Afghanistan is a long way from both Canada and Australia, but from 2001, fate conspired to bring the three countries together. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Australia and Canada joined the U.S. and other Western allies in attacking al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom began on October 4, 2001, but this was only the beginning of a much longer engagement in Afghanistan for both Canada and Australia, with a legacy much more ambiguous than the initial campaign had promised. Australia and Canada in Afghanistan: Perspectives on a Mission offers twelve essays from distinguished experts and decision-makers involved in the war. Wide-ranging in scope, their work offers fresh analyses of the Afghan War and on Australia’s and Canada’s contributions to it.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Australia and Canada joined the U.S. and other Western allies in attacking al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. In the book, a stellar group of academic and political experts explore the Canadian and Australian experiences in Afghanistan.
A collection of essays on the war in Iraq; including pieces by Jean Chrétien and John Howard, the prime ministers during the war. When it was declared in 2003, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was intensely controversial. While a few of America's partners, like Australia, joined in the war, many, including Canada, refused to take part. However the war in Iraq was viewed at the time, though, it is clear that that war and the war in Afghanistan have had a profound and lasting impact on international relations. Australia, Canada, and Iraq collects essays by fifteen esteemed academics, officials, and politicians, including the prime ministers of Australia and Canada at the time of the war — John Howard and Jean Chretién, respectively. This volume takes advantage of the perspective offered by the decade since the war to provide a clearer understanding of the Australian and Canadian decisions regarding Iraq, and indeed of the invasion itself.
The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was intensely controversial. Australia joined in the war, while Canada refused to. Australia, Canada, and Iraq is a collection of essays by world leaders and esteemed academics that offers a fresh review of the war and the critical Australian and Canadian decisions regarding it.
Analyses of the War in Afghanistan frequently mention the declining or shaky domestic support for the conflict in the United States and among several U.S. allies. This paper dates the beginning of this decline back to the resurgence of the Taliban in 2005-06 and suggests that the deteriorating course of the war on the ground in Afghanistan itself along with mounting casualties is the key reason behind this drop in domestic support for the war.
Blaxland traces the shift from ties with the British Empire, which led Canadian and Australian forces to fight in the Boer War, the two World Wars, and Korea, to their contribution alongside the United States in Afghanistan. Using late twentieth-century concepts of policy, military strategy, operations, and tactics, he reveals that Canada and Australia have had remarkably comparable experiences while supporting their key allies. Although the two nations have at times chosen divergent courses, their paths since the end of the Cold War have largely converged – and closer collaboration could increase their influence and effectiveness and benefit their allies.
By examining two military interventions that have defined the post-Cold War period, Somalia (1992-1995) and Afghanistan (2001-2014), this book argues that for Australia and Canada, the concept of human security works better in practice than it does in theory. When human security was first advanced in 1994, debates raged. It was argued that the concept needed an agreed and articulated definition before it could have policy relevance or applicability. The book provides unprecedented access to the key actors and decision makers, including Prime Ministers, military commanders, and senior diplomats. It argues that the core concept of human security has altered states’ understanding of traditional national security during the implementation of military interventions. The experience of Australia and Canada over this period demonstrates that the concept of human security is becoming more relevant to states, and their policy makers and military planners, as they conduct military interventions.
This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems. This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general.
When the Canadian government committed forces to join the military mission in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, little did it foresee that this decision would involve Canada in a war-riven country for over a decade. The Politics of War explores how, as the mission became increasingly unpopular, Canadian politicians across the political spectrum began to use it to score points against their opponents. This was “politics” with a vengeance. Through historical analysis of the public record and interviews with officials, Jean-Christophe Boucher and Kim Richard Nossal show how the Canadian government sought to frame the engagement in Afghanistan as a “mission” rather than what it was – a war. They examine the efforts of successive governments to convince Canadians of the rightness of Canada’s engagement, the parliamentary politics that resulted from the increasing politicization of the mission, and the impact of public opinion on Canada’s involvement. This contribution to the field of Canadian foreign policy demonstrates how much of Canada’s war in Afghanistan was shaped by the vagaries of domestic politics and political gamesmanship.
Since the introduction of the concept of human security in 1994, debates have raged regarding the definition and applicability of the concept. Proponents of human security have sought to define the concept so that it may be utilised, whereas critics of human security have argued that the concept is too broad and amorphous to be adopted or utilised by states in international relations. This thesis examines two states; Australia, which has never utilised the term, 'human security,' in its declaratory policies; and Canada, a state that, for a time, was one of the most vocal proponents of the concept in its foreign policy statements. The research examines the two countries' military interventions in Somalia (1992-1995 - prior to the introduction of human security as a concept) and Afghanistan (2001-2013 - after the concept's introduction) to establish if, and to what extent, human security featured in and/or shaped their missions. Drawing upon an analysis of Australia's and Canada's declaratory policies and implementation approaches for each mission, this thesis presents a unique analytical framework that assesses the degree of norm internalisation of human security by the two states. It argues that human security is both co-opted and adapted by states in military interventions when the limitation of traditional national security approaches is recognised and when such actions are in alignment with national values. This thesis finds that the core concept of human security can be, and has been, operationalised at the implementation level, regardless of whether the state has a clearly defined declaratory policy of human security or not. Further, states now perceive the core concept of human security as a necessary condition for mission success in military interventions; military security, alone, is no longer enough. The thesis concludes with the argument that, for states, the concept of human security works better in practice (implementation) than it does in theory (declaratory policies). Indeed, when it comes to incorporating the fundamental elements of human security in military interventions, this thesis argues, it is the practices of human security that drives, and helps create, policies based on human security.
