An Unexpected War, a Not-Unexpected Mission

As fullest mobilization of Canadian men and materiel since Korean War, and also costliest in blood and treasure, 2005 deployment of Canadian Forces (CF) to Kandahar would deserve scholars' attention even if it had gone according to plan. That it instead developed into something neither government nor public had anticipated only enhances challenge - and value - of understanding it. Fuelled by mission's controversial nature, a sizeable literature soon developed to explain government's actions. The international system, institutional imperatives, and even specific individuals have all been identified as key shapers of policy. Diverse though it is in some respects, however, literature is in others strikingly homogeneous, particularly as concerns its geography: most of studies of Canada's third Afghan deployment have been carried out in North America, and usually Canada.This is hardly surprising, but it also has implications, especially with respect to perspective: story has almost always been told from a North American political standpoint and by scholars placing Canada near centre of action. Not only has Ottawa's relationship with Washington often assumed central importance (and explanatory power), but characteristically, Canadian suspicion of military's motives and underestimation of government's own agency have together popularized idea that Kandahar was a case of the tail wagging dog.1 Although a counter-narrative has now emerged, its perspective is predominantly North American as well.2 Missing from literature is a study putting Canadian policy process in both historical and international politico-military context of time. The purpose of this study is to provide that context by demonstrating impact of three sets of insufficiently-appreciated policy drivers. In this study I use published primary- and secondary-source material, as well as Canadian government files released following access-to-information requests, but 1 rely above all on close to 20 interviews with British, Dutch, American, NATO, and Canadian officials.In this article I first argue that Kandahar was in large measure product of powerful forces brought into being by political decisions in NATO. Those decisions, such as that leading NATO to assume leadership of International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in mid-2003, entailed binding commitments on national governments, whose maturation, though it could take years, was almost inescapable. Second, I demonstrate that Canadian mission preferences had less to do with Kandahar or any other Afghan province per se, and more to do with experience gained from past deployments, notably in Balkans. These preferences coalesced into a virtual policy that required any Canadian contribution to meet a number of precise conditions, and Kandahar was one of few provinces that allowed for doing so. Third, I show that Kandahar was also result of long and extensive talks between Canadian officials and their NATO allies - Dutch and especially British. The talks, for most part informal and exploratory (in sense that no side had a set agenda), were integral to gradual development of a plan aligned with Canadian priorities. Without partnership with Great Britain, Canada's deployment might never have happened.Perhaps most usefully, in presenting arguments above, this analysis of origins of second Kandahar mission reconciles two seemingly contradictory notions. On one hand, it reveals that policy process that ended with a deployment to Kandahar was far more organic (ie. not pre-cooked) than is generally believed; on other, it demonstrates how interplay of aforementioned drivers made a mission there a strong possibility well before it happened.SETTING THE DOMESTIC STAGE: KANDAHAR AND KABUL, CHRETIEN AND MARTINFull-length books could, and likely will, be written about missions preceding Kandahar. …

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