Russia and the War in Ukraine

By any account, the war in Ukraine has been a disaster for just about all concerned, but for different reasons. For the Ukrainian people it has created a near disaster with large parts of the country occupied, infrastructure under constant attack, mass civilian deaths and deportations, and significant military and economic losses. For Russian — and specifically the Russian government — that situation is not as bad but it is really bad. I will confess that I don’t know if Ukraine will, in the end, win the war. I actually don’t even know what that means. What I do know is that Russia has already lost. How so? Just about every aspect of this conflict from the perspective of the Russian government has failed. Its intelligence, command and control, logistics, tactics, and weaponry.  There are several points to consider. 

First, Russia has lost the vast majority of its front line armour. According to Oryx (which is about as good an estimate as one is going to get), Russia has lost over 2000 main battle tanks, huge numbers of armoured personal carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and infantry mobility vehicles. It has lost thousands of other vehicles and appears (at times) to be relying on panel vans to move supplies. Its Black Sea fleet has been virtually incapacitated, Ukrainian operatives have illustrated that they can move across the frontier and set fire to oil storage facilities, factories, and other buildings and derail trains. One needs to take social media reports with a grain of salt but there are reports of Russians using shells manufactured in 1939, and obsolete T-54 battle tanks have been reported in the field. What is equally important is that Russian weapons are clearly vulnerable to western weapons. While there is more than enough blame to go around for this, it is evident that simple point-and-fire Western anti-tank weapons appear to be able to incapacitate even the latest Russian armoured vehicles. 

What this amounts to is this: Russia's weaponry has failed on two counts. Russia has now lost massive amounts of heavy weapons. I don't know exactly how long it will take Russia to replace its lost weapons but I would be shocked if this is not a decade long situation even acknowledging that redevelopment is needed as much as replacement. Russia is so low of weapons -- and soldiers -- that bizarre Wagner mutiny was virtually unopposed inside Russia. There was simply nothing to stop them. And, its weapons are just not as good as they were generally thought to be. 

Second, for whatever bizarre reasons, Russia's assessment of the situation in Ukraine was so wrong it is ... stunning. Russia had had considerable success in the post-Soviet era attempting to extend its "sphere of influence." It has done this in a number of ways. Let's not give too much credit to computer manipulation during American elections. Instead, Russia has worked with right wing populists (Hungry, Trump), who are, for their own reasons, favourable to Russia. It has used Wagner mercenaries to prop up and so curry favour in the Middle East and Africa. It has ruthlessly repressed internal dissent, and it has made its level best of separatist movements to carve up Georgia and the Moldova, for instance. There was success in 2014 in taking control of Crimea and part of the Dombas in Ukraine. What was wrong this time was legion. It is almost as if the Russian government assumed that nothing had changed since 2014. Russia underestimated the degree to which the Ukrainians would fight back, the degree to which Ukraine and NATO had effectively retrained Ukraine's military, the degree to which western (and other) countries would rally round Ukraine providing vital support, the potential degree of support of its own allies, let alone Russia's own abilities to conduct an extended mission on foreign territory with limited logistics support. 

Put together, what all of this means is that Russia will emerge from its debacle in Ukraine far weaker than it went in. If the objective of attacking Ukraine was to establish a friendly government, seize or secure resources (particularly but not exclusively in the Dombas), secure military facilities (Crimea), while illustrating the speed and effectiveness of its military ... every possible objective has not only failed so far but has failed completely. Add to this that Russia's supposed allies in central Asia don't seem to want much to do with it -- and must, now, necessarily be considering a potential post-Putin future -- its standard of living has been hit -- and will continue to be -- and hundreds of thousands of Russians are in exile, providing a potential basis for a long-range anti-government opposition. But, it gets worse. Whatever territories Russia has been able to seize are not secure nor are the military basis in the Crimea. They can only be protected -- if they can be -- by an extended and expensive conflict. Said differently, Russia's military basis are less secure than they were, it access to resources have been impeded and cannot be secured, and at least some section of its population has become deeply skeptical of governmental leadership. 

And, we can throw in the kicker. NATO has expanded and the EU will as well. The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced Sweden and Finland off the fence and shifted the centres of authority in NATO to the east. As this conflict moves well into its second year, Poland has emerged as a key player in NATO, while a block of Balkan countries has become a key focus on both the EU and NATO. The addition of Sweden and Finland to NATO will augment this shift.  In other words, if the objective of the invasion was to enhance Russian power, the result has been the exact opposite. The conflict has served to enhance the military and political power of countries hostile (or, now hostile) to Russia. 

The odd thing is, I don't think it needed to be this way. There have already been a number of analysis of what went wrong for Russia, but the big thing that went wrong was the decision making process. Even under the most favourable circumstances, the Russia could have hoped for was to secure more Ukrainian territory losing less of its own soldiers. It would still be embroiled in this scenario. There is a need for a critical analysis of the governmental situation in Russia -- including the balance of various social classes and their connections to specific sections of the economy -- that can highlight the political organization of the state that made possible these kinds of decisions. Russia has been able to maintain its field operations only through fairly drastic means (use of mercenaries, prisoners, foreign workers, and minority groups) as front line soldiers. But, that can't continue for ever. Ukraine's counter offensive is slow but they make gains each day, destroy more Russia equipment each day, and force more drastic measures (such as flooding a vast region to slow down a counter offensive), but each of these movements can only buy time. They can't reverse what has happened. Moreover, Ukraine is now strong enough that it has no reason to leave this conflict "frozen." If that worked in Moldova and Georgia, the relative balance of power will means it won't work here. 

I think, before the invasion, maybe two or three years before, there was room for a solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict that could have prevented the war. That solution involved each country accepting certain things that it did not want to accept. For instance, Russia needed to abandon separatists in the Dombas. This was always an artificial movement anyway. If Russian-speaking Ukrainians living in that region were concerned about their culture and autonomy within Ukraine political solutions were available. This included some form of bilingualism and local autonomy or semi-federal arrangements. Both sides could have agreed to a demilitarization of the region and separatists needed to disarm. All this could have been possible, if Russia and Russian-speaking separatists were being honest. If they weren't ... well .... I suspect they weren't. 

Crimea could have been much more difficult to address but some kind of condominium status might have worked, monitored by third parties or the UN. Agreements on off shore authority would need to be worked out but, again, all this would have depended on the honesty of those involved.  These kinds of deals don't seem great but they allow Ukraine to avoid costly and destructive war while allowing Russia -- and Russian separatists -- the security for which they claim they were looking. 

In the longer run -- and I suspect this is one of the reasons the current government of Russia would not have been interested in this kind of deal -- Russia would also have to accept Ukraine's borders and accept its sovereignty. This means that it has the right to arm itself and the right to make its own international decisions. Exactly why Russia should be concerned about that, however, is a bit confusing to me and might require the kind of political-economic analysis I noted above. 

I say this because I can't see how a European-oriented Ukraine is, in any way, a threat to Russia. Before the conflict, Russia itself was pretty European oriented. It sold mass amounts of energy to Europe, its elites vacationed in the west and had extensive business interests there. There is also a long-running cultural connection. On some things -- say, opposition to ISIS -- there was even room for common international accord. Complaining about a European-oriented Ukraine seems at best hypocritical so something else must have been going on. 

I might also take the time to say that this conflict is not the fault of the Ukraine, the US, the EU, or the west. Let me pick an example, the idea that Russia has a natural interest in Ukraine and this means that Ukraine does not have the right to select its own system of international relations is a serious backward step in IR. Anyone making it is either a toady or working with some sort of bizarrely backward conceptions of IR. We are not -- and should not be -- in a time where people can say that, say, the US caused the conflict by maintaining a relationship with Ukraine. It did not. The decision to start this conflicts rests solely and exclusively with the Russian leadership and the problems it has created are their responsibility. Because they made such bad decisions, the problems are going to take a long time resolve and will cause tensions, potentially, for decades to come. 

Thinking After Trump: Canada and US Foreign Policy

 On August 15th, the UN Security Council voted against a US motion to extend the international arms embargo against Iran. The US government then accounts it would use provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015) as a way to “snapback” those sanctions for, what it views, as Iranian non-compliance with the original agreement. The problem, of course, as JCPOA members quickly told the US, it had already withdrawn form the agreement in 2018 and was now a non-member since it had, in effect, already rejected the provisions of the agreement two years ago. There are a series of serious issues that go along with this current situation that relate to the extension of US power, the shape of the world environment, and exactly how this situation should be assessed as part of US foreign policy. Virtually no members of the UN Security Council, for instance, supported the US move to re-impose sanctions and European powers were quick to tell the US it had not standing with the JCPOA. 

The question I want to address in this blog is different: what does this tell us about the issues facing Canada on the world stage and Canada’s relationship with the US. After the most recent US aluminum tariffs, I listed to a number of commentators say something like “what Canada needs to do now is simply wait until the coming US election which see the replacement of the current administration with a more reasonable one.” I know the issue is more complicated than that but, at first, I tended to agree.  What I am thinking about now is that there might be a way to Canada to build a new foreign policy relationship with the US in a post-Trump era. I don’t necessarily think this will be easy but I also think that there may be a range of Americans who are interested in the subject even if will undoubtedly be controversial in the US. 

At the heard of the Trump election strategy was the slogan “Make America Great Again.” These words carry with them an at least implicit foreign policy because they assert an international pre-eminence. The Trump administration’s foreign policy has sought this greatness even if its approach been far from consistent. Despite the fact that Trump has drawn on Republicans to direct it, his administration has disavowed many of the key aspects of his own party’s approach to world affairs. One should not have a lot of nostalgia here. The War on Terror, neo-liberalism, rejection of international environmental standards, among other things, were all hallmarks of Republican foreign policy. 

Historically, pre-Trump Republican foreign policy has not been popular either internationally or within Canada. But, key foreign policy thinkers associated largely, if not completely, with conservative politics have tended to argue that Canada needed to follow the lines laid down by the US. These people tended to self-style themselves as “realists.”  They tended to advocated hard power, close military and diplomatic connections to the US, and support for US foreign policy goals. They tended to reject what they saw as “moralism” in foreign policy, arguing that the only standard against which foreign policy should be measured was interests of state. This close connection to the US, they tended to argue, was good for Canada for three reasons. (#1) The US was the pre-eminent power in the world. By having a good relationship with the US, Canada gained power on the world stage, as it were, by riding on US coattails. (#2) Canada needed the US on its side because of the degree to which the Canadian economy was dependent on the US. The US could, should it have wanted, cripple our economy. (#3) The US was right most of the time anyway. Its opponents were terrorists and military dictators or authoritarian communist countries. 

Against this way of thinking about the world – Canada as a subservient ally of the US – was a different way of thinking about the world that is associated, in some measure, with the peacekeeping ideal. This way of thinking is most closely associated with liberal intellectuals and, to a significant extent, with the Liberal party, but that requires some nuance. The basics of this way of looking at the world were that Canada should have its own international identity and that there was nothing wrong with being on the side of the angels; that is: there was nothing wrong with morality. Indeed, it was good for Canada’s international reputation and good for Canadians who were well liked (at least compared to Americans) on the world stage. Canada found its foreign policy identity through constructive international engagement and multilateralism that allowed it to work together with other countries to accomplish positive ends and hedge in the power game. In other words, Canada’s aims were a stable, peaceful, and constructive international environment that limited the ability of “might makes right” politics by setting up international institutions that operated according to the rule of international law and some measure of global democracy (with votes vested in the nation-state).

I have no special clarity with regard to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. It seems to me that when its history is written, studies will see it as based in a series of factors that include:

• An effort to further free the US from multilateral and international commitments to extend its ability to use its own might makes right policy approach. That is: to have more of a free hand with regard to international affairs and not be bound by alliances, agreements, and the like. 
• A belief in the power of personal relations with world leaders to address issues (say, by establishing a direct personal relationship with the Putin and Kim-Il Jong) as a way to address problems
• A focus on economic deal-making, employing retaliatory threats, particularly with allies, in an effort to gain an edge. Allies and partners (say, Canada) were, in particular, viewed with suspicion.  The goal of US economic relations with Canada was not to further common goals. Instead, it looked more like neo-liberal mercantilism. The goal is to get something from, as an example, Canada. 

We don’t need to go over these points and I recognize that there are other considerations that need to be included to have a fuller discussion. What it does, however, is highlight the degree to which even Canadian conservatives will have a hard time buying into their formerly near unconditional support for the US international agenda. There are two key reasons for this. 

#1) Conservatives used to argue that bad relations with the US were a problem and they tended to fault Liberal-minded PMs (PET, Jean Chretien) for it. Their overt anti-Americanism, for instance, conservative thinkers and politicians argued, poisoned the relationship with the US and endangered both the Canadian economy and Canada’s international standing with it. It is now impossible to make this argument. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a government that has been more sensitive (the odd mistake to one side) and more concerned with not offending the US government than Justin Trudeau’s. Even at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, Trudeau refrained from any public criticism of the United States and its government. During intense trade negotiations when US figures publicly hammered Canada, Canadian political leaders and trade negotiators were, more or less, silent. Yet, this silence has bought noting and cannot by anything because the current US government is not looking to get any support from Canada for anything. Canada’s support is, in fact, irrelevant to it.  What it wants from Canada is not agreement but, as it were, increased regulation of the Canadian economy. IOW, the result of being nice to the US is not economic gain but economic decline via production limitations. 

#2) It is impossible to pretend that the US has the global power and influence it had a number of years ago. Indeed, even a number of years ago that power was waning. US power and influence are not things of the past. I’ve read studies that talk about historical shifts in international affairs as if they were some sort of cycle. They are not. But, the US no longer commands the world stage the way it did during the Cold War or the New World Order eras. Economically, US domination is challenged not by a single country (although China gets a lot of press) but by an expanded international regionalization of power. Countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, Indian, Russia don’t wait for US permission for anything. They might be world leaders or they might aspire to this but they are in the process of carving out their own regionalized and international spheres of influence. The US finds itself as one of a series of global regional powers and that is the reality with which it has to grapple. 

I don’t expect that grappling to be easy. I don’t expect a lot of Americans will want to embrace it. And, I suspect that lot of Americans are looking simply to see themselves as “great again,” regardless of what that happens to mean. For Canada, however, it means that one end of a long-standing debate in Canadian foreign policy is over. There are good reasons to have a good relationship with the US and I will spell these out later, and the US economic connection is still important for Canada. But, whatever happens next for conservative approach to the US and Canadian foreign policy, it cannot be a return to the subservient ally approach of past days. What is equally important, I will indicate in my next blog, that the liberal alternative might also be inoperative. If history has moved past Canadian realism and its design to be close to the US, it might also have moved past its liberal alternative as well. 

And ... you already forgot about it: Canada and Saudi Arabia

In the world of international diplomacy and foreign policy, there are certain unwritten rules. One of them is that mild criticism is to be expected and is to be either ignored or politely refuted if it is meaningless in practical terms, as was Canada's criticism of Saudi Arabia. For those who missed it, and I can actually see why you would, a number of weeks ago the Government of Canada issued a tweet critical of Saudi Arabia's human rights record. It was the mildest form of international criticism that one could have -- sort of like a cap and trade is the mildest form of environment protection policy one can have other than not protecting the environment or encouraging pollution, but that is another story to which I will circle around again. It is not intended as a point of international dispute, nor to disrupt relations, nor even to elicit a response. It may, as I suggested in my previous post, even be intended for domestic consumption. To be clear: Canada was going to do nothing with regard to Saudi Arabia. What upset the Saudis -- what triggered their effort to construct a one-country hard power-based boycott of Canada -- was a tweet suggesting that human rights were good.

What I want to do in this blog is further explore the fallout from this tweet in order to think about what it tells us about contemporary public life. I'll conclude by thinking a bit about how Canada should respond to this. But, and this is the key point I want to emphasize, it is fair enough to ask: what bad happened? Despite some prognostications of really bad stuff happening ... well, nothing did. The Canadian economy did not collapse; Canada's relations with the rest of the world were not harmed; the supposed mass withdraw of Saudi medical students and residents that would cripple the health care system did not come to pass and the journalists who reported these things as if they were true have now moved on to other matters.

This is important and ties into a series of other developments related to Canadian public life. The first and most obvious is the power of social media. But, to be clear, I think this is, in fact, the least important element of this story. Social media allows this story to happen in "real time" ... well, sort of .... but what happened here sped up developments that were occurring anyway. To be clear again, I think social media does have an effect on public life. I recommend Angela Nagle's book _Kill All Normies_ for a good study. But, in this case, the issue was not social media per se, but a government that was not interested in "taking" what it saw as criticism and which it construed as "meddling" in its internal affairs.  Social media makes statements -- like the one made by the Government of Canada --easy and, potentially, gratuitous, and that is a problem. But if we were to prioritize issues, the issue here is an unwillingness to accept criticism.

What is important in this regard -- and what is telling -- is the shockingly limited and mild character of the criticism. The Canadian government, in fact, issued the mildest possible tweet that carried with it no practical consequences.  That is a problem for the supporters of human rights, but it is not a problem for the Saudi government. I'd guess that the Canadian government was shocked by the Saudi response. This is a sign of how much times have changed. In the past, one might have expected the Saudi's to ignore the criticism or to register some sort of diplomatic response.

What this shows us, I previously argued, is the degree to which Saudi Arabia lacks serious soft power mechanisms of foreign policy and so must "go for the jugular," as it were, of hard power right away. But, what it also illustrates is the degree to which governments are unwilling to bridge any criticism and reject even the mildest form of progressive politics.  The Trump detainment of children in the US is an example. The that the proper response to gun violence is more guns is another. In Canada, the Ford government's rejection of cap and trade (the mildest most capitalistic form of environmental protection) is another example.

What this illustrates is not simply limited capacity to take other actions but an unwillingness to meet even the mildest of progressive concerns about human rights, families, safety in schools, or the environment.

I know my language is loaded, but in the US polls demonstrate among Republicans a marked decline in empathy. In other words, people are having a harder time putting themselves in others shoes and thinking through public life from that perspective. In the past, even opponents of environmental protection would have recognized that something needed to be done. They would have low-balled it. What is going on now is something different. In effect, the government of Saudi Arabia is saying not only do we reject the idea of gender of equality but we will do everything we can to shut down anyone who  thinks they can promote it. What Ford is saying with the end of cap and trade is not simply "I'm skeptical about global warming" but "I feel that the off chance that cap and trade might end up costing the average Ontarian a few bucks is too much."  What is Ford's plan to deal with environmental change? Well ... he has none because he has just ditched the mildest possible form of environmental protection.

What has gone on here, then, is another sign of the changes in politics and changes in public life. In the US, the opponents of immigration and no longer willing to say "yes, children should be protected" but now see children as an enemy. In Canada, the opponents of environmental protection see even the simplest and least intrusive mechanisms of trying to protect the earth as too costly. The opponents of gender equality in Saudi Arabia, see even soft, mild, and meaningless criticism as a step worthy of as much vindictive as one could possibly mount.

What should we do about this? Well, it changes politics and there is a broader issue that needs to be addressed in that regard. I have no intention of crapping on progressive politics. Instead, I will argue that I think progressive politics needs to re-evaluate its approach to public life. How that is done is another story.

Right now, I don't think Canada should back down before Saudi Arabia or Doug Ford. There are good signs still out there. Ford's campaign against the carbon tax went nowhere (although I am worried about the time it is taking the Liberals to get the ball rolling on this). He will lose whatever constitutional challenge he thinks he can mount (although I suspect that he knows that and whatever challenges are coming are intended to delay implementation as long as possible, hoping for more provincial political winds to change). But, backing down is not the solution. He has had to resort to extreme means to reduce the size of Toronto City Council.

Let's look at Saudi Arabia. The issue is not Canada versus Saudi Arabia. In fact, if we accept that logic and buy into that discourse, we are buying into the discourse that Saudi Arabia wants us to buy into.  Many Saudis support expanding human rights. Their government is among the least democratic on the face of the earth (which is why many people argued against military truck and trade with them). Frankly, I could care less what an undemocratic militarized government thinks of my government. It makes no difference to me and to anyone who thinks seriously about this issue. But, I think, as well, that we can and should refuse the discourse they want us to accept because it makes it look like everything in Saudi Arabia is just peachy but for those nasty meddling Canadians and if you think that is the case ... well ... I happen to own a bridge to PEI that I'll sell you cheap.

Instead what is at issue is two things:

1. Is Canada good to its word? If the Canadian government -- any government -- backs down before hard power threats (in effect, what the Saudi government is saying is "we will do all we can to hurt you") ... they will be backing down on ... well ... just about everything else. And, the things that Canada supposedly stands for will be lost.  Don't read what I am not writing. I am not arguing that Canada is perfect, that Canada's human rights record is good, that there is not a great deal that Canada needs to do.  What I am asking is this: what is the price of our morals? Or, personalize it, what is the price or your morals, values, and ethics?

The truth of the matter is that there is little Saudi Arabia can do to hurt Canada. It can sell off some government bonds but someone else will buy them. It can cut flights but ... so what? That won't stop transit. It can send the ambassador home but that is purely political theatre without any meaningful effect. And it can recall some students but those are Saudi students anyway. Messing up the education and careers of Saudi students is kind of silly and sort of like shooting one's self in the foot but, hey, if they want to do it ... go ahead.

The issue is nationally, what is our morality worth to us? If we back down, when there is nothing significant on the line, we say ... gee, even the smallest price is something that we are not willing to pay. We become, in other words, the progressive version of Doug Ford.  I'd like to believe that, as a people, we stand for something more than a few extra pennies in our pocket at the end of the fiscal year.

2. The second issue is whether or not we accept the shifting parameters of political discourse. Mild and meaningless criticism is not meddling in another country's internal affairs. If it were, Donald Trump -- whose criticism of Canada is far from mild and might not be meaningless -- would be the world's biggest meddler. Speaking only for myself, I am concerned about a political environment where even the mildest form of progressive politics -- politics intended to improve people's lives, to get them out of jail, say -- is viewed as a bridge too far.

Canada may not be able to go to traditional allies and partners in this new world of more extreme discourse and response but, in my view, that should not stop Canada from trying to be a positive force in the world. That is hypocritical. I know. Canada has much too look after and one's morality is not license to mess around in other countries.  Explaining how the two can be melded is another blog that I'll write sometime. But, I suspect that Canada will find that there are partners with which we can work to promote positive change.  It might not be the US or Saudi Arabia, but it might include some nifty countries and might provide a change to create some non-traditional relations. Working with those partners is Canada's next step in foreign policy.

Finally, the point I made at the start of this blog, one needs to avoid over-reacting. If some of the critics of the current government were to be believed, Canada should have retreated right then and there and/or never offered even the mildest of support for human rights. Yet, a few weeks later, the storm has blow over, other issues have become more pressing, and disaster has not occurred. I have no doubt opposition politicians will, later, try to "make hay" on this event: the government screwed up relations with .... But, if nothing significant has happened, how actually could that case be made? In this day and age of social media, evidence does not seem to really need to be in supply. All one seems to need to do make a vague assertion that can strike a memory.  It is up to those of us who support human rights to correct this vague assertion and memory.

Saudi Foreign Policy and Canada

It is easy to speculate about others actions when you don't know much about a country. This is the Canadian dilemma with regard to Saudi Arabia. While I suspect most Canadians could find the country on a map and are aware that it is a major oil producer with a state religion ... that is likely about it. For one reason or another, Saudi Arabia has made Canada the brunt of its vindictive and it is pulling out all the stops ... or, at least all the stops it can. It is sending the Canadian ambassador home, selling off Canadian state investment it owns (and perhaps private investments as well), stopping flights back and forth to Canada, and recalling a whole bunch of its students (perhaps up to 16 000) studying at Canadian universities.

By Canadian standards this is big stuff. Canadian knowledge of foreign policy often begins and ends with whatever has been on the news of late and the United States. And, these are often the same thing. Canadians are aware of things going on in other parts of the world, to be sure, and they often have deep -- and conflicting -- views on those subjects (say, Israel and Palestine, nuclear disarmament and North Korea, Russian intervention in other parts of the world, etc.) But ... Saudi Arabia ... in a spat with Canada and ... over a tweet .... seriously ... a tweet ...  that was, well, more or less the mildest form of criticism that the Canadian government could possibly have offered. You can find an assessment here.

What is going on -- that is, what should we learn from this -- and what should Canada do about it? This is a two part question, but a potentially important one for the development of Canadian foreign policy. So far, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has stuck to its guns but what is also clear is that this government does not know a great deal about foreign policy and is having a very difficult time navigating international waters. In large measure, I want to argue, this is because the world is different and IR theories that developed and were designed for past times -- even the recent past -- won't work. Canada needs, in other words, a foreign policy -- even a foreign policy of criticism -- that is conscious of its historical moment. So far, at least from what I can tell, neither the current government nor its critics have really demonstrated that. Instead, they are recycling the debates of the Harper era and that will not get Canada where it wants to go.

What is going on is several things. First, there are things specific to Saudi Arabia. It has established a particularly aggressive foreign policy of late: supporting rebels in Syria, attempting to internationally isolate Qatar, and conducting a destructive civil war in Yemen. It is embroiled in a three way fight for influence in its region of the world (with Iran and Turkey) and beyond. At home, it has cracked down on peaceful dissent, which includes (among others) women's rights activists. What are the wider implications of this?

Several inter-related factors are important to consider: the world of the Middle East, in which Saudi Arabia was a repressive but internationally peaceful and predictable client state of the US has now passed. Saudi Arabia will not step on US toes, because of US power, but otherwise it will follow what it perceives to be in its own interests and it will use hard power mechanisms to accomplish its aims. This has occurred, again, for a couple of reasons:

(A) Saudi Arabia lacks soft power options. It shouldn't. Its oil-based bankroll should allow it to develop a fuller range of foreign policy options, including effective diplomacy. For whatever reason, the Saudi government has chosen not to take that course but to instead focus on hard power options. Or, in the case of Canada, as hard a power as they can muster. The neglect of soft power foreign policy options, in other words, has left Saudi Arabia with few alternatives to a bellicose -- and potentially irrational --  foreign policy that seems intended to force other states into its line.

Canada is a good example. While the Canadian government would likely continue mild criticism of Saudi Arabia (as it does with a range of other states), that criticism is meaningless and, in the case of the current government, more or less intended for domestic consumption. In other words, these kind of tweets appeal to soft-centre-left Canadians who support human rights, were horrified by their almost complete irrelevance to the Harper government, and want to see their government saying the "right things." In point of fact, this is the kind of international human rights engagement against which supporters of human rights in Canada have been quick to argue. Talk that really does little.

And, make no bones about it, Canada was not actually going to do anything serious about the Saudi human rights record. It didn't want to because the current government does not really know what it is is doing on the world stage and the Conservative opposition is more interested in potential military sales than anything else.

What this means, of course, is that the Saudi effort to create a one-state embargo of Canada was meaningless. In fact, I'd guess that a lot more Canadians are aware of Saudi Arabia's human rights record today than they were a week ago. I'd guess a lot more people are scratching their head about the Saudi government and wondering about the political rationality of its policies now than a week ago. Not only has Saudi Arabia drawn more international attention to its own bad record, but it can't cause Canada to back down.

Why? Because whether we like it or not, the discourse of human rights is a selling issue with Liberals and long has been. Trudeau's father was, of course, a huge supporter of rights (think Charter) but so are people like Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland and so are the people who vote Liberal or whom the Liberals want to vote Liberal. The Liberals have no monopoly on human rights, of, but the issue seems to resonate with significant sections of the Canadian population and those are the sections where the Liberals are looking for votes. Put in different terms, if Canada misjudged Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has misjudged Canada.

In terms of realpolitik, Saudi Arabia is playing a losing game here too and this is a key point. Saudi economic interchange with Canada is simply not great enough to have any effect. Imagine, for instance, that the highest estimate of Saudi students in Canada is true and 16 000 university students disappear. This is a tiny number. According to Universities Canada there are 1.7 million students in Canadian universities. The CBC this morning made much of the 700 or 800 Saudi medical students in Canada, but ... are we  to believe that there are no students, say in Canada, who might like those spots in medical school?  Sending an ambassador home is a big diplomatic move (that is why most countries never do it) but it is largely meaningless in terms of policy. Cancelling flights inconveniences people who fly but it does not stop transit between Canada and Saudi Arabia. It just inconveniences ordinary people looking to make the flight, perhaps university students who now have to look for a new school that will accept their credits less than a month before school starts (less than a few weeks before the US fall semester begins).

(B) This is not, however, just an instance of Saudi Arabia looking to exert its authority on the world stage. It illustrates a transition in world power away from the US/USSR binary of the Cold War era or the single super-power of the post-Cold War age and toward a more multi-centered international power system in which different countries compete internationally with each other and with "the west" for international influence and authority. In this regard, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran, among others, are all engaged in the same international politics. The issue, in other words, is only Canada a little bit. It is really about other things and this is what the current Canadian government might have misjudged.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Canada should be silent in the face of international human rights abuses and I don't think that Canadians should back down in front of aggressive hard power politics ... when they are in the right. I'll get to this in my next post.

What we are seeing, however, is what a multi-polar world looks like. The increased US evacuation of international politics under Trump is facilitating this development. While the previous US government, for instance, would almost certainly have "sided with Canada" (at least in terms of public statements), the current one has not and likely will not. Their approach is this: "this is none of our business and we wish both sides well. We hope they solve their problems." Likewise the EU -- preoccupied with its own issues -- took basically the same stance.

What does this mean? Well, it means that Canadians should not look to the US or the EU for support for our actions on the international stage. I watched CBC this AM and there was mild surprise that others -- our traditional allies -- have not sided up with us. But, the fact that our media at least were looking for this illustrates how much they have misjudged the world.

Not only is easy and ready support for an "international consensus" on human rights at hand, but it is not clear that there is an international consensus on human rights.

Again, don't get me wrong. I think the ordinary person -- the ordinary Canadian, American, Briton, German, South African, etc. -- is completely in favour of human rights. But, exactly how much political capital their governments are prepared to spend on it is not clear. We know from polling in the US that there is a decline in empathy, particularly among Republican supporters. Put in other words, things that we all could have previously assumed ... might not be easy to assume.  The new right in Europe, for instance, seems simply to not care about the lives of refugees. And, we have all see the problems with child-parent reunification in the US. Lots of people care, to be sure, and show that care every day. But, lots of others ... don't and this is giving, I think, their governments pause.

The influence of the decline of empathy on domestic politics, then, has the interesting and important effect of emboldening human-rights violating regimes. They were violating human rights before, that is clear, but they did so in different ways. Now, criticism of the violation of human rights is construed as "meddling" in another state's internal affairs. And, the declining international power of the US and indifference of European states facilitates that process.

For Canada, this means -- and Canadians should note this -- there is cavalry riding the rescue.  Canada needs to be deliberate in its actions and secure in its ability to stand on its own feet. (Again, more on this in the next post.)

The wider picture is this: this is what the post-New World Order -- the post-global age --  looks like.  It is not necessarily pretty. Rather than regionalized economic power blocks figuring out how to collaborate with each other under the umbrella of the WTO, what we have is militarized quests of influence based in little else than hard power. It is not pretty at all. But, perhaps even because of this, now is the time to rethink Canadian foreign policy. We should not abandon a commitment to human rights but we need to figure out exactly how to meet that aim in changing circumstances.

American Elections and Alternative Visions

Republicanism fails. At least this is the point I tried to make in my last post. It fails not because it provides some sort of cover for what is really a covert imperialist project (although it might do this, too). It fails because it cannot deliver what it promises. What it promises, it seems to me, or the ideas it claims to support, are not illegitimate. Some of the stuff the lurks beneath the covers of Republicanism might be illegitimate. To be sure: there are bigots, rednecks, intolerant people, anti-gay people, xenophobes, etc., who vote for the Republican party and who like George Bush, Jr. They are not the average American. And, to be honest, they don’t really concern me. I’m never going to convince, say, someone who is vibrantly anti-immigration to change their views. I’m never going to convince a racist that she or he is wrong. What concerns me is the mass of average, ordinary working and middle class Americans who are not like this.

What are those concerns that are so legitimate? If you go through all the different planks in the Republican platform, the basic focus (whether in political, military, international, or cultural or economic, etc., policy) is on security. Republicans believe America is under siege from either internal or external enemies. These enemies make America soft; they question the integrity of its institutions, they question its traditions, they threaten the safety of its citizens. The idea of security is much more than a wall along a border or helicopters patrolling the boundaries of Saskatchewan wheat fields. Security is about knowing your kids can walk to school without problems; that your niece who is travelling Europe after finishing college is OK. Its about knowing your job is going to be there next week or next month or next year. Its about having enough money to pay for groceries. Its about the air we breath and the water we drink. Security, IOW, is about a series of intensely human concerns that are entirely legitimate.

Republicans took this legitimate concern with security and spun it in a negative and defensive way. In addition to being a complete policy failure, the other big problem with the security agenda is its inwardness. And, I think this is another thing that came to the fore in the recent American mid-term elections. At least a section of the American public is expressing increasing concern about the inward-looking conception of security mobilized by Republicans. They are looking for something else. In what is really a two-party system, this means voting Democrat. It is not clear, however, that the Democrats have isolated what the American public is actually looking for, nor that they are the people to develop constructive policies that address public concerns. The lesson of this election and the previous ones is that they should or, very quickly, they will find themselves on the outs again.

This is why. The American public in voting against Republicans voted against a conception of security and vision of the future that was static. What the Republicans look to do is make America secure. And, they aim to do this, by and large, through force of arms, advanced technology, assertions of traditional values, and dissembling the institutions of the welfare state that empowered previously marginalized people. By its very nature, the security agenda seeks to protect what Americans already have. This is precisely its problem. It seeks to preserve and conserve. It does not seek to expand and develop. The great weakness of Republicanism, other than the fact it is a policy flop, is that it offers nothing beyond “security”, even rhetorically. The Republican project for the US is to preserve “our way of life” from threat.

Let me suggest that this is not enough. Historically, the American project of nation stood for so much else. It meant a lot more then keeping what one had. We can all acknowledge that the ideal of America has been compromised in practice, but what it stood for was important both inside and outside the US. The American project of nation was to build a different kind of society. It was not just to preserve what one had but to make something new, something better, something more fair, something based on principle rather than history. The American revolutionary tradition is nothing to sneeze at. Its an important intellectual trajectory that expressed -- in its classic formulation -- some complex and important ideas. The “founding fathers” were looking to see the creation of a new society based on balancing political and economic imperatives, on a commitment to equality, on democracy, on justice that was not arbitrary. They were interested in the transparency of government and its accountability.

Since that time, other ideas have been added to this tradition as other revolutionary thinkers have contributed to the American intellectual tradition: ethnic and racial equality, legal equality of all before the law, state action to help the poor, universal public education, religious pluralism, among others.

In my view, the American intellectual tradition is at its best when it is not defensive. It is at its best when it is expansive, when it is looking to be dynamic, and when it is acting on principle to make something new. This is, I think, the real problem with Republicanism: it can’t do this. It can’t offer Americans anything new. It can only offer them a protected past. A Republican who offers something new -- stem cell research, equality for gay people, socialized medicine, gun control, bilingualism -- won’t be a Republican for very long. They won’t even get past the primary. Republicanism, then, by definition is not about American living up to its highest ideals. Its about a garrison mentality that preserves what one has -- and, to be sure, this is worth preserving -- from a hostile world.

The mid-term election results suggest that the American public is looking for something like the type of alternative vision on which the United States was founded to be again articulated by the Democratic Party. They need to do it. The Democratic Party has, rightly, be shot down by pundits for its failure to have much in the way of policy. Instead, it has tried to “moderate” its liberalism, taking a few planks from the Republican policy platform in order to win government. It should stop this. The mid-term election results did not produce Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress because Democrats took a fine lines from George Bush’s defensive vision of America. It won because people want something else. I believe the Democratic Party should start articulating that something else and it should begin with foreign policy.

What can/should a new American foreign policy entail? A number of things. First, a commitment to military disengagement in Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that the US will have to negotiate with the very people it (and, its allies like us in Canada) are trying to hunt down and kill. This is going to be hard. Its going to be painful. Its going to provoke accusations of “treating with terrorists” and “soft on terrorism” from the American right. My advise to the Democrats: tough it out. Trust the American public to understand what you are trying to do: establish real security through peace. Negotiated peace in Afghanistan and Iraq is going to take a long time, but the US needs to indicate to Iraqis and Afghans that it will discuss peace with the people who they support and who represent them. Like it or not, the “insurgents” in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan have a popular base. Talks will need to begin. Second, the US needs to begin one on one talks with North Korea. This will be a PR victory for North Korea but who cares? North Korea is a totalitarian state. Everything is a PR victory for North Korea within that country. Outside of it, no one is tricked by that propaganda. By beginning these talks the US can find out exactly what the North Korean government wants. And, it might be able to address some of its concerns in return for a return to non-proliferation.

Third, the US has to stop building a security wall along the Mexican border. This plays so poorly internationally and comes so close the dystopic sci-fi models of a gated American (see Handmaid’s Tale) that it is not funny. Instead, the US should work with Mexico and other Latin American countries to establish reasonable rates of migration to the US and naturalization processes for those who are already in that country.

Fourth, the US has to stop supporting Israel no matter what it does. It needs to recognize the legitimate government of the Palestinian Authority (Hamas) and it needs to stop providing aid and arms to Israel as long as it continues its policy of violent attacks on Palestinian citizens. Republicans in the US periodically ask “why do they hate us?” The one thing that could convince a whole bunch of “them” that the US is not that bad is to have a reasonable two-state policy solution for Palestinians. By recognizing and dealing with Hamas the US will indicate to Arab peoples that it respects democracy, even if democracy produces election results it does not like. Right now the US looks (to Arab peoples) like hypocritical nation. It preaches democracy and supports Israel because it is “democratic” but doesn’t do the same thing for Arabic-speaking peoples.

There is a lot more that could and should be done as well, but this is a good start. All of this can be done under the name of a new foreign policy, let’s call it “the new human security agenda.” Those who are defensive and static minded -- current Republican supporters -- won’t like any of this. To them, it will be the equivalent of supporting terrorism. It is, however, the only way: (1) the US can promote real peace and security, and (2) the only way it can establish its project of nation as a new and powerful democratic ideal.