US embassy cable - 04OTTAWA2963

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