Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW

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His master's voice: a foreign policy that is actually noticed

by Paul Wells on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:34pm - 10 Comments

australia-diplomacy After a decade in power, John Howard landed himself a presidential invitation to Blair House in Washington, and left his country’s diplomatic apparatus to rot. The story. The report.

Some people will be delighted that Australian diplomacy stagnates while it diligently builds its armies. Indeed I have colleagues who sometimes contrast Canada’s mealymouthed whatever with the fine, virile, manly-man stance of the great, wonderful Howard government. They are invited to compare and contrast Canadian combat casualties in Afghanistan with combined Australian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tags: Australia, John Howard

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Critical Reasoning

I count two Australian military deaths in Iraq, and nine in Afghanistan. Is that right?
Paul Wells

Somewhere in that ballpark. Look, I really don’t want to make much of a fuss over this. I know Australia’s commitment in Afghanistan is highly valued. But I really, really hate it when colleagues use Australia to run Canada down. The evidence for this line of argument is… slim.

leigh

I dislike it when Canadians travel to Australia to run Canada down like Granatstein did in a talk I heard at ANU in 2005. Plus, it was an embarrassingly bad presentation.
Phil Lagasse

Spot on. Thank you for posting this, Paul.

CAPS

Well Germaine Greer herself did say that Australia is the most macho society on earth.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Maybe the moral of the story is military and diplomacy go hand-in-hand. I don’t know what your colleagues were saying, Paul, but I would argue what Canada had done for years before we got involved in Afghan was to stand on the sidelines during major conflagrations while telling the participants what they should be doing. We were the world’s back-seat driver.

If Canadians expect to have our voice heard outside the country, we need to participate much more militarily.

rumor

How do you justify your opinion given that Canada’s approach to foreign affairs since the Pearson era indisputably garnered a high level of *unique* respect internationally for its efforts at diplomatic brokerage and pursuit of peaceable causes (I am not just referring to peacekeeping efforts here, of course, but for example the treaty on land mines)? It is simply false to imply that Canada’s voice has not been heard internationally. It has in fact been heard for decades and well respected for what it has been saying.

Note I’m not arguing here that you need to agree with the policies pursued internationally by Canada in the past. Your argument is that Canada was not “heard” well internationally and that it *requires* a larger military effort to be heard. This is demonstrably false. So how do you justify your opinion?

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Depends on what ‘era’ you are talking about exactly. Canada had lots of residual influence after WW II, but that slowly drained away, and we gave ourselves way more credit for international action than actually deserved.

Why do you think all diplomatic situations in the world involve the US acting as some kind of broker, third party? It is not because American diplomats are better than ours, it’s because of their military and foreign leaders concern that marines are going to be appearing anytime now if they don’t do as they are told.

http://www.chuckercanuck.blogspot.com chuckercanuck

My only gripe is that when I go to rent skis at Lake Louise – why does that resort think I trust the advice given to me by an aussie walk-about-er? If I need a surf board or snorkling kit, I’ll give you a call. In the mean time, can I get a Quebecker to get me the right skis?

Paul, a good reason to come here often is the the fun stuff from the different corners of the planet that you link us to. Beats a quick game of spider solitaire anyday.