I’m sorry,
GW but I’m having trouble understanding these few sentences (clear enough though each word and phrase might be):
•
“It may seem a simple solution today, but I can not see any alliance as being an "all singing, all dancing, be all, end all" solution.”
I specifically said
”We do not, I believe, need another alliance” because our experience with NATO ought to tell us that formal alliances are ineffective.
As to “all singing, all dancing,” a few years ago ABCA (and AUSCANZUKUS and CCEB and a few others with the same membership)
were doing two of the here things I suggested are necessary:
1. Developing and ratifying (at CDS level) “some common standards for interoperability of systems, equipment and procedures.” In these, especially in the procedures domain, ABCA usually led NATO. I, personally, took my turn, along with my UK and US colleagues, telling large NATO meetings that we would soon bring a Draft QSTAG (Quadripartite Standardization Agreement) to Brussels so that members could use it as a base for a NATO STANAG (
Standardization
Agreement). We would, usually, develop the two documents in parallel but the QSTAG was almost always, shorter, clearer and ratified (and, therefore, taken into service) earlier; and
2. We were, and
evidently still are, running multinational exercises to ‘prove’ the standards.
Contingency planning was a much more complex matter – and
I suspect still is. I’m
pretty sure some went on – quite informally – but it was done in/by organizations beyond mine. But, whenever senior people like the DCDS and ADM(Mat) returned from five nation meetings we were, usually, inundated with new information and questions about specific operations - matters that led us to
speculate that our masters might be considering a potential
combined (multinational) operation here or there.
•
“Other alliances, major and minor, are necessary to keep "the balance". One alliance would greatly restrict development at home and abroad.”
Which alliances? Why? What developments?
Is NORAD threatened by developing ABCA+? Would NORAD be threatened if Canada withdrew from NATO?
•
”ABCA+ compliments, not replaces, what our (Canada's) goals should be on the world stage.”
Of course, no outside agencies can ever replace
”our” goals – nor can they be allowed to try, but:
So what?
“
Yes, we are in alliances that are ineffective, and perhaps greatly corrupted, such as the UN, but the potential is still there for greater things.”
Potential for the UN to do what? (beyond the useful things already done by member agencies like the
IMO and
ITU - some which are older than the UN itself (older even than the League of Nations) and operate completely independent of the UN.
Potential for NATO to do what? Do you really believe, based on our experience in Afghanistan, that a NATO mission in Darfur will succeed?
•
”I suppose we can look at it the same way as the present Stock Market crisis. Do you bail out now, or ride out the storm?”
One always sells ‘losers’ and tries to buy ‘winners’ – even during a “Stock Market crisis;” that’s why so much trading is gong on, people are selling what they think are ‘losers’ and others are buying the same stocks because they think they might be ‘winners.’
I’m suggesting that NATO has moved, over the years, to the ‘loser’ column and ABCA and the others are ‘winners.’
We do not “ride out the storm" by sitting on our hands and waiting for the worst; we trim sails and alter courses and so on - until he sailing analogy is completely overused.
