Adapting in the Dust: Lessons Learned from Canada’s War in Afghanistan by Stephen M. Saideman
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702018754554 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
effective manner. Despite these shortcomings, the rich detail of this book and the
stories it tells will appeal to readers interested in the First World War, the North
American borderlands, and local histories.
Stephen M. Saideman
Adapting in the Dust: Lessons Learned from Canada’s War in Afghanistan
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. 167 pp. $29.95 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-4426-1473-4
Reviewed by: Joel J. Sokolsky (sokolsky-j@rmc.ca), Royal Military College of Canada
As the saying goes, no military plan survives its first encounter with the enemy.
Success in war demands the capacity to adapt; this was certainly the case
for Canada in Afghanistan. ‘‘Canada’s mission in Kandahar,’’ as Stephen
Saideman reminds us from the start of his excellent book, ‘‘was the most intense
and painful experience in its foreign policy since the Korean War’’ (3). It was also, as
perhaps all such unexpected, complex, and ambiguous armed conflicts are, one
which tested the country’s capacity to adapt under fire—militarily on the strange
battlefields of Afghanistan, but also politically at home, in terms of how a govern-
ment (especially a democracy) takes its state to war, and how it deals with the
awful life-and-death decisions that have to be made in conducting it. If war is the con-
tinuation of politics by other means, it also sheds light on the way in which policies
are made and implemented by governments. In the waging of war, a state brings to
the battlefield not only its armed forces (great or small) but its whole political culture.
The premise of Saideman’s analysis is ‘‘that we can learn a great deal about
Canada from what it experienced in Afghanistan and how it reacted.’’ The author
wants ‘‘to use the Canadian experience’’ in that war ‘‘to understand the politics and
processes that shape Canadian politics, foreign policy and defence strategies—not
just in such harsh conditions but also in general, not just in the recent past but also
in the years ahead’’(4). It is a tall order for a relatively slim volume, but Saideman
succeeds in offering depth, astute insights, and an engaging style. As a result,
Adapting in the Dust is one of the most important and informative analyses of
Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.
By the time it deployed to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, the Canadian
Armed Forces (CAF), especially the Army, had already seen over a decade of post–
Cold War overseas activity. In one sense this was surprising, given the expectation
that with the end of the Soviet threat Canada and its allies could look forward to a
new era of ‘‘unipolar’’ peace. Yet in another sense, these post-Cold-War deploy-
ments were not unusual given the country’s expeditionary strategic culture, which
had shaped Canada’s military in peace, war, and Cold War. Thus, Canadian sol-
diers marched off to distant Afghanistan, just as they had deployed to South Africa
a century before.
In adapting to Afghanistan’s unique challenges, it was the CAF which per-
formed the best out of the ‘‘whole’’ of the Canadian government. This meant
170 International Journal 73(1)
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