Wednesday, October 03, 2007

On Institutions, Afghanistan, Cons, Generals and the CF

I spend a lot of time thinking about institutions these days (some foolish university people have recently given me money to do this) in my life outside the intertubes. This got me thinking…

I’ve also heard some rather bizarre and out of character pontificating about red-shirts and Afghanistan from serving rank & file military friends. Some internet comments I’ve seen also back this up (read some of the comments here). This also got me thinking…

Maybe there is a problem with the Canadian Forces and Afghanistan that escapes the popular controversy. Try this.

We have a Chief of Defence Staff attending political rallies (red shirts), holding hands with a government (regardless of issues with the former Defence Minister), using the same propaganda to support a controversial war. This puts the CDS and by extension the CF at an overt political opposition to a large percentage of the Canadian public who do not support the war.

My concern is this practice of overt politicisation of Afghanistan, the consequent attempts at perception management (instead of honest reporting) by military staff, and the de facto open opposition to a large swath of the Canadian public by the CF may become an institutionalised practice. Or, alternatively, the eventual and possibly sudden withdrawal will cause something of an identity crisis in an institution that has so closely internalised the mission.

This politicising of the mission and the CF is a foolish thing for the leadership to not only tolerate, but apparently actively condone, because the Conservatives will not be in power forever and nor will the mission in Afghanistan last. The more psychologically tied - rank & file especially - feel toward the mission or the party, or this particular CDS, the greater the potential for [existentialist] morale problems that may result when the walls come down. The US military had issues post-Vietnam that some members of the military and political arenas have never quite gotten over to the point of spastically hating large parts of their own publics or embarking on repeat adventures in places Iraq. There was something of that in the CF post-Airborne too (I wonder if any studies were done on this). We should try to avoid it here.

The leadership of the CF would do well to avoid these trappings and work to avoid partisaneering within the ranks*. It could save itself some problems. The political leadership of this country should do likewise if it wants an effective future Canadian Forces.

*I once worked with a former member of the Parachute Regiment who described a company commander making his troops read newspapers from across the political spectrum as a way of avoiding this.

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