Smith: How has Canada’s experience in Afghanistan changed Canadian foreign policy?

By: /
27 June, 2011
By: Gordon Smith
Executive Director of the Centre for Global Studies and CIGI Distinguished Fellow

Canada’s military engagement in Afghanistan certainly changed a long held perception of Canada throughout the world. It contradicted any idea that Canada would only undertake blue helmet operations. Afghanistan, and now Libya, have shown Canada in a different light, ready to fight and to lose lives of soldiers. Does this stem from a different concept of the national interest held by the Conservative Government? Does Prime Minister Harper have a different strategic view of the world and of risks of importance to Canada? I would argue neither, instead that the readiness to engage militarily stemmed more from wanting to be perceived as a robust ally, above all by the United States but also by Britain and France.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter