The Kandahar deployment showcased Canada’s role in the world as the Conservatives saw it: leading rather than “carping from the sidelines” and standing alongside allies in the fight of the good against the evil. As the mission claimed more Canadian casualties, allies who failed to come to the aid of those deployed in the more dangerous regions of Afghanistan — especially continental Europeans — were seen as shirking their duties. This coloured the view of NATO more generally: due to its failure to share risks and burdens of the Afghan deployment, PM Harper said, NATO might be failing the test it set itself. Adding fuel to the fire was NATO’s delayed response to a Canadian request for the use of AWACS planes: due to an internal dispute over funding, a NATO official told us, these assets were not immediately available for the Canadian Forces operating in southern Afghanistan.