Defence officials have been staging high-level meetings with foreign counterparts, spent millions of dollars more on foreign travel and hospitality, and placed a greater emphasis on reaching out to non-traditional allies in recent years.
It’s all part of a dedicated strategy first launched two years ago and which has been steadily gaining steam — even as Canada’s traditional foreign service has wrestled with a diminished role and been told to focus on trade, trade and more trade.
National Defence would not make anyone available to talk about its Global Engagement Strategy, but internal documents obtained by Postmedia News show “defence diplomacy” to be a major focus in the post-Afghanistan era.
“This involves a broad spectrum of international activities by the defence team,” reads one briefing document prepared for Defence Minister Peter MacKay in March 2011, “from high-level engagement and visits, to international personnel placements, Canadian defence attachés, ship and aircraft visits, joint exercises and capacity-building initiatives.”
None of these initiatives are particularly new, but National Defence has followed through with aplomb since that memo was written.
Senior officials such as former chief of defence staff Walter Natynczyk, deputy minister Robert Fonberg and MacKay have made official visits to such places as China, India, Russia and Brazil with the aim of establishing stronger ties.
New agreements and treaties aimed at strengthening military ties have been signed with a variety of countries as diverse as Mongolia, Peru and Israel, while Canada is pressing to join new multinational defence organizations in Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Meanwhile, defence attachés in Canadian embassies helped spend $20 million more on travel and hospitality between 2011 and 2012, during which time Foreign Affairs saw its own travel and hospitality spending cut by $18 million.
And that’s not counting the temporary bases have been established in Jamaica, Germany and Kuwait, the soldiers embedded with a Brazilian unit working in Haiti, military equipment donated to Belize and Guatemala, and Canadian soldiers training counterparts in Africa.
The idea isn’t just to bolster Canada’s and the Canadian military’s standing abroad, though that is certainly part of it.
Officials believe closer military relations between countries also can go a long way in promoting international peace and stability.
“China’s growth in Asia-Pacific, both in terms of economic and military power, raises concerns regarding shifting dynamics and thus stability in the region,” reads a briefing note prepared for then-chief of defence staff Walter Natynczyk in advance of his visit to China in March 2012.
“Canada intends to solidify its relationship with China. In support of national interests, DND is initiating an engagement strategy to develop a relationship with the (Chinese military) upon which we can build dialogue and trust.”
Canada isn’t the only place where the idea of “defence diplomacy” is just catching on.
Most recently, Australian defence chief Gen. David Hurley and former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd have also talked about using military engagement and joint exercises as a way to engage China and help prevent a war with the United States.
“We need to know the Chinese, they need to know us, and we work a very constructive program,” Hurley said in an interview in December. “It builds confidence in each other and knowledge about each other.”
Yet National Defence’s diplomatic gain comes as Canada’s traditional foreign service faces significant challenges and what some see as a diminished role.
Nearly 500 foreign service officers walked off the job this week at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa after stalled labour talks, while another 200 did the same in 12 key missions around the world.
While the envoys are demanding better pay, there have been broader concerns in recent years about what some have described as a gutting of Canada’s diplomatic service by the Conservative government.
This has included travel restrictions that were imposed in February 2012, the closing of diplomatic missions in many parts of the world, the government’s refusal to listen to departmental advice, and what some see as the Conservative government’s single-minded focus on trade.
Inspections of Canadian diplomatic missions in recent years have shown Canadian diplomats struggling to meet their objectives because of a lack of resources, personnel or direction from Ottawa.
“Morale at the Mission can best be described as low, due to factors both within and outside of Mission control,” reads one report from the Canadian Embassy in Turkey.
Royal Military College professor Walter Dorn said in the aftermath of Afghanistan, National Defence was looking for a new mission and military diplomacy fit the bill, particularly since Foreign Affairs “has been weakened, downgraded and its traditional strengths have been reduced.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Lee Berthiaume
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