Afghanistan One Year Later: Canadian Strategic Lessons Identified and Not Learned

Table of Contents Introduction Afghanistan and Canada Canadian Whole-of-Government Operations (2004-2011) Kandahar Province (2010-2011) Canadian Whole-of-Government Lessons Identified Conclusion End Notes About the Author Canadian Global Affairs Institute Introduction While the Canadian mission in Afghanistan is still recent history, it may soon be forgotten, with Canadian officials possibly learning only one lesson: not to do it again. The entire mission, but especially the time in Kandahar, was the most intense, most expensive and most political of Canada’s interventions since Korea. It would be a mistake to leave behind the lessons we can draw.1 - Stephen M. Saideman, “Lessons of History: What the Afghanistan Mission Teaches Canada” (2017) In this 2017 statement, Canadian political scientist Stephen Saideman indicated the nascent state of Canada’s post-Afghanistan learning. One year after the August 2021 capitulation of the Western-sponsored Afghan government to insurgent factions, the time is right to review the strategic aspects of our participation in the NATO intervention in Afghanistan. The primary difference between Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan and other international engagements of this type, both before and since, is the level of interdepartmental co-operation and involvement that was necessary to advance objectives, as part of alliance, coalition or national commitments. By the end of our combat mission in 2010-2011, the need for integrated strategic co-ordination, planning and guidance, as well as the requirement for departments to be inter-operational were accepted and applied. All of this was to produce integrated effects, or impacts, in the mission area. Other countries involved in this NATO commitment, like the United States, underwent similar challenges, which resulted in like adaptation and innovation. This examination demonstrates that despite the identification and utilization of these lessons during the Canadian combat mission, they were not integrated into national and international activities post-Afghanistan. They are “lessons identified” not “lessons learned.” This lapse has had and will have a deleterious impact on the Canadian government’s ability to address the challenges of inter-agency, or whole-of-government co-operation in current and future interventions, or even ongoing support to NATO activities in Ukraine.2 TOP OF PAGE