martialed in these cases, but they’re not usually the primary reason put forth. Libya is the first time I can remember that civilian protection has been the No. 1 reason for intervention.

It’s ironic because we don’t have our own house in order about civilian protection, and yet here we are going into a place that was fraught, and remains fraught, with a lot of difficulties. It’s not over in Libya. The civil war against Gadhafi is over, but the outcome in Libya remains uncertain for humanitarian or western liberal principles.

From my standpoint, it’s an inconsistent policy – we commit to going to war in one place to protect civilians but, almost simultaneously, we have been relatively callous about the cost to civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is human security, as opposed to the security of states, receiving more attention in politics and universities?

There’s an interesting line of reasoning that Obama is committing military resources – in a restrained way – to protect civilians. The Responsibility to Protect discourse in the UN and elsewhere is part of this; “human security” is another way of framing it.

You could say that Bill Clinton as president was doing so in Kosovo, and to some extent in Bosnia itself, and that the elder president Bush’s landing in Somalia gave precedent. But the mission in Libya and the deployment of troops to Uganda seem to indicate a more serious, sustained embrace of this outlook. Some attribute it to Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, all of whom have been close to Obama.

The question is not just about one’s desire to protect human security, but also how you go about doing it. Is it all about military interventions? I don’t think it is. I think a lot of human security is guaranteed not by military intervention, but by political, diplomatic, and economic policies of various kinds.

It would take considerable study to see whether Obama has been following through with this in his development policies. You certainly couldn’t say he has with respect to the Palestinians. But at least human security is in play. It’s interesting to see that people in power are now at least administering these concepts, which were marginalized and sidelined for so long. I think that’s a good thing.

What responsibilities does the U.S. now have to Afghanistan and Iraq? How can the American public, with its war exhaustion, be convinced of these responsibilities?

I think our responsibility to Iraq and Afghanistan is enormous. The amount of destruction in Iraq is colossal.

While we cannot make right what went wrong, we are obligated to stay in Iraq – not with the military, but in order to be as helpful as the Iraqis want us to be in terms of expertise, networking with the rest of the world, trade, and so on. We should be able to help them with reconstructing infrastructure, restoring health care, and so on, to the relatively high levels that existed under Saddam Hussein.
We don’t have the money to do a lot of it, but we need to be there in some helpful way that is not just about security, training people to reconnaissance, and so on, which is more likely what we’re going to be doing there.

Afghanistan is very much in need of enlightened development policies that funnel funds by way of loans directly to people who are starting, or trying to sustain, businesses in agriculture, irrigation, electrification – things that people want and can manage themselves once they have the resources.

A lot of the aid that’s gone to Afghanistan has been military related (for example, when we build a highway that Afghans don’t necessarily need, but that we need in order to move our divisions around). What Afghans really need is help with irrigation, moving perishable goods from one market to another, and so on. That we haven’t done so well at, partly because the marriage of development and security has always been problematic for Americans – and others – who intervene in other countries. Security concerns always seem to win out.

People who are doing better economically than they used to be are not necessarily going to be loyal to the United States or disloyal to the Taliban, but poverty, corruption, and economic chaos don’t generally lead to good outcomes for political control.

You want prosperous people who can take care of their own future in order to increase the likelihood of a political settlement that’s more to our liking (that’s one way of putting it) – an outcome that will be sustainable in all respects.

The measures announced in the action plan are totally appropriate and unexceptional. They might help reverse the trend toward thickening the border that began following 9/11. But these measures have been on the table for years, and could (and should) have been put in place long ago. Similarly, the RCC mandate is familiar to anyone who has followed suggestions for regulatory harmonization made since NAFTA was first signed.

The action plan generated a burst of interest north of the border and some predictable complaints that Canada’s sovereignty was being eroded.

What happened in the U.S.? 

Basically nothing. Barely a word. One article, written by a well-known Canada watcher, appeared in Cleveland Plain Dealer. There was nothing in the Times, the Journal, the Post, or USA Today.   

Is this good news? Bad news?

On the positive side, Beyond the Border has not become an issue in the Republican candidate road show. One can easily imagine that it could have become one, with border-rabid moat diggers calling out President Obama on opening our longest border up to who knows what kind of threats and dangers.  

The Canadian side stickhandled the Beyond the Border process carefully, avoiding the more contentious ideas that were initially discussed (the original North American security perimeter, for example) and focusing on well-established links among government agencies.

But there are negatives, as well.

Low-balling these matters and redefining goals as a series of fairly modest discrete steps meant that a whole raft of key issues were side-stepped, such as changes in cabotage rules and national preference policies (“Buy American”). These are potential game-changers, and would have a deep impact on continental economic collaboration. Enhancing the resilience of our infrastructure is an admirable goal, but, beyond this, we need to be thinking about building a new infrastructure of highways, rails, pipelines, and electric systems adequate for the global competition of the 21^st century. There is no broad vision in the Beyond the Border program beyond incremental improvements in cross-border co-operation.      

Moreover, in taking this approach, the action plan process fails to educate wider publics about the essential nature of the bilateral relationship – that we do not sell things to each other, but, rather, make them together. We are not just talking about borders between sovereign nations. We are talking about deeply integrated production and distribution systems and high levels of interdependence. So far, however, we have failed to create informed constituencies and build support for cross-border collaboration. Instead, there has been little information – and often widespread misinformation – about developments in North America.   

To compete in the emerging global economy, we need to think in terms of big ideas – about free trade in freight transportation, a North American energy strategy, and a North American infrastructure strategy. 

Have steps been taken to create the political will to do this? Is there a political strategy here?

Keeping heads down, under the legislative radar, is an attractive but dangerous approach. On one side, it fails to mobilize key constituencies and build alliances in state and metropolitan governments, among economic stakeholders and opinion leaders. On the other, stealth is a serious problem. If we act like conspirators, we will surely be suspected of conspiracy.

Where do things go now? The action plan has been introduced at a terrible moment in the U.S., given the hyper-extended election cycle and the politicization of everything government touches (we are dealing with senior legislators who are quarreling about using “greener” plastic cutlery in the Congressional cafeteria – the great “fork fracas”). If Ottawa had pushed this early in the Obama administration, it would probably have been well-received in Washington, and could have led to a major step forward in making North America work better. 

Facing major funding cuts, creating new medium-level administrative entities will not be high on U.S. agency agendas. So anything that involves expenditure or more than modest changes in procedure that might attract Congressional attention will go by the board. It is hard to imagine President Obama, or any senior administration official, standing up for the Beyond the Border project for the next year. And you can bet that the first time this becomes a visible political issue, U.S. support will vanish like smoke.

Forecast: At best, useful but modest incremental changes in border management.  

This article is part of the CIC’s ongoing series, “Did KeystoneXL Kill the North American Idea?”

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Two people who appreciate this more than most are former ambassador to the United States Derek Burney and Fen Osler Hampson, director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. They write with frustration about the prospect of another foreign-policy review, which the Harper government is now contemplating. In particular, they scoff at the idea of a new emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region: They argue it will come at the expense of the United States, Latin America, and the Arctic, which ought to be Canadian priorities.

It is easy to sympathize with the frustration. Canadian foreign policy often seems to be run by someone on a couch with a remote, flipping channels constantly: now the Arctic, then Europe, then Africa, then Afghanistan, then the Middle East, then India, then China. Apart from relations with the United States, which are always important, Canadian diplomacy can seem a cascade of new, brief enthusiasms, with little that is sustained for long.

One reason this is so is that Canadian foreign policy, like that of other middle powers, is often driven by domestic politics. Because Canadians want to see themselves represented and recognized on the world stage, the government seeks to insinuate Canada into all of the areas capturing the world’s attention. What matters is the perception of relevance, rather than accomplishment.

Some middle powers manage to specialize and do a better job of sustaining their focus and reputation. Australia, for example, is an Asian power with a strong U.S. alliance. Norway has sought to play a role in particular conflicts, from Sri Lanka to Israel. But most middle powers are like Canada, changing emphases along with news headlines, and as governments and foreign ministers change.

The United States, by contrast, is not a middle power, but a large one. In the Asia-Pacific region, the Obama administration has continued and extended a grand strategy that began during the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations. As Walter Russell Mead wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, the United States is simultaneously shoring up its military alliances with India, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, and Japan while pursuing an expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiation on economic matters.

Does this sound familiar? It should. The United States has been pursuing security for trade and commerce and tackling regulation (which has become the most significant non-tariff barrier to greater world trade) with countries around the world. The G.W. Bush administration launched talks of this type with Canada and Mexico under the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America, also known as the SPP. The Obama administration put Canada and Mexico on separate tracks, with Canada and the U.S. setting up the Beyond the Border Working Group and the Regulatory Co-operation Council in 2011.

In Asia, the U.S. strategy is to deter any aggressive moves by China with a ring of allies whose combined naval and air power, backed by U.S. military might, will keep the Asian balance of power stable. At the same time, the TPP talks (which do not include China) are intended to offer China a way to continue its peaceful economic rise. Now that China is a member of the World Trade Organization, membership in something new, with additional preconditions, is seen as necessary to keep China moving in the direction of free markets and capitalism.

So far, the TPP has included only relatively small economies: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. At the APEC summit in Honolulu, U.S. President Barack Obama convinced the others to extend an invitation to Canada, Japan, and Mexico to join the TPP, which would dramatically strengthen the group.

The strategic long game being played by Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States is typical of a major power. The tactical opportunism and changing emphases of Conservative and Liberal governments in Canada are typical of a middle power. The two approaches can complement one another. Canada could jump on the U.S. strategic bandwagon in Asia, entering the TPP negotiations and improving naval and other linkages to U.S. allies in the Pacific – entering through doors opened by the United States will give Canada better access, a greater chance of concessions, and a firmer position in the region than it could accomplish on its own. This was Canada’s approach to Cold War Europe, and to Mexico in NAFTA. At the same time, the United States gains legitimacy for its leadership and its efforts when Canada joins them in support.

There is an additional benefit. The United States is pursuing simultaneous border and trade security co-operation as well as regulatory standardization with multiple trading partners. Betting that bilateralism will serve Canada best is foolish when the U.S. is playing both serial bilateralist and serial multilateralist games – Canada will be folded into global norms, and where bilateral talks make progress, the U.S. will attempt to migrate this new “best practice” to agreements with others.

This is why Canada needs to take the Asia-Pacific region seriously: There is an opportunity to gain through bandwagoning on U.S. efforts, and a chance to balance against U.S. attempts to outflank Canada in bilateral talks by taking a seat at other negotiating tables where the United States is at work. Burney and Hampson are right to be concerned about Canada’s fickle foreign policy, but not everything worth watching can be found on one or two channels.

This article is part of the CIC’s ongoing series, “Did KeystoneXL Kill the North American Idea?”

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Vladimir Putin is pushing for a Eurasian Union, Saudi Arabia sees a major international role for its Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), and the eurozone lives on. So where is North America?

This week, OpenCanada brings together the top experts on relations between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. We ask them to contemplate what the decision to stop the Keystone XL pipeline means for this “special relationship,” how Canada is positioned in the new regional political order, and whether the continent has a future. 

The Upsides and Downsides of FDI

The benefits of inward FDI are well-known, and include the following:

First, inward FDI is an important source of research and development (R&D) diffusion. Foreign companies are more R&D-intensive than Canadian companies. When foreign companies invest in Canada, R&D and knowledge they possess spill over to domestic Canadian firms. As such, FDI into Canada is an important source, or channel, by which Canadian firms gain access to foreign R&D.

Second, foreign firms have higher levels of productivity than Canadian firms. As such, when foreign firms enter the Canadian market, the enhanced competition results in a discipline being imposed on Canadian firms in the same industry, thus raising overall productivity in Canada. These benefits also spread to other industries through what are called upstream and downstream linkages.

Third, foreign firms have higher trade propensities than Canadian firms. As such, when foreign firms enter the Canadian market, they help Canada increase its reach into global markets, and global supply chains. This serves to enhance Canadian productivity.

Fourth, inward FDI contributes to capital formation in Canada. That is, when foreign firms enter the Canadian market, they invest in buildings, machinery, equipment, and technology.

Putting all these pieces together, inward FDI into Canada has had a positive impact on the Canadian economy, creating millions of jobs, raising our R&D intensity, and contributing to Canadian prosperity.

The benefits of inward FDI are up against the fears of the “hollowing out” of the Canadian economy. There is concern that foreign takeovers of Canadian firms come at the cost of head office and high-value functions – including R&D activities, but especially decision making – moving out of Canada.  

The predictions that flow from economic theory are mixed as to what should actually happen when there is a foreign takeover of a Canadian company. Multinationals are driven by profits – the argument that activities in Canada would be moved to the foreign jurisdiction (the home country) is not supported unless that move would enhance profits for the multinational. In other words, if maintaining those activities in Canada were the most efficient or profitable for the multinational, then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

The Canadian Reality

There is “no rigorous analysis” supporting the claims that the Canadian economy is being hollowed out.  According to the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, 33 Canadian companies qualified as global leaders in 1985, 90 in 2003 and 89 in 2011. In other words, the number of global leaders in Canada is increasing. Moreover, the Institute concludes, although foreign takeovers usually mean that a Canadian head office becomes a foreign branch office, such foreign investment “contributes to our productivity and prosperity.” A 2006 Statistics Canada study confirms that foreign takeovers have increased the number of head offices in Canada and head office employment.  So too does the Conference Board of Canada. It concludes that there is no long-term trend toward greater foreign ownership of the Canadian economy and, in any case, there is higher outflow than inflow of M&A (and FDI) activity.

I now examine more closely three myths about FDI in Canada.

Myth #1: Canada is open to FDI

It is often reported in the media that Canada is wide open to FDI. Only two takeovers have been formally turned down by Industry Canada, the myth-makers point out.

This is not the case. In fact, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada is ranked above average in restrictiveness thanks to (i) high restrictions in several sectors (including telecom, transportation, banking and finance) and (ii) a review mechanism which ensures that many investments never see the light of day.

Myth #2: Foreign countries are investing more in Canada than Canadian companies are investing abroad

Between 1930 and 1970, for every $1 of Canadian investment abroad, there were $5 of investment in Canada. Since 1970, the growth of Canadian investment abroad has far exceeded the growth of foreign investment in Canada, such that today there is $1.20 invested abroad for every $1 invested in Canada. Hence, Canada has been transformed from what is commonly referred to as a host nation to a home nation. This is pretty clear evidence that Canadian firms don’t need protection – they are doing quite well in the global economy.

Myth #3: Canada is being attacked

What surprises many is Canada’s slipping FDI position – the fact that its share of world inward FDI has fallen. In 1970, Canada received about 15 per cent of world inward FDI stocks. This has fallen persistently over the subsequent 40 years, to the point that, today, Canada receives about three per cent. Many argue that this is to be expected given the rise of many emerging markets, particularly the BRIC countries. Yet, Canada is an outlier vis-à-vis all OECD countries. No other developed country has seen its share of inward FDI fall in this way. At the same time, despite the global surge in FDI, Canadian companies have been able to maintain their shares of outward FDI.

How to Approach Canadian Policy

There are several downsides to restricting FDI into Canada. First, it removes discipline applied to managers. When management of any publicly traded company is deemed to be poor, shareholders express their disapproval by selling shares in that company, the price falls and the company becomes a prime target for a takeover. With the falling stock-market value, new owners can buy a controlling stake in that company and replace the management team.When foreign investment is restricted in a relatively small economy like Canada’s, this threat of takeover is very much muted, and, with it, so is the discipline of managers.

Second, it restricts the amount of capital available within the Canadian economy, thus raising the cost of capital.

Third, domestic firms benefit – through spillover effects – from the advanced technology and management techniques employed by foreign firms operating locally. Moreover, the domestic economy benefits from the increased amount of competition that comes with the presence of foreign firms.

Clearly, the correct policy approach is not simply to restrict inward FDI, but rather to address the factors that give rise to such takeovers of Canadian companies. Candidate factors may include thin Canadian capital markets, Canadian managers that lag in the skill sets exhibited by managers from other economies on many competitive dimensions, and disadvantages associated with being headquartered in Canada (due to tax or other considerations). The best way to protect domestic firms is not through restrictions, but rather by providing those companies with a competitive environment within which to operate.

Many have argued that the “net benefit” test is a rubber stamp and has not been effective. I don’t think this is entirely correct. It is true that the net-benefit test, as it is currently designed, lacks transparency, appears to be highly subjective, and requires the potential investors to divulge confidential information. As a result, many foreign investors do not make their intentions to enter the Canadian market public unless they believe the net-benefit test will be met, and, in that sense, the net-benefit test does restrict FDI. It is also possible that companies that do enter Canada could adjust their strategies to make it more likely that there would be a net benefit to Canada, thus making it more likely that they will be approved by Industry Canada.

A recent C.D. Howe report proposes replacing the net-benefit test with a national-interest test. This test would broaden the scope of assessing the benefits to Canada, but would also shift the burden of proof away from the investor and put it on the Canadian government.  

There are others who argue that Canada’s policy on inward FDI should be based on reciprocity. That is, if we are to allow foreign companies to invest in Canada, then Canadian companies should have the right to invest in the home country. And, finally, there is another view that liberalizing rules on inward FDI should be unilateral: Given the benefits that come from inward FDI, the optimal policy, driven solely by economic requirements, would be to liberalize regardless of what others do.

More research is needed to determine whether there should be a review at all, and, if there should, what the right approach would be. However, what is clear is that the fact that only two investments have been turned down is quite misleading, and that the net-benefit test, as it is currently configured, restricts FDI, lacks transparency, and seems subjective. Improvements are therefore necessary.

Photo courtesy of Reuters

Yet, even as news coverage of violence in Mexico has reinforced Canadians’ perceptions of their NAFTA partner as a lawless, dangerous country, there have also been some reports that suggest Mexico may be turning a corner, at least in a longer-run sense. Last July, The New York Times reported the results of a Princeton study that found that the wave of Mexican migration to the U.S. had “slowed to a trickle,” in terms of both legal and illegal migrants. The most immediate reasons were the deep recession in the U.S., which cut deeply into job markets that migrant workers depended on, like construction and the hospitality industry, and the upsurge in drug-related violence in border areas, which made illegal border-crossings much riskier and more expensive. But the study also pointed to declining fertility rates, increased educational opportunities, and the growth of better-paying and more secure jobs in Mexican cities, which have raised hopes that the tide of illegal migration may have reached its historic high-water mark. Just this month, moreover, influential Mexican authors Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio have launched an updated version of their 2010 argument that the political and economic indicators show the country is undergoing a historic shift from a country of poor farmers to a more urbanized, “mostly middle class” society. While polls show that Mexicans are increasingly frustrated with Calderon’s inability to live up to promises to control organized crime, there are also signs of a growing confidence in Mexico itself, in the economy’s long-term prospects, in the state’s commitment to serve the public interest, and in the country’s emergence as a player in the international arena.

So, is Mexico a basket case or a breakthrough? In fact, it is on the cusp of both, but has not yet become either one. The Mexican state has failed to live up to Max Weber’s classic definition by exercising a monopoly on violence, and now the cartels and gangs are moving down even more assertively into Guatemala and other parts of Central America. But the government’s capacity to conduct operations, collect intelligence, and interact effectively with its American counterparts has clearly grown since the launch of the Merida Initiative in 2007, albeit at an excruciatingly slow pace. Eventually, the government may be capable enough, and clean enough, to effectively drive drug trafficking underground and “tame” it, or at least displace the major cartel players from its territory. But this will take a long time, and create severe tensions, because it requires the government to carry on something like a counter-insurgency campaign at the same time that it is pursuing a politically controversial and technically complex overhaul of the police and the courts system. The economic situation is also promising, yet fragile. The economy is shifting gradually to higher value-added industry and services, yet the country still relies on oil revenues, which have been declining – with no prospect of a rebound. The government needs to find ways to satisfy the demands of its burgeoning middle class, with more government services, less corruption, more effective regulation, and improved infrastructure. To do this, it will have to find ways to raise tax revenues, and, probably, to privatize politically sensitive industries like oil and gas.

Mexico’s success or failure in resolving this series of interlocking dilemmas is enormously important for the United States, and – directly or indirectly – will have some significant implications for Canada, as well. Whoever wins the Mexican presidential election this summer will be forced into a very difficult balancing act, and will likely look for Canada to not only recognize and respond supportively to the country’s urgent security challenges, but to also see beyond them, to the longer-term opportunities that might flow from the consolidation of Mexico’s political and economic awakening.

This article is part of the CIC’s ongoing series, “Did KeystoneXL Kill the North American Idea?”

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

However, it is clear that Baird was also addressing a Canadian audience in his speech, which seemed aimed at contextualizing how the Harper government will approach this new major theme of Canadian foreign policy. If I understood Baird correctly, he has placed these three themes (women’s rights, LGBT rights, and the rights of religious minorities) within an overall revamped approach towards the promotion of basic human rights. That is, Canada will work to promote progress in these three areas through defending and supporting the basic rights one would expect to find within a pluralist liberal democracy. In particular, Baird’s speech suggests that the rights of religious minorities (perhaps the most controversial aspect of the new human-rights agenda) fall into this liberal pluralist tradition of tolerating the rights of minorities.

Having previously been critical of the idea of an Office of Religious Freedom, I find myself less skeptical of the idea as it was set in the context of the speech. If, for example, the new Office of Religious Freedom is to be used to defend Baha’is who are tragically persecuted in Iran, I don’t see any grounds for Canadians concerned about human rights generally to complain. As a component of a larger, broader, and more active human-rights foreign-policy agenda, it is well placed to highlight the needless persecution of some smaller minority groups throughout the world. Furthermore, placed within the context of promoting pluralist liberal values, a policy that promotes gay rights and, at the same time, religions that may take a harsh view of homosexuality, becomes less of an oxymoron. Baird, at least, is convinced that Canada can do both – that it should insist that the basic rights for all should be met.

I am very pleased to see a Canadian Conservative foreign minister place LGBT rights firmly in the centre of a human-rights agenda. Although Canada has not gone as far as the U.K. in threatening to cut off aid to countries that repress LGBT individuals, Baird made it clear in the question-and-answer session that there are good, pragmatic reasons for exercising some restraint. He expressed concern that cutting off aid could result in gays and lesbians being “scapegoated” for the loss of foreign funding. Baird argued that, instead, he would like DFAIT and the government to work with LGBT civil-society groups to promote their basic rights within their own countries.

Having gone into the event with a very skeptical attitude towards Baird, I came out of the talk with what I think is a better understanding of the Conservative human-rights agenda – and a certain sense of relief. This was not the attack-dog who unleashed himself at the United Nations last year. It was a confident individual speaking about the need to promote basic human dignity. There was not a lot to disagree with.

However, despite my overall inclination to offer Baird good marks for his speech, there are still several issues that will need to be addressed:

First, I was fortunate enough to have a discussion on Twitter about Canada’s human-rights policies before and after the event. During this conversation, it was clear that many are still uncomfortable with the Office of Religious Freedom – in particular, those individuals who are concerned about atheist rights. (That Indonesia has arrested and charged an individual for being an atheist this week highlights the need to promote freedom from religion, as well.) While Baird did not address atheism directly, there was nothing in his speech that suggested to me that such persecution would not be a concern for this human-rights approach. I think this is something that Baird could address by emphasizing that freedom of expression is a vitally important component of his push for pluralist liberal human rights.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is not clear that Canada presently has the international clout to speak out and effect change on many of these issues. To be fair, not even the United States and the EU have an easy time bringing about change in the realm of human rights. However, other than “speaking out” and working with civil society, it is not clear how this policy will be carried out, or who is even going to listen to Canada – the country has not had much luck at promoting itself internationally of late. Certainly, this has been the case at the UN, where Canada has failed to obtain a seat on the Security Council. Canada’s recent withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, its strong pro-Israeli stance, and its recent trade disputes with the UAE have not helped to ameliorate this situation. As such, although Canada may stake its authority on the success of our values domestically, it is not clear who will really be open to the government’s criticism, or if we are in a position to truly effect change. While the Harper government may be comfortable with the impact of some of our more controversial foreign policies and how they have influenced our international standing (and seems determined not to back down from the resulting criticism), it will affect how our voice is received.

Given the location where he delivered his speech, it seems clear that Baird believes that one of the fora where we will be heard is the Commonwealth. This would be consistent with the appointment of Senator Hugh Segal as the Special Envoy for Commonwealth Reform so as to help modernize the institution and perhaps make it more useful for the promotion of human rights. Yet, while reform of ailing international institutions has long been an aim of Canadian foreign policy, it is not clear that the majority of Commonwealth countries are that interested in reforming the institution, or in listening to Canada.

Third, related to the above point, there is a very important question as to how the Conservatives will handle the very thorny human-rights issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Harper government has made its stance on the conflict clear, offering unwavering support for Israel. However, even beyond the human-rights quagmire that is the Israel-Palestinian conflict, it is clear that Israel is also presently engaged in its own battles over the rights of religious minorities to citizenship and the right for women to participate in public life. How the Conservatives will handle this without backing down from their largely uncritical support for Israel (or whether the situation will be conveniently overlooked in their criticism and reports) will be interesting to see.

Finally, Baird has made it clear that the promotion of human rights will be a major aspect of the Harper government’s foreign policy. But is this a good thing? In international relations, realists have constantly maintained that foreign policy should be oriented around interests, and not “soft” issues like human rights. Certainly Harper’s criticism of China’s human-rights record has impacted on the bilateral relationship between the two countries. However, it does not seem likely that Canadians would actively support an interest-only approach to foreign policy or be comfortable with a policy of international engagement that was absent of any concern for human welfare abroad. Yet, both Canadians and the government must be mindful that there are costs as well as benefits when it comes to promoting human rights internationally, and that it opens ourselves up to scrutiny as to how we treat our own minorities – particularly First Nations.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Dambisa Moyo crested on that wave, riding a broomstick that she hoped would sweep all aid away from Africa because it is (in her words) malignant, the primary source of Africa’s problems. The only thing that can solve Africa’s development challenge, she says, is the private sector, notably foreign investment. In her book, Dead Aid, she even has a chapter entitled, “The Chinese Are Our Friends.” The Chinese, it seems, do not talk about human rights or good governance or poverty. They just invest. And soon, no doubt, with Chinese investment, African countries will move into the bright sunlit uplands of development, peace, and harmony.

More big ideas on aid.

If you believe that, then you’re likely to think that $24 worth of beads and trinkets for Manhattan was a good deal.

Of course developing countries need investment. And the right kinds of investment can certainly lead to growth. But growth is not an end in itself – if it is skewed in favour of a few, it will not lead to development. I never tire of quoting former World Bank economist Herman Daly, who wisely said that when something grows, it gets bigger, but when something develops, it gets different.

There is certainly a role for the private sector. However, where donors are concerned, the emphasis on the “private sector” has been all about access to markets and investment opportunities for their own companies. The idea of building up local entrepreneurial skills and creating environments for local productive enterprise has been strangely absent. And while we understand that trade is important, when it comes right down to it, we mean our trade, not theirs. The 10-year effort through the Doha Round of WTO talks aimed at reducing western farm subsidies and lowering industrial tariffs – to lift developing countries out of poverty through trade – collapsed decisively in December, a sure sign that rich countries are simply not serious about a level playing field.

That doesn’t mean there is no role for aid. Rather, in the absence of meaningful advancement on other fronts, aid may be the best we can offer.

Aid can be used in a variety of positive ways to complement and supplement a country’s own efforts to build infrastructure and improve health care, education, and governance, especially if the aid is true to the objective that most governments tell their taxpayers: to help people living in poverty. It hasn’t always worked like that, however. The aid we gave to monsters like Mobutu Sese Seko, Siad Barre, the Duvaliers, and others of their ilk was not wasted by them, it was wasted by us to grease the skids for our private investors, or because we wanted favours at the UN, or for some other deal du jour. The days of using aid for our own ends did not stop with the Cold War. Canada’s Harper government famously cut bilateral assistance to Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and eight of the poorest African nations, while opening new programs in middle-income countries – Peru and Colombia – where it sought free-trade deals.

Where NGOs are concerned, CIDA’s most striking initiative has been the defunding of organizations whose advocacy it doesn’t like, dragging out approvals for others, and changing rules in ways that reduce NGOs to contractors bidding on government priorities, dulling their role as innovators, leaders, and development organization in their own right.

In September, CIDA announced $26.7 million in grants to WUSC, Plan Canada, and World Vision Canada for projects they will conduct in conjunction with mining giants Rio Tinto Alcan, IAMGOLD, and Barrick Gold, respectively. The combined net profit of these companies in 2010 was $4.6 billion. The companies have obviously struck gold again. Here we have the odd spectacle of charitable organizations and taxpayer dollars supporting corporate social-responsibility projects, buffing the tarnished image of the Canadian extractive sector in developing countries.

In 1990, David Korten wrote a book called Getting to the 21^st Century. He warned of NGOs becoming what he called “public service contractors” – doing the bidding of government, even subsidizing government objectives with charitable donations. Twelve years into the 21^st century, Korten’s words are looking more prophetic than ever, while at higher altitudes of government policy making, countries like Canada (and China) seem determined to push however many beads and trinkets it takes to buy Manhattan.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Understanding the potential uses and consequences of Iranian nuclear weapons is crucial to understanding the cost and benefits of current sanctions and future strikes. If the tense history of the Cold War has taught us one thing, it is this: The uses of nuclear weapons are limited, regardless of regime or religion. Because of this basic fact, the West has an interest in continuing to tighten sanctions on Iran, but not in striking Iranian nuclear facilities. Nuclear weapons can conceivably be used for four purposes: deterrence, blackmail, shielding, and martyrdom.

Roland Paris analyses Stephen Harper’s worrying words on Iran.

Deterrence: Nuclear weapons are the ultimate insurance policy, serving to deter an invasion of the homeland and prevent foreign nuclear strikes. No nuclear-armed regime has ever been overthrown or hit by nuclear weapons. Iran lives in a bad neighbourhood surrounded by foes, such as Iraq, that have sought nuclear weapons, and states, such as the U.S., that have openly called for regime change. As such, deterrence is the most plausible use of Iranian nuclear weapons. Although the West may deplore the regime of the Ayatollahs, its treatment of women, and its gross violation of human rights, the maintenance of the regime through nuclear deterrence is not a sufficient reason to launch preventative strikes on Iran.

Blackmail: Iran may use nuclear weapons to blackmail its opponents and bully its neighbours. Yet, there is not a single record of any state successfully blackmailing another state using nuclear weapons. The threat of a nuclear attack is simply not credible, because few foreign-policy interests are great enough to justify breaking the nuclear taboo. If no one believes you will carry out a threat, then there is no point in damaging your reputation by making one. This is why nuclear-armed states have accepted losing wars with non-nuclear states rather than blackmailing them with nuclear strikes. Moreover, nuclear blackmail is not useful against other nuclear-armed powers since they would only invite a devastating nuclear retaliation. As it turns out, the two greatest threats to Iran – the U.S. and Israel – are nuclear powers. Importantly, both states have secure second-strike capabilities, meaning that Iran could never hope to wipe out its enemies’ arsenals in an overwhelming first strike. Israel may be three times smaller than New Brunswick, but it has invested in submarines carrying nuclear-tipped missiles, guaranteeing deadly Israeli retaliation.

Shielding: The most realistic and serious concern of an Iranian nuclear arsenal is its use of a shield under which Iran will pursue a more aggressive foreign policy. In other words, nuclear weapons will prevent states from forcefully retaliating to Iranian provocations. Yet, even in this more plausible scenario, it’s important to consider how nuclear weapons would change current Iranian foreign policy. In Iraq, Iran has already secured greater influence thanks to demographic dominance of the Shia population rather than military force. In Syria, Iran is currently losing a regional ally and will therefore have fewer opportunities for influence. In Afghanistan, it faces a resurging Taliban, who are viscerally opposed to Shia Islam, and who went to the brink of war with Iran in 1998. In both Lebanon and Gaza, a nuclear Iran could mean a more dangerous Hezbollah and Hamas. However, Iran has become a victim of its own success as both groups have transformed into powerful political parties. Will they be willing to jeopardize hard-earned political gains simply to curry favour with Iran? Lastly, closing the Straits of Hormuz would be self-defeating, shutting off Iran’s main export hub and pushing Gulf States further into the arms of the West. In short, as with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, an emboldened nuclear Iran can be contained.

Martyrdom and Terrorism: The wild card in dealing with Iran is the potential that the regime would use nuclear weapons as martyrs to achieve transcendental goals, which defy worldly cost-benefit calculations. In a recent CBC interview, Prime Minister Harper stated regarding Iran’s leadership: “In my judgment, these are people who have a particular, you know, fanatically religious worldview, and their statements imply to me no hesitation of using nuclear weapons if they see them achieving their religious or political purposes.” For all their talk and bluster, Iran’s leaders are hardy political survivors – not suicidal fanatics – who have gone to extraordinary lengths to retain their grip on power. The logic of political survival domestically, combined with mutually assured destruction internationally, limits the potential uses of nuclear weapons. Could Iran provide nuclear weapons to terrorists to carry out its deeds instead? The potential for nuclear terrorism is horrifying, particularly because terrorists do not have a return address to keep them in check. However, nuclear materials carry distinct “fingerprints,” which allow nuclear forensics to identify the source of nuclear material, and therefore deliver swift retaliation. Partially for this reason, no state has ever provided non-state actors with nuclear weapons.

The risks of a nuclear Iran are undoubtedly real, and justify the strengthening of international sanctions. At a minimum, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons will strengthen the non-proliferation regime, and will mean fewer twitchy fingers on fewer triggers and the attendant risks of nuclear accidents. However, the risks of a nuclear Iran do not justify the alternative risks of launching a preventative war. 

Simon Collard-Wexler is a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a Trudeau Scholar at Columbia University in New York.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Photo courtesy TwelveBooks.

The EU has been “shareholder number one” in the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) since the mid-1990s. It currently provides 50 per cent of the total funding for Palestinian state-building, including budgetary support for Palestinian institutions and infrastructure, and the reform efforts of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

But for the most part Europe has not succeeded in becoming, what Marc Otte, the EU’s former special representative to the Middle East peace process, recently described as “a full player” in the politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict.  

In fact, one can make the case that nowhere has the gap between European rhetoric and action been more obvious than in its involvement in the Middle East conflict.

Jennifer Welsh examines the tricky politics of recognizing Palestine as a state.

The most obvious explanation for this has to do with the, often insurmountable, differences born out of distinct national interests of a diverse community. Time and again, national interests, historic feuds, local jealousies, domestic politics, and intra-European competition have prevented the “‘consensus [and] the basis for a common policy”’ that the Belgian statesman Henri Simonet rightly argued was necessary for joint action in the Middle East or anywhere else.

But there is also another reason: the European inability to compete with the United States in the Middle East. Contrary to the claims of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter that Europe “[occupies] an equal position with the United States,” both Israelis and Palestinians have long held U.S. diplomacy – not European money – to be the key in peacemaking.

It is no surprise that this has been Israel’s position. Successive Israeli governments have been very clear that they have no interest in Europe attempting to embark on an independent policy in order to push the process forward on its own.

From the early 1970s, Europe’s support for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led Israel to disqualify it as a legitimate external mediator to the conflict.

Since the collapse of Oslo in 2000 EU-Israeli political relations have fallen to an all-time low, even as Europe has continued to consolidate its position as the international community’s lead donor to the Palestinians and remains Israel’s number one trading partner.

What is more surprising is the Palestinian position. Following the Oslo Accords in 1993, Europe could rightly claim that its long-time support for the PLO had been vital to sustaining the group during its wilderness years. But neither this, nor Europe’s impressive financial-assistance program to the peace process in subsequent years, succeeded in getting Palestinians to embrace it as a political equal of the United States. 

This was seen clearly in 1998. Deeply frustrated by the fact that the United States – with all the political clout – only provided 11 per cent of the funds to the P.A. compared to the EU’s 55 per cent, the European Commission demanded that Europe participate “alongside” the United States in negotiations on the grounds that it was “dwarfing the efforts of all other donors.”

This plea was ignored by the Palestinian leadership who, in November of that year, clamoured to welcome then U.S. President Bill Clinton on an official visit to Gaza to attend a meeting of the Palestinian National Council. Describing this event as a “landmark in Palestinian history,” senior P.A. officials were ecstatic.

Nabil Shaath, then Palestinian Foreign Minister, exclaimed that “the world [would] never be the same again,” and compared Clinton’s trip to former U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.

It’s hardly surprising that by 2000 the French press was quoting then French president Jacques Chirac as bemoaning that “the Europeans don’t count in these negotiations … we must not have any illusions. Clinton is running the whole thing.” Despite Washington’s intimate association with the failure of the Oslo process under Clinton, little changed during the turbulent years of the George W. Bush presidency. 

Before September 11, 2001, the EU was unable to capitalize on the Bush administration’s decision to cease the practice of presidential summitry, resist micromanaging the peace process, refrain from appointing a special envoy, and end the CIA’s close advisory relationship with the P.A. – a central component of U.S. involvement under Clinton.

Even in the wake of September 11, 2001, as Palestinians became increasingly frustrated with a U.S. administration preoccupied with the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Europeans were still unable to convince the P.A. that Brussels – not Washington – held the key to a political solution.

Like P.A. president Mahmoud Abbas over the last year, then P.A. President Yasser Arafat regularly acknowledged that “Europe has a considerable political role to play in this region” and declared it “high time for Europe to act as a full partner in the shaping of our common future.”

But when it came to specifics, Palestinian leaders then, as now, still saw the EU role as secondary to that of the United States. The P.A. welcomed French attempts to break the deadlock in early 2002, but still emphasized, in the words of senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath, that the “role of the Europeans will be to obtain a commitment from the [United States] and to put pressure on [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon.”

Again, despite the fact that the “road map for peace” in the Middle East was born out of a European idea put forward during the Danish EU presidency of 2002, Arafat still told EU leaders that it was vital for them to get U.S. support for the proposal.

The following year Arafat appeared to have forgotten the European origins of the proposal all together when he called for EU leaders to increase promotion of the U.S.-backed “road map.”

Even after Bush had disowned Arafat and refused to back any peace plan that did not marginalize him, Palestinians still looked primarily to the United States to play the lead political role, leaving the EU – as one former French ambassador in the Middle East put it – “to play the passive part of banker.”

In these terms it is worth noting that in his recent call to Europe to take a political role, Abbas was also very careful to stress, “We are not asking it to replace the [United States]. That would be going too far on our part.”

All this makes it unrealistic to expect the EU to challenge Washington for the lead external political role in the run-up to the 2012 election, regardless of Israeli distrust and Palestinian disillusionment with the Obama administration.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

David Malone: India faces a welter of domestic challenges, some of them having to do with an admirable democratic system, rooted in a tremendously complex constitution and very vibrant (sometimes complicated) politics throughout the country – not just at the national level, but also at the state and local levels. Overall, it’s clear that India’s political system is a pillar of strength in the country today, and likely in its future, because it induces stability.

Economic challenges range from vast swaths of the population living in severe poverty to an overall high growth rate that hasn’t resulted in raising the boats of the very poor all that far. So there is a sense in which India’s growth story hasn’t been as inclusive as perhaps China’s growth story has been, which is another challenge.

There are further challenges to India’s cohesion, although I don’t think they are all that serious. For one thing, there are several separatist insurgencies in India, but I think they are generally losing intensity rather than gaining it. There is also, worryingly, a Maoist insurgency within India, affecting perhaps a quarter to a fifth of the country’s districts, which is quite a large chunk of the country. As the prime minister of India argues, this results essentially from economic deprivation.

India faces a lot of internal challenges, but these challenges are processed through, or intermediated by, very dynamic local politics, and I think, on balance, the politics are helpful.

OC: You obviously see India’s democratic character as a strength, and one that translates into a type of global soft power. Do you think India is well placed to capitalize on the wave of democracy moving across the world?

DM: India is an attractive model to many around the world, but it hasn’t particularly played on its soft power internationally. It advertises “Incredible India” through its glorious scenery and stupendous monuments. It doesn’t advertise Incredible India through its vibrant democracy, or through its diplomacy. In other words, India doesn’t project itself as a model for other countries, and this may be due to an emphasis on bilateral diplomacy that respects the models of others rather than thrusting the model of India on them. Or it may simply have to do with a national preference not to retail India’s national democracy internationally.

I wrote an essay on all of this in India’s equivalent of The Economist, historically called Economic and Political Weekly, shortly after my book appeared.

OC: Is the multilateralist tradition in India not as strong as it used to be?

DM: In my book, I argue that the multilateral dimension of India’s foreign policy in the 1950s (and some subsequent cases when India had a loud voice at the UN and elsewhere) was essentially a defensive strategy. India was desperately poor at the time, and had a very intense domestic preoccupation. Speaking loudly and often was about as much as the country could manage on the international stage. But, starting in those decades and continuing ever since, India has built itself very strong bilateral relations with most countries around the world, based on mutual respect rather than non-stop critiquing of its partners, and advancing its interests.  These interests are very often economic, sometimes geostrategic in wider Asia and the Gulf, and, nowadays, focused on acquiring the natural resources that India’s growing economy requires beyond those that it can provide for itself.

Thus, in recent decades, bilateral diplomacy with most countries around the globe has been the foundation of India’s diplomacy, with a multilateral diplomacy very much playing second fiddle, and sometimes creating complications. For example, at the moment, India is sitting on the UN Security Council, where it’s playing an active role. But, when you sit on the UN Security Council, you have to decide if you want to constrain your position on issues pertaining to, say, the Arab Spring. Do you stand with the existing government of Libya, then the Gadhafi government, or do you favour the uprising? You can’t really duck these issues as a member of the UN Security Council, but, in bilateral diplomacy, you can often duck them simply by dealing with the government in place until it’s replaced. So there’s a tension there.

OC: In terms of the bilateral relationship between India and China, do you see a relationship of amity or enmity developing?

DM: India and China have an exceptionally complex bilateral relationship. Since the 1950s (and China’s military take-over of Tibet), it has been characterized in part by unsettled border issues between Tibet and India, which led to a border war between China and India in 1962, and continuing dialogue – but also controlled mutual provocations – across the border. But that’s only one dimension of the relationship, and is by no means the most important. There is also the fact that India hosts the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 and sought refuge in India.

Perhaps the most important aspect is the economic relationship between the two countries, which wasn’t significant until quite recently, but has taken off convincingly in recent years, to the point that, today, China is India’s top trading partner. That’s a stabilizing element in the relationship. There’s also a growing awareness that the 21st century will see China and India vying with each other for influence in Asia, and perhaps beyond, but also having to accommodate each other’s spheres of influence. It is a very dynamic relation, and one in rapid transition. And it’s by far the most important bilateral relationship.

OC: In a democratic country like India, if a new government were elected, could the relationship with China change?

DM: The coalition that came to power in India in 1998, and particularly its defense minister, George Fernandes, adopted fairly hostile views towards China early on. However, it rapidly softened its tone, recognizing that India and China need to manage their differences and live alongside each other peacefully – and, better yet, productively. The current coalition government in India, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has had ups and downs in its relationship with China, but has also worked hard to manage the relationship positively. And, by and large, Beijing does the same.

It’s important to remember that it’s a very asymmetric relationship – with China three times bigger, three times richer, and three times richer per capita than India – which means China pays less attention to India than India pays to China. This is one of many factors that irritate India, provoking the question: “Why doesn’t China think of us more centrally than it does?” Well, because China has many other concerns.

OC: Do you think the current Canadian government is pursuing its relationship with India properly?

DM: I don’t comment on Canada-China relations because I’m not an expert on them. What I can say is that the government’s effort, over the last five years, to intensify the relationship with India pretty much parallels the efforts of other governments around the world. Most countries woke up to the growing significance of India at roughly the same time. And most of them have been laying siege to India in an effort to do more business with the country and understand it better during the same period. So I think it’s the right policy, but it’s also an unsurprising policy in that it’s being emulated all over the world. 

What may give Canada an edge is our pluralistic society within which so many Indo-Canadians have found a new home they like – and the cultural links that their presence in Canada creates with India - and the fact the Canada constitutes much of North American space, both bountiful in natural resources, and through our Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. providing ready access to the U.S. market that Indians so prize.  Ottawa has played skillfully on several of these.

OC: Since its re-election, the current Canadian government has demonstrated a desire to get closer to China. I’m wondering how this is perceived in India and whether it will affect Canadian opportunities in India.

DM: Considering the fact that the Indian government is also trying to get closer to the Chinese government, I really don’t think the Indians would have anything to say about the Canadian government’s policy. I think they consider it perfectly natural that countries all over the world want to better understand China and do more business with China. In fact, the same is true for India: India is completely unsurprised that the world is beating a path to its door. It has a huge and growing market, so the fact that countries want to expand their economic relations with India is not only unsurprising, but is also at least mildly gratifying to India. 

Photo courtesy Reuters.

But the people who live in war zones do, of course. Many millions of them are directly affected by the violence, now for more than a decade in Afghanistan in its latest war and for nearly nine years in Iraq in a war that followed 12 years of crippling sanctions and the short but intense Operation Desert Storm. 

And there’s the rub: war devastates these places, but to us they are remote and largely forgettable. The amount of public attention to Afghanistan and Iraq has declined steadily. We scarcely pay attention to what has happened to the native populations. There are, perhaps, political and psychological reasons for this indifference—a turning away from the violence, a mission gone bad, falsehoods proffered by politicians, and many others. But the indifference is unmistakable. The news media rarely describes the ruinous consequences of U.S. policy and war-making for Afghanis and Iraqis. Few, if any, novels, films or other cultural expressions attempt to capture this suffering either. 

This broad tendency to forget, or intentionally put aside, the ravages of war was evident during and after the Korean War (1950-53) and the Indochina wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and early ’70s. But we forget at our peril. We should care about what happens to these people and their societies, not only for moral reasons, but also because forgetting has consequences. 

Counting the Dead

One symptom of this indifference is the absence of an adequate accounting of the wars’ destruction, particularly of war mortality. The governments don’t discuss it, and the news media reliably report the lowest conceivable numbers—“tens of thousands” is the usual formulation for Iraq – or the partial numbers collated by the U.N. office in Kabul for Afghanistan. In fact, the numbers of fatalities are significantly higher and need to be studied for their implications.

In Iraq, some brave attempts to collect and analyze data about war-related mortality have at least given us a sense of the scale of mayhem.  Several household surveys, the state-of-the-art method favored by epidemiologists, indicate a death toll reaching well into the hundreds of thousands. (This includes all Iraqis, not just civilians, from direct violence and indirectly due to other factors – so-called excess deaths above the pre-war mortality rate.)  Even the oft-cited tally of Iraq Body Count, a U.K.-based NGO, holds that more than 100,000 civilians have died as a result of violence. IBC’s method is crude and incomplete—it gathers data mainly from English-language newspapers—and they acknowledge an undercount by at least a factor of two.  The lowest estimate of all the household surveys—a large, randomized sample conducted by the Ministry of Health in the spring of 2006—was 400,000 excess deaths in the 2003-2006 period, and there was still a lot of killing to come.  By using data on widows, displaced persons (up to 5 million), and the household surveys, I estimate the number of war-related dead to be at least 600,000 and possibly as much as one million. 

This is not a number that most American politicians want to consider. What’s more puzzling is the reaction of the news media, which have generally failed to report on the war’s destruction. Even as the U.S. military exits Iraq, the news media’s treatment focuses on American soldiers returning home or questions the future stability of Iraq in the absence of U.S. troops.  There is very little on how the war has affected ordinary Iraqis.

On Afghanistan, a far less violent conflict compared with Iraq, we have even less information. The U.N. office gathers data from morgues, the military and news reports, but this “passive surveillance” captures only a fraction of the war dead and cannot explain what is being missed. No household surveys have been conducted in Afghanistan.  So we have only the sketchiest notions of the war’s human toll. (This was also true of the wars in Korea and Indochina, where estimates are largely guesswork.)  Overall, my best estimate of excess deaths in Afghanistan is around 100,000, but it is an inadequate estimate, as all are for this beleaguered country.

The Illusion of Validity

The low numbers the news media and political leaders use to describe the outcome of these wars provide an unintentional symmetry to the conflicts: the conflicts began under an illusion of validity, to borrow a phrase from psychologist Daniel Kahneman, which in Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s purported “weapons of mass destruction” and in Afghanistan was the purported hot pursuit of Osama bin Laden. Now the wars wind down under another illusion of validity, which is that the civilians harmed by the wars are relatively few. This is repeated so often, sometimes with reference to the Iraq Body Count or UN numbers, however hollow their credibility, that absurdly low estimates have become conventional wisdom. It is so much so that even the liberal media, like National Public Radio or the New York Times, rarely explore the human costs of the war to Iraqis or Afghanis. 

These illusions, which feed indifference, have consequences. Others in the Muslim world particularly notice this callousness. It does not reflect well on America that many believe it to be a reckless bully unmindful of the havoc it wreaked, nor on Britain and Canada that they are camp followers of this recklessness. 

The consequences for the United States are even more dramatic if considering the domestic political scene. By ignoring or forgetting the sheer destructiveness of the wars, Americans can continue on a path of seeing all foreign problems as fixable with military force. (Nowadays some domestic issues are regarded in the same light, with one result being the enormous homeland security apparatus.) This has been the tragic tendency of U.S. policy makers since 1945.  The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, and as the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., said of previous armed ventures, war above all nourishes the presidency.  If there is no accountability for the human toll of war, the urge to deploy military assets will remain powerful. 

Colin Powell famously said that invading a country means following the Pottery Barn rule, “If you break it, you own it.”  The sad fact is that we broke Iraq and may be breaking Afghanistan, but we don’t “own it.” We scarcely recall that we ever had anything to do with it.  As the U.S. withdraws from Iraq, the season of forgetting is upon us.

John Tirman is author of The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars (Oxford University Press).  He is executive director and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for International Studies.

This essay is part of OpenCanada’s How We Fight series.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Michael Rubin: Yes, I have publicly advocated targeted assassination since before it was popular to do so. Especially with surgical strikes against individuals, it is possible to avoid further bloodshed. Humanitarian-law proponents and the anti-war crowd may not like it, but targeted assassination is legal under international law. 

Since writing your article, “An Arrow in Our Quiver: Why the U.S. Government Should Consider Assassination” in 2006, do you think the “gut-level revulsion to assassination” has declined? 

MR: Yes, at least within the United States, they have, as President Obama has embraced a strategy heavy on targeting individuals from unmanned Predator aircraft or surgical strike teams like that which killed Osama bin Laden. If assassination was most noxious to the progressive left, the fact that a president they supported embraced the strategy has permanently nullified what otherwise would have been a staunchly partisan issue. President Obama himself likely had to reconcile himself to an approach he initially opposed. But once he sat in a position of leadership, he quickly came to understand that targeted killing was the best way to achieve an objective while minimizing civilian or collateral damage.

Stephanie Carvin disagrees with Michael Rubin. See Why.

Assassination is clearly more effective when used by weak states or non-state actors than when it is used by strong states. Why is it in the United States’ interest, then, to normalize assassination? 

MR: Assassination is simply one tactic among many. The United States has wielded it only against imminent threats or at times of war. Certainly I recognize arguments whose world views embrace moral equivalence can make this rationalization: If the United States can assassinate rogue leaders or those it considers terrorists, why can’t small countries assassinate those who their leaders believe are equally culpable? Indeed, if they want to involve themselves in conflict with the United States, they will. Saddam Hussein, after all, tried unsuccessfully to assassinate George H.W. Bush during the former president’s visit to Kuwait. Bill Clinton responded to that action with cruise missiles and, for a few years at least, Saddam understood that tit-for-tat action was not in his interest.

Do you think we could have achieved the same outcome – with fewer civilian casualties – had we simply assassinated Gadhafi?

MR: Simply put, yes. Gadhafi was not only head of state, but he was also a military leader. All major decisions – including war crimes and indiscriminate attacks against civilians – came through him and his immediate family. Perhaps if leaders like Gadhafi understand they personally might pay the price for their decisions, they would reconsider setting their countries down certain courses.

ON KIDNAPPING:

“Terrorists crave an audience.” Has the expansion of mainstream and social media made kidnapping a more impactful terrorist tactic, since these media amplify kidnapping stories worldwide?

MR: Anything that prolongs the story makes terrorism more successful. Certainly, the 24-hour cable or satellite news cycle keeps the story alive. I grew up against the backdrop of the Iran hostage crisis: Perhaps Twitter is simply the 21^st-century equivalent of tying a yellow ribbon around a lamppost.

Your analysis has shown that negotiating with terrorists breeds terrorism. Should states consider it best practice to ignore a hostage situation? Should they discourage news media from covering kidnappings?

MR: States shouldn’t ignore hostage situations, but they should not pay ransom to resolve them. For the hostage-takers, it boils down to a cost-benefit analysis. For the victims’ government, the question is how to raise the money to pay off the terrorist group. 

This essay is part of OpenCanada’s How We Fight series.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

However, the increased use of assassination against terrorist targets raises many political, moral, and legal questions. And because these programs are conducted under a veil of secrecy, we lack the information to give us answers. This is not healthy for the conduct of the War on Terror and, importantly, democratic oversight and accountability. Furthermore, while the assassination of terrorists may eliminate an immediate threat, there is no evidence that assassination is an effective counter-terrorism strategy. As such, we should be challenging state, military, and intelligence leaders, and asking them several important questions.

First things first: What’s in a name?

The first problem with discussing assassination is that there is no consensus on what “assassination” actually is, and what it entails. For example, some use the term “assassination” or “decapitation” to refer to policies that others might call “targeted killing.” While some describe the Israeli government’s policies against Palestinian terrorists in the mid-2000s as assassination, for instance, others use the term “assassination” to describe a diverse range of activities such as: states or non-state actors targeting state leaders, the United States targeting terrorist leaders in places such as Yemen, countries targeting the leaders of terrorist movements in armed conflict, and the drone campaign in Afghanistan/Pakistan. All of these situations have radically different contexts and actors, and have been carried out in different places. To broadly declare all of these activities as “assassination” is problematic – as is bluntly declaring these activities legal or illegal without attention to context or circumstance.

The rise of targeted killing is part of a broader change in how we fight. The exact process that introduced war as we know it – state versus state – is now in reverse. Traditional warfare emerged alongside the rise of the modern state; as globalization erodes state sovereignty, traditional warfare turns upside down. The result is a distinctly new type of warfare – new in terms of reasons, actors, and methods. 

In the How We Fight series, OpenCanada examines the impact of these changes on the methods of war. How is technology changing weaponry? Soldiers? Threats? Enemies? How do drones change the social relations of war? They make assassination easier, but do they make it okay? They decrease combatant casualties, but what is their impact on civilian casualties? And how do we even know how many children die when a robot drops a bomb in a remote Yemeni village?

Over the course of the next three weeks, OpenCanada will engage international experts in discussions about these issues. By the end of the series, we hope that you will have a better sense of where the $600 every Canadian spent on the military this year goes – and where it ought to go.

For more depth on this topic, check out: 

	1. Professor Stephanie Carvin gives three reasons why assassination is unethical and ineffective.
	2. The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin defends assassination as a way to get rid of enemies without causing civilian casualties. And it’s legal too.
	3. Professor John Tirman, Executive Director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, considers the consequences of forgetting the destructiveness of America’s wars.
	4. Professor Michael Spagat argues that John Tirman undermines his objective of reducing violence by raising awareness about the reality of war by overestimating the number of civilian casualties.
	5. One study reported 1 in 5000 Iraqis dead; another 1 in 500. An analysis of the different ways we count civilian casualties.
	6. Is the United Nations the organization the world needs? Dr. Leslie Roberts suggests no, arguing that the U.N. plays an active role in hiding death tolls in international crises.
	7. When RoboCop replaces Private Jackson: The Brookings Institution’s Peter W. Singer wonders what technological advancement means for who fights, where we fight, and who dies.

Image courtesy Open Clipart Library.

But, there’s a rub. Many of the elements of the deal are not planned until 2014. And by that time, there will be a new President and, potentially, a new Party in Washington. Amid this uncertainty, we ask two Canada-U.S. experts, Duncan Wood and Robert Pastor, for their initial reactions to the deal.

Duncan Wood: A Step in the Right Direction

OpenCanada: Did you expect more of this perimeter deal? Why is the deal not taking effect immediately and, instead, rolling out over the course of several years?

Duncan Wood: I think it is perfectly understandable that these changes will be phased in. Remember that the NAFTA itself was not a one time deal but something that took 15 years to take full effect. The changes are huge and mark a qualitative step forward in the economic and political relationship between the two countries. It is now clear that there are two speeds in North America, with Mexico relegated to a second class position. 

OC: What challenges do internal U.S. politics present to the perimeter deal? Will President Obama have to demonstrate the same commitment as Reagan in 1988, as Colin Robertson suggests, to make the perimeter deal stick?

DW: My feeling is that this will receive broad support from the Republican party but a tepid reception from the Democrats. Obama will have to convince his party that this move is in the interest of job creation and border communities.

DW: I doubt that we will see much difference with regards to Canadian citizens but certainly for visitors to Canada there will be stricter controls and more demanding background information check ups.

Robert Pastor: A Trilateral Solution Would Have Been Better

It is commendable that the U.S. and Canada are trying to make the borders both more efficient and more secure. They have been trying to do this since even before 9/11, and past declarations and “smart border” statements have pointed up two flaws that are also true of the declaration today.    

First, it’s easy to declare, but hard to implement.  

And second, though Canadians like to point out how different their border is from that of Mexico’s; the truth is that they are agonizingly similar in the delays, bureaucracy, and duplication, and that the best way to address those challenges would be in a trilateral, North American agreement.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Rather than being a cause for celebration, the election was a shemozzle marred by frequent irregularities and deadly violence. Reports abounded of ballot-box stuffing, incomplete voter lists, and intimidation and interference by security forces, prompting several candidates to call for the annulment of the vote and others to declare premature victory. To stem the tide of rumours that risk further instability, senior officials have suspended mobile-phone messaging throughout the country until the provisional election results are released on Dec. 6, the last day of President Joseph Kabila’s five-year mandate. Analysts fear the worst is yet to come.

Five years ago, the UN played a critical role in organizing and overseeing the Congo’s landmark post-war elections, which were widely heralded as a success. When opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba denounced the results of the second run-off round as a “hold up,” alleging “systematic cheating,” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) William Swing facilitated daily meetings to investigate claims of fraud. And when it became evident that Bemba’s MLC party had indeed lost, Swing, along with several ambassadors, played a formative role in convincing him to concede defeat with little violence.

This time, however, the UN’s participation has been much more marginal and contested. Last Sunday, on the eve of the elections, leading presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi asked Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to “immediately recall” the current SRSG, Roger Meece, and replace him with someone “more impartial and competent.” As Meece is head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) – the UN’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping force – this charge is particularly damning of the mission altogether. What it suggests is that in its current form the mission’s future is uncertain and there is little likelihood that it will be accepted by the parties to act as an arbiter when, as so many predict, the situation deteriorates. 

Tshisekedi’s charge, however, is far from surprising. Since 2006, the UN has increasingly aligned itself closely and compromisingly with the Congolese state in the name of stabilizing the country.

MONUSCO and international donors have disengaged politically, becoming increasingly uncritical of the country’s deteriorating democracy, increasing corruption, and impunity for perpetrators of human-rights abuses throughout the country.

The UN’s alignment has been most apparent in MONUSCO’s involvement since 2009 in a series of military operations conducted by government forces that target militia in the unstable eastern region of the country. During these ongoing operations, the UN has provided significant material, logistical, and operational support to government forces. No sooner had the operations commenced than evidence began to surface of widespread abuse of civilians and repeated human-rights violations by militia and, critically, government forces – actions that contributed to the rapid deterioration of security conditions. The violence was extraordinarily vicious. 

In December 2009, after nine months of support, the UN attempted to mitigate the potential legal and moral liability of continuing to support the government by adopting a conditionality policy. However, UN military officers on the ground lament that the policy has proven to be largely unenforceable due to the UN’s lack of oversight over key parts of their mission. Consequently, the UN continues to “work alongside” those with significant human-rights-abuse records, including General Bosco Ntaganda, a war criminal indicted by the International Criminal Court, who, despite government assurances to the contrary, continues to be involved in military operations.

Kabila’s government has proven unwilling to address the root causes of conflict and to reform the very Congolese institutions that are necessary for stability, such as the security sector. Indeed, the last five years have demonstrated that the government is more interested in preserving and augmenting its own power than in democratic and equitable peace-building for the benefit of the country’s population. Criticism of the government has, in part, led Kabila to call for the mission’s withdrawal at various junctures.

Where has the international community been? Unlike the lead-up to the last elections, during which international actors worked closely together to ensure the success of the political transition, disunity among donors since 2006 has meant that opportunities to exert leverage on the state, such as the International Monetary Fund’s cancellation of $12 billion in Congolese debt, have been squandered, and Kabila has gone unchecked in his centralization of power and profit. Indeed, increasingly uninterested international partners have chosen to refocus resources on technical tasks, and have disengaged from the necessary political processes at the local, regional, and national levels.

Whatever the outcome of the presidential elections this coming week, the future of MONUSCO is a precarious one, and the international community will face some tough decisions on the Congo. If elected, opposition candidates are unlikely to throw their support behind a mission they perceive as distinctly partial, and President Kabila has already insisted publicly that international assistance in the post-election period be restricted to development rather than peacekeeping. As it stands, MONUSCO’s mandate stipulates that reconfiguration of the mission be based on progress towards the reduction of threats from armed groups in eastern Congo, that the government’s capacity to effectively protect the population be improved, and that state authority throughout the territory be consolidated. None of these objectives has yet been reached, and there is the risk that, after a decade of involvement, “donor fatigue” and attention to seemingly more pressing international situations, such as Syria and Egypt, will cause international actors to further disengage.

As the last five years have revealed, the holding of elections does not mean the job is done. International actors must come together to design a new approach to addressing the instability in the Congo. Underpinning this new approach must be the recognition that the problems facing the Congo are ultimately political and not technical. Donors – in conjunction with the Congolese – should develop comprehensive interventions that proceed from political-economic analyses and avoid technocratic tinkering. The Congolese government must show leadership in reforming state institutions, and in the design of a comprehensive solution to conflict that involves stakeholders at the local, provincial, and national level, and that addresses the various political, social, cultural, and economic dimensions of violence.

Moreover, as I argue with Guillaume Lacaille in a recent policy report, “Stabilizing the Congo”, international actors, rather than continuing to support the state unconditionally and in the face of intransigent behaviour, must strengthen and exercise their financial leverage in critical priority areas that together form a comprehensive roadmap to long-term peace and stability. Failure of the Congolese government to abide by the terms of such a roadmap and/or further political donor disengagement should result in the reduction of international support to the state, withdrawal of MONUSCO, and a cessation of development or stabilization activities in favour of critical lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

The last five years have laid bare the difficulties of supporting and partnering with governments emerging fitfully from war and attempting to build a comprehensive and inclusive peace in which citizens and politicians alike feel they have a stake. If securing the peace is to mean anything, and if engagement is not perpetually to fail, international actors must take an honest look at the actual interests and motives of individuals holding political mandates, and at their own roles and responsibilities.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Such is how life-long Canadian diplomat and former United Nations special envoy to Niger, Robert Fowler, describes his 130 days in the Sahara with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (A.Q.I.M). His book chronicling this harrowing five months, A Season in Hell (Harper Collins), was recently released. Now OpenCanada talks to him about what he learned about A.Q.I.M., the magnitude of the threat we face from terrorism in Africa, whether we are approaching it in the right way – and why Ottawa was so reluctant to tell his wife that he was alive.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo courtesy Harper Collins.

“It’s him who united all the Mongolians and built our country,” a Mongolian woman in her 50s wearing a blue silk del – the traditional costume – said from the observatory, standing atop the head of Khan’s mounting. “But we need, today, a new Genghis Khan to make Mongolia stronger, and to give us back our riches!”

As Mongolia experiences one of the fastest rates of economic growth in the world, driven by a massive mining boom and intake of foreign investments, the country, sandwiched between Russia and China, also experiences a wave of fierce nationalism that increasingly sees the exploitation of natural resources by foreign companies as a looting of its almost sacred riches. But the “looters” are now not only Chinese or Russian, as they have been for decades – they’re Canadian, too. Canada now ranks second after China in Mongolia for foreign investments but ranks first in the booming sector of natural resources (e.g. mining). It’s no wonder Canadian companies have felt the heat and will probably still do so in years to come.

The Roaring Mongolian Economy

It’s not rare anymore to hear that Mongolia, already one of the fastest growing economies in the world, could become the fastest soon. 2011 started with 6.1 percent growth, followed by 17.3 during the second quarter and 20.8 percent during the next. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 11.5 percent growth rate for the whole year, close to 12 percent next year… and close to 16 percent in 2016 .

In his brand new monster house, harboured in one of the few gated communities – which have developed only recently in Ulan Bator as a feature of its unbridled development – a 53-year-old businessman recognizes that he owes his success and his three-storey house to the mining boom. “But we don’t need all these foreign investments,” says the father of two, who built his fortune selling Lexus and furs. “Genghis Khan gave us all these incredible riches. And there might be even more to discover. We have always been rich […]. But it’s the foreign companies that are benefiting from it. Not us.”

The man went on to speak in Mongolian about Oyu Tolgoi, saying that it was a test of sovereignty for his country (as his 18-year-old son translated into perfect English). Oyu Tolgoi, or “Turquoise Hill” – is the talk of the town. It is Mongolia’s biggest mining project and economic and political issue No. 1. It is also the flagship project of Vancouver’s Ivanhoe Mines, which owns 66 per cent (in partnership with Rio Tinto) of what will be one of the largest copper-gold mines in the world when the site goes online in late 2012. The Mongolian government owns the remaining shares. The $6-billion project – roughly the size of Mongolia’s GDP – should produce a third of the country’s GDP when it reaches its full capacity by the end of the decade.

But why is it a test of sovereignty? Because, when the businessman was speaking in the early days of October, the Minister of Mines had just declared that he wanted to reopen the deal that was closed in 2009 after six years of intense negotiations with Ivanhoe, and raise the government’s shares to 50 per cent. The minister’s declaration sent a shockwave across the world markets, and caused dismay among foreign investors, who fear the rise of resources and economic nationalism.

Even though the government finally backed down two weeks later, the roots of that nationalism have not disappeared. Far from it, since they seem to be deeply rooted in a national pride that longs to be uttered after four long centuries of direct and indirect rule by either the Chinese or the Russians. The ubiquity of Genghis Khan – whose name and face now appear on the national airport’s main terminal, on a big hotel façade, on top of Parliament’s front steps, on vodka and beer bottles, and on a hill bordering Ulan Bator, to name a few – is only the most visible expression of that reclaimed pride.

This sentiment is deeply rooted in the steppes, the mountains, and even the dryness of the Gobi desert that shape the beloved land roamed in every corner by the nomads. Nature is revered in the least-densely populated country of the world, and it has to be taken care of – a popular and strong injunction that basically clashes with mining. Rare are the citizens of Ulan Bator, where half of the 2.8 million Mongolians now live, who don’t dream from time to time of going (or actually go) back to the countryside.

Forty-two-year-old Batsetseg comes from the steppe every now and then to lend a hand in a modest restaurant in Ulan Bator. Her sister opened the restaurant a year ago, and named it “Meej Mountain,” after a hill near their homeland that they hold dear. “When I’m in town, it’s for making money and helping my sister. I really miss the steppe, though …” she says in a very affectionate way. “But back near Erdenet [a mining city 325 km North of Ulan Bator], I worry because of the mine,” she goes on to say even before being asked about the mining activity. “We are a people who respect the environment. Our parents taught us not to cut the flowers and the trees. To dig the earth makes me uncomfortable. If we are to do mining, we have to do it gently and restore the land exactly as it was before, or [make it] even better. Otherwise, nature will take its revenge.”

For Batsetseg, it is no coincidence that the mining boom started about a decade ago and since then, the harsh winters – called dzud – have killed millions of livestock.

There seem to be few Mongolians who are strictly against mining. But they all want to think that the exploitation of their natural resources will benefit them in the long run. To enforce that hope, this fall, the government started sending a cheque of 21,000 tugriks (CAD$17) to every citizen in the country each month, and will soon be distributing 10 per cent of the shares of the Tavan Tolgoi project, which will be the largest coking coal mine in the world, evenly among Mongolians.

Despite these cash handouts, many people from the poor and middle classes feel that they have yet to see the benefits of the mining boom. In the meantime, they have to cope with galloping inflation that rides alongside unbridled economic growth. Last year, Mongolians were hit by a 10.1-per-cent rate for consumer goods, one of the three highest in Asia. This year, the International Monetary Fund expects it to double to 20 per cent.

All this fuels a nationalistic sentiment among the population that fuels, in turn, the equally strong stream of populism among elected officials. This is all too salient as the country is heading towards legislative elections in 2012.

The government seems to suffer from a split-personality disorder, trying to woo foreign investors and please a growingly nationalistic population at the same time. That Mongolia wants to attract capital from abroad is a no brainer. For one, Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold is a forceful voice in favour of attracting foreign investors – including Canadian ones. The country also has a “third neighbour policy” – somewhat similar to Pierre Trudeau’s “third option” – which aims to diversify Mongolia’s diplomatic and economic ties away from its two obtrusive neighbours and towards other countries, including Canada.

Nevertheless, in October, nationalism mixed with populism pushed politicians in power to try to revise, to its advantage, the biggest commercial deal signed in Mongolia since the country switched to a free-market economy.

As the nationalistic sentiment grows among the population, and with election season well underway, ignoring politics and the interests of Mongolians could come at a heavy price for Canadian and other foreign companies.

Jean-Frédéric Légaré-Tremblay travelled to Mongolia thanks to a Bourse Nord-Sud granted by the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec and financed by the Canadian International Development Agency.

Photo courtesy the author.

When Naguib Sawiris spoke of chaos and lack of security in Egypt last Thursday, he forecasted the events of the past five days: on Friday Egyptian demonstrators took to Tahrir Square, many protesting Deputy Prime Minister Ali Al Salmi’s drafting of a constitution before a yet-to-be-elected parliament has a chance to write one. The elections scheduled for November 28 are now in jeopardy. For five straight days protestors against the Armed Forces that replaced former Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak have faced violent crackdowns, with over thirty dead and hundreds injured. On Monday the Egyptian cabinet’s resignation to the military council confirmed for many that the ostensibly transitional military government seeks to quash civilian threats to its tenure. The military council’s promise, made Tuesday, to elect a president by the end of July 2012 rings hollow.

Related: 

Sawiris: Globalist of the Year

Tales from Tahrir: An Interview with Lyse Doucet 

The crowd of protestors reached roughly 30 000 Tuesday in a swelling uprising that recalls but has not yet matched in numbers that against Mubarak over nine months ago, nor does it match the earlier uprising in avoidance of violence and optimism.  

Is the current uprising another stage of the Arab Spring? Or has the triumphant spirit of the movement been deflated as revolution has given way to counter-revolution? The CIC asks three Middle East experts to respond to Naguib Sawiris’s assessment of the Egyptian political scene and to the events in Tahrir Square as they rapidly unfold.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Chrystia Freeland Interviews Mr. Sawiris about his Role in the Revolution:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

For More from Mr. Sawiris’s Visit to Canada:

1. A profile of Sawiris in The Globe and Mail.

2. Sawiris interviewed by Peter Mansbridge on The CBC’s The National.

3. Sawiris interviewed on The CBC’s Lang & O’Leary Exchange.

Now Doucet reflects on the Egyptian revolution: Was it a Facebook revolution? Does social media have a role to play in the next stage of the revolution, namely governance? Where was ideology in the revolution? 

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

This interview is part of OpenCanada’s ongoing series, Will Globalization Kill Canadian Manufacturing?

Photo Courtesy the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Exhibit, “Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1958 to Today“ 

An introduction to Open Canada’s week-long series on the impact of globalization on Canada’s ability to make things, featuring debates between experts on how Canada should adapt – or whether it should adapt at all. 

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

For more depth on this topic, check out: 

	1. Former Ontario PC candidate and author of Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molsons, Andrea Mandel-Campbell defends manufacturing as the basis for prosperity.
	2. Photographer Edward Burtynsky discusses his images of manufacturing and comments on the role of art in documenting industrial change.
	3. Jim Milway, Executive Director of the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, argues that higher education will lead to the replacement of lost manufacturing jobs.
	4. Economist Stephen Blank, Director of the Macdonald Laurier Institute’s Portal for North America, explains how manufacturing jobs are changing – and why, as a result, there will be less of them.
	5. North America expert Christopher Sands is optimistic about Canada’s manufacturing prospects. Here’s why.

Photo Courtesy the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Exhibit, “Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1958 to Today“ 

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

This interview is part of OpenCanada’s ongoing series, Will Globalization Kill Canadian Manufacturing?

Photo Courtesy the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Exhibit, “Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1958 to Today“ 

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

This interview is part of OpenCanada’s ongoing series, Will Globalization Kill Canadian Manufacturing?

Photo Courtesy the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Exhibit, “Songs of the Future: Canadian Industrial Photographs, 1958 to Today“ 

“Very little penetrated the gloom,” Roméo Dallaire recalls in one of the most unsettling passages of Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, “but as my eyes became accustomed to the dark I saw strewn around the living room in a rough circle the decaying bodies of a man, a woman, and two children, stark white bone poking through the desiccated leather-like covering that once had been skin.”

What if Dallaire had been able to tweet this scene? What if @BarackObama had picked up this snapshot and tweeted it to his 10-million-plus followers? What if YouTube had taken the 1- second clip he had recorded on his smartphone and featured it on its homepage? Would that have saved the life of almost a million Rwandans?

There has been no lack of attention to the impact of new media on the way we read, listen, meet, interact, exchange and do. The population of Facebook is more than 10 times that of Canada, and it took only 9 months to get to 100 million users; the radio, in contrast, took almost half a century to reach 100 million users. Today, 24 of 25 of the largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation; meanwhile, the Internet boasts more than 200 million blogs.

This spring, we witnessed the political power of social media. Many credit viral videos of protests prompted by the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi with triggering the Tunisian revolution, just as many credit the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Saeed” with launching the Egyptian revolution.

Did these tools actually help to organize the revolutionaries, or were they merely used to keep the outside world apace of what was going on? Does digital media offer some promise for action against mass atrocities? In a world in which Facebook is king, can violent dictatorships survive?

Experts recently addressed these questions and others at a conference hosted by the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies titled, “The Promise of the Media in Halting Mass Atrocities”. There the CIC interviewed conference speakers Mona Eltahawy, Gordon Smith, Roméo Dallaire , Rick MacInnes-Rae, and André Pratte.

During the Egyptian revolution, at least 65,000 people heard every hashtagged statement Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy shared on her popular Twitter account. And yet, in an interview with the CIC, Eltahawy objects to the idea that the ousting of Mubarak was somehow a “Twitter revolution.”

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Gordon Smith, in contrast, believes in the contemporary promise of digital media.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Roméo Dallaire turns the clock back ten years to consider the hypothetical existence of digital media in Rwanda. Without electricity, he wonders, what could smartphones really achieve? When a quarter of the world’s population with Internet access is affected by online censorship, can digital media really influence change?

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Dispatches host Rick MacInnes-Rae is even more skeptical: the vast majority of people, he suggests in an interview with the CIC, do not want to hear about genocide.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

André Pratte, editor-in-chief of La Presse, makes the case that the death of the newspaper will in fact diminish the coverage of mass atrocities.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

Libya is plagued by a toxic mix of underdeveloped political institutions, tribal and ethnic fractionalization, and oil-dominated economics. Unlike other states liberated by the Arab Spring, Libya’s economy is heavily dependent on oil. Libya is the world’s 17^th-largest oil producer. Revenues from the oil sector account for 95 per cent of its export earnings, 25 per cent of its GDP, and – most significantly – 80 per cent of its government revenue.

Oil and accountable government rarely mix. Lucrative and accessible natural resources free leaders from relying on taxation, and therefore from public opinion. In short: no representation without taxation. These resources, and the military equipment they afford, also permit leaders to buy off or repress demands for representation. Finally, natural resource dependence leads to the “Dutch disease,” where natural resource exports inflate the value of currency, making other products less competitive in international markets, and this, in turn, reinforces dependence on natural resources. Current Libyan leaders are publicly committed to freedom and democracy, but there are no guarantees that future leaders will be so restrained, especially if they can exploit resources for themselves and break their dependence on their constituents.

When a state relies heavily on natural resources for revenue, these resources become a coveted prize for political contenders. This increases the likelihood of coups or separatist civil wars led by groups wanting to control resource-rich areas for themselves. This is precisely what occurred in Libya, where oil was discovered in 1959 and the government was overthrown in a coup in 1969. The risks of coups in civil war are magnified in Libya, which is riven by tribes and ethnic groups, many of which have lost power with the demise of Gadhafi. The current nationalist euphoria masks underlying social fissures. For instance, there is evidence that rebel general Abdul Fatah Younis was killed by members of an allied militia. With a common enemy defeated, goodwill will start to dissipate – especially as groups begin to negotiate the distribution of power and resources. The spotty human-rights record of the Transitional National Council, reprisals against alleged regime loyalists, infighting among rebel forces, and the apparent execution of Gadhafi provide no reason to be optimistic that such negotiations will proceed smoothly.

What can be done to avert the risks of autocracy and civil war? Robust political institutions to maintain democracy and the rule of law are clearly essential. However, as the cases of Venezuela and Russia demonstrate, they are also insufficient. What are needed are institutions to manage the interaction of political power and natural resource rents.

In this regard, Libya should follow the example of Norway. When Norway came across a natural resource windfall in the 1960s, it deliberately avoided the bonanza that had ruined other countries. Instead, it restricted the exploration and access of oil fields to lessen the debilitating effects of currency appreciation. It mandated that a certain percentage of profits be put aside to fund future exploration and the renovation of oil facilities. Most importantly, profits from extraction were held in a national resource fund (NRF), known as the Government Pension Fund, with the government only being able to access the interest on this NRF. By limiting political access to natural resources, it forced leaders to actively seek the support of their constituents. The NRF provided Norway with some protection from fluctuations in oil prices, limiting dependence on natural resources and creating space for a more diversified economy. For less-developed countries, restricted access to resources would make the state a less attractive prize for those seeking to seize it.

In the context of Libya, two core principles should guide the design of natural-resource institutions: 1) natural resources should serve the long-term interests of the Libyan people, and 2) firewalls must be set up between natural resources and political power. For instance, a fixed share of oil profits should be mandated towards an NRF. A percentage of the interest on the NRF could be reinvested in infrastructure and education, in anticipation of the need to diversify the economy when the resources are depleted. The rest of the interest could be used at the disposal of the government, permitting stable or countercyclical government spending in a volatile economic environment.

To be effective, an NRF must be somewhat independent of government. After all, an NRF that the executive could raid at will would provide neither the desired economic stabilization nor the necessary political constraint. Therefore, an NRF in Libya would need to be managed by an independent and transparent body. Any change to the allocation of funds to the national trust (or interest on said trust) would require a supermajority in the legislature. Ultimately, such an NRF would entail automatic investments in physical and human capital and self-enforcing constraints on discretionary spending by would-be autocrats.

Creating institutions, particularly those that limit the political and economic power of incumbents, is notoriously hard to achieve. These sorts of institutions would force Libya to sacrifice near-term economic flexibility for longer-term stability. There will be a temptation to lean heavily on natural resources in order to rebuild Libya, the economy of which has shrunk by some 50 per cent during the civil war. However, times of crisis and change – and especially the development of a new constitution – provide unique opportunities to chart a new course. Pressure from the international community will be essential.

What leverage does the international community have to encourage the development of such institutions? The U.S. Treasury still controls $700 million of the $1.5 billion in frozen assets from the Gadhafi regime, and Libya remains dependent on foreign aid to redevelop its oil infrastructure, and its economy more broadly. The international community could make the gradual unfreezing of the funds (aside from those dedicated to humanitarian aid) and the provision of economic aid conditional on a set of institutional reforms. For example, it could guarantee the return of certain funds upon the ratification of a constitution, and over the course of two election cycles that are deemed free and fair by outside observers. Interest on frozen funds could even be used to fund the elections. Ultimately, it is much easier (and less provocative) to reward positive political developments than to try to rally the international community to sanction swings towards autocracy.

Some might argue that leveraging frozen assets and investment requirements to shape Libyan institutions is an unfair intrusion into the domestic affairs of another state. Yet such statecraft is no different than the U.S. demanding that China improve its intellectual property laws, the United Nations imposing economic sanctions against nuclear proliferators, the International Monetary Fund requiring structural adjustments for a loan, or the European Union demanding fiscal or political reform as a precondition for membership. After seven months of air strikes and no-fly zones, the point may also be moot. Moreover, incentives have often proven to be more effective than sanctions at motivating political reforms. The former lionizes leaders who make changes, whereas the latter punishes them, only to push them to dig in their heels. The prospect of NATO and EU membership was used with great success to motivate Eastern European states to stay on course toward democratization and liberalization. A similar approach should be used in Libya.

In sum, the international community should maintain pressure on Libya to undertake necessary institutional reform for the responsible stewardship of its natural resources. This will ensure that resource extraction strengthens, and does not undermine, diversified growth, peace, and democratization. Only then will near-term military victory stand a chance of leading to long-term political success.

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

Michael Ignatieff’s Lecture on R2P at an Event Hosted by Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page) 

Reflections on R2P: An Interview with Michael Ignatieff:

 (Video: Watch this video on the post page)

A conservative foreign minister in a tweed suit sat in his office on King Charles Street, contemplating his government’s engagement in Afghanistan. There was a knock at his door and his secretary entered, a grin accenting her misaligned teeth. “Extraordinary!” she exclaimed. She went on to describe the technology that had allowed a message to be transferred from the French Embassy to the Foreign Office in mere seconds. The furrow of his brow piqued, her boss responded somberly, “This is the end of diplomacy.” 

The year was 1840, the occasion: the arrival of the first telegraph at the Foreign Office. Lord Palmerston went on to negotiate the Treaty of Washington, among others. He died the father of “gunboat diplomacy.”

Diplomacy survived the telegraph. But will it survive WikiLeaks?

This question is central to the recently released collection of essays, Diplomacy in the Digital Age (Random House, 2011). Appropriately, this series of ruminations on social media’s impact on diplomacy is written in honour of Allan Gotlieb, the most socially networked diplomat Canada has ever known. 

In the words of Marc Lortie – the current ambassador to France who, 30 years ago, acted as press secretary to Gotlieb’s embassy in Washington – Gotlieb “took public diplomacy to new heights.” His Washington Diaries 1981 – 1989 (Random House, 2006) depict a man who, aided and abetted by his wife, recognized that diplomacy was transforming. Gotlieb cultivated relationships with George H.W. Bush and Caspar Weinberger, but he devoted just as much time to establishing rapport with Ben Bradlee and Joe Alsop. Well before The Gates Foundation or Independent Diplomat, Gotlieb identified that diplomacy was not just about diplomats.

When Gotlieb lived in Washington, Bradlee mattered because people read The Washington Post. Today, The Washington Post Company has rebranded itself as an “education and media” company, and its testing and prep company, Kaplan, accounts for at least half of its revenues. 

The media landscape has flattened and, if you agree with Parag Khanna’s analysis, so has the landscape of diplomacy. “Diplomacy today,” he explains, “takes place among anybody who’s somebody.” Where authority – not sovereignty – is the prerequisite for diplomacy, Canada’s diplomatic core is made up of Bombardier executives and Free the Children volunteers – not UN representatives. 

His diplomatic diagnosis is not so dire, however. Chronicling the evolution of diplomacy from long before the Westphalian system existed, Khanna demonstrates that the second-oldest profession is as resilient as it is old. “No doubt the mass media and internet have forced diplomats to be quicker on their feet,” he writes, “but that doesn’t mean diplomacy is dying. Instead, it is adapting as it always has.”

To make sense of the new business model of diplomacy, we interview four contributors to the Gotlieb volume. William Thorsell and Ed Greenspon draw lessons from journalism’s tumultuous transition, while Brian Bow contemplates the effects on the U.S. relationship, and Drew Fagan argues that the Department of Foreign Affairs never had that much power anyways. We are left with a sense that Canada needs an Allan Gotlieb 2.0, with more Facebook friends than Mark Zuckerberg and more Twitter followers than Anne-Marie Slaughter.

Photo Courtesy Reuters. 

The women were all once abductees of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). They have all lived, grown up, and borne children inside the confines of the rebel group’s camps.  Grace herself was abducted by the rebels at the age of 14 and forced to marry a rebel commander.  The birth of her daughter amongst so much love is the promise of new life.

The women now work in a small project in northern Uganda, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), to help victims of the war tell their story, to heal and to seek social change. I have worked with this group since they began in 2005 and watched them come together as a family that loves and cares for each other, helping each other rebuild their own lives as well as that of others who lost. They are a stark reminder that, while the rebel leader Joseph Kony remains free and continues to commit atrocities, he is surrounded by literally hundreds of people who were forced into, and now find home in his confines.

Today U.S. President Barack Obama announced he is deploying 100 “combat-equipped” troops to Uganda to help efforts to arrest or eradicate rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – rebels responsible for the suffering of millions of people in Uganda and neighbouring countries. The U.S. troops will work with the Ugandan military to root out the rebels and put an end to their more than two decades of terror. The LRA is one of the cruellest, most brutal rebel groups known, abducting tens of thousands of children like Grace and forcing them to fight in a war, or to be wives to commanders. In addition to abduction, the rebel signature is the murder, mutilation, rape and plunder of civilians. 

Originally operational in Uganda and later Sudan, the LRA’s numbers and strength have dwindled in recent years. In 2003 a Ugandan-led military operation against LRA bases in Sudan led to the escape or release of many captives, including Grace, and the capture of commanders. But the leadership, including enigmatic spirit leader Joseph Kony and military war criminals like Okot Odhiambo remain at large, and continue to abduct, kill and maim civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and in South Sudan, where they operate across borders in small mobile groups. Indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2005, these are men everyone wants to see stopped and held accountable. 

Obama’s decision to send troops seems like a positive step. The countries affected support the military action to end human suffering and welcome the troops to defeat a small rebel group that has caused so much damage. Certainly the young activists who have long demanded Obama, and before him George W. Bush, to do something –  anything – to end the atrocities of the LRA are cheering.  Human rights activists in the U.S. and around the globe have done everything in their power to direct attention to the suffering of abducted children and communities affected by the LRA. Groups like Resolve, Invisible Children and Enough have tried a range of advocacy tactics from holding house parties to raise awareness of American youth, abducting themselves until local politicians or notables agreed to help, talking to Oprah and more conventional tactics like mobilizing massive numbers of students to lobby their state representatives to push a bill on the LRA through Congress. 

One of the most impressive strategies to date has been the creation of the LRA tracker, which creates a visual database of all LRA atrocities – each attack, abduction or murder – they currently commit as they move through north eastern Congo today, made possible by working with local organizations working on the ground to solidify communication and protection networks. Surely Obama, whom leaders of these young activists have met, was inspired by their own courage to do something too. 

Grace and others who were abducted and escaped during the campaign against the rebels in Sudan, however, worry. Over the years I have worked with JRP in northern Uganda, I have witnessed the team learn when someone had escaped and arrived at the reception centre, only to rush there to console the person now safe and to assure that life can begin anew. Once those who reach safety are healthy – for many return with varying states of malnutrition, disease and wounds of war – Grace and the team work to help them reunite with their families, to find housing and employment, and to soothe them through periods of mourning for those they lost. They tell stories of the days with the rebels, the difficulties of life on the battlefield being chased by the Ugandan army. Some women gave birth without any medical attention under a tree as bullets were exchanged.  Others described the moment they realized their child had been hit by a bullet, how there was no time to do anything but lie the child down and continue to flee.  Grace knows these painful stories more than anyone else; her five-year-old son, born of forced marriage, was killed when a military bomb was dropped on him in 2004. 

So while the military action is a triumph of years of activists and victims calling for the world to intervene and to stop this campaign of violence, I am reminded by the birth of that baby girl that LRA commanders surround themselves with those they have abducted, with innocent women, men and children, who have nothing to do with this war but who suffer as their captives.

The LRA has always been unique in this manner. For years they moved with mothers and children as they fought, refusing to release them. The commanders surround themselves with child soldiers (girls and boys who form the front line). But the LRA is also unique in that some of the commanders themselves are victims. For instance, one of the most wanted commanders, ICC indicted Dominic Ongwen, was captured around 1990 when he was about ten years old.  At some undefined point, the international community decided that Ongwen no longer deserved the right to be rescued by the international community, but to be hunted down and held accountable for this war.

The abduction of children and birth of children into the LRA complicates questions of justice and humanitarian intervention in what, at first blush, seems like an easy victory for Obama’s foreign policy team. But as those hundred U.S. soldiers arrive to shore up the Ugandan military’s effort, will they know how to differentiate a rebel from a child who is captive? Will bombs land only on the commanders responsible, sparing the lives of the children? I would feel much more relief if I was reassured that their tracking technologies are equipped to help those being held against their will – some who have been there for decades, others only months – to find their way home. The chance for new life for babies born into love after so much suffering and death depends on the wisdom of Obama and others who join them to end this war, to know the difference. In addition to a military operation to capture Joseph Kony, this must also be a humanitarian mission to free those whose lives he has tried to destroy.  

Erin Baines is co-founder of the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) in Gulu, Uganda.

Photo by Lara Rosenoff-Gauvin: Beatrice in Padibe IDP Camp, Kitgum District, Northern Uganda 2007. Beatrice was abducted by the LRA when she was 12 and served 2 years before escaping. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 3 boys have been abducted at some point by the LRA to serve as ‘child soldiers’ in Northern Uganda. www.hernameisbeatrice.com

Interviews with speakers and panelists:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

The forum’s opening speech by the Canadian Ambassador to Brazil, Jamal Khokhar:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Speech by Ambassador Luiz Felipe Lampreia, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

This all changed a few months ago, when the $1.14 billion Canada-Colombia free-trade agreement came into effect. Canada beat the United States to the chase, and its efforts did not go unnoticed. Last week, in the wake of the historical treaty, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited Canada to accept his “Statesman of the Year” award from the Canadian Council for the Americas at an event sponsored by the Canadian International Council.

“We are living in a new era,” the president began. Reflecting on growth of four per cent, a boom in foreign direct investment, and ongoing free-trade negotiations with the European Union, the U.S., and other major markets, the president relayed a story of optimism and promise to his Canadian audience. He portrayed Colombia as a state whose experiences in security offer distinct value to the international community, and for whom the free-trade agreement with Canada represents an auspicious beginning to a future of ambitious aspirations, including Security Council and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development membership.

Still, Santos admitted, “We’re not paradise yet.”

To further probe the gap between Colombia’s capabilities and its intentions, the CIC speaks to professor Arlene Tickner of the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. Reflecting on the domestic political climate, and particularly the tensions between Santos and his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, Tickner elaborates on the domestic factors driving Santos’ foreign policy impulse.

Completing this profile of Canada-Colombia relations, Stephen Randall, author of several books on Colombia’s relations with North America, tells the Canadian story. He describes the reasons for Canada’s acute interest in Colombia, and fleshes out the strains that exist between Canada’s economic and human-rights priorities.

Canada’s free-trade agreement with Colombia, following on the heels of similar deals with Peru and Chile, symbolizes a new direction for Canadian international trade policy. Canada’s reinvigorated orientation toward Latin America is exciting, but it is also very new: The challenges facing these countries and their relations with Canada are very different from those to which Canada is accustomed. Canada has much to learn, and President Santos’ visit to Canada is a valuable first tutorial.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Territorial sovereignty matters – or so the two most important recent events in international relations would suggest: the United Nations’ decision to approve the Libya’s Transitional Council and Palestine’s bid for UN membership are both at their core, about the power of the state. At home, the Canada First Defence Strategy states, “The defence of Canada’s sovereignty and the protection of territorial integrity in the Arctic remains a top priority for the government.”

And yet, in an age of Apple authority and Google government, does land really matter? Does state power derive from territorial integrity – or something else? In a knowledge economy, what assets are of true value to Canada?   

Over the past year, two events have opened the space to contemplate these questions. First, last November, the federal government interfered to halt the world’s biggest mining company’s hostile bid for Saskatchewan-based Potash Corp, claiming that a takeover of this “strategic resource” would not meet the “net benefit” test under the Investment Canada Act.

Eight months later, Nortel’s 6,000-deep patent portfolio went up for auction; a group including Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Sony Corp. paid $4.5 billion (U.S.) for rights to the patents. This vast trove of intellectual property owed its existence in large part to years of taxpayer contributions; and had the federal government intervened to help Nortel to stave off bankruptcy during its precipitous decline from 2007 to 2009, it is likely that what Intel called a “gold mine” would be in the same position as Potash is today – in Canadian hands. 

But can intellectual property even be in Canadian hands? The Canadian International Council’s new report on intellectual property describes a global economy fuelled by “borderless information flows and unprecedented labour mobility.” Is intellectual property simply part of the borderless flow of information, passing over national boundaries unannounced, or is it property in the same way that the nitrogen and phosphate deep in Saskatchewan’s soil is property?

Professor of intellectual property law Daniel Gervais and MaRS Innovation CEO Rafi Hofstein argue that Canada’s national interest must be redefined to account for intellectual property. David Wolfe, co-director of the Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems at the University of Toronto, explains why the time for national action is now: too many Canadian small and medium enterprises with impressive patent portfolios are subject to takeover. Professor Richard Gold, founding director of McGill’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy, takes a different angle, examining to what extent intellectual property policy can form part of Canada’s development policy. 

The United Nations definition of sovereignty, articulated in Articles 2(4) as “territorial integrity,” is an invention of the Westphalian era. Today, the international system is undergoing a transformation as profound as that it underwent in 1648. It may be time to reconceptualize our notion of sovereignty – and our idea of the assets to which it applies.

Opponents of the UN bid stress this point, arguing that the bid is counter-productive in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama in his stance that Palestinians should view negotiation with Israel as the only viable method of achieving statehood. Addressing the UN General Assembly Wednesday, President Obama opposed Palestine’s bid on the grounds that ‘genuine peace can only be realized between Israelis and Palestinians themselves’ in attempt to deter Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from taking the bid to the UN Security Council.

Yet, just as the Arab Spring revolutions were endorsed and aided by international leaders and bodies, the Palestinian statehood bid has been backed by the UN, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank – the IMF and the World Bank released a report in April arguing that the time has come for Palestinian Authority to assume sovereignty.

As the world anticipates a UN decision on Palestinian statehood, OpenCanada charts a selected history of Canada’s voting on Palestine at the UN. 

Resolution:
Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources

Resolution:
The human rights situation arising from the recent Israeli military operations in Lebanon

Resolution:
The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination

Resolution:
The Occupied Syrian Golan – Concern over military occupation of Arab territory – illegality of Israel’s decision to effectively annex the Syrian Arab Golan

Resolution:
The Occupied Syrian Golan – Concern over military occupation of Arab territory – illegality of Israel’s decision to effectively annex the Syrian Arab Golan

Resolution:
Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem

Resolution:
Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem

Resolution:
Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Territory, including Jerusalem, and other occupied Arab territories

Resolution:
Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine

Records courtesy of United Nations Bibliographic Information System and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).

Photo courtesy of Reuters. 

After winning a majority, Harper reflected, “[S]ince coming to office … the thing that’s probably struck me the most in terms of my previous expectations … is not just how important foreign affairs / foreign relations is, but in fact that it’s become almost everything.”

In both actions and words, Harper has demonstrated a concerted interest in foreign policy. The Harper government acted quickly to support the United Nations military intervention in Libya, approving Canadian-led bombing raids and expelling Libyan diplomats. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s visit to China heralded a new era in Canada-China relations, suggesting a softening of what was, until last year, Canada’s firm position on Chinese human-rights abuses. A month later, Harper became the first Canadian prime minister to visit Brazil in seven years. Harper’s praise for a country with historically cool relations with Canada – “Friends, too much grass grows in the cracks on the road between our two great countries” – spoke to the robust attitude he now brings regarding Canada’s place in the world.

From Harper’s international actions, we can deduce what the current Conservative foreign policy looks like. But what are the principles guiding it?

In recent history, a wide range of conservative thinkers – Burke, Strauss, Kissinger, and Waltz, to name a few – have influenced markedly divergent western foreign-policy agendas – Nixon, Thatcher, Major, Mulroney, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Cameron, among others. Where does Harper’s foreign policy fit into this mix?

We ask three prominent Canadian small-c conservatives to enumerate the principles they think should define small-c conservative foreign policy, and to imagine how Canada should implement these principles over the next eight years.

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

And yet, today, U.S. corporations collectively sit on cash sums greater than the GDP of the entire Canadian economy. Despite miniscule interest rates, U.S. companies’ debt-to-cash ratios are at their lowest in five years.

At the height of the debt-ceiling debacle, corporations lambasted the incompetence of government. The CEO of Starbucks was joined by the CEOs of the NYSE, Whole Foods, and JC Penney in his campaign to halt donations to politicians until Congress reached a bipartisan agreement on debt reduction. Legendary investor Jim Rogers called the debt-ceiling talks “a sham,” while the CEO of Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of earthmoving equipment, remarked, “The process was ugly and it was a red herring of a problem.”

• An interview with Ted Hewitt on Canada-Brazil compatibility
• An interview with Raul Papaleo on bilateral business collaboration
• An interview with Richard Pound on the upcoming Rio Games

As Prime Minister Harper toured South America, the CIC charted Canada’s relationships with Brazil, India and China.

All statistics from the Census of Canada and Industry Canada.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Yet by and large, Canadians remain ambivalent in their attitudes toward China’s rise.  Results from a recent national poll commissioned by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada show that two thirds of Canadians believe China will surpass the U.S. in influence in the next 10 years, while only one in 10 Canadians feels warm toward China. Reaction to a Canadian court’s decision last month to extradite Xai Changxing also reflects Canadian ambivalence toward  China.  And while China remains the top Asian market for Canadian investors, Canadian skepticism of Chinese business persists.  In early June the share price of Sino-Forest Corp., at the time the most valuable Canadian-listed forestry stock, plunged rapidly after the release of a single report alleging systematic fraud in the company’s accounting.  The turn revealed latent mistrust of the corporation among its largest Canadian investors.

This mistrust is aggravated by rumours of state-run Chinese cyber attacks.  Last week, security company McAfee uncovered a large-scale hacking operation that targeted the United Nations and 72 governments and businesses worldwide, leaving many to speculate on China’s involvement.

Following these recent developments in Canada-China relations, the CIC asked four Canadian academics to comment on the Canadian implications of China’s burgeoning power.  Michael Hart and Joanna Wong write on trade and culture, respectively, while Paul Evans speaks to us about Canada’s evolving China policy, and Jon Penney comments on suspicion of China’s cyber activity.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

On the day of Breivik’s attacks, while Norwegian officials waited for evidence to emerge, two little known Islamic extremist groups took credit. Perhaps as a result of this precipitous, and ultimately false, attribution the events were immediately and widely reported as terrorist attacks.  But was this classification preordained? Not all acts of large scale violence are labeled terrorism.  Two recent attacks in the US – both with ostensibly political targets – have been treated markedly differently. The shooting on Fort Hood military base in 2009 which killed 14 people and wounded 29 was widely labeled terrorism.  Yet the shooting spree at a Congresswoman’s constituent meeting in Tucson earlier this year, in which six people were killed and 13 injured, including the Congresswoman herself, Gabrielle Giffords, was largely seen as the act of a mad man.

In the hours after the attacks in Norway, however, there was little ambiguity over whether they would be labeled as terrorism.  The Wall Street Journal editorial page audaciously claimed, “Norway certainly did not buy itself much grace from the jihadis for staying out of the Iraq war… Norway can do all this and more but in jihadist eyes it will forever remain guilty for being what it is.” The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin declared, “This is a sobering reminder for those who think it’s too expensive to wage a war against jihadists.”

James Fallows and Stephen Walt chastised Rubin and other ideologues for their failure to reserve judgment. But this wasn’t just a case of a few bad apples. That only 0.34% of terrorist attacks in Europe in 2009 were traced to Islamist groups did not deter a substantial proportion of the population from looking for the next bin Laden.

Almost two weeks after the attacks, there is debate as to whether Oslo should be seen as an arbitrary act of violence or a reflection of wider political and religious extremism. There is a convincing argument to be made that, by labeling it the former, we set a double-standard: Why is it that performance violence committed by Muslims is unequivocally considered terrorism, but the same acts committed by non-Muslims are not?

We asked professor of international affairs Stephen Walt, sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer and terrorism expert Shane Brighton to weigh in on the extent to which the post-9/11 preoccupation with Islamic jihadism has distorted the discourse on terrorism.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Walt, in line with his “balance-of-threat” theory, wrote that terrorism represented a reaction to US primacy. The solution, he argued, was for the US to reduce its appearance as a threat. Unsurprisingly, he did not support the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  We ask Walt to what extent terrorism is defined by the political responses to attacks, rather than by the attacks themselves. Why are the events in Oslo considered terrorist acts, when the Columbine shooting was not?

Juergensmeyer has claimed of terrorism that “the public response to violence… is part of the meaning of the term.” If the public, rather than attackers themselves, defines an attack as terrorist, what do our reactions to Olso tell us?

If the definition of the terrorist act is provided by us – rather than the party committing the act – then what do our reactions to the Oslo attacks tell us?  Moreover, what makes Breivik a “Christian terrorist,” as Juergensmeyer has termed him? Why is it that modern terrorism is so often seen through the lens of religion?

Brighton disagrees with Juergensmeyer, comparing Breivik’s methodology to that of 19^th century anarchists and the Unabomber. After the 2005 terrorist attacks in London, Brighton criticized the Blair government for misinterpreting certain British Muslims’ legitimate condemnation of British involvement in the Iraq war for radicalization. Brighton makes the case that the tendency to over-identify political conflict with one set of actors has led to a myopic view of radicalization and the terrorism that accompanies it.

There are few terms as opprobrious and, for some, empowering as “terrorist.” Yet there are few terms as dynamic and subject to redefinition. As we try to make sense of what happened in Norway, we would be remiss not to evaluate the evolving significance of “terrorism.”

An interview with Stephen Walt:

An interview with Mark Juergensmeyer:

An Interview with Shane Brighton:

To what extent has the post-9/11 preoccupation with Islamic jihadism distorted the discourse on terrorism?

Shane Brighton: Too much public discourse in western states focuses on Islamic militancy in a way that over-stresses its otherness. The “civilizational” dimension of jihadi ideology has been accepted and reproduced in a largely unconsidered, uncritical way, and this has been reflected in media discussions, politicians’ public statements, and government policy. A number of distortions have followed. To offer one example, the terms “radicalization” and “radicalized” (which have very specific meanings within the intelligence communities) have taken on a life of their own in public discourse, being applied indiscriminately to any Muslim who is politicized and criticizes western foreign policy. The problem is that this over-identifies political conflict with only one set of actors, and the plural, interactive nature of radicalization is missed: Aspects of government policy and other political elements (such as the far right) have been undergoing their own radicalization processes, not just Islamic militants. While these processes are, to some degree, internal to the specific actors, they have significant implications for the others

Will Anders Breivik’s attacks in Oslo and Utøya alter the way we make sense of terrorism? Will they alter the way governments conceive of terrorism and, more broadly, threats?

SB: It certainly should. Finally – and rather too late – the excessive generality and counter-productiveness of counter-radicalization policy in the U.K. has been recognized with the Contest II changes and, more recently, the Prevent Review.

Breivik’s big innovation is a political/strategic one: the idea that, if you want to attack minority communities, you should hit the “host” population, in the expectation that your real target will be denied public sympathy and at least part of the backlash you create will be against it. Unfortunately, the seriousness with which some of Breivik’s ideas are being discussed in the media and blogosphere seem to affirm the effectiveness of this strategy.

Beyond this, some concepts already in circulation have gained a new relevance. For example, the idea of the “super-empowered individual” who takes advantage of the availability of materials and information in western societies to launch highly destructive attacks without much organizational back-up. The point is that, with global media coverage and a sufficiently spectacular attack, one individual or a very small group can create a global effect.

In what way does Breivik’s brand of terrorism share similarities with the terrorism of al-Qaeda and like-minded groups? Does our understanding of one shed light on our understanding of the other?

SB: Beyond an appetite for mass-fatality attacks and, arguably, a recognition that this is needed to achieve a transnational impact, I don’t see much direct correlation with al-Qaeda-type groups. The desire to stand trial and make post-attack statements, for example, is more reminiscent of 19^th-century anarchist groups. Breivik’s written “manifesto” statements, meanwhile, are more reminiscent of the Unabomber than of al-Qaeda-type martyrdom statements.

As indicated above, we might want to reconsider the modelling of “radicalization” to take into account the relations between different elements, and the impact of events across transnational communities, which interpret things in different ways. This is important because the forms of “self-radicalization” and “self-starter” individuals and groups may well increase if Breivik’s appeal to the far right is successful. Here, at least, there might be some transferable benefits from the way in which al-Qaeda has been understood.

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

As The Globe and Mail’s Brian Milner tells the CIC, “the global financial system and global markets are at least as closely intertwined today as they were in 2008,” when Lehman’s collapse triggered a global financial crisis. Were the euro to founder, the effects on Canada could be greater than they were three years ago.

The outcome of the crisis in Europe will largely depend, as economic historian Niall Ferguson has argued, on the German voter. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) recently released a report titled, What does Germany Think about Europe?, which suggests that Germany is deeply divided about the ongoing crisis, with some blaming the “lack of stability culture” and others the flawed architecture of the single-currency system.

While some see Germany returning to an era of “Wilhelmine pomposity,” in its approach to Europe, others are perplexed by Germany’s isolationist stances on global issues, such as the military intervention in Libya.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

The CIC interviews the ECFR’s Hans Kundnani, whose recent article in The Washington Quarterly attempted to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the harder edge of Germany’s pursuit of its national interest within Europe and its reluctance to project power internationally. Placing Germany’s current dilemma within a historical context, Kundnani, echoing Milner, suggests that Germany in fact benefits from a weak euro.

Answering the same set of questions as Milner, another Canadian, University of Toronto economist Lou Pauly, makes the case that German and French banks are so tied up in the euro crisis that they have “no breaking point.” As the 2008 crisis demonstrated, Europe will not allow any “too big to fail” institution to fail.

Will 2011 be like 2008, or will the German voter kill Europe?

Photo Courtesy Reuters.

“We have seen this before,” UNICEF’s Chris Tidey tells the CIC from Dadaab, where he is currently helping with the thousands of women and children arriving at the largest refugee camp in the world each day. In both 1973 and 1984, famine struck Ethiopia. In 1992, 300,000 people died from the food crisis in Somalia.

In each case, fighting accompanied famine. The 1973 famine occurred as Ethiopia prepared for a coup against Emperor Haili Selassie; the 1984 famine hit just as the civil war reached its apex. Another civil war precipitated the 1992 famine in Somalia that led to the ill-fated US-led Operation Restore Hope.

The current crisis in the Horn of Africa is no different. Since the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has had no central government. Today, the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab rebels control much of southern Somalia, and refuse to allow aid workers access to areas in severe need.

Drought conditions are so egregious, however, that Somalis are risking their lives to access camps in the rebel-controlled areas, including Mogadishu. Normally, migration occurs in precisely the opposite direction: City residents flee to the countryside to avoid fighting in the capital. Today, heavy fighting broke out in the capital – just one day after the UN World Food Programme airlifted in its first famine emergency aid.

Against this toxic combination of political instability and unprecedented drought, UNICEF’s Chris Tidey shares his observations on the crisis in the Horn of Africa, and what Canada’s $50-million can do.

An Interview with UNICEF’s Chris Tidey

Could you help us comprehend the scale of the emergency at Dadaab refugee camp?  How does it differ from other refugee camps you have worked at?

Christopher Tidey: This is a massive humanitarian crisis across the Horn of Africa region. More than 2.2 million children are estimated to be acutely malnourished, with 780,000 at risk of imminent death. The refugee camps at Dadaab have swelled by more than 60,000 over the past two months, with the refugee population now at more than 400,000. Between 1,000 and 1,500 are arriving at Dadaab daily.

In any emergency children are the most vulnerable, but in this crisis, at least 80 per cent of the arriving refugees are women and children. I have never seen a food security crisis as severe as this, and if the rains do not come again this year, the situation will only worsen.

The most difficult part, for me, is seeing the children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Many of these children do not even have the energy to hold their heads up, to breast feed, or even to smile. Imet a three-year-old boy in the hospital this week who could no longer swallow and weighed just five kilos. No child should have to experience this, let alone hundreds of thousands.

For you, what are the underlying structural problems that have brought about such devastation?

CT: This crisis has been caused by three main factors: 1) prolonged drought, 2) protracted conflict and political instability in Somalia, and 3) a rise in global food prices. Each of these would be a problem on its own, but collectively, they constitute a humanitarian emergency of massive proportions.

Ultimately, the solution lies in sustained commitment from the international community to provide help to the region. We have seen this before.

What sort of “coordination” improvements were achieved at the Rome Conference on Monday?

CT: Rome represented a coming together of the international community in a renewed commitment to tackling the crisis. Coordination aside, this is ultimately going to come down to sustained financial support from international donors to the agencies and INGOs that are active on the ground. What is required is a massive scale up of the humanitarian response along with the requisite funding to sustain it. UNICEF alone requires $300M for our response in the region over the next six months.

Canada recently pledged $50M in emergency assistance to Somalia via the UN World Food Programme and the UNHCR. Is this the best way for Canadians to address the tragedy in Somalia?

CT: The  Canadian government’s contribution to the WFP is most welcome and greatly appreciated. There are many ways in which Canadians can support ongoing relief efforts. I would, however, recommend that Canadians wishing to donate funds first ensure that the organization they choose to support is present on the ground with the capacity to respond.

Photo © UNICEF Kenya/2011/Tidey.

Within minutes, visual accounts of the blast propagated through social media channels. Over the following hours, pundits weighed in, many attributing the attacks to Islamic fundamentalism, and extrapolating the causes and consequences. As rumours turned to blog and news copy, Twitter played a central role in both  disseminating and correcting misinformation.

Then Breivik’s written and video manifestos emerged. The 1,500-page (heavily plagiarized) document is part ideological hate-filled screed, part how-to manual for large-scale terrorist attacks. It is perverse in its detail, and will certainly change the way we view terrorism and terrorists going forward. Analysis of the document has been swift and abundant. Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell was the first to get much of the content out, tweeting while he read the report and offering a first summary. The Telegraph and The Daily Mail quickly followed with sober commentary on the manifesto. As the document revealed Breivik’s politics, subject-matter experts began to add context on the state of European right-wing radicalism.

On Sunday, Norwegian columnist Rick Falkvinge conveyed the mood of the victims, while The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders reported on a city suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and many first-person accounts materialized.

Sunday afternoon, we spoke with Kristian Berg Harpviken, the Director of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). Harpviken’s tone is sombre as he depicts the sentiment in  Oslo, outlines the history of the Labour party and the particular meaning of the Utøya “workers” weekend, dispels misconceptions about the extent of Norwegian conservative nationalism, proposes what might be the real purpose of the manifesto, and discusses the implications of the attacks on how we conceive and understand terrorism.

Taylor Owen speaks with PRIO Director, Kristian Berg Harpviken

As we mark our departure, and the 157 Canadian lives that were sacrificed and the almost $18 billion that Canada spent, it is important to ask whether our approach to Karzai was appropriate, as well as what it says about the overall strategy NATO has taken towards Afghan leaders.

As Matthieu Aikins explained in his recent profile of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother has been a polarizing figure for some time.

It is in this light that we asked Harper’s Magazine’s Matthieu Aikins and the Centre for International Governance Innovation’s Mark Sedra to comment on what the killing of AWK and, more recently, of Jan Mohammed Khan, says about Canadian achievements in the region.

CIC: What, generally, do you think the killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, tells us about the state of unrest in southern Afghanistan?

Aikins: Ahmed Wali’s murder, closely followed by the assassination of another key figure in President Hamid Karzai’s network in southern Afghanistan, Jan Mohammed Khan, reminds us how deeply governance in the region is still dependent on personalities and the patronage networks that surround them. This kind of system is highly vulnerable to contingencies like assassinations, and is thus quite unstable.

Sedra: It demonstrates that, contrary to the pronouncements of NATO and the U.S. government, the momentum of the Taliban-led insurgency has not been broken. Political assassinations have been a frequent occurrence in southern Afghanistan over the past few years, but Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK) is a “big fish.” He is the government’s envoy to the south, one of the international community’s principal interlocutors in the region, and an extension of President Hamid Karzai’s personal powerbase. Although AWK has been the target of numerous assassination attempts, he was one of the best-protected people in the country. Penetrating his internal security was a major coup for the Taliban.

Given that AWK was at the centre of overlapping tribal, security, and governance networks, he will not be easy to replace. It is also telling that the Taliban assassinated another key ally of Karzai, Jan Muhammad Khan (the former governor of Uruzgan Province) only days after AWK. Even as NATO has been able to make some headway in denying the Taliban control of territory in the south due to the U.S. troop surge, the Taliban has effectively shifted their approach to high-profile assassinations and terrorist attacks. Coupled with the recent brazen attack on the landmark Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, the Taliban are showing the Afghan people and the world that they can strike anywhere at anytime. This will only further erode public confidence in the state and drive more Afghans to the fence in the “hearts and minds” war.

CIC: For better or worse, Canada has invested a considerable amount of political capital in Karzai’s governance structure. To what degree has this assassination, in addition to the Kabul Bank and election-fraud standoff, weakened its ability to govern?

Aikins: Ahmed Wali was the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan. In Kandahar, appointments for positions like the district governors were primarily decided by him. He held together a number of critical threads – the murky and violent underworld, wealthy contractors, and tribal politics – and was the foundation of President Karzai’s support in the south. President Karzai would have had a much harder time winning re-election in 2009 were it not for his brother, and Ahmed Wali’s killing has struck at the very core of the president’s power in the country.

Sedra: Few Afghans have much confidence in the Karzai government, and many are in turn losing faith in the western-backed reconstruction and democratization project. I think it is telling that many Afghan elites who stayed in Afghanistan throughout the Soviet occupation and Taliban period are now looking to leave the country. Afghan expatriates who returned to their homeland after the fall of the Taliban to help rebuild are also leaving. In many ways, poor governance in Afghanistan, marked by corruption and mismanagement, has been as corrosive and damaging to Afghanistan’s transition as the Taliban-led insurgency.

Many Afghans, particularly in rural areas, are inherently skeptical of central state authority. The high levels of corruption and cronyism, not to mention the government’s inability to provide basic public goods like security, has deepened that mistrust. The international community put all its eggs in the Karzai basket from the outset of the reconstruction process, overlooking some of his shortcomings, and it is now suffering the consequences.

CIC: Canada has long argued that effective civilian governance must accompany our military security objectives. Despite the control he yielded, did our support for AWK ultimately weaken our ability to stabilize Afghanistan?

Aikins: NATO made a decision at the beginning of 2010 to work with, rather than against, powerbrokers like Ahmed Wali who were surrounded by a miasma of corruption. The calculation was a pragmatic one made in order to assure a degree of stability, as well as the political co-operation of the Afghan government, prior to last summer’s big troop surge in the south. The counterargument is that the decision put us firmly on the side of the warlords in the eyes of ordinary Afghans, and entrenched a number of problematic dynamics – for example, corruption and narcotrafficking – that will probably outlast the temporary security gains caused by the influx of foreign troops.

Sedra: AWK was certainly not a “good guy” by most standards. He was almost certainly involved in the drug trade and other forms of criminality, and operated like a feudal chieftain (or warlord). However, there are few suitable partners for the Afghan government and international community in the volatile south that aren’t “dirty,” or that don’t have blood on their hands to some degree. It is a messy environment, and Canada and other donors have been forced to enter into some uncomfortable alliances with local strongmen. While working with AWK, and others like him, may have been odious for many donors, the alternative that we are now facing – a potential power vacuum – could be worse. We should also remember that AWK had a constituency and a powerbase in the south, and was the head of the Kandahar Provincial Council. Sidelining him was not a really credible option.

CIC: What lessons should we learn from this that will help us deal with other questionable political figures in the Afghan government?

Aikins: No one has squared the circle of how to deal with Afghan powerbrokers in 2011, and I won’t pretend to. The dilemma that the internationals have never been able to solve is that, despite being unable, or unwilling, to effectively influence Afghan informal politics, our military and financial presence in the country has a direct causal relationship with those informal politics. It’s our fault, in other words, that people like Ahmed Wali became so wealthy and powerful – and yet, despite our outsize role in bringing them to power, we can’t seem to influence them much now.

I used to imagine that we might take a serious stand against the drug dealers and human-rights abusers who are flourishing in the Afghan government, but I’ve lost confidence in our ability to effectively influence politics in this country – half the time our efforts backfire in unexpected ways due to our own clumsiness, timidity, and lack of wit.

Sedra: They have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, taking broader political dynamics and conditions into consideration. It is important for donors like Canada to remain cognizant of the reality that they are not responsible for choosing Afghanistan’s leaders, and that they may have to work with people they don’t like. That doesn’t mean wholly turning a blind eye to corruption and abuses of power; there are many tools and forms of leverage that the international community can employ to advance its goals and interests. It requires a nuanced, politically sensitive approach. In the end, it is the Afghan government and people who must choose their leaders and set standards for their behaviour. Our role is to provide them with the tools and capability to do this in a fair, transparent, and effective manner.

Photo courtesy Reuters.

Over the past year, Twitter has become a hub for international affairs discussion and debate in Canada. It has reinvigorated dialogue and helped to democratize a discourse too often limited to backrooms and ivory towers. It provides a place for conversation, as well as a unique window into the world of the reporters, writers, thinkers and doers who collectively make up Canada’s foreign affairs voice.

Drawing on Juliet O’Neill’s much broader Canadian foreign policy list, we identified individuals driving the foreign affairs discussion in Canada. The list below is a start, and we will continue to update, so please send us voices that you think are missing. Periodically check in on the “CIC Follows…” feature on the opencanada.org homepage to see how “The OpenCanada #cdnfp Twitterati” evolves.

Here’s to foreign policy in the 21st century!

The OpenCanada #cdnfp Twitterati

Journalists / Writers:

Matt Aikins (@mattaikins): Harper’s Magazine’s eyes and ears in Afghanistan. Aikins’s feed trends whenever something blows up in Kandahar (i.e. frequently).

Nahlah Ayed (@NahlahAyed): The CBC’s Middle East correspondent. Don’t expect retweets, but the most continuous flow of updates from that part of the world.

Lyse Doucet (@bbclysedoucet): Canadian-born presenter for BBC World News. Like Frum, her scope goes far beyond the 49th parallel, but she has mastered the tricks of the tweet.

Tarek Fatah (@TarekFatah): A Muslim-Canadian voice whose tweets are major value-added to the Canadian foreign policy discussion.

David Frum (@davidfrum): May be more US-focused than the rest of our Twitterati, but as exceptional at tweeting as his mother was at talking.

Naomi Klein (@NaomiAKlein): Canada’s Twitter-century Émile Zola, the queen of the incendiary expertly keeps j’accuse to the character limit.

Kris Kotarski (@Kotarski): The Calgary Herald‘s traveling tweep, Kotarski stampedes through a broad range of issues, many social media related.

Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon): The Globe’s South Asia correspondent, MacKinnon is master of the retweet and a self-professed tweet wanderer.

André Pratte (@apratte): Poetic posts from the editor-in-chief of La Presse place Canadian federalism in the context of international integration and globalization.

Stephanie Nolen (@snolen): The Globe’s voice in South Asia, Nolen has mastered the art of conversing in 140-characters and is not afraid to trade in her press accolades for colloquialisms.

Susan Sachs (@susansachs): The Globe’s Afghanistan post, there are always exciting things happening around Sachs – and her feed is the best way to hear about them.

Doug Saunders (@DougSaunders): The Globe’s European bureau chief, Saunders specializes in frequent updates that blend the probing with the political (and, oftentimes, personal).

Graeme Smith (@smithjournalist): The Globe’s man in the Middle East, Smith compensates for irregularity of posting with robustness.

Mercedes Stephenson (@CTVMercedes): Canada’s Realist takes her security-focused view of the national interest to the microblog.

Sonia Verma (@soniaverma): The Globe’s Middle East correspondent, Verma curates a feed that offers key intel on who is making news in the region (and who will feature in forthcoming pieces).

Geoffrey York (@geoffreyyork): The Globe’s Africa correspondent, his is the feed to follow on Africa – and, by extension, Chinese economic interests.

Academics & Think Tankers

Chris Blattman (@cblatts): A Canadian based at Yale, Blattman’s feed is an essential read for anyone interested in developmental economics.

Stephanie Carvin (@StephanieCarvin): A Canadian professor at Royal Holloway, Carvin has found the perfect twitterhythm, balancing her own tweets with retweets, conversing with others, and posting frequently.

Jennifer Jeffs (@Jenjeffs): The Canadian International Council President’s feed expands beyond her Latin America focus, and never goes too íntimo.

Philippe Lagassé (@pmlagasse): A Canadian defence policy expert based at U of O, Lagassé puts conversation above curation, offering Canadians a portal into academic discourse about military affairs.

Emmett MacFarlane (@EmmMacfarlane) If Pierre Berton were reincarnated as a foreign policy expert in the Twitterscape, the Harvard Law (and soon to be UVic)-based MacFarlane would be he: prolific but on point.

John McArthur (@mcarthur): When he’s not tweeting to fundraise, Canadian CEO of Millennium Promise McArthur keeps his followers abreast of the latest developments in developmental economics.

Errol Mendes (@3mendous): A law prof at U of O, Mendes’s Twitter feed lives up to the professorial glasses in his avatar pic.

Taylor Owen (@taylor_owen): Fellow at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the senior editor of our very own www.opencanada.org, Owen’s pulse beats #cdnfp.

Roland Paris (@rolandparis): The comprehensiveness and caliber of Paris’s feed matches that of his career; his conversations with top American academics push #cdnfp global.

Stephen Saideman (@smsaideman): An American based at McGill, Saideman @replys with vigour, and is actively engaged in the Canadian foreign policy discourse on Twitter.

Mark Sedra (@msedra): A CIGI expert on Afghanistan and security, Sedra adeptly annotates his reading list based feed.

NGOs

Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore): Attwicted, the head of Peace Dividend Trust miraculously manages to fill his feed with tinyurl’s you won’t want to miss.

Robert Greenhill (@RobertGreenhill): Former CIDA Prez and now director of World Economic Forum, best for a source during Forums; otherwise, too twanquil for our liking.

Kyle Matthews (@kylecmatthews): The man behind Roméo Dallaire’s Will to Intervene project, Matthews’s feed will make you want to ditch your TweetDeck and do something!

Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna): The co-founder of Canadian Lawyers Abroad, a “Tuesdays with Morrie” feel with a feminist, humanitarian intervention and legal bent.

Samantha Nutt (@SamanthaNutt): A portal into what it is like to be the founder of War Child North America but keep it

Ben Peterson (@jhrben): The Executive Director of Journalists for Human Rights does #rightsmedia right.

George Roter (@geroter): The Engineers without Border’s Founder takes his architectural prowess to the tweet, balancing activism with information.

Diplomats (Current and Former)

John Baird (@JohnBairdOWN): Harper’s minister of foreign affairs has taken as quickly to tweeting as he did to the Libyan rebels.

Daryl Copeland (@GuerrillaDiplo): More first-person than third person, but a worthwhile tracker of the former diplomat’s (re)thinking of international relations.

Ben Rowswell (@benrowswell): Formerly Canada’s representative in Kandahar, this www.cloudtostreet.org founder is one of DFAIT’s sole tweeters, and is thinking through the intersection of cyberspace and diplomacy.

Gordon Smith (@GordonSmithG20) The former G-everything Sherpa and DFAIT DM has channeled his passion for social media into Twitter patronage.

Photo Courtesy Gage Skidmore

Graeme Smith was The Globe and Mail’s lead correspondent in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2009. In 2007 he broke the story that Afghan detainees in Canadian custody had been abused in Kandahar jails. Following the government’s release of over 40,000 documents relating to Afghan detainees, an appointed panel combed through the documents to publish 4,000 pages of them on 22 June of this year.

CIC Analysis:

We ask Graeme Smith to discuss the ramifications of this document dump and of Canada’s newly-begun withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Interview with Graeme Smith:

What are the ethical implications of the two-tiered system of Afghan detainee treatment?

Is Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan an inauspicious beginning to this post-NATO chapter of the country’s history?

Has the Canadian military mandate in Afghanistan been different from the political one? Has the mandate been governed by a prioritization of human rights or state security?

Are members of the NATO force complicit in placing “strongmen” in Afghanistan in favour of stability over the protection of human rights?

You broke the Afghan detainees story. What is your reaction to the outcome of the documents’ release?

Photo courtesy Reuters.

In his 2004 book, While Canada Slept, Andrew Cohen wondered whether Lester Pearson, Norman Robertson and Hume Wrong would see their values in Canada’s leadership and foreign policy, and concluded, “to a degree they would… but it would be an illusion.” Cohen eloquently condemned the romantic streak in Canadian foreign policy, arguing for more robust commitments abroad. His voice seemed to have been heard a year later when Canada deployed large numbers of troops to Kandahar.

CIC Analysis:

Following an federal election indifferent to foreign policy issues, Canada’s first majority government in some time, and the conclusion of its longest military commitment ever, the CIC asks Cohen what the Pearson-era triumvirate would think of Canada’s role in the world today. Do Libya and the resurgence of the Responsibility to Protect represent a renaissance for Canadian leadership? Does the current government care about Canada’s projection abroad? How will its position manifest in the coming years?

Interview with Andrew Cohen:

Is Canadian internationalism dead?

Photo courtesy of Douglas Sprott.

A couple weeks ago, inspired by the notion that regions will be as crucial to prosperity as nation-states, the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre and The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program hosted the Great Lakes Summit, and the CIC was there. The Summit outcome document argues that the region boasts the resources to guarantee a ripe future, but we must transcend our conventional understanding of borders in order to translate these assets into economic growth.

CIC Analysis:

An Agenda for the Great Lakes Region

While he didn’t get the details right, Joel Garreau was onto something when he wrote Nine Nations of North America in 1981. Too often, we look at North America as three nations, when in fact it is also comprised of 94 states, provinces, and territories. In economic terms, supply-chain dynamics have made North America a series of regions.

The most dynamic is the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region (GLSLR). Home to nearly 35 million people, and with a population slightly larger than Canada, the two provinces (Ontario, Quebec) and eight states (New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota) of the Great Lakes region constitute a super “economy,” which is only eclipsed in gross domestic product by the U.S., Japan, and China.

Regions deserve greater attention, especially into the vital supply-chain dynamics that sustain them. Last year, the Brookings Institute’s Jennifer Vey, John Austin, and Jennifer Bradley co-authored a paper that argued that, notwithstanding the affliction of the “Rust Belt,” the GLSLR “still has many of the fundamental resources – top-ranked universities, companies with deep experience in global trade, and emerging centres of clean-energy research, to name just a few – necessary to create a better, more sustainable, economic model.”

Building on this work, the Mowat Centre’s Joshua Hjartson, Matthew Mendelsohn, Allison Bramwell, and Kelly Hinton released The Vital Commons, in which they argue that “the wealth and infrastructure built over the 20^th century” in the GLSLR “created the foundation for new emerging sectors” in areas including financial services, health care, food processing, energy, aerospace, information and communications technology, transportation, and pharmaceuticals. But a shared future for the GLSLR requires a shared vision “to act and think collectively, transcending national boundaries to address shared problems, manage shared resources, and take advantage of new economic opportunities.”

With this objective in mind, under the umbrella of the Mowat Centre and Brookings Institute, over 300 participants met in the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts, a short walk from the banks of the Detroit River looking north to Detroit. Over two days (June 21-2), we listened, discussed, and debated through a couple dozen plenaries, keynotes, and idea labs constructed around issues in the GLSLR, including human capital, transportation and infrastructure, water, trade and border issues, agriculture, innovation, manufacturing, clean energy and electricity, the blue economy, and tourism.

The challenge of the border for the GLSLR was brought home on the first evening, when delegates crossed the frontier and, notwithstanding the hope of pre-clearance, were obliged to go through a secondary search before re-boarding the buses taking them to enjoy the hospitality of Canadian Consul General Roy Norton in downtown Detroit’s Max Fisher Music Center.

If we are to be truly competitive, we must find a better way of managing the legitimate passage of people and goods. The Beyond the Borders Initiative launched in February by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama offers promise, but as former premier Gordon Campbell told delegates, political will also requires considerable behind-the-scenes work by business and government.

The GLSLR contains our busiest border crossings and, because so much of the boundary line is on water, the border is dominated by bridges. This presents unique challenges for just-in-time delivery. The first step should be the easiest: having inspection for all government services at each of the region’s crossing available 24/7, because our competition overseas does not work 9-5.

But the top priority in the GLSLR has to be the construction of the New International Trade Crossing between Windsor and Detroit, especially as the recovery picks up speed – trade between Michigan and Canada rose 43 per cent from 2009 to 2010. The 7,000 trucks that cross the Ambassador Bridge daily contain over a quarter of the goods traded between Canada and the United States. Any interruption in traffic on this 80-year-old, privately owned bridge means layoffs: thousands in the first day and tens of thousands stretching south to the Carolinas into day two.

The need for a new crossing was one of the key themes of the two-day conference, and was driven home by both American and Canadian participants. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville acknowledged that special interests and the spending of lots of money have circumvented and delayed what should be an obvious task, but he promised delegates that, by the fall, he and Governor Rick Snyder should have the votes to secure passage through the Michigan legislature.

It can’t be soon enough for those who live and work in the GLSLR. The international competition is not waiting for us to get our act together.

Knitting the various components of regional co-operation together is the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER). Its core is the continuing support of legislators in five states (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana), three provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan), and two territories (the Yukon and the Northwest Territories). This year, it celebrates its twentieth anniversary. Based in Seattle, with a small, very efficient secretariat, it works because it is a true non-partisan, bi-national, public-private partnership. As former premier Campbell acknowledged, it was PNWER, working, under his direction and that of Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, with a grassroots movement, that persuaded Homeland Security to accept the “smart drivers’ licence” as a practical means to address cross-border traffic during the Vancouver Olympics. The “smart drivers’ license” has seen been rolled out by states and provinces on both sides of the 49th parallel. It confirms another observation from the Windsor Summit: When provincial and state legislators get their acts together, federal governments join the parade.

Conferences are brain food, but it is the follow up in ideas and proposals that makes them practical to policy-makers. The Windsor Summit leadership of John Austin and Matthew Mendelson intend to carry the momentum forward and, in October, release a revised version of The Vital Commons that will identify actionable agenda items for various sectors in the GLSLR.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

As the war in Afghanistan reaches its decennary, it has become the favoured topic among documentarians and photojournalists. Sebastian Junger and the late Tim Hetherington’s visceral saga Restrepo and Danfung Dennis’s documentary, Hell and Back Again, are just two of the documentaries on the topic that have caught critics’ attention.

CIC Analysis:

The CIC asked Danfung Dennis, whose story of Sgt. Nathan Harris received formidable accolades at the Hot Docs Festival for its cinematic richness, to comment on whether it is ethical to find aesthetic value in war. We extended the conversation more broadly in a conversation with AGO curator of photography Sophie Hackett, who placed the current trend in photojournalism within a historic context and commented on similar ethical challenges faced by Canadian photographer Ed Burtynksy and his work on oil.

Interview with Danfung Dennis:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Interview with Sophie Hackett:

CIC: Are politics always poetic?

Sophie Hackett: For someone like Ed Burtynsky, the strategy he uses – striking compositions, his use of colour and his use of the aerial view, the way that he puts the pictures together – is impossible to separate from the content.

The question of, “does aestheticizing dull or seduce you away from the message?” is an old one, all the way back to Susan Sontag in the 1970s. This is not a stunningly original thought but, as we discussed at a recent symposium on Burtynksy’s art, the way he photographs his subjects allows him to maintain access to the sites that he visits. Many of the sites he shoots take two years for him to access – so if word gets around that he’s going to present them in a negative light, then he’s not going to get access to these sites. This isn’t his sole reason for doing this – but it happens to align with his sense of wanting to present something less didactic, less directive, something that allows the viewer to come to her awareness on her own. I think part of the reason his work has struck such a chord with people is that it is not preaching a particular position, and yet it doesn’t take very long for the pictures to nudge viewers down the road to the sorts of things he is considering.

Burtynsky is in a long lineage of artists who sought to grapple with the world through making something visual. He talks very much about making pictures, and how he did not set out to photograph oil as a show or as a book at the beginning; he realized after 12 years or so that oil is what tied it all together.

He’s very interested in the group of artists who came out of the 1970s and had a show called the New Topographics Show, which is jokingly referred to as the most famous show that no one ever saw. A lot of the artists in it – Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz – were artists looking at human intervention into the landscape. Prior to that, landscape photographs – Ansel Adams’s works, for instance – had been very operatic pieces.

(For more on this, Hackett suggests reading the most recent issue of Border Crossings and its interview with Burtynsky.)

CIC: Is it ethical to show such horrible things so beautifully?

SH: What is the hang-up we have about beauty? What is it that makes us so suspicious about beauty? Especially when we think about photographs, if you think about beauty in terms of social impact, in terms of what draws you in – the colours, the composition, how all those things come together – and without those things you wouldn’t want to look at the picture anyway! You can’t have a good artist without a visual language that is effective. So these artists have made their careers by creating a visual language that is uniquely theirs, and that grapples with the topics they want to deal with. If we didn’t want to look at the pictures, they wouldn’t be successful.

So the question of what draws us to pictures is complicated – it’s time and place, it’s scale. There’s maybe a sense coming out of the last fifty years – of globalized business and politics – that we’re trying to apprehend in some way that vast network. For some reason as viewers, we want to be engulfed by these pictures – we want to stand in front of them and feel small.

CIC: Does it matter whether a photograph of war is shown in an art gallery or in the New York Times?

SH: In the newspaper, we expect a narrative. Photographs with captions deliver a certain kind of narrative – it’s a combination that, since the 1930s, we’ve become very used to and expect from our publications.

There are different things possible in each context. When we walk into a gallery or a museum, we expect an experience of the visual, whereas when we open a magazine or a newspaper, we are looking for a story. The picture in the latter case supports the narrative, whereas in the former, the picture is the primary object.

It’s interesting to think about someone who is moving from showing their pictures in publications to showing them in galleries, for instance Louie Palu. His pictures have become more spare: the legs of a soldier on a gurney, a soldier eating grapes, the full-frontal portraits of heads. That context has allowed him to put forth his experience in war through the people that he photographs. It becomes more personal in that sense. In his case, it is a more personal version of war; in Burtynsky’s case, it is a more personal version of the global economic and political complex.

With a newspaper or magazine, the ultimate arbiter is the photo editor – and his job is to keep the interest of the reader. Tensions between editors and photographs are long-standing – in fact, that’s the reason that Magnum was founded, because photographers wanted to safeguard their own personal visions. In a gallery, in contrast, an exhibition is put together by a curator and a curator’s goal is to understand what makes an artist tick – and so there is a different grounding to this relationship from the beginning.

Part of this question of beauty and ethics comes out of there being a certain visual expectation when we think about war photography in particular – and that visual convention is black-and-white, it’s meant to be gritty, it’s meant to communicate a certain amount of stress, a certain amount of pain. Introducing colour, for instance, throws up that convention – it’s more realistic, but it can also be further manipulated. You can photograph things to give a greater range of emotional attitudes – and so in many ways I think this question is about that. When Susan Sontag is decrying the fact that the photographer is photographing someone being killed or shot, rather than helping that person, and suggesting that it is some kind of dereliction of duty, she is writing about black-and-white pictures she has seen in the news.

CIC: At what point did war photography become acceptable as art?

SH: Clearly they are different modes of working, but I do not see them as really different because of that visual element. The collection that my colleague Maia Sutnik has built at the AGO is largely about what a photograph can deliver to us. But, as she would say, “it’s all art.” A fashion photograph has different rules than a photograph that is produced primarily for a gallery wall, but these images have remained from a visual point of view tremendously influential.

In the earliest 20^th century, artists were really concerned with limits and, at that point, photographers were saying, “this is my personal work” and “this is the work I do to pay my rent.” But I think we’re coming out of that moment.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Canada’s vast immigrant population is well-known, but its emigrant population is underestimated both in size and significance, argues a new report by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. According to the report, titled Canadians Abroad, Canada must consider the policy implications of its diaspora, which comprises nearly ten percent of its total population.

CIC Analysis:

Patrick Johnston was a member of the Canadians Abroad Project advisory group – he is former President and CEO of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, which provided financial support to the Asia Pacific Foundation for the project.  We ask him to discuss the report’s significance.  Then we ask Allan Nichols, President of the Canadian Expat Association, to comment.

Patrick Johnston on the Canadian diaspora as citizen-diplomats:

 
Not long after the election of Michael Ignatieff as Leader of the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party began to broadcast TV ads that sought to define and demonize Ignatieff.  Of particular note was the Just Visiting ad that asked why Ignatieff was back in Canada after being out of the country for more than 30 years. The ad inferred that Ignatieff’s loyalty to Canada was in question and claimed that he had no long-term commitment to Canada.

The Just Visiting ad tapped into what, for a sizeable portion of the population, seems to be a deep-seated and parochial mistrust of Canadians who leave the country.  It is as if we assume the mantle of jilted lover, whose insecurity is fuelled by having been left behind.

This wariness of expatriate Canadians is not restricted to those who were born here. It also applies, and perhaps more so, to naturalized Canadians – those born elsewhere who became citizens of Canada and ultimately left the country.

In late 2006, Maclean’s magazine published an article entitled Hotel Canada. The article appeared in the aftermath of the evacuation of thousands of Canadian citizens during the 2006 war in Lebanon. The article raised the spectre of Canada as a country of convenience. Apparently, there are hordes of global opportunists who check into Canada, become citizens and then depart, taking with them all of the advantages of Canadian citizenship without having to pay the freight.

One of the great strengths of the report prepared by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF), Canadians Abroad: Canada’s Global Asset, is that it challenges these and other conceptions – or misconceptions – of the 2.8 million Canadians who live outside of Canada. Certainly, there are émigrés Canadians who have little attachment to Canada and no interest in returning.  But the report makes clear that these Canadians are very much in the minority. While many members of the Canadian diaspora see themselves as global and transnational citizens, research undertaken by APF also revealed that two thirds of Canadians who live abroad still view Canada as home with almost 70% indicating that they had plans to return in the near future.

The AFP argues, quite rightly, that the 2.8 million members of the Canadian diaspora should be seen as a huge asset to Canada rather than considered a liability. But it is an asset that needs to be maintained and cultivated in a systematic and consistent way. Unfortunately, relatively little attention has been paid by the federal or provincial governments to the potential role of the Canadian diaspora in furthering Canada’s interests.

This lack of attention is somewhat surprising. After all, the hundreds of thousands of expatriate Canadians who plan to return home in the next few years will bring with them valuable insights and perspectives that can complement the views of Canadian diplomats. That alone would suggest the need for governments to develop stronger connections with expatriate Canadians. But members of the Canadian diaspora, who vastly outnumber the Canadian diplomatic core, could also serve right now as a valuable source of knowledge, connections and expertise about the countries in which they currently live. In an era when technological advances have led to the evolution of the citizen-journalist, it wouldn’t take too much effort or imagination to foster the development of the citizen-diplomat.

The AFP report has also served an important role in highlighting the key public policy implications, impact and options for engaging the Canadian diaspora. The report describes the public policy stance until now as being one of “benign neglect”. But it also presents more troubling evidence that some recent policy decisions may actually serve to weaken the connections between Canada and Canadians living abroad. Perhaps most egregious are recent changes to the Canadian Citizenship Act that may be contributing to the creation of a class of stateless citizens.

The publication of the report could not have been better timed given its release just two weeks after the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Conference in Toronto. The event convened hundreds of senior government officials, business people, academics and others from both India and Canada and included several senior Indian Cabinet Ministers. An initiative of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, PBD (or non-resident Indian Day) is celebrated in January of each year in India and complemented by regional events like the Toronto conference.

The PBD conference is evidence of a country that sees its diaspora population as a valuable asset and tries to harness its expertise and connections to further India’s national interests. But the conference also provided Canadians with a reminder and wake up call. We are in a talent competition with the rest of the world for the best and brightest. With the continued growth and evolution of countries like Brazil, India, China and South Africa, expatriate Canadians are likely to have an increasing array of opportunities and alternatives to returning home. We will benefit as a country if we increase efforts to more constructively engage those members of the Canadian diaspora who want to maintain and strengthen their relationship to Canada. At the very least, we should stop acting as if international experience is a liability and implies a diminution of affection for and loyalty to Canada.

Allan Nichols on the Canadians Abroad report:

 
The Canadians Abroad report is spot on!  It supports what we have been saying since 2007.  Canadians living abroad are over achievers.  They are well educated, often multilingual, culturally articulate and maintain a network of contacts around the globe that would make any marketer drool.  Particularly poignant in the report is the statement that “whether or not Canadians abroad end up as an asset or a liability for Canada, is not a foregone conclusion, but is predicated on the Canadian policy response.” The vast resource that the Canadian Expat community represents is ripe and truly wishes to participate in the success of this country.  Will Canada recognize the value of this resource?

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

The New York Times and its editor Bill Keller have been at the center of the Wikileaks saga for two years. Having worked closely with Assange, Keller offers a tell-all in the form of an E-Book called Open Secrets: Wikileaks, War and American Diplomacy.

CIC Analysis:

Journalists aren’t the only ones reacting to Wikileaks with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Prompted by Keller’s unique work, we first ask Margaret MacMillan and Clay Shirky to reflect on what this new age of transparency means for the historian. We then ask former Canadian diplomat Jeremy Kinsman how Wikileaks might change the approaches of diplomats and politicians alike, for better or worse.

INTERVIEW: Margaret MacMillan and Clay Shirky discuss the impact of Wikileaks

CIC: Will Wikileaks revelations require revising the historical record? Will historians have to revisit their work?

MacMillan: Historians are always revising the historical record. New material comes out—someone discovers a diary or letters in an attic or new boxes turn up in archives. When the Soviet Union and its empire collapsed it suddenly became possible to see records that had been kept secret. Equally important we ask different questions and bring different sorts of evidence into our discussions of the past. For example, a few decades ago historians were not much concerned with what it was like to be a woman or a child or a peasant. Now we are. And what is historical evidence has expanded beyond official archives and written records to include songs, pictures, or movies. So Wikileaks will not on its own make us revise the past. What it does is give us a huge amount of material now that we might have had to wait decades to see. Normally it takes at least 40 years for diplomatic records to become public even in open societies like the United States or Canada. With Wikileaks we are getting them as events are still unfolding. Historians who work on the near past will have to take the Wikileaks material into account.

Shirky: Wikileaks isn’t some special thing, it’s just a new source of contemporaneous account. *Of course* this will require revision, but not in any interesting way — historians always have to revise based on new data, no matter what the source, when that data provides material not otherwise available.

CIC: Going forward, how will access to far greater amounts of historical information change the practice of writing and documenting history?

MacMillan: Some parts of the past have too little material—think of classical history. Now we have too much. Future historians are going to have a terrible time sorting out what is really important in the huge pile of phone transcripts, memos, emails. And it will no longer be possible for them to master the whole record of a particular episode or aspect of our times.

Shirky: There seem to be two models, which could be likened, metaphorically, to the way we account for baseball and cricket. Accounts of baseball games tend to be much more stats driven — even the most limited, paper coverage of baseball tends to be dripping in stats at the game and league level. Accounts of cricket games, on the other hand, tend to treat the stats as background, and to foreground the telling of a story of the game that integrates the individual events into a sense of the whole.

Neither model is right or wrong, but they are different. As contemporary life generates many more legible traces — orders of magnitudes more — historians are going to occupy a wider range across that spectrum.

This isn’t either/or. Instead, the extremes of each pattern are going to spread. The most data driven stuff will integrate far more sources, qualitative and quantitative, than today, and the most narrative stuff will rely on an enormously more detailed base of primary documents.

CIC: Does this make the job of the historian easier or more difficult? Or are they even still needed?

MacMillan: Both. More access to material but more difficult because of the sheer volume. And what is already happening—and Wikileaks will only encourage this—is that people in important positions or dealing with sensitive issues are becoming very careful about what they say on phones or put in electronic form. We may be actually losing out when it comes to knowing what actually took place.

Shirky: They are needed in that the data in the pattern is not the pattern, and the events in the story are not the story. The job of synthesizing remains, though it will require historians to be better at finding and managing data than before.

CIC: What do you think of the way that The New York Times and other newspapers handled the information? What does it mean that The Guardian used the first War Logs to suggest that coalition forces had killed “hundred of civilians in unreported incidents,” when The New York Times did not even mention this leak?

MacMillan: My impression—but I did not look at lots of newspapers, mainly the Guardian and the NY Times—is that the papers tried hard to be responsible and not to release information that would risk lives. The fact that the Guardian chose to highlight one aspect and the NY Times another with the first leaks does not suggest to me anything more than that there was a lot of material and editorial choices had to be made and that those choices depended on the nature of the papers and where they are located. The Guardian has long been opposed to the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan so it is not surprising that its editors would single out evidence that these have been bad things. Canadian papers naturally concentrated more on stories involving Canada just as the French were more interested in stories about Sarkozy.

Shirky: It’s important not to view everything that comes form Wikileaks as being somehow special or different — the difference between the Times and the Guardian has to do with the news judgment of the editors of those papers, not with their partnering with Wikileaks. From the greenlighting of Judith Miller’s use of Curveball as a source, the Times has always been, in relative terms, a pro-war paper, and the Guardian not. That difference has colored all their decisions, from the Times’ craven refusal to call torture by its name to their coverage of civilian deaths.

CIC: Was the Times right to see Assange as merely a source, not a partner or collaborator? As an academic – and not a journalist – would you see Assange as just a source? Do different ethical codes apply to journalists and academics?

MacMillan: As for Assange being just another source, he is a source of different magnitude and he is not leaking things that he knows first hand. Rather he is a conduit for a lot of material from another source in this case the US government. The nearest parallel is Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. I do find his insistence that the world will suddenly be a better place if there are no more secrets naïve.

Shirky: Of course Wikileaks is not just a source, given that it is not the actual source — that was, we presume, Manning.

Wikileaks occupies the part of the ecosystem that is in the middle between sources and readers, and given that we have the word ‘media’ to describe precisely that intermediary function. Anyone insisting Wikileaks isn’t a media outlet is trying to make the word mean less than it actually does.

Keller seems to be on a campaign to insist that nothing fundamental is changing in the media landscape. You can see how someone whose organization was a lot more secure, both as a business and as a cultural institution, before the internet would want to make an argument like that, but that kind of self-interested assertion doesn’t line up with reality, and the reality is that the Times partnered with another media outlet called Wikileaks.

INTERVIEW: Jeremy Kinsman on the Implications of Wilileaks to the Practice of  Diplomacy

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

Last year, Chrystia Freeland proclaimed that Toronto’s Bay Street had something to teach New York and London. A year later Paul Krugman speculated that Canada is building a housing bubble that has yet to burst – that contrary to Freeland’s argument, Canada’s banking system may not promote economic stability.

CIC Analysis:

The CIC caught up with Chrystia Freeland who defends her claim, arguing that Canada’s good financial regulation is good foreign policy. We also discuss economic foreign policy with John Manley, former Minister of Finance, and Colin Robertson, member of the NAFTA negotiating team, who tells us that historically, Canada’s foreign policy has always been determined by economic interest.

INTERVIEW: Chrystia Freeland

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

INTERVIEW: John Manley

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

INTERVIEW: Colin Robertson

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

LECTURE: O.D. Skelton Memorial Lecture

The CIC was at the 2011 O.D. Skelton Memorial Lecture, where Chrystia Freeland, global-editor-at-large for Reuters, spoke about the contemporary challenge to foreign policy: finding a place in the rebalanced global economy:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo courtesy of Reuters.

A first major report on the use of social media in by Arab Spring protesters has been released by the Dubai School of Government. It is now clearer than ever that social network usage trends and impacts are growing across the MENA.

Analysis:

To examine the role of social media in the Arab Spring, we also interview Sarah Abdurrahman, Sonia Verma, Brian Stewart and Jillian York – all participants in the Munk School’s panel discussion, Tweeting The Arab Revolution.  And Ben Rowswell introduces a lecture on the use of technology in the promotion of democracy.

Sarah Abdurrahman, Sonia Verma, Brian Stewart and Jillian York discuss Twitter and the Arab Spring:

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Ben Rowswell on technology’s use for democracy promotion and the future of diplomacy:

After demonstrating the dramatic impact that social media can have on political change, Egyptians have turned their country into a laboratory of political innovation.  As they experiment with combinations of online and traditional tools to mobilize citizens, they are turning the notion of democracy promotion on its head:  instead of the West teaching the rest about democracy, Egyptians are now the ones doing the teaching.

Over the past several months, I have led an initiative called Cloud to Street, which seeks to capture these lessons and equip Egyptian activists with tools to extend their reach beyond the internet.  We argue that the international community can best support the democratic transition in Egypt by setting aside Western-centric models and embrace an “open-source” approach to democracy promotion.  Below is lecture that I recently gave on technology and the Egyptian revolution for the Canadian Political Science Association.

(Video: Watch this video on the post page)

Photo courtesy of Reuters.