Canadian policymakers are confident that other allied nations will come up with reinforcements and greater operational mobility in Afghanistan, thus meeting the terms set by Canada for keeping its crucial combat role in embattled Kandahar province, the main front with Taliban insurgents.

Most of the additional forces – around 1,000 men – are expected to come from France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it clear that he intends to follow through on his pledges to bring France closer to NATO. The French troops may be deployed in Kandahar or in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, another key front. The arrival of French forces will enable the United States, if necessary, to redeploy American units there to fight directly alongside the Canadians in Kandahar.

Canada has also insisted on more operational mobility that would come from more helicopters and drones, and Washington is expected to provide some of what is needed in both categories.

“I am very comfortable that the conditions we stipulated are going to be met,” David Wright told European Affairs. A former Canadian ambassador to NATO, he is currently a professor at Victoria College, University of Toronto.  Ambassador Wright has written for European Affairs on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Details about exact numbers and timetables are expected to emerge at the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest next week.

“This outcome means that the alliance will have solved the immediate short-run challenge in Afghanistan, so now we need to turn to a longer-term discussion about exactly how we plan to enable the Afghans to move ahead in taking over their own security,” Wright said.

That debate is likely to start in earnest at the NATO summit meeting, which will also be attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Canadian parliament voted early this year to keep Canada’s current force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until 2011 – on condition that allied nations provided the reinforcements in manpower and mobility in the nation’s most dangerous regions.

Related Posts:
France Will Add Combat Troops in Afghanistan to Bolster NATO Mission, 29 February 2008
Faraway Afghanistan Brings Home Up-Close NATO Tensions, 29 February 2008
In Afghanistan, NATO Caveats Can Be Made to Work Better, 8 February 2008

As we noted here last week, the surprise selection of an EADS-Northrop Grumman joint bid for a $35 billion Defense contract last week has been the source of much consternation on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers, outraged that the European conglomerate which owns Airbus was picked over U.S. aerospace giant Boeing, seem determined to keep the deal from going forward. Officials from the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman scrambled to defend the contract this week amid allegations in Congress of “a European economic stimulus plan” and threats to withhold funding for the project.

From yesterday’s Politico:

Other critics argue that hiring the European-based EADS to provide military equipment raises national security questions.

Northrop Grumman, though, dismissed the national security concerns as a red herring, stressing the fact that the Los Angeles-based company is the prime contractor on the program.

“What we are doing is exactly what Boeing would do,” said Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote. “There are no issues relative to any U.S. secrets, any transfer of technology out of the United States to Europe. It just doesn’t happen under our process.”

See the full story at Politico.com.

Today’s Politico has an extensive report on the Northrop/EADS team’s lobbying strategy as it fights Boeing’s formal protest of the award, filed Tuesday with the GAO.

Related Posts:
Pentagon Contract a “Massive Breakthrough” for European Companies, 6 March 2008

See Also:
Air Force slammed in Congress for Boeing contract, Politico, 12 March 2008
Defence contract was won fair and square, Op-ed, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Financial Times, 10 March 2008
Northrop rallies lobbying troops to save contract, Politico, 12 March 2008

The man credited with putting muscle into UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, will leave his position on June 1, according to Le Monde newspaper. Guehenno had been widely credited with the restoring the reputation of U.N. “peace operations” as an effective and relatively agency in helping conflict-torn countries in Africa and elsewhere return to stability after civil wars and other strife.

Under his auspices, UN peacekeeping forces increased in size to become the second-largest military force operating outside their country – behind the size of U.S. expeditionary forces.

Guehenno, appointed eight years ago by then-Secretary General Kofi Annan, played an important role in changing the philosophy of peacekeeping after a period in the 1990s when the UN’s reputation was damaged by fiascos in Bosnia and elsewhere. Guehenno told European Affairs in 2006, in an article entitled Contemporary Peacekeeping Is State-Building, that he had lead the UN toward more “robust peacekeeping” — meaning readiness to use force when necessary to implement a peacekeeping mission.

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The surprise selection of a European corporation for a major U.S. military contract - to build $35 billion worth of in-flight refueling tankers - has sent shock waves through the world of defense contractors. There were strong reactions both in the U.S. and Europe as officials and executives grappled with the political implications of the choice of the EADS/Northrop Grumman consortium over Boeing, which had been heavily favored to replace the existing fleet of Boeing-built tankers with a new model. But Pentagon officials said the tanker model proposed by EADS with its junior U.S. partner clearly came out ahead in four of the five categories that were the basis for the contract. The common-sense assumption in Washington is that the Northrop/EADS offer must have been far superior for the Bush administration to risk alienating domestic interests in an election year by choosing an airplane perceived by many in Congress as being largely built by a “French” company. (more…)

France has decided more ground troops to Afghanistan for combat missions against Taliban insurgents in the mountainous battle zone close to the border with Pakistan, according to press reports in Paris.

The French commitment, which includes elite special forces, comes at a critical moment for NATO, which it direly needs reinforcements to ratchet up its campaign against guerilla fighters infiltrating eastern Afghanistan from their sanctuaries in the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan.

By sending in fresh combat units, expected to number up to 500 men, President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be acting on his pledge that France wants to work more closely with NATO. With the Bush administration asking European nations for more military help in Afghanistan, a Sarkozy adviser was quoted in Le Monde newspaper saying that “France is the only country that can — if it decides to – make the crucial difference.”

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