Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04OTTAWA2963
2004-11-04 18:11:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ottawa
Cable title:  

U.S. AND CANADIAN POLICY PLANNERS SEEK SYNERGY ON

Tags:  CA IR IZ PGOV PREL AF PINS KMPI SCUL 
pdf how-to read a cable
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 OTTAWA 002963 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2009
TAGS: CA IR IZ PGOV PREL AF PINS KMPI SCUL
SUBJECT: U.S. AND CANADIAN POLICY PLANNERS SEEK SYNERGY ON
KEY ISSUES

Classified By: Minister Counselor Brian Flora, reasons 1.4 (b) (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 OTTAWA 002963

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2009
TAGS: CA IR IZ PGOV PREL AF PINS KMPI SCUL
SUBJECT: U.S. AND CANADIAN POLICY PLANNERS SEEK SYNERGY ON
KEY ISSUES

Classified By: Minister Counselor Brian Flora, reasons 1.4 (b) (d)


1. (C) Summary: In policy planning talks October 28-29 in
Toronto, U.S. and Canadian colleagues exchanged views and
sought ways to synergize efforts on a range of global and
regional issues. The Canadian team briefed on Canada,s
attempt through its International Policy Review to enhance
public support for international issues and better focus the
country,s foreign affairs resources on a few key countries
and issues, notably Afghanistan. They believe it would help
Canada and all players in Afghanistan if there were an
integrated international assistance plan that synchronized
outside help, similar to that developed for Bosnia after
seven years of ineffective ad hoc approaches. The Canadian
team believes that one of the key niches for Canada in this
realm is that of assistance and mentoring to improve
governance, and they are looking for ways to get more
Canadians involved in this sort of field work. The two teams
also exchanged views on post conflict stabilization, with our
Canadian colleagues expressing envy over the headway that we
have made in this area, and briefing us on their more modest
effort to have teams ready to launch when the post crisis
balloon goes up. Author Margaret MacMillan joined the teams
for a closing lunch, and offered a historian,s perspective
on current issues, identifying the rise of powerful sub-state
actors as the key issue for our age. End Summary


2. (U) S/P Director Mitchell B. Reiss led a team of U.S.
policy planners to meet with their Canadian counterparts
October 28-29 in Toronto.

US Participants:
Mitchell B. Reiss, Director, S/P
Barry Lowenkron, Deputy Director, S/P
Stewart Patrick, S/P Staff
Jessica Lecroy, Consul General Toronto
Keith Mines, Political Section, Embassy Ottawa

Canadian Participants:
Ross Hornby, Assistant Deputy Minister for Strategic Policy,
FAC
Rob MacRae, Director General, Policy Planning Secretariat, FAC

Chris Cooter, Policy Planning Division, FAC
Michael Dawson, United States Relations Division, FAC
Patricia Fortier, Minister Counselor, Canadian Embassy,
Washington
Beth Newcombe, Policy Planning Division, FAC

Canada Seeks Synergy in International Policy Review
-------------- --------------


3. (SBU) The Canadians kicked off the talks by briefing their
American counterparts on the status of the Canadian
International Policy Review (IPR),a lengthy effort to bring
much-needed focus to Canada,s foreign policy apparatus in an
age of scarce resources. The Canadians explained that the
80-page document will attempt to integrate the efforts of all
arms of foreign policy around the three-D,s of defense,
development, and diplomacy.


4. (SBU) The IPR begins with an overview of Canada,s
international interests and why international affairs should
matter to Canadians (the document will be public and will be
part of a much needed debate in Canada, so is written as much
to move the Canadian public as to synchronize and energize
the bureaucracy). The document has three key sections:
security (terrorism, peacekeeping, regional conflicts);
sustainable development and economic opportunities (trade,
education, financial stability); and global citizenship (good
governance, public diplomacy, and how to express what Canada
stands for in the world).


5. (SBU) There is a lengthy discussion in the document on
what the various agencies can do to better implement the
program and synchronize their efforts, and then a final
section on how to best engage multilateral institutions and
bilateral partners. Chris Cooter clarified later that there
was talk of having the U.S. partnership as a stand-alone
section in the latter part of the document, but the staff
realized that the U.S. was so central to each of the various
elements that it needed to be addressed throughout.


6. (SBU) The IPR also attempts to divide the world into
categories to provide better focus. These are:
-- Global partners: G-8 and advanced democracies.
-- Emerging Global Players: Brazil, India, China, etc.
-- Pathfinders: Emerging middle powers that play a key
regional role -- e.g. Korea, South Africa, Jordan.
-- Third World: Developing nations without any particular
significance.
-- Failed or Failing States: States that are in crisis and
cannot be ignored, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Haiti.

A Canadian Niche
--------------


7. (C) Cooter said that the purpose of this exercise is to
help focus Canada,s efforts on a limited range of countries
where it can make a difference rather than disburse resources
broadly. The strategy is basically to engage with current
and emerging global players to assist the pathfinder states
who will then have a secondary impact on their regions, and
to lift the failed states. The design effectively skips over
the mass of third world countries where development
specialists have traditionally worked on small, diffused
&feel good8 programs. Hornby hinted at a turf battle
between Foreign Affairs and CIDA over where to put Canada,s
shrinking resources. &They have money and we have ideas,8
he said, and questioned whether it would be possible to get
the &agrarian romantics8 to &discover cities,8 for
example. To the extent there is a need to work in
non-essential third world countries, the policy planning
recommendation is to do it from regional hubs. From a total
of as many as 30 program areas, the IPR would try to reorient
CIDA to the three key areas of health, education, and private
sector development.


8. (SBU) The IPR will be completed in mid-November when it
will go to Parliament for a public debate. Other ministries
such as finance, trade, and aid will also have input. Hornby
said part of the purpose is to engage Canadians broadly on
the issue of foreign affairs, to show how foreign policy
serves Canada,s vital interests and is linked to domestic
issues. Canadians, MacRae said, simply do not feel a threat
and have trouble focusing on foreign policy. In response to
a question about resources, Hornby said the review would make
it explicit that Canada is globally engaged and should fund
its agencies accordingly. The plan calls for an improvement
in the efficiency of the bureaucracy to support such a global
engagement, specifically by adding 8% per annum to Canada,s
aid budget and resourcing a new brigade for the military.


9. (SBU) Finally, there was a positive discussion of
Canada,s search for a niche in the world that would support
the advance of democracy while making a noticeable
contribution. Cooter said that Canada has traditionally been
seen as an effective bridge (e.g., between the U.S. and
Europe),but the question now is a bridge to what? Dr. Reiss
praised this effort as an effective way to find its niche and
urged Canada to be like the College of William & Mary, which
realized it did not have the resources to do all things well
and has focused instead on doing a few things superbly.

Coordinated Road-Map for Afghanistan?
--------------


10. (C) The U.S. side briefed next on the positive trends in
Afghanistan (elections, ANA, NATO commitment),and the
ongoing threat from warlords, narcos, and insurgents. Hornby
said that Canada is definitely in Afghanistan for the long
run but is trying to come to grips with how long that is.
Again he inferred a split between the realists at Foreign
Affairs and the dreamers at CIDA, the former seeing
Afghanistan as Canada,s most important mission in the world
at present, and the latter seeing it as taking away resources
from places where they can help people in a zero-sum game.
The political commitment is there for Afghanistan, however,
Hornby said, and he is not worried about fatigue taking a
toll on that commitment. Still, he believes Canada worries
about the continuing commitment of Europeans and already
detects some drift. MacRae asked whether we are at the point
where we need a roadmap to help integrate political and
security programs in Afghanistan. It took seven years to
produce a coordinated plan for Bosnia, he said, but we don,t
have that kind of time for Afghanistan, and need to focus
resources and synchronize our efforts now. He thought this
would help the Europeans and would certainly help Canada.

Iran
--------------


11. (C) Dr. Reiss led a discussion of Iran by reviewing U.S.
concerns about proliferation by Tehran and discussing recent
activities in the G-8 and by the EU-3. The Canadians were
interested in how adept we thought the Iranians were at
playing the U.S. and Europe off against each other and what
Canada could do to ensure their efforts strengthen, rather
than weaken our hand. Dr. Reiss concluded by saying that we
were very concerned with the European effort to simply extend
more carrots without contemplating the need for sticks, and
that we need better overall coordination on our approach to
prevent Iran from becoming another divisive issue in the
transatlantic relationship.

Iraq
--------------


12. (C) The U.S. team also led the discussion on Iraq,
outlining our plan for the next 100 days. It emphasized the
importance of security to get through the elections, and the
U.S. hope that there would then be enhanced security because
of the elections. Cooter wondered whether it would be
possible to place too much emphasis on the elections, given
all the hurdles to doing them well. Dr. Reiss responded that
there is no good reason to believe that conditions would
improve down the road, and they might actually deteriorate.
Cooter suggested that the worst possible outcome would be an
anti-Western nationalism and wondered whether, like
Afghanistan, we would collectively benefit from a strategic
plan for Iraq that included free trade agreements and a
coordinated development strategy.

Middle East
--------------


13. (C) Dr. Reiss began the discussion on the Middle East by
sharing the reality (despite the illogic) with which the
Israeli-Palestinian issue is placed at the center of all
issues in the Middle East. Dr. Lowenkron shared the key
challenges we face with regards to the BMENA process -- that
it not become the APEC of the Middle East, where much is
discussed and little resolved; that we actively engage civil
society; and that it be self-sustaining.


14. (C) Cooter agreed with this assessment, suggesting that
it would be easy to make this kind of forum one where leaders
make their standard pitch and return home, rather than
developing the sort of evolving and dynamic structures that
could make real progress. Hornby suggested the need to find
a way to help our European colleagues to &get over8 Iraq
and get down to work with us on this and other initiatives.
MacRae added that in this particular framework the best niche
for Canada is probably the improvement of local governance
and the delivery of services. Both sides agreed that a
mentoring role in this area would make sense for Canada. Dr.
Reiss closed by suggesting that recent events present an
opportunity for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Cross Cultural Dialogue
--------------


15. (C) Our Canadian interlocutors led a discussion of public
diplomacy and cross-cultural dialogue with an eye to the
Muslim community. Cooter said Canada has initiated a
dialogue with its own Muslim community, most of whom are from
South Asia and not the Middle East, in the hope that the GOC
can leverage their support. They do not want a simple series
of meetings that don,t go anywhere, and are concerned that
if the effort is misconstrued it could actually do more harm
than good. One of the key targets of this dialogue is city
dwellers, particularly those in slums, with an eye to
reducing the &hostile underclass.8


16. (SBU) On the Canadian action list is the following:

-- Try to initiate a horizontal rather than a top-down
approach to partnerships in the cross-cultural dialogue, to
avoid patronizing and counterproductive engagements.
-- Emphasize respect for diversity, not just as an
abstract cultural values but as a firm foreign policy goal.
-- Look for targets of opportunity, e.g. Pakistan,s debt
forgiveness in exchange for changing its curriculum.
-- Take the time to openly learn from one,s hosts.
Demonstrate that the cross-cultural dialogue is not one-way.
-- Focus efforts on the right issues at the right place
and the right time.
-- Synergize efforts with Parliament, NGOs, etc. Develop
key links, e.g. urban to urban links with police to do
community policing.

Post Conflict Stabilization
--------------


17. (SBU) The U.S. side led the discussion of new approaches
to post conflict stabilization with a review by Stewart
Patrick of the new S/CRS office in the State Department. The
Canadians said they have a similar concept but on a more
modest scale. They hope to develop a small unit of military
officers who would have an expandable roster of individuals
they can call up quickly in a crisis -- an inner circle from
government and an outer circle from NGOs and the private
sector. They were impressed by the depth of planning that
has already gone into our effort and were envious of the fact
that full responsibility for post conflict operations is
fully vested in the State Department. MacRae offered that he
believes we could both be applying more lessons from the
Balkans as we conduct this sort of planning and
restructuring.

Author Margaret MacMillan - From 1919 to 2004
--------------


18. (U) Margaret MacMillan, author of the current bestseller
&1919,8 joined the group for lunch to offer an historian,s
perspective on the contemporary world. MacMillan said the
end of the Cold War leaves the West in a period somewhat
reminiscent of 1919, in which an old order had been
overturned but there was no clear candidate to replace it.
Then as now there was a single hegemon (Britain after WWI,
America now) who is reaching imperial overstretch, and then
as now there are irrational nationalist passions that are not
well understood (ethnic nationalism then, religious tribalism
now).


19. (U) MacMillan believes we are not seeing the fulfillment
of Huntington,s clash of civilizations -- both the West and
the Muslim world are more complex than he makes them out to
be. But we are, she believes, seeing a more important rise
of sub-state actors and the world is slow to come to grips
with their newly acquired power. It is the rise of
irrational sub-state actors and how they are dealt with by
the developed world, that MacMillan believes is the key to
the future. She hopes for a construct that would avoid a
repeat of the failure of 1919, when the wrong assumptions and
the wrong model required a second world war to sort the world
out.

Visit Canada's Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/ottawa

CELLUCCI