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Doug Bland, Chair of Defence Management Studies at Queen's University, and Peggy Mason, Chair of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee were asked the following six questions to guide their discussion:

1. What is your definition of peace operations? What (if anything) has changed as the international community utilizes the term “peace operations” instead of the more familiar “peacekeeping?”

2. To what extent can Canada’s current activities in Afghanistan be characterized as a peace operation? If this term is not appropriate, then how would you describe this operation?

3. Why do you believe some commentators are asserting that Canadian peacekeeping is dead?

4. Should Canada restrict our participation in peace operations to UN or UN sanctioned activities?

5. What should our contribution to UN military operations be? If not boots on the ground, then what is more appropriate?

6. Is participation in peace operations less in accord with Canada’s defence and foreign policy interests now than it has been in the past? Why?

Mythical Peacekeeping in the Era of Continuous Warfare

Dr. Douglas Bland

Douglas Bland is Professor and Chair of the Defence Management Studies program at Queen's University, and a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel.  He has written extensively on Canadian defence issues. 

1. What is your definition of peace operations? What (if anything) has changed as the international community utilizes the term "peace operations" instead of the more familiar "peacekeeping?"

The term “peace operations” has no accepted definition and arose spontaneously in the early days of UN operations in the former Yugoslavia as some discussants tried to find a simple way to explain, or explain away, the failures of the UN mission in that region. The problem for the UN was that it had committed itself to an active war zone where none of the usual criteria for a so-called peacekeeping mission were in place. Thus, the UN and UN commanders had no measure to gauge whether the mission was achieving anything or not. Every other mission since 1947 had one measure of ‘success’ and that was to maintain the status quo as it existed at the time the force was deployed. Unfortunately, for the UN the status quo in the FYS in 1990 was open warfare.

Peacekeeping defined as the maintenance of the status quo, in most cases implying that peace will not prevail, is thus as suitable a term as ever for the missions that gave rise to the term in the first place, for example in the Middle East in 1947 and 1956 and in Cyprus in 1964. For new missions mostly occurring after the end of the cold war, as in Somalia and Afghanistan, the more descriptive term for reality is ‘war monitoring’ or best as always, war operations. War operations is a term that best describes the reality of UN commitments today – operations that attempt though the force of arms to change an unacceptable status quo to at least a more acceptable status quo.

The difficulty for peacekeeping advocates (true-believers) is that except for status quo missions they are trying to jam the new reality into the old term to sustain not ‘traditional peacekeeping’ but rather, mythological peacekeeping. The UN has yet to transform itself to find a way to make practical the idea of ‘collective security’ in a world that does not resemble in any way the world of the UN at its birth.

What then does that world of conflict look like now? Beginning near 1990 we entered a new old era of continuous warfare — a concept not seen since the middle ages. Continuous warfare may be defined as wars that endure in various degrees of intensity without end, simply because no belligerent has the power to overcome any other or no politician has the power and legitimacy to control local conflicts or bring them to an end once they begin. This new pattern of regular warfare involves military and paramilitary forces, “low-tech” weapons and devices, intermingled military and political authorities, contrasting and contradictory aims, intense fighting interspersed with “cease fires,” and truces followed by the resumption of disorder. Importantly, the concept of continuous warfare is joined to the idea General Sir Rupert Smith [The Utility of Force] has added to the dialogue — these wars are not only continuous, but they are also in his words, “wars among the people.”

Continuous wars fought among the people are conceptually different in most important respects from our untransformed images of warfare since 1914. Scant consideration is given to non-combatants, traditional icons, or cherished institutions. Indeed, these very things may be the preferred targets on all sides. The people, no matter their communal status, may be in turn hostages, shields, targets, occasional and situational participants, and even willing victims — the term, non-combatant, in most cases has little or no relevance in such conflicts. These wars, moreover, are conceptually different from the normal and expected image of wars and international relations among states in 1950 held by the people who conceived of UN peacekeeping at that time.

By definition, there is no exit strategy from continuous warfare. But even more perplexing for western policy makers and citizens fixed on the old regular warfare image is the accidental collision between the emergence of continuous warfare among the people and the recent advent of the liberal (and I would say, Christian – “I am my brother’s keeper”) philosophy that the so-called global community has an obligation to intervene in conflicts among the people, an idea evident in the UN doctrine of “a responsibility to protect.”
How can the UN reconcile this collision of new images, ideas, and circumstances with the images and ideas developed in another reality? For this short discussion, how ought the UN transform its conceptual framework for collective security to better respond to global insecurity? Certainly, not by holding to outmoded concepts just to preserve an old term and the myths of UN peacekeeping.

2. To what extent can Canada's current [military] activities in Afghanistan be characterized as a peace operation? If this term is not appropriate, then how would you describe Canadian military operations there?

Canadian “whole-of-government” operations in Afghanistan are part of what can best be understood as a ‘stability campaign,’ in which military operations conducted under warfare doctrines and experiences aim to create “harmonious law-based conditions” in which legitimate governments (aided or directed by the UN) can develop in turn a more peaceful, liberal-democratic, consensual and self-sustaining national, regional, or international order.[1]

3. Why do you believe some commentators are asserting that Canadian peacekeeping is dead?

What is ‘dead,’ one hopes, is mythological peacekeeping. What is dead also, one hopes, are attempts to create conditions beyond reality to support the continuation of a term for no other reason than to perpetuate a term that has little meaning in fact. Ask yourself this question: why after all the years since the end of effective UN peacekeeping (status quo) operations in truly conflict-infested regions of the world are we still having conversations (of a type) to try to define ‘peacekeeping.” It is as though we were old officers sitting in the mess in 1913 trying to convince each other that the cavalry charge with sabres still has a purpose so as to sustain forever the customs and privileges of the defunct old cavalry club.

The more relevant question returns — for the UN in the new post-mythical peacekeeping era, what are the UN’s interests and security ideas and policies, and what military-related doctrines, organizations and structures follow logically from these ideas and policies? More critical perhaps, what conflicts should the UN join and on whose side and for how long and how do we know any answers to these questions before the fact? The transformation of UN peacekeeping, so-called, cannot even begin because the member states and the UN bureaucracy’s ideas about warfare and international relations on which transformation must stand have not themselves been transformed.

4. Should Canada restrict our military interventions to UN or UN sanctioned activities?

The UN is gradually moving under the control of states that do not share and some which are openly hostile to our core value – the defence and maintenance of liberal democracy. The organization is, besides, an administrative wasteland. Billions of dollars are swallowed up in unaccountable projects and even the Office of the Secretary General has been implicated in graft and corruption. The UN might be useful to direct some forms of international humanitarian aid and to provide a grandstand upon which even the most miserable dictator can pretend he is a world leader. Though some true believers may hold to the UN as a parish priest is held to his religion — by faith, “a belief not requiring proof,” Canadians should not expect the UN and the idea of collective security to assure Canada’s unity and liberal democracy.

If Canadian defence and security policy choices are to escape the clutches of the UN true believers, then we must begin by diminishing the power of the four myths of peacekeeping Canadians love to tell each other. Myth one – Canada (Lester Pearson) invented peacekeeping and Canada, therefore, must guard forever the holy chalice and participate in every UN mission. Myth two, peacekeeping is a selfless activity undertaken in the interests of the global community. Myth three, Canada never has and cannot advance it national interests by waging war or by joining alliances outside the dictates of the UN. Myth four, peacekeeping is not warfare and the mandate of the Canadian Forces is, therefore, ‘peacekeeping,’ not warfare.
In place of these myths Canadians ought to substitute and build a consensus on this more practical, realistic, and useful idea. Canada should join coalitions which support our national interests and those of our close allies after parliamentary consideration of the facts unhindered by the myths of peacekeeping and the assumed requirements of the so-called global community – UN missions related closely to our national interests might be among them.

5. What should our contribution to UN military operations be? If not boots on the ground, then what is more appropriate?

Canada’s “contribution to the UN military operations” cannot be determined (except in minor engagements of low risk) before the facts of a commitment are clear. Once the circumstances are reasonably clear, then Parliament should decide what is to be done after considering in detail, inter alia, the national interests to be served; the projected costs in blood and treasure of joining or not joining a mission; the military and other national capabilities at hand; and our other interests and relations with ‘like-minded nations.’ Deciding beforehand to make commitments only of one kind, or only to one or two regions, or only to assumed sets of future circumstances has never worked in fact. Deciding before the facts, furthermore, unnecessarily ties the hands of government attempting to decide in the circumstances what actions best serves Canada’s interests. In a word, Canada ought to maintain capabilities that will allow governments to protect and advance Canada’s interests within UN mandates if necessary but not necessarily only within UN mandates.

6. Is participation in peace operations less in accord with Canada's defence and foreign policy interests now than it has been in the past? Why?

Notes:

[1] For a detailed explanation of the ‘world order era’ and ‘stability campaigns, and related concepts, see Bland & Maloney, Campaigns for International Security, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004.]

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UN Peacekeeping: Canada Missing in Action

Ms Peggy Mason

Peggy Mason is Chair of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee, a senior fellow at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, and a faculty member of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.

1. What is your definition of peace operations? What (if anything) has changed as the international community utilizes the term "peace operations" instead of the more familiar "peacekeeping?"

The seminal Brahimi Report on United Nations Peace Operations (August 2000) stated that United Nations peace operations entailed three principal activities: conflict prevention and diplomatic peacemaking; peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

Peacekeeping was defined as a then 50-year-old enterprise that had evolved rapidly in the 1990’s from a primarily military model of observing ceasefires and force separations after inter-state wars, to incorporate a complex model of many elements, military and civilian, working together to build peace in the dangerous aftermath of civil wars.

Peacebuilding activities that regularly form part of this new model include reintegrating former combatants into civilian society, strengthening the rule of law; providing technical assistance for democratic development; improving respect for human rights; rehabilitating economic infrastructure and promoting sustainable development. Many peacebuilding activities are carried out by entities that are not part of the peacekeeping mission per se (from NGOs through to donor governments to independent UN agencies such as the UN High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR). Assistance in the process of rebuilding will be required long after the situation is stabilized sufficiently for the military and police components of the mission to draw down. Typically, in such cases a UN political mission (such as the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone, UNIOSIL) will continue to oversee the peacebuilding.

It does seem that some Canadian commentators use the term ‘peace operations’ to distinguish NATO-led missions like those in Bosnia and Kosovo from UN peacekeeping missions, not realizing the extent to which UN peacekeeping has evolved. Wait a minute, many will say. There is still a fundamental difference between the two – the NATO-led missions are much more militarily robust “peace enforcement” operations under Chapter VII of the UN Charter whereas UN-led missions operate under Chapter VI and, therefore, require the consent of the parties.

While this distinction was accurate for a time – most notably when the NATO-led force took over from the UN Protection Force, UNPROFOR, in the Former Yugoslavia - the reality now is quite different. See for example the current mandate of MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that began as an observer mission but now includes a range of demanding security assistance tasks including coercive disarmament and protection of civilians under imminent threat. Without calling explicitly for it (given the extreme reticence of many troop contributors at the time and even today), the Brahimi Report laid the groundwork for this evolution to a Chapter VII peacekeeping mandate, identifying as it did a central challenge to peace agreement implementation. This was the role of “spoilers,” groups (including signatories) who renege on their commitments and seek to undermine a peace accord by violence, particularly against innocent civilians. (Think of the havoc wreaked by Charles Taylor and his RUF allies in Sierra Leone.) Even where the leadership of the main parties holds firm, consent may break down at the tactical level. If the mandate is only under Chapter VI, the mission is ill-equipped to handle the new situation and Security Council authorization of a revised mandate may take a long time while the situation deteriorates daily on the ground. The cumulative result of many hard lessons learned by the UN from missions pre-dating and subsequent to the Brahimi report is that the military component of a modern complex UN peacekeeping mission (as opposed to one with an observer or interpositional mandate) now generally operates under Chapter VII rules of engagement and can use “all necessary means” to carry out its mandate. (In addition to MONUC, examples include the UN Operation in Burundi, UNOB, which has now transitioned to a political mission; the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire, UNOCI; and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.)

At the same time, this is not to say that securing the consent of the parties to the mission’s deployment is any less important for the aim is still, in every case, not to end up with the UN becoming a party to the conflict. But the mission is no longer hostage to that strategic consent, once obtained, and therefore has significant leeway in dealing with recalcitrant armed elements. (As for non-UN-led missions, it is worth noting that NATO did not deploy to Bosnia until the Dayton Accords were more or less agreed and Australia insisted on the consent of Indonesia before going forward with INTERFET in East Timor. It is the Sudanese government’s lack of consent to a UN force in Darfur that continues to confound efforts to resolve that horrific conflict).

What all this means is that, in modern UN peacekeeping, the military component is but one, albeit critically important, element of a much broader and fundamentally political process of peace implementation. In volatile environments with armed renegade factions, the essence of the modern peace operation is to find the proper balance between coercion and consent. For such an undertaking to succeed, the use of force must be guided by political judgment, based on a credible peace implementation process. “Taking assertive action against militant extremists will be tantamount to war, not peace implementation, in the absence of a credible peace process for the military to defend.”[1]

2. To what extent can Canada's current [military] activities in Afghanistan be characterized as a peace operation? If this term is not appropriate, then how would you describe Canadian military operations there?

Recalling the quote that ended my answer to the previous question, Canada’s current activities in Afghanistan are almost entirely counterinsurgency operations, in a word, war, and they most assuredly do not constitute a peace operation.

The Peace Operations Monitor website, under Mandates, clearly sets out the evolution of the now NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, from what was originally a peace operations “security assistance” mandate to tactics in the south which overlap with those of the USA-led counter-insurgency operation, Operation Enduring Freedom.

The original agreement in NATO to expand into the South was premised on improved security conditions there, which would permit a security assistance/peace support mandate to be carried out. However, as the security situation failed to stabilize and the USA upped its pressure on NATO to move into the South so American forces could be redeployed to Iraq, a bitter debate broke out among NATO countries over whether the conditions were ripe for expansion or would simply lead to NATO being sucked into the failing American counterinsurgency strategy. The result, not the North Atlantic Council’s finest moment, was a compromise whereby ISAF would expand into the South but those countries firmly and adamantly opposed to ISAF taking on a counterinsurgency mandate (led by Germany and France) would confine their forces and activities to the relatively more stable North and West. This was not quite what then Defence Minister Bill Graham had forecast in the November 15th, 2005 parliamentary debate on Afghanistan when, in response to a direct question from then Conservative defence critic, Gordon O’Connor, he blithely opined that, while there was not yet 100% support for ISAF expansion into the South, “There is certainly a movement in that direction.”

For its part, Canada did not even await the outcome of the debate but instead deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in January 2006 and only transitioned to ISAF when it formally began operations under UK leadership at the end of July 2006. In the May 2006 parliamentary debate on the extension of the Canadian mission until 2009, Gordon O’Connor, is his new role as Defence Minister, stated that it did not matter which mandate we were under, Canada’s actions would be the same.

This debate is not ancient history. It continues to this day and deprives ISAF commanders of the forces they need to make a real difference. (For a recent analysis of the NATO dimension, see Gordon Smith’s Report, Canada in Afghanistan: Is it Working?)

Canadian military activities that most closely approximate those of peace support operations are the 350 soldiers working as part of Canada’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar. But many in the peacebuilding community see PRTs as a laudable but misguided effort that actually undermines their work by conflating humanitarian and military objectives.

Those that support the current military strategy argue, correctly, that development efforts cannot take place until security is re-established. The issue then is how to do this effectively. This website includes report after report documenting in excruciating detail the failing counterinsurgency effort and the need for a new security-building military strategy. But a new military strategy will only work if the overarching political strategy for Afghanistan undergoes a fundamental reorientation as well.

Actually the way the debate was first formulated was that UN peacekeeping was dead and therefore so was Canada’s role in it. Whether loudly trumpeting or sadly lamenting its demise, many analysts seemed completely unaware of the evolution and scope of modern UN peacekeeping. They saw only two choices, “traditional peacekeeping” - by which they appeared to mean UN-led “Blue Helmet” Chapter VI operations, lightly armed, with weak rules of engagement - and non-UN-led Chapter VII “robust” or muscular international operations such as the NATO-led peace support missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Equally problematic they gave undue weight to the military component of those missions and paid too little attention to the overarching political framework.

From this fundamental misreading of the key lessons of Bosnia and Kosovo, it was a short step to the adoption of a model for intervention in failed or failing states that obliterates the distinction between peace support and war fighting – the “three block war”. Thus, the Martin government’s May 2005 International Policy Statement gives primacy to a model based on the nonsensical idea that land forces can simultaneously, and in close proximity, engage effectively in high intensity combat, stabilization operations and humanitarian relief and reconstruction.

The Harper government, for its part, has eagerly embraced the war fighting model in Afghanistan and repeatedly dismisses any suggestion that more attention to diplomacy might be needed.

So commentators that assert Canadian peacekeeping is dead are not far off the mark. UN peacekeeping is now at an all-time high with over 80,000 soldiers in the field, while Canada's contribution is at an historic low – 55 soldiers.

It has to be the ultimate irony that it is precisely the experience of soldiers in UN peacekeeping missions like MONUC, trying as they are to contain and control renegade or non-compliant elements who are well-armed and ruthless, while at the same time actively protecting local populations, that could serve so well to help guide an effective Canadian strategy in Afghanistan. The lessons of these modern UN missions would have taught Canada the primacy of the peace process and the absolute limits of the use of force, no matter how capable and dedicated the soldiers exercising that force. In the words of Walter Dorn in his March 22nd testimony to the Foreign Affairs Standing Committee: “…[r]obust peacekeeping, which the UN has evolved over many decades, points the way… to a long-term solution in Afghanistan.”

4. Should Canada restrict our military interventions to UN or UN sanctioned activities?

The answer is an almost unqualified yes (absolutes, making me a tad nervous). Military intervention need not be explicitly authorized by the UN in every case but in every case it must conform to the requirements of the UN Charter (whether under Chapter VI, VII or VIII) or it is illegal aggression. Just as I believe in the rule of law in Canada, so do I fervently believe in the rule of law internationally. Of course I recognize the deep problems with the UN Security Council and would not rule out a priori the possibility of a military intervention without its authorization in a case where the UN Charter would otherwise require it. But if the Security Council is blocked and the need for action is widely self-evident, then the alternative of securing authorization by a supporting vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly ought to be a viable alternative. The argument was made in the case of the non-UN-sanctioned NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo in 1999 that it was being pursued under an emerging principle of international law – R2P - the responsibility of the international community to protect citizens of a specific country from gross human rights abuses in circumstances where their own government was unable or unwilling to act or was in fact the perpetrator of the abuses. I would feel more comfortable about the Kosovo example if the strategy for protecting civilians at risk had not been an air bombing campaign. And the trouble with going outside international law is that it sets a very, very bad precedent. While R2P has not yet proven to be sufficient reason for the international community to act without the consent of the Sudanese government in Darfur, the Bush and Blair governments had no hesitation in invoking “humanitarian intervention” as justification for ousting Saddam, once the WMD rationale came to nothing. In other words, the Kosovo illegal bombing in order to coerce regime change by military force crossed a sovereignty threshold for the international community which the Americans and British then fully exploited for their illegal Iraq invasion. Prior to the limits placed on the use of force in the UN Charter, seeking to solve political problems by the use of military force was commonplace and it doomed the Europeans to centuries of war. The only way forward is fair rules, fairly applied, not a system where the most powerful assert that they are accountable only to themselves. While the UN system has many problems, it is like democracy – infinitely better than any alternative yet devised.

Accordingly, Canada’s interest unequivocally lies in strengthening, not undermining, the international rule of law.

For the reasons set out in my response to question 6 below, I believe that Canadian participation in UN peace operations is in Canada’s foreign and defence policy interests now more than ever before. If these operations are in our national interest, then of course we should be contributing our fair share to them.

Given the sheer magnitude of UN peacekeeping currently underway, Canadian “boots on the ground” are sorely needed but even more important is Canadian capacity. Modern military peacekeeping is extremely challenging. A well-trained, well-equipped combat capable, professional soldier is just the starting point. In addition he or she must be able to carry out the mandate with absolute evenhandedness and impartiality and with the least level of force possible in the circumstances. Negotiation and persuasion are the first resort. Escalation of force must be carefully calibrated both for its immediate tactical effect in military terms and its broader impact on the political process. (Will this action undermine or buttress that process?) Rank and file soldiers must be able to make individual judgment calls, not simply respond by rote to a pre-determined set of circumstances. At the other end of the force scale is the use of attack helicopters to protect civilians in remote areas of the Congo or targeted police and military operations against criminal gangs in Haiti’s Port au Prince.

And being able to do all this is still not enough. Military peacekeepers must be perceived by the locals as impartial, free to act unfettered by colonial baggage or vested national interests.

I agree with Walter Dorn Dorn that 500 soldiers is a credible number for Canada to contribute to UN peacekeeping. There are also a number of other ways we can buttress our support including the provision of advanced monitoring technologies and renewed attention to the rapid-reaction standby force, SHIRBRIG, developed in the late 1990s from a Canadian-Danish initiative. Through the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre Canada has developed an international reputation for training military and civilian peacekeepers for complex, multidisciplinary peace operations. A particularly innovative and successful training programme, begun in 2005 under a five-year funding commitment from DND’s Military Training Assistance programme (MTAP), focuses on readying staff officers from UN troop contributing nations around the world for the demands of UN integrated missions. Inexplicably, DND recently advised that it was ending financial support for this flagship programme.

The most urgent contribution that Canada needs to make in the near term, however, is political not military. A UN-led initiative to jump start a broad-based and long-overdue political dialogue in Afghanistan is urgently needed and Canada can play a key role in building diplomatic support for it.

On the contrary, it has never been more in Canada’s defence and foreign policy interests to participate in UN-led and UN- authorized peace operations; nor have we ever been more needed. (As an aside, I note that defence policy is a component of our foreign policy, not a separate set of interests.)

Failed and failing states deprive countless millions of the chance for a decent life. They also generate multiple threats to international peace and security, encompassing terrorism, organized crime, mass refugee movements, the spread of infectious diseases and environmental devastation. Accordingly, for reasons of common humanity and enlightened self-interest, the prevention of violent conflict, effective conflict resolution and post-conflict peacebuilding should be central to Canadian foreign policy and a key pillar of Canadian defence policy.

The launching by the Bush administration of the “global war on terror” in response to the September 11th attacks has led all who followed in entirely the wrong direction. This approach to fighting terrorism conflates three distinct types of activities – war fighting, peacekeeping and anti-terrorist police operations - arguably to the detriment of all three. Why is this relevant? Because it appears to have led Canada’s top military to replace the fundamentals of modern robust UN peacekeeping with the fatally flawed concept of the three-block war, discussed in my response to question 3.

Democracy and good governance cannot be coerced at the barrel of a gun. Neither can they be promoted through ad hoc, inconsistent, incomplete or contradictory national efforts by external actors, however well-intentioned. If the international community is to have any success at all in facilitating the transition from war to sustainable peace, then it must commit itself to sustained and coordinated efforts within a broad multilateral framework, under United Nations leadership. Whatever the UN’s flaws and there are many, no nation or group of nations can come close to the level of legitimacy, impartiality and comprehensive peacebuilding expertise that the UN brings.[2]

In short we need more, not less, “Blue Helmet” peace operations as well as NATO-led missions that operate in the closest possible coordination with a UN political mission with a broad mandate to oversee all aspects of the peace implementation process. This is where Canada should be focusing its efforts.

Notes:
[1] The Quest for Viable Peace, Jock Covey, Michael J. Dziedzic, and Leonard R. Hawley editors, (USIP 2005) pg 250.
[2] See for example the 2005 Rand and Paris studies, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2004)

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Comment by Ernie Regehr
 

Ernie Regehr is Senior Policy Advisor to Project Ploughshares and Adjunct Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo. He writes broadly on peace and security issues. 

Note: An expanded version of Ernie's arguments will appear on his blog, Disarming Conflict.

Many thanks to Doug Bland and Peggy Mason for two very fine commentaries that do a lot to help us understand military interventions and peace operations. There is much here to inform, stimulate, and even provoke. In order to stay within hailing distance of the word limit, I have focused my response on some implications for our understanding of Canada in Afghanistan.

Doug and Peggy agree that the current ISAF operation in the south is “war.” Doug calls it a “stability campaign” by means of “warfare” and argues that Canada should join such campaigns/wars when the fight is in “our interests and those of our close allies.” But I find it interesting that in his strong statement in support of Canada’s role in Afghanistan he calls it a “war of liberation” consistent with Canadian “traditions,” not interests.

There is no question that Canadian interests are involved, inasmuch as it is broadly within our interests to promote a rules-based international order that serves the well-being and safety of people, but when we ask our fellow citizens to make the extraordinary sacrifices that await them in Afghanistan, the language of interests fails us. In these moments we quite properly invoke ideals of liberation, of a common humanity, and, yes, of being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers – all of which, we should be proud to acknowledge, find resonance within Canadian traditions.

That these traditions live within a national story of constructed mythologies is not in doubt, but the point of a national story is the expectation that it will help shape our action when it matters most. Collectively, we sometimes honor and frequently betray our myths, but it is still our aspiration and responsibility in particular circumstances like Afghanistan to muster the conviction and especially the skills to effectively serve the ideals of protecting fundamental rights and peacemaking that our national story invokes.

And that’s where Peggy’s detailed attention to peace processes comes in – to define the kind of intervention that is needed if we are to have any chance of meeting those ideals. Doug’s description of continuous warfare (an era that began in the mid 1950s and early 1960s, not 1990, in places like Sudan and Angola) really proves Peggy’s point that you don’t win the peace by entering one side of an ongoing civil war and fighting it out. Her argument, and the lessons of peacebuilding, makes it clear that winning the peace is a political, social, economic, military enterprise – and the most immediate problem in Afghanistan is that the political component has fallen apart, and the social and economic components have fallen seriously short of expectations.

The Afghan Government that the ISAF operation supports has for a variety of reasons – some self-inflicted, some owing to the failure of the international community – lost the confidence of Afghans to such an extent that the essential ingredient of “a credible peace implementation process” is no longer present, certainly not in the south. Hence, the military operation has become an effort to militarily impose order – as Doug puts it, “to create ‘harmonious law-based conditions’” – but it is predictably proving to be impossible because too many Afghans, especially in the south, believe that the particular Governing order that the foreign military intervention supports will lead neither to harmony nor the fair rule of law.

So, how to restore a credible peace process? Well, there are some good ideas around. Increasingly the talk about negotiating with the Taliban is getting serious and needs international support to generate a political culture of inclusion, rather than sticking to a strategy of exclusion. The lessons of the Dutch are also gaining credence – that is, focusing less on fighting the spoilers and more on making their cause irrelevant. The ongoing need to generate economic opportunity is well understood and needs to be well funded..

All this has to happen in a dangerous environment, reminding us that the resort to lethal force will remain a part of the reality for some time to come. Calling for a switch from a military to a diplomatic/humanitarian strategy, or endlessly debating military withdrawal deadlines, won’t produce the safety needed. But you can do what Peggy counsels, and that is to “find the proper balance between coercion and consent” – and producing consent is a political process.

The key in peace operations is to ensure that the resort to military force is in support of the peace process, rather than a substitute for it.

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Comment by Peter Goodspeed

Peter Goodspeed is an award winning reporter with the National Post. He specializes in foreign affairs writing and has worked as a foreign correspondent and foreign editor for 25 years.

For nearly four decades Canada participated in practically every peacekeeping operation ever launched by the United Nations. As a country, during the same period, we spent the barest minimum possible on our armed forces and justified this neglect by insisting that we were a nation of peacekeepers rather than warriors.

Unfortunately, times changed. During the Cold War, traditional peacekeeping was primarily a mechanism for managing conflict and supervising truces with the consent of the main disputants. This required a minimum use of force and meshed nicely with Canada ’s attitude towards international diplomacy. We saw ourselves as a well-intentioned Middle Power who frequently provided an impartial voice of reason in a starkly bipolar world.

Since the end of the Cold War however, international peacekeeping operations have changed drastically. As Dr. Bland suggests, the focus has shifted from “war monitoring” to “war operations”. Instead of maintaining an agreed upon status quo, “peacekeepers” now all too frequently have to establish peace themselves and change an unacceptable status quo.

As a result, “peace operations” entail both peacemaking and peace-building and include components of irregular warfare, counterinsurgency and unconventional war, combined with providing humanitarian assistance, training, arms control and developmental assistance.

Whether it is East Timor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Darfur or Afghanistan, the modern would-be “peacekeeper” needs to be prepared to use force to keep anarchy at bay. He also needs to make room to allow diplomacy and development to act on a crisis.

The fact the UN has failed to handle many of these post-Cold War crises is an indication that old–style peacekeeping no longer works. Countries like Canada have to be prepared to join “coalitions of the willing” if they hope to influence events that cannot be handled properly by the UN’s cumbersome collective security procedures. After all, it was NATO, not the UN that really brought peace to the Balkans. It was Australia, operating under robust rules of engagement that don’t normally accompany UN operations, which tamed East Timor. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than a million people died before the UN could act to restore peace and even then it had to ratchet up its rules of engagement significantly to coerce disarmament and protect civilians before it had any impact. It is NATO operating under a UN mandate that is now restoring order to Afghanistan.

Rather than relying solely on the UN to legitimize the use of force, Canada must pursue its national interest and international aims through a combination of different coalitions of close allies. As a member of NATO and as an individual nation-state acting in conjunction with others, we can tackle international crises that the UN is incapable of dealing with.

In this new climate of “peace operations” it would be foolish to think military force alone will succeed. Success will come from a combination of military force, diplomacy and development. This will require a civil-military partnership unlike any we have had in the past. As Ms Mason argues, “The essence of the modern peace operation is to find the proper balance between coercion and consent.”

This new balance requires significant adjustments on the part of both the military and traditional aid workers who have supplied humanitarian support in international crises in the past. The military has traditionally been reluctant to become involved in “peace building”, while NGOs have been reluctant to be associated with any military component and reject coordinating their activities with the military. They insist on neutrality, impartiality and independence. But in a hot conflict situation, like Afghanistan, that arms-length separation of the military and development functions is often not possible or is at the very least problematic.

A key aspect of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is to provide a secure environment in which the Afghan government can assert itself and development can take place. In the present climate of a Taliban-backed insurgency, this involves war. Counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan will take time and they will likely involve more casualties than we are used to in our formerly traditional peacekeeping – peace-monitoring roles. But security, development and reconstruction are preconditions for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and achieving all three may cost us both blood and treasure. But any application of force involves risks. Canada lost something in the range of 125 peacekeepers during traditional passive peacekeeping operations in the past.

Canada’s experience in peacekeeping and peace operations gives us the credentials with which to help organizations like the UN to overhaul their own peacebuilding and peacemaking operations. We have the experience, the knowledge and the resources necessary to help the UN build a more robust and responsive peace operations unit. This would involve far more than mere “boots on the ground”. We should be involved in training, financing and equipping UN rapid reaction forces. We should be providing them with new technologies to assist in performing their duties and we should help train organizations like the African Union, which will work with the UN in future crises. Canadian aid workers and diplomats can also take the lead in trying to develop a framework in which the UN can more effectively and expeditiously apply a combination of force, diplomacy and aid to future crises.

Canada has a long, honourable tradition of international involvement and her soldiers and people have repeatedly been willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. I expect we will continue to do so and we will wisely and pragmatically continue to pick the fights in which we decide to make our presence felt.

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