daryl.copeland

Rebuilding Canada’s international capacity: Diplomatic reform in the age of globalization – Part II

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Editor`s note: This article is the second part of a feature  co-authored with my CDFAI colleague and friend Colin Robertson. We served together in the Canadian foreign service for 30 years.

 

The new diplomatic dialectic

The days of designated envoys speaking only with each other about the business of government have gone forever. Diplomats now have to engage with whole societies, creating partnerships and exchanging meaningfully not just with the usual suspects, but with strange bedfellows as well.

In short, public diplomacy has in important respects become the new diplomacy. In consequence, the epicentre of diplomatic practice must move out of the shadows and into the light.
That said, no amount of Twiplomacy, virtuality, digital dexterity or technological savvy will ever be able to substitute for face to face contact, cross-cultural communications, and the ability to cultivate relationships based on confidence, trust and respect.

At its core, diplomacy will remain a contact sport.

A cultural, but also a substantive revolution

Even by comparative bureaucratic measure, foreign ministries are conservative, rganizationally silohed institutions. With their faces to the world but backs to their own citizens, they are friendless and isolated. Social relations are hierarchic, communications are vertical, authority is unquestioned and risk is averted.

In the 21st century that combination represents a dead end, a fast track to irrelevance.

Risk must be managed, innovation relentlessly pursued, and failure treated as a learning experience, all within an institution that values and provides continuous learning – again, something the modern military does very well.

In terms of content, political and multilateral relations will remain central features of diplomacy, but the articulation of sound trade, commercial and investment policies are equally important as keys to a prosperous and peaceful future.

There is also a need to reach international agreement on rules governing cyber and space – both enable globalization, but they also offer terrible possibilities for chaos and destruction.

Finding effective ways to pursue the just and joint management of the global commons has become job one.

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Rebuilding Canada’s international capacity: Diplomatic reform in the age of globalization – Part I

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Editor`s note: This article was co-authored with my CDFAI colleague and friend Colin Robertson. We served together in the Canadian foreign service for 30 years.

 

The world is an ever more complicated place and diplomacy, the world’s second oldest profession, matters more than ever before. But it is a different form of diplomacy – embracing the tools of technology and recognizing that globalization has both flattened the old hierarchies and added new complexities.

For Canada, diplomacy is more than a tool of statecraft. As a country that still puts a premium on attracting immigrants from abroad, a part of our identity is dependent on how we behave and how we are seen internationally.

For those reasons and more, Canadian diplomacy is and must be a manifestation of our values, policies and interests.

Joining the Foreign Service over three decades ago was to enter what was still mostly a brotherhood. Women were few, and the atmosphere was almost clubby. Indeed, the hallmarks resembled in some respects those of a religious order, if perhaps more Jesuitical than Dominican.

Contemporary foreign service is not a priesthood, nor is the foreign ministry a cathedral.

And diplomacy is not liturgy.

In Chapters and Indigo bookstores across the country, shoppers are encouraged to believe that: “The world needs more Canada.” To deliver on that promise, a thoroughgoing process of secular diplomatic reform will be essential.

The approaching election is a good time to consider our international policies, diplomatic practice and the foreign service itself.

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Learning from experience? The case against Canadian military engagement in Iraq/Syria

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The government has announced that it will table a motion in Parliament to extend and expand the bombing, training and special operations mission in Iraq. Syria may now also be included.

Joining this mission was unnecessary; continuing and expanding it will compound the costs.

Canada need not participate in this campaign. Following are five reasons why the application of armed force is ill-advised:

It doesn’t work. Look no further than the disastrous results of recent Western military interventions. Afghanistan, where support for the Mujahidin gave way to the creation of al-Qaeda, is fractured and failing. Libya, where conditions of life once topped the African continent on the UNDP’s Human Development Index, is imploding. In Iraq, the current problem with ISIL is a direct result of the security, governance and justice vacuum engendered by the ruinous US-led invasion and occupation 2003-11.

Blowback, big time.

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A better way forward? High hopes for the Independent Commission on Multilateralism

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Last August I attended a conference in entitled 1814, 1914, 2014: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future, organized jointly by the International Peace Institute (IPI) and the Salzburg Global Seminar. Over the course of that event, and despite whatever else may have been learned about the nature and impact of industrial-scale violence, it became clear that there is a fundamental problem. The multilateral institutions crafted in the middle of the 20th century are underperforming and largely unfit for purpose in the 21st. Absent some sort of significant transformation, peace and prosperity will therefore remain elusive. Or worse.

Thus arose the idea of undertaking a comprehensive review of the institutions which, writ large, comprise the “international system” with a view to formulating proposals for change. The UN and its specialized agencies will figure centrally, but the role of regional bodies such as ASEAN the OAS, SCO and AU, as well as non-traditional actors, including NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and multinational business will also be evaluated.

Christened the Independent Commission of Multilateralism, or ICM, this initiative is supported by the governments of Norway, the United Arab Emirates, and – somewhat surprisingly – Canada. It was launched in September by its Chair, former Australian PM Kevin Rudd, and will be co-chaired by the Foreign Ministers of Canada and Norway, as well as the former President and Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, José Ramos-Horta. India’s former Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, will serve as Secretary General.

However important, political and bureaucratic machinations of this sort rarely fire the public imagination; the ICM has to date flown largely below the radar. An initial round of international consultations with experts and stakeholders will be held this weekend in New York. Discussions will focus on an examination of new global challenges, the evolution of organized violence, the current multilateral architecture, and recommendations for reform. A final report will be released in 2016.

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For Canada’s new Foreign Minister? A three point plan

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As the dust settles in the wake of John Baird’s abrupt departure from the Foreign Affairs portfolio, little has been ventured about his successor, former Defence Minister Rob Nicholson. Given the new minister’s long record in government, we might reliably anticipate a steady, if somewhat slow hand on the tiller at Fort Pearson, and the quiet, if unquestioning execution of the PM’s ideologically-driven agenda.

My former colleague Paul Heinbecker recently offered Mr. Nicholson some useful advice on repairing the damage associated with Mr. Baird’s controversial legacy. These proposals are related mainly to specific foreign policy issues, and I have no particular qualms with the priorities set forth.

That said, the challenges associated with the restoration of this country’s place in the world are profound and far-reaching. Addressing them will require remedial action affecting all elements of the diplomatic ecosystem – the foreign ministry, foreign service, and diplomatic practice – as well as grand strategy and the Canadian brand.

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Out of Afghanistan? Still counting the costs

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Thirteen years after the campaign began, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) formally ended combat operations in Afghanistan on 28 December. A residual foreign military presence of about 18,000 troops, the Resolute Support Mission, will stay on for counter-terrorism purposes and provide training and logistical assistance to Afghan police and security forces.

With rising Afghan civilian and military casualties, and Taliban gains amidst generally deteriorating conditions, there was little to celebrate at the secret handover ceremony. That event received only passing media attention – surprising given the exceptional human and financial costs associated with this intervention.

As coalition members rush for the exits, there have been many attempts to explain what went wrong, which by my reckoning includes just about everything. That said, few in positions of authority are admitting failure. Clearly, among responsible senior officials, more than a few of whom managed to eke a promotion or two out of the war, there is no appetite for a searching retrospective.

While awaiting the attribution of some form of culpability for the wilful blindness which plagued the ISAF mission, it may be useful to look ahead with a view to identifying some of the main winners and losers.

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