Suchergebnisse

 For the second straight year, Minister of National Defence Anita Anand joined my Civ-Mil class towards the end of the term.  That she is a former prof helps a great deal, I am guessing, in persuading her to spend roughly a half hour of her very busy time with us.  Last year, it was a bit of surprise.  This year, I knew ahead of time so I could prime my students to ask civil-military questions, not just Canada in the world questions.  And since the theme of yesterday's class was Culture Change, most of the questions focused on that. Once again, she spoke for a few minutes including discussing her background in corporate governance and how often she was in a boardroom that was far from diverse--that her previous work set herself up well for this moment.  She then talked about some of the achievements of the past 13-14 months: adopting the interim recommendation from Arbour about transferring sexual assault cases to the civilian courts, accepting the recommendations of both the Arbour panel and anti-discrimination panel, apologizing to those who were in the class action lawsuit, and more.  She noted that there is a lot of skepticism about culture change (I have heard much of that online and in person), so she noted how promotions of generals and admirals has changed (in my view, there is now much more civilian oversight than in the past, a very good thing), she mentioned a few programs that will be starting soon that I can't talk about at this moment, and more.  She said that she hoped to institutionalize these measures so they last for decades although this kind of contradicted some of her answers that focused on the right personalities and relationships at the top of DND/CAF.  Anand then answered many questions.  So, what did they ask and how did Anand respond?First, one student asked about whether the culture change effort was a short term effort or would require generational changes.  Anand indicated that there is no deadline, that it will require decades.Second, how will the culture change fit into the defence policy update.  Here, she referred to a recent op-ed that suggested that she and DND were too woke and
Marxist--she indicated that culture change is not something that gets in
the way of operational effectiveness but is a necessary ingredient,
something I have been yammering about as well on twitter and here.Third, one student asked about the basic structure of Canadian civ-mil--that is a diarchy with the Deputy Minister and Chief of Defence Staff being equals.  Anand indicated that this structure works with the current team (which raised questions about what happens when the team is not good, and perhaps that structural change might protect against that some?).Fourth, a student asked how do you keep this stuff prioritized?  The Defence Minister said that she needs to ensure every day that she, the CDS, the DM, her team, and everyone else is focused on this every day.Fifth, one student asked about data sovereignty.  Anand responded by discussing how NORAD modernization is going to include a whole bunch of initiatives to improve the digital side of things.Finally, our Visiting Defence Fellow, Colonel Cathy Blue, asked why Anand hasn't considered developing an Inspector General.  Anand noted that other agencies in Canada and beyond have IGs, but that her job as minister is to focus on implementing Arbour's 48 recommendations.  I found that a bit troubling as I understand that she is busy and the demands are high, but I didn't think the Arbour report was perfect and and should limit the imagination of what the Minister/DND/CAF need to be doing.   I didn't get to ask any questions as I wanted the students to get their questions in during the short time we had with the Minister.  I will save mine for a future podcast interview or whenever we meet in person.  She did ask about my cookies, and my policy is always to deliver in person, so maybe some day we can actually meet in real life.  As always, I am super impressed with the current Minister of National Defence--I continue to think she is the right person in the right place at the right time.  She has faced greater challenges than she probably expected including a war in Europe.  We don't always see eye to eye on things, but she takes this whole civ-mil thing very seriously and very thoughtfully, and I really appreciate that.   I am very grateful that she is willing to hang with my students for a bit, as the students got a lot out of it.  I am also thankful to my students as they asked great questions.

 One of the things that I had claimed since 2021's general crisis--Vance, McDonald, and other senior officers being outed for sexual misconduct and abuse of power--is that efforts to change the military would not face as much resistance as in normal times.  These folks had so thoroughly disgraced the military that any resistors would have weak arguments and few allies--who would stand up for rapists and abuses of power?  It took a few years, but we now have an answer: the far right and the Conservative Party of Canada.Aping the far right in the US, the right wing folks in Canada started accusing the military of being too woke.  It is not just one random retired general with poor reading comprehension.  This weekend, a different person, Jamie Sarkonak, wrote a piece at the same outlet--the National Post--arguing that the military is hostile to white men (providing no evidence), that the military should not change (although it is better than the retired general's by recognizing past abuses), and that women who join should just embrace being in a male-dominated/male-defined organization, and Indigenous recruits/officers and people of colour should just accept the military has it has always been.What this person gets wrong and what those who want to keep the military the same is basic math: she wants the military to rely on the traditional pool of recruits: "fit, aged 17 to 20, high-school educated, rural or small-city in origin and Caucasian in background."  The problem is that this pool is shrinking.  So, we need to expand the pool of recruits beyond this group--folks living in cities, non-Caucasians, and women. If you think you can do that while keeping the old culture that was/is hostile to these folks, then you not only suck at math but sociology.The piece is on target when focusing on the consequences of budget cuts--resolving the personnel crisis requires more money, not less.  But culture change is also required.This Tuesday, I am presenting along with several sharp scholars--JC Boucher, Lynne Gouliquer, and Charlotte Duval-Lantoine--some data that shows that scandals about discrimination in the military cause people to lose trust in the CAF and become less supportive of their friends and family joining the CAF.  So, the numbers cited in the op-ed piece about the decline in recruiting and the problem of retention may be more related to the abuses of general and flag officers than to the effort to change the culture.  Of course, correlation is not causation.  But the antiwoke forces don't really have much data, and they have weak arguments based on bad math and bad sociology.  On the bright side, I am getting cited, which is what academics want, and I keep getting alerted to these publications by the hate email I get. 

This article was originally published on China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE) on 23 Feb 2023. Moscow has secured drones and munitions supply from Iran and North Korea, but only China could truly bolster its warfighting capabilities. Beijing appears to have delivered some technology and parts, but many Chinese scholars urge caution about the next … Continued

 Last night, a friend informed me that my favorite retired Canadian military officer, Lt. General (ret) Michel Maisonneuve is going to speak at the Conservative Party of Canada's convention.  This gave me a case of deja vu, as the 2016 US campaign had dueling generals at the conventions--Michael (how many foreign payrolls am I on?) Flynn for Trump and the Republicans and John Allen for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.  I have been meaning to write about Michael Robinson's book, Dangerous Instrument, Politicial Polarization and US Civil-Military Relations, for some time,* but the CDSN Summer Institute and a mad dash to finish the Steve/Dave/Phil book got in the way, but this news has pushed Robinson's book to the front of my mind.* One of my sabbatical goals is to catch up and write about the latest civ-mil work (and some older stuff).  Robinson's book was at the top of the pile.  Now I am working on Jason Dempsey's book about whether the US Army was "Conservative" or partisan in the early 2000s. Robinson does an amazing job of taking a variety of surveys and survey experiments (where some respondents read or listen to one vignette/treatment and others get exposed to different ones to see what primes people) to assess a variety of dynamics surrounding the US military: what shapes people's views, what shapes their media consumption, what shapes media coverage, and ultimately what shapes the standing of the US military in the public.  Oh, and how thoroughly screwed the US military is.The basic idea is that there are different ways to politicize a military.  The military can politicize itself by directly getting engaged in politics or by doing things that resonate beyond the military.  But the book is really a story of affective politicization--that how people see the military depends not just on what the military is doing, but what the other actors in the system are doing that makes it appear as if the military is becoming closer or farther politically.  This is all very important because most modern militaries in most democracies seek to be non-partisan institutions--that they were taught the key to both civilian control of the military and relative autonomy was to stay out of politics.  Indeed, because most militaries are not seen as partisan, they tend to have higher popularity ratings--that most other institutions are seen as belonging to one side or another and thus at least a chunk of the political spectrum is pissed off.  I have delighted in our CDSN surveys showing that only academic folks have higher trust ratings than the military.In the US, there was an arms race between the Democrats and Republicans amassing endorsements from retired generals and admirals, as each sought to be seen as the party of national security.  This was bad for the military, as it may be that the public sees retired officers as the voices of the active service since the latter are largely restricting from speaking in a partisan fashion.  This culminated in Flynn chanting "Lock Her Up" at the 2016 convention, which is more than a smidge ironic or hypocritical given that Flynn was a far greater danger to releasing classified information than Clinton's email.  Anyhow, things got worse once Trump got into office as he kept referring to his generals, kept making partisan statements to and in front of the military (including announcing the Muslim ban at the Pentagon).Robinson, in his book, shows that views towards the military have become increasingly partisan--that views of the military now go up and down depending on who is president--that Republicans, traditionally strong supporters of the military, are less enthusiastic when a Dem is president. The key dynamic driving much of this is confirmation bias (woot?)--that partisans will notice only that which agrees with their preconceptions and discount that which does not agree.  As Americans become increasingly partisan--with their identities tied to parties, this gets worse, especially for those who consume only from a very biased portion of the media (you know who).  What I like about this book is that it uses a word I hate, polarization, quite well.  Polarization generally implies that all parties are spinning away from the center, when studies show that the GOP is becoming radicalized, but the Dems are mostly staying where they were, sliding a smidge to the left.  But what is abundantly true is that all sides are increasingly tied to their partisan id.  Robinson goes on to show that that consumption of Fox is not good, and so on.  And the military is utterly screwed because if they push back at, say, charges of wokeness, they only make things worse.  The results also show that despite all the talk of norms of civil-military relations, the public is not really aware of them, nor that concerned about them.  So, it is up to the politicians to refrain and for the military to ... hope (and hope is not a plan).  So, it is a great book, with terrific social science, important implications for civil-military relations, and, yeah, we are kind of fucked.   And now it applies to Canada, damn it.  The Conservatives are bringing Mr. Cancelled to their convention, imitating the GOP, so he can rail against the Liberals and the wokeness of the Canadian Armed Forces.  The Liberals have dipped into this as they had Andrew Leslie, another retired LTG, in a prominent place when they ran in 2015.  The key difference is that they were just trying to use his credibility and stature to buttress their own, they were not using him to attack the military, nor did he speak out that much in any way that was particularly controversial.  Maisonneuve, on the other hand, used  his Vimy speech and then a regular spot at a national paper, to blast the Liberals, the woke media, the military for daring to make itself more inclusive, and pretty much anyone else he felt spurned by [I am still waiting for some media outlet to note that Maisonneuve was part of the military's abuse of power crisis].  The Conservatives are embracing some of the GOP's efforts to mobilize populist resentment as they now apparently seek to tear down many Canadian institutions.  When I say this will endanger Canadian civil-military relations, I don't mean there will be a coup.  But it will mean that the public and politicians will view the military as a partisan actor, that appointments and decisions will be viewed through partisan lenses, and then the Canadian military will be fucked, because its efforts to defend itself as an inclusive institution, desperately needed during a personnel crisis, will be seen as partisan.  "Hey, we don't discriminate against x" will be seen by CPC partisans as being too woke. Which will make it harder to recruit and retain, deepening the spiral that may make it very hard to send a ship to the Pacific or sustain the commitment to Latvia.  In short, the Conservatives are starting a process that is going to be bad for the military, despite their bad faith assertions that they care more about the CAF than the Liberals do.  [No, Trudeau does not care much about the CAF, but the CPC does not either].So, here's a song that goes with all of this.

 I just finished reading Peter Feaver's excellent "Thanks for Your Service: the Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the US Military." Between Feaver and Michael Robinson, the bar has been set on exhaustive, diligent, and creative deployments of surveys and survey experiments to tease out how publics feel about the US military.  Robinson sought to understand the politicization of the armed forces, whereas Feaver seeks to understand many dimensions of what it means for the US military to be the institution that has the most public confidence.  Feaver used both previous surveys and more recent ones that he conducted to assess what causes Americans to have confidence in the military, why confidence varies among the public, how confidence then shapes attitudes about all kinds of things, and whether such confidence is, as Feaver puts it, hollow.  The book is itself a great primer on the state of public opinion and civil-military relations, which is no surprise since Feaver has been one of the leaders of surveys in this area (his other hat is as a very influential theorist of civil-military relations).  The end of the intro summarizes the state of the art.The fundamental challenge of this work is that there are all kinds of conflicting dynamics.  The US has been at war, so popularity of it should be high as a rally around the flag effect.  The US lost one war, and the other war dragged on with less than satisfying results, so public confidence should be low.  As Robinson documents, there has been a greater effort to politicize the armed forces, which should ultimately drag down public support as the military becomes identified with one party or the other (Feaver finds that public confidence wobbles a bit when the party in power changes with Democrats gaining more confidence when a Democrat is in the White House, and the same dynamic works for the Republicans).I am not going to go through the whole book. I just want to identify a few key findings:Those norms that civil-military relations scholars care about?  Yeah, the public is not so concerned or aware of these norms.I was not aware of the pithy four p's: performance, professional ethics, partisanship, and pressure.  These are supposed to shape confidence as the military is seen as working better than other institutions and is more ethical, that institutions associated with parties have less support, and people support the military because they are supposed to do so and think others do so.  Feaver explores each in depth.The good news is that the military should be deterred from putting its thumb on the scales during public debates about military stuff as it does not work and may drive down public trust in the military.The bad news is that most stuff is read through a partisan lens.  So, if the military does stuff that aligns with one party's position, those partisans will be fine with that crossing of the line, while the opposing party will be offended by the violation.  And if the military goes in the opposite direction, then the reaction flips as well.A sharp chapter focuses on social desirability bias--do people answer surveys by giving answers that they think are the right ones?  The ones that are popular?  Feaver's survey work here is impressive (I am not a survey person although I am now involved multiple surveys!), suggesting that there is some hollowness to public confidence as a significant hunk of its public confidence is due to people giving the "right" answer.  What happens if the military gets sufficient blemishes that it is no longer hip to be so positive?  Confidence might drop quickly and sharply.Why does public confidence matter?  It affects the ability to recruit and fund the armed forces.  And, yes, JC Boucher, Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, Lynne Gouliquer, and I have a paper on exactly this in Canada--do stories of discrimination reduce support for friends/family to join the CAF (hint:yes!).  Yes, the greater the confidence in the military, the more likely folks will support greater military roles in the world--that the military is more useful as a tool of policy.The military gets "ideational" benefits from higher confidence--deference but not that much influence on public support for policies.  Key findings are that politicians will pay a price for going against military advice and the blame for failure will focus more on the civilian side.  This limits how much accountability the military faces.I was really glad that Feaver addressed the big question that could not be tested through surveys--is it a good thing to have a lot of confidence in the armed forces?  I have always been uncomfortable with what Feaver calls as pedestalizing the military, making it superior to society.  I tend to regret when sports events embrace the military too much, and I worry when police forces imitate the military's special forces.  And, yes, I worry that a military that has heaps of confidence will look down on the civilian world.  Feaver does not feel quite as uncomfy as me, but does suggest there is a need to valorize other forms of public service, such as health care providers.  He also argues that the confidence, if it is high, should be based on performance--as he puts it, "trustworthy, not simply trusted."  He also suggests that partisanship may be getting in the way of accountability more than high confidence, and that is something Dave, Phil, and I find in our forthcoming book on legislative oversight and the armed forces.He concludes with a call for more comparative work, which I will be citing in the next round of grant applications.  Thanks, Peter!

 The latest news, that the second chief of personnel to lose their job due to accusations of sexual misconduct, LTG Stephen Whelan, has his case withdrawn, may cause some folks to argue that there was never really a crisis, that this was all hysteria (yes, that word), and the culture change efforts are unnecessary.I don't know Whelan, and I am not a legal expert.  I do know that there have been multiple reports that indicate that military justice is somewhat broken, and handing stuff over to civilian courts is no panacea.What I do know is that there was and is a crisis, not just of sexual misconduct, but abuse of power and, yes, civilian control of the military.  How do I know that?The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Jon Vance, pled guilty to obstruction of justice. What justice was he obstructing?  An investigation into his multi-decade affair with a subordinate than ran completely counter to the campaign he was "leading" to deal with such stuff in the military.The same person appointed as Chief of Personnel (the one before Whelan) someone who had a nickname as Mulligan man for evading prosecution for rape ... until now.  I have had folks claim that Vance didn't know about this.  Um, sure.  So, either Vance did know and didn't care, or he didn't know because he didn't do a sufficient job of vetting those he chose for the key slot of .... implementing policies concerning such stuff as sexual misconduct.Vance's successor, Art McDonald, was accused of sexual assault and was not prosecuted because the suspect military investigators argued that everyone was too drunk to testify against him AND then McDonald violated the norms of civil-military relations by insisting he was coming back via a letter he sent to all of the generals and admirals.  Talk about entitlement.There was a settled class action suit involving over 20,000 former or current military folks, including a significant percentage of men.  There has been the exodus of women officers with bright careers who were disgusted by their senior officers.There are multiple reports on this: DesChamps, Arbour, Fish, .... I have had plenty of conversations with folks in the military who think that there was a problem, that there is a lot of work being done to address the problem, that the problem is hard, that there is progress, but it is far from solved.So, yes, Fortin got off, Whelan got off. Others may also not be prosecuted or the prosecutions may not work out.  If this were a murder case, we wouldn't say that the victim is not dead.  Again, sexual misconduct and abuse of power are existing problems, they do deter recruitment and they hurt retention.  The culture of the Canadian military must continue to change to reflect a more diverse military unless we want only straight, white, Christian men.  To deny that is to be bad at math, history, and social science.  And finally, no one is entitled to a three star/leaf position.  Whelan may want his job back, but to have such an elite office, one has to be beyond reproach.  That the government failed to make its case does not mean that Whelan should serve as Chief of Personnel.