Canada Can Still Make a Huge Difference

Canadian Forces have gained invaluable experience and up-close understanding of how to conduct operations in the utterly challenging security environment in Afghanistan. Our PRTs provide real benefits to the civilian population, along with the boots on the ground that have provided protection for these efforts. But will all that hard-earned experience be lost with a Canadian pullout post-2011? It doesn't need to happen.

In the Ottawa Citizen, Roland Paris lays out a basis for Canada's continued involvement alongside our ISAF and Afghan allies:

In yesterday's throne speech the federal government reiterated its plan to end Canada's military mission in Afghanistan next year. No one can fault Canadians for wanting to conclude this long, costly deployment. But by leaving behind a small contingent of troops to help train the Afghan Army, Canada could make a modest but vital contribution to the ongoing NATO operation.

Building Afghan security forces is central to NATO's disengagement strategy. The alliance hopes that the current "surge" of U.S. troops will reverse the insurgency's momentum and buy time to increase the size and capability of Afghan forces, thus making it possible to hand off the lead responsibility for security to Afghan army and police units, province by province, district by district.

Whether this plan will succeed or fail remains to be seen, but in a universe of bad options, it offers the best prospects for gradually ending NATO's massive Afghan mission in a responsible manner. (An irresponsible strategy, by contrast, would be to withdraw all NATO forces precipitously. Doing so would be a recipe for renewed civil war whose destructiveness would likely dwarf the guerrilla conflict now underway.)...

  Conditions have changed since March 2008. NATO urgently needs trainers now. The Canadian forces that are scheduled to leave Kandahar next year cannot simply be "replaced" by Afghan forces, as the March 2008 motion anticipated. The time has come for our party leaders to consider a new motion -- one that recognizes that Canada can still make important military contributions to the international mission, even after we withdraw the bulk of our forces from Afghanistan.

The OMLT's mission is a risky job: mentors must travel with their Afghan units, even into combat. But it is also an important task -- one that can be performed by a relatively small Canadian contingent.