Canadian Peacekeeping:

then & now

 

By Andrew Thomson

 

Peacekeeping has long been established as part of Canadian identity.

 

In the spring of 2000, Molson began broadcasting a wildly popular beer commercial featuring a young man named “Joe Canadian,” who says during a 30-second patriotic rant that Canadians “believe in peacekeeping, not policing.” At the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, where centuries of military tradition are on display, there is an entire section devoted to peacekeeping. Nearby, the Peacekeeping Monument stands as a tribute to Canadians who have served and died in the name of peace, the only such statue in the world.

 

 The latest government announcement seemed to continue this trend.  Defence Minister, John McCallum, last week made public a plan for a one-year deployment of a battle group and a brigade-level headquarters to Afghanistan. This means up to 2,800 troops will be on duty for each six-month rotation. Canada will take command of the United Nations-mandated International Security Assistance Force, created after the Taliban regime fell from power in Afghanistan.

 

Despite this deployment and the dovelike nationalism promoted by “Joe Canadian,” serious questions are being asked about Canada’s involvement in the evolving nature of peace operations.  The traditional image of sending in troops to guard a cease-fire line or to separate warring countries has become rarer in recent years. The majority of operations has been aimed at civil conflicts, most notably in the Balkans and Africa, and often requires more then just military resources.  Some analysts worry about Canada’s capability to maintain its peacekeeping prestige, despite a history that has seen over 100,000 Canadians serve in more than 50 missions since 1949.  In fact, the idea of the country as fundamentally peace-oriented in nature has come under attack.

 

“That is one of the myths that have spoiled our defiance policy,” says Douglas Bland. In a speech last week at the Conference of Defence Associations’ (CDA) annual meeting, Bland said that Canadians have made war over their history, fighting enemies that range from British, French and Americans to Germans, Japanese, Russians, and Koreans.  Major-General (Ret.) Lewis Mackenzie, who was commander of UN troops in Bosnia during the early 1990s, shares Bland’s sentiments. Mackenzie wrote in a 2001 Washington Post article that while soldiers have no problem moving from peacekeeping to combat, the general public has been led to believe that peace operations are easier to implement, justifying reduced military spending.

 

The CDA, one of Canada’s largest pro-defense lobby groups, has estimated the cost of the Afghanistan mission will be between $500 million and $1 billion. Last month’s federal budget provided $800 million of new funding for each of the next three years, but the CDA says it is unclear if the government will provide extra money for the mission.  General Ray Henault, chief of the defense staff, said in a recent speech that the Afghanistan deployment would force the military to review its other operations, especially its involvement in NATO’s Bosnia stabilization force.

 

One reason for a strong Canadian attachment to peacekeeping is that it was Lester B. Pearson, at the time Secretary of State for External Affairs, who won the 1956 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in establishing the United Nations Emergency Force as a buffer between Israel and Egypt. It was the first armed UN peacekeeping force, as opposed to previous UN truce observers, and helped to end an international crisis over the Suez Canal.  Since then Canadian troops have served in a variety of locations including Cyprus, the Balkans, Haiti, East Timor, and the Middle East. Over 100 Canadians have died on UN missions, mostly during the Suez and Cyprus missions; only India has suffered more peacekeeping fatalities over the years. 

           

Fast-forward to present times and the statistics tell a different story.  As of January 2003 Canada ranked 31^st  in contributions to UN peacekeeping missions, trailing countries such as Ireland, Tunisia, Senegal, Fiji, and Nepal.  The largest Canadian contributions to international peacekeeping have been in the Balkans, where it is not the UN but NATO that is currently responsible for stabilizing the former Yugoslavia. 

 

More than 1,200 Canadian military personnel remain in Bosnia. They undertake activities ranging from destroying illegal arms and land mines to providing medical personnel for local hospitals. The Department of National Defence says Canada will assume command of the multinational brigade in the fall as part of a three-year rotation with British and Dutch forces.

 

Still, criticism of Canada persists. Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian scholar currently at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, wrote in the February 2003 edition of Policy Options that the traditional, almost quaint notion of “Pearsonian” peacekeeping is dead. He contends that Canada has not adjusted well to the realities of what has been called peace enforcement.

 

“We not only don’t contribute enough to peacekeeping, we are not training to do the right kind of peacekeeping, which is combat-capable peace enforcement in zones of conflict, like Afghanistan and the Balkans,” Ignatieff wrote. Mackenzie has argued that the inability of the UN to prevent human slaughter in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda would have been solved by firmer military force.  He wrote last year that the Canadian forces needed to adapt by being “light, lethal, strategically mobile and sustainable.”

 

Major David Last has a different perspective. Currently teaching political science at Royal Military College, in the early 1990s, he served with the UN in Cyprus, Croatia, and Serbia. He says there is no reason to suggest that peacekeeping has undermined Canadian combat capability.

 

“In order for peacekeeping forces to use their skills, they have to have combat capable units. You cannot separate the capacity to mediate and negotiate from the ability to use force,” he says. Last uses the examples of Cyprus and Bosnia as situations where proper combat training was an integral component of preparation.  He says that Canadian troops face a different situation in Afghanistan because there are no specific agreements or treaties to be enforced.

           

For its part, the Department of Foreign Affairs says that in September 1995 Canada presented a study advocating greater UN rapid reaction capability. It continues to press for a UN “Rapidly Deployable Mission” headquarters and advance guard.

 

As the nature of peacekeeping continues to evolve into different and more uncertain roles, especially post-September 11, the nature of Canada’s future contributions is uncertain.

 

Bland believes a window of opportunity is at hand with an influx of new federal party leaders in Ottawa looking for themes to woo voters. They may look at reviewing defense policy. He agrees that peacekeeping policy will be driven by political concerns and that Canadian priorities will “bounce back and forth” between the UN, NATO, and other coalitions.