CDFAI Media Brief

The outcome of the election in Pakistan is unlikely to enhance the prospects for peace in Afghanistan.

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There has been much commentary and speculation in recent weeks regarding Pakistan’s national elections, and the possible impact of the results upon events in Afghanistan. While the nature of developments in Pakistan might well amount to the single most important external influence, not least because of the shared Pashtun population on either side of the Durand Line and Pakistan’s longstanding pre-occupation with Indian designs in the region, in Afghanistan there are many other factors and actors at play.

That country, situated at a crossroads of civilizations, is an almost bewilderingly complicated place. The burden of history is enormous: over the past few centuries, Afghanistan has more often than not been treated as a pawn in the imperial “great game.” It has deservedly developed a reputation as the “graveyard of empires,” not least because outsiders’ forces have only ever succeeded in pacifying small parts of the country. Internal stability, such as it has ever existed, has been predicated typically upon the decentralized, often shifting political arrangements between the capital and the provinces.

That pattern was long gone by the time NATO intervened. Still reeling in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the U.S.-led coalition effectively took sides in a complex ethnic, tribal, sectarian, and geographically rooted civil war. Twelve years later, ISAF is shrinking by the month, and is further than ever from prevailing. Unsurprisingly, the continuing presence of foreign forces, viewed widely as occupiers by the population, has exacerbated the conflict.

The Russians, who had much better supply lines and enjoyed an enormous cultural and linguistic advantage conferred by the presence of Central Asian troops, were taught the same lesson not that long ago and at great expense. They, too, claimed to have come to educate children, emancipate women, and roll back religious extremism…

Afghanistan is no longer the epicentre of transnational terrorism. That pretext for continuing armed Western intervention no longer exists, and indeed, the essential strategic objective was achieved by early 2002, by which point Al-Qaeda camps and infrastructure had been dismantled and the membership dispersed. The Taliban, swept from power and replaced by a coalition of warlords, were never the principal threat to West. Their goals are essentially national and they have never had the capability or the intent to threaten international security. Like the opportunity to move from the surgical application of armed force to intensive development assistance which NATO chose not to take a decade ago, conflating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was a serious mistake.

These multiple analytical failures, compounded by the disastrous launch of a war of choice in Iraq which for years relegated Afghanistan to the status of a sideshow, have been costly. As the U.S. and NATO rush for the exits, and with a continuing high incidence of green-on-blue insider attacks against ISAF personnel, there are few signs of this misadventure ending well.

In short, whatever happens this weekend in Pakistan, greater or lesser stability in that country will not change the fact that there are no foreign military solutions to Afghanistan’s problems of bad governance and severe underdevelopment. NATO’s attempt to prop up the hopelessly corrupt and unrepresentative Karzai regime, while training and equipping his army and police, looks eerily similar to the  USA’s effort at Vietnamization forty years ago. Similarly, the increasing reliance upon special forces conjures memories of  the controversial Phoenix Program.

Are there alternatives? By my reckoning, there are only three ways to effectively counter an insurgency:

1. Recourse to large scale, systematic brutality, particularly in response to specific provocations. This tactic found favour from Roman times until WWII, but with a few exceptions, such as the Balkan wars of the ’90s, such practices are no longer possible due to amateur digital reporting, media connectivity, and heightened sensitivity to human rights abuses.
2. Massive occupation. Success here requires ratio of between 1:10 to 1:200 foreign troops/units of local population, depending on the ferocity and extent of resistance. At its numerical peak, even at height of the unsuccessful ‘surge,’ ISAF strength was only near very the bottom end of that scale and hence clearly inadequate to the scale and intensity of the revolt. Occupation therefore was, and remains mission impossible.
3. Cutting a political deal directly with your opponent through negotiations. This might have worked a few years ago, and circumstances can always change, but it appears too late for that now. In the wake of increased drone attacks, continuing civilian casualties (collateral damage), rogue killings of women and children, Koran burnings, urinating on dead insurgents, and posing with severed body parts, ISAF has become an integral part of the problem rather than the solution.

Indeed, with the Taliban re-established, and quite possibly poised to resume control – or at least try – following the almost certain collapse of the current regime or its post-war successor, Afghanistan is in many respects worse off now than it was a decade ago. And a host of regional players with competing, and largely divergent objectives – Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Turkey – are waiting anxiously in the wings, eager to intensify their engagement in the vacuum which will follow the completion of ISAF’s drawdown next year.  For instance, during the current electoral campaign there has been discussion of terminating Pakistan’s shaky alliance with the USA. That would immensely complicate ISAF logistics, and set the stage for an intensification of Pakistani efforts to influence Afghanistan’s future.

The outlook is certainly bleak, if not unrecoverable. Countless lives, and the billions of dollars which could have been used to rebuild the country several times over have been wasted. A completely different approach is required.

Clearly, there are no easy or obvious ways forward. One possibility, however, could be for ISAF to cede the multilateral lead on Afghanistan to the UN. The country could then be placed under some form of international legal trusteeship pending the organization of new elections and the convening of a broadly based conference of interested national and international parties. In addition to the Taliban, whose participation is already widely mooted, the obvious candidates for a place at the table would include  all of the adjacent states, plus  major and emerging powers, and the EU, OIC, OSCE and the SCO.

To turn the page and seek a broadly-based new beginning is a long shot. But it is the very least that the Afghan people deserve. It is worth recalling one of the Cold War’s most important lessons, namely that militaries work best when they are not used. Take the sword from the scabbard and it makes a dreadful mess. When policy becomes an instrument of war, problems quickly compound. For Afghanistan, the pursuit of economic and political progress through development cooperation and the encouragement of power sharing and national reconciliation is surely worth a serious try.

Will elections this weekend in Pakistan improve the prospects for peace and develoipment in Afghanistan?

OPENCANADA.ORG

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The rub

The Government of Canada should be doing everything in its power to support its employees on the foreign policy front lines. Alas, for diplomats this is not the case. Years of underinvestment, exacerbated by over $300 million in cumulative cuts imposed on DFAIT by the 2012 federal budget, have severely degraded the work environment.

Add to that what amounts to bad faith bargaining and the lingering absence of a contract, and all elements are in place for a perfect storm of labour unrest.

Still, PAFSO is hardly the radical fringe. Its leadership recognizes that these are hard times most everywhere and is not seeking an unreasonable settlement. Significant concessions have been offered on severance pay (agreement to its elimination) and across-the-board wage increases (acceptance of something in the range of 1.5% per year).

PAFSO is firm, however, in its insistence that the matter of providing equal pay for equal work be addressed squarely in any settlement. Many Foreign Service Officers are today receiving substantially less in compensation than the members of other, non-rotational occupational groups (economists, commerce officers, lawyers) who are doing exactly the same or similar work, often in the same division. This differential varies from several thousand to several tens of thousands of dollars per year, and the spread is growing.

Morale and collegial co-habitation have suffered accordingly.

Beyond impasse

The Government remains intransigent, if not hostile. Treasury Board has rejected the non-binding recommendations of the independent Public Interest Commission. It refuses even to discuss the issue of comparative compensation. The employer appears prepared to force PAFSO members into the embrace of increasingly serious and disruptive job action, in hope that that this will elicit widespread public and media condemnation of the “spoiled diplomats.”

Such tactics are most regrettable. Recall, for instance, the disastrous inefficiencies, administrative overheads and management confusion which attended the efforts first to remove, and then to restore the trade department within the foreign ministry 2004-06. Based upon that experience, the recent decision to integrate CIDA into DFAIT would have been difficult at the best of times. The disaffection engendered by the current contract dispute can only worsen the prospects for a successful merger.

At the end of the day, all of this is particularly unsettling because in the age of globalization, diplomacy and development assistance must be more intimately and seamlessly intertwined. We live on a small planet beset by a host of perils – climate change, environmental collapse, diminishing biodiversity, pandemic disease – none of which are amenable to military solutions. Our best hope lies in addressing these challenges through knowledge-based problem-solving and complex balancing, backed by dialogue, negotiation and compromise.

In other words, security is not a martial art. Diplomacy, not defence is the best way forward. Yet unless and until our diplomatic capacity is unbound, rather than not constrained or debilitated, the foreign ministry will never perform anywhere near its potential.

Canada’s place in the world will slide further.

Diplomacy’s decline has been in train for decades, but the present situation represents a new low. The continued battering of the Foreign Service is inimical to the national interest. To advance the prosperity, security and well-being of Canadians, the government should return immediately to the bargaining table with a mandate to reach a fair and equitable settlement.

The Foreign Service, and the country deserve no less.

Last month the membership of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers  (PAFSO), Canada’s working-level diplomats, voted overwhelmingly in favour of job action. The 1350 members of this occupational group, who have been without a contract since June 2011, are now in a legal strike position.

While this situation has raised eyebrows, to date the actions undertaken by PAFSO members have been largely symbolic, involving tactics such as “working to rule”, refusing overtime, and ignoring their Blackberries outside of office hours. An “electronic picket” affecting email communications has been deployed to automatically alert Canadians and international officials to the possibility of delays in responding to correspondence.

There has been no wholesale withdrawal of service, and PAFSO has shown itself as anything but rigid or uncompromising. When the Boston Marathon was bombed on April 15th, all job action measures at the Canadian Consulate-General in that city were suspended immediately in order to best assist Canadians.

So…what is all discontent all about, and why is it important?

Diplomacy Deconstructed

Foreign Service Officers play a critical role at home and abroad in advancing the security, prosperity and well-being of all Canadians. Yet their work is largely unappreciated. Diplomacy remains at best a mystery to most Canadians, and diplomats are rarely accorded the respect enjoyed by soldiers or aid workers.

This may be attributed in part to PAFSO’s relatively small size, in part to the lack of a vocal national constituency (unlike the Canadian Forces) and apathy on the part of journalists, academics, and opinion leaders. The elimination of domestic outreach programs by DFAIT’s  senior management and the related the centralization and control of all public communication in PMO/PCO has contributed as well.

Diplomacy also has a serious image problem.

In the public mind, to the extent that they are thought of at all, diplomats tend to be seen as a pampered elite living high off the hog at taxpayer expense. Dithering dandies.

That negative stereotype is often invoked by diplomacy’s detractors.  Like most stereotypes, however, this one is far off the mark.  Given the stakes at play, the time is overdue for a reality check.

To that end, one of the less celebrated outcomes associated with the WikiLeaks “Cablegate” episode of 2010-11 was the window it provided on the inner workings of the world’s second oldest profession. What was to be seen? In some 257,000 US-origin classified dispatches, diplomats were shown to be hard at work, pursuing interests, advocating policies, building relationships and projecting values, in major capitals and to the ends of the earth, 24/7. Innovative thinking, entrepreneurship, street-smarts, and granular local knowledge permeate the entire corpus.

Had these been Canadian cables, the story would have been much the same. Readers would have encountered brokers, guides, and cultural interpreters, including:

• Political officers developing networks, performing analysis, gathering intelligence and assessing policy;
• Trade Commissioners promoting goods and services and soliciting inward investment;
• Consular officers assisting citizens by replacing passports, offering travel advice, arranging repatriations and medical care, visiting prisoners, and organizing evacuations from disaster areas or conflict zones, and;
• Immigration officers interviewing and recruiting new Canadians, issuing student and visitor visas, and working with airline staff to identify illegal migrants and false documentation.

Essential and exciting pursuits, to be sure, but a far cry from easy street.

Comfort and joy?

Even under the best of circumstances, it can be tough to balance the imperatives of family life against the requirements of the job. Foreign Service Officers are by definition “rotational”, which is to say that they are subject to regular assignment abroad. Spouses are frequently unable to work on overseas postings, and may have difficulty finding employment, or even collecting unemployment insurance, when they return home. This can create both lost income and career development problems.

Children have to change schools, leave their friends, make new ones, and adjust to different educational systems and languages.

Some thrive.

Others fail.

Overseas moves may be exciting once, but over a career can exhausting. In the face of relentless downward pressure on the terms and conditions of service abroad, allowances are tumbling, rent ceilings are being lowered, commutes are getting longer, and incentives are disappearing. An increasing number of administrative and logistical tasks – from moving arrangements, to finding accommodation, to providing the furnishings – are no longer being provided by the employer and are falling upon families. That is, if families can come. More and more diplomats are going abroad unaccompanied, where they may face personal risks (Afghanistan), sleep in tents (post-earthquake Haiti) or come home to a pre-fab container jammed into a heavily guarded compound (Pakistan).

In short, this is challenging, complex, often difficult, and – remembering Glyn Berry, Chris Stevens, and Anne Smeddinghoff -  increasingly dangerous work.  But it must be done; social media and digital technologies, while useful tools, can never replace the value added by direct human contact and on the ground connectedness.