Canada Foreign PolicyEssay Preview: Canada Foreign PolicyReport this essayAfter September 11th there was the reemergence of security as a top priority for policy makers: both U.S. and Canadian. In practice, the Bush administration has changed the way nations and international institutions do business. This Bush administration after 9/11 was not afraid to harshly criticize other nations if in their eyes that nation wasnt doing business they way the United States saw fit. The U.S. more or less “drew the line in the sand” and divided the world into two categories: “good” and “evil.” This sharp stance held by the U.S. thus presented their allies with a dilemma and therefore nations needed to decide how closely they would ally themselves with the increasingly radical and aggressive United States.
AfghanistanA month after the attacks of September 11th (October 7th 2001) , the Bush administration began the “war on terror” and the initial battleground of this war was Afghanistan. Nations involved in the invasion and campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime were major NATO members: United Kingdom. Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Italy and France. Overall there was a total of 136 countries who offered some form of military assistance to Operation Enduring Freedom. By 2002, Canada had 750 soldiers deployed along U.S. troops as part of the U.S. Army task force. Like Bosnia and Kosovo, the U.S. forces and Canadian forces combined to form a multilateral fighting force, in Afghanistan “the Canadians were fully integrated under U.S. command.”
Germany, Russia and China (including the United States), all were able to participate in NATO’s multinational training mission in support of the joint-led effort in Afghanistan. The countries had the largest combat readiness of the NATO’s NATO forces, with 14 in total. The U.S.-led mission provided “all elements of a successful combat support mission to its Afghan partners,” said former Secretary of State Colin Powell: “With the U.S.-led coalition so successful, it will always help. NATO must also focus on getting this country through our own tough conditions.” The Afghan-NATO operation also featured an “enduring program of training,” along with the creation of a coalition of partners. The Obama administration had previously called NATO “the most important force in the area” and was planning a major military operation. U.S. troops had been deployed to Afghanistan, but in January 2002 a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, in an effort to improve NATO readiness, recommended the deployment of the U.S. Army to the region and the Pentagon had to start a new mission to train and equip forces at home. The Bush administration would not specify military operations or the number, however.
There were significant concerns about the number of soldiers stationed inside Afghanistan. During the campaign on the eastern end of Afghanistan, approximately 30,000 U.S. Marines and a small amount of U.S. Army Forces were deployed. The American army is largely headquartered in the northern Kandahar Province, in the rugged hills of central Paktikaistan and in the city of Kabul.
To address these issues, the President began the ‣Operation Enduring Freedom, which began with a series of exercises and an annual NATO-led training exercise in late 2002
․ the U.S. Marine Corps had also joined the initiative. This was followed by two other U.S.-led exercise, which included a NATO-led exercises in the Bagram airfield.
An additional 40 U.S. Marines had been stationed at Kandahar for training.
Since early 2005, the U.S. has been training approximately 6,000 troops and the Afghanistan War has seen a massive expansion of U.S. Special Operations forces and additional operations on the ground.
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