Stardate 20030528.1025

(On Screen): "Either you're with us or you are with the terrorists." President Bush tried to make clear that in the large war we're fighting, there are no bystanders. As a practical matter, anyone who tries to pretend that there's nothing going on is aiding the terrorists.

Wars have a way of forcing people to reveal their true colors. When large issues are being decided, they can no longer avoid revealing through their actions what they really believe. In March of 2002, in a period where action in Afghanistan had wound down but before the political ferment associated with Iraq had begun, I wrote a post and tried to categorize the nations of the world, showing how I felt they'd be revealed in such a case.

At the time, I speculated that the death of Arafat might be a spark which would bring about a world crisis that would cause everyone to reveal their hands. That didn't happen, but the political struggle over the Anglo-American attack on Iraq had the same effect. In recent weeks I've received several letters from people (including one today from Ed Hillan) suggesting it was time to revisit that list in light of recent events.

So here's what I originally wrote. Strikethroughs represent original placements now revealed to be wrong. Text in red is changes based on current events.

Level 3 friends: These are nations which will fight beside us (the United States), who will commit fully to the war, and whose help we will be grateful to have. There will be no doubts about their friendship once this is over. Canada, Australia, the UK

Level 2 friends: These nations will make a substantial commitment and will definitely align with us, but will mostly make a passive contribution e.g. basing privileges, intelligence, diplomatic support. If parts of the war are fought in their territory, they will be involved: Israel, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, India, Japan, Kuwait?, Turkey, some of the 'stans, Georgia, Poland, The Czech Republic, New Zealand, Spain, Italy

Level 1 friends: Basically friendly bystanders, they won't do anything to impede us but also won't contribute a great deal to the struggle; some intelligence, perhaps; cooperation in hunting down spies and terrorists, maybe a handful of non-combat troops, but not really a great deal that matters: The Netherlands, Germany, the Scandinavian nations, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Russia?, The Philippines?, Indonesia?, Latin America (except Cuba), South Korea, Taiwan, Jordan?, the rest of the 'stans, the Baltic republics, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, India

Neutrals: Occasionally impeding us, occasionally helping us, but never really making much difference either way, these nations won't matter: France?, China?, UAE, SE Asia (i.e. Thailand, Viet Nam et al), Greece, Belgium, Balkan nations (i.e. Romania, Slovenia et al), Ukraine, Belarus, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Turkey, Pakistan

Level 1 enemies: Nasty looks in our direction and doing their best to put sand into the diplomatic gears but in practice making little difference: Cuba, African Muslim nations (except Libya) including Egypt?, sub-Saharan Africa, North Korea, Canada, Germany, Russia

Level 2 enemies: Actively working against us but not directly involved in the combat: Lebanon, Libya?, Yemen, France, North Korea

Level 3 enemies: Before we're through, all the governments of these nations will have to be replaced one way or another, and they'll probably have to be occupied. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, the Palestinians?, (the Taliban)

Anarchies: These are places without governments. They may end up being battlefields. Afghanistan, Somalia

Easily my biggest misjudgment was Canada. But it's an understandable mistake; there was a time when Canada would go to any length for us.

It is not at all clear that their recent opposition was truly an expression of national polarization against us as much as it was a policy of the current administration there, or perhaps a side effect of nepotism, and I know for a fact that there are a lot of Canadians who are appalled at the behavior of their own government in this crisis. (I get letters.) If Canada had ended up being a level 1 friend, it probably would not have affected relations with the US in any significant way. But Canada actually aligned with France and made at least a few moves which made the situation more complicated for us, and it's going to have ramifications. Canada and the US are joined at the hips by the single largest bilateral trade relationship on the planet, but I think that it's inevitable that there's going to be some cooling in the relationship for the next few years, unless there's a pretty significant sea-change in Canadian politics.

With regard to the Level 3 friends, what I wrote was that there will be no doubts about their friendship once this is over. Certainly we have no doubts about Australia, and very few about the UK. (The only real question about the UK would be if the UK ratifies the EU Constitution and gets absorbed by the Borg Collective.) But I think there are now real doubts about whether the Canadians are actually deep friends as opposed to amicable trading partners. I hope they still are friends, but we can no longer be certain.

I have a suspicion this is going to end up being an issue in the next Canadian election cycle. It's hard to see how Canada's diplomatic stance towards the US could avoid being a major political issue.

I also substantially underestimated the lengths that the French would go to in opposing us. I had been aware that there was French antipathy, but what was revealed went well beyond anything I had suspected.

That's also going to have ramifications; it's clear now that the French are not friends for any meaningful value of the word "friend", and as a practical matter must be treated as hostiles for the forseeable future. From now on France will be treated similar to China: there may be situations in which we are forced to cooperate with them, but we will never actually trust them or turn our back on them. (And that isn't going to change this coming weekend, optimistic claims to the contrary notwithstanding.)

On the other side of the coin, the biggest and most important non-surprise was Australia.

Military folks have a phrase, someone's "got your back". It means that someone's behind you making sure you don't get attacked from that direction. It's a sign of trust and confidence to let someone be there since they can easily knife you. Last September I wrote a post about how I viewed Australia; nothing that has happened since then has changed that in the slightest. If Australia's got our back then it will be totally secure. That's been true for decades, and they proved it again in Iraq.

And that's going to have ramifications, too. We're not going to forget this. (Good on ya, mates.)