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The Canadian Peacekeeping Myth (Merged Topics)

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If we do anymore "peacekeeping" we need to set the mission goals and the equipment/troops needed. The UN has to agree to provide funding upfront for incurred costs and provide a 24hr 365 days of the year situation room where commanders on the ground can get support and decisions made on the spot.
 
Colin P said:
If we do anymore "peacekeeping" we need to set the mission goals and the equipment/troops needed. The UN has to agree to provide funding upfront for incurred costs and provide a 24hr 365 days of the year situation room where commanders on the ground can get support and decisions made on the spot.

I agree with our previous CDS. Let's be frank, the UN is a bureaucratic nightmare and has arguably cost more people their lives over the years instead of doing what the organization was designed to do. The minute you invoke the "UN" card, I can assure you that you will receive no funding 24 hours a day - 365 days a year, and the commanders on the ground on the contrary will make few decisions with limited resources. 

Peacekeeping ...    such a terrible term. As if peace in half these places existed prior to us being there and so naturally we are keeping it.  We are arguably some of the worlds best peace enforcers !

???
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the beginning of the end was with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Up until then, the typical peacekeeping mission came about as a result of a ceasefire agreement between the two opposing groups, with UN troops coming in to act as an enforcement agency to keep the lid on things long enough for the warring factions to settle their differences at the negotiating table.

With Yugo, there was no real peace or cease fire agreement. The UN and NATO had to go in and separate the factions. And things have never been the same since.

Also, in a way, the breakup of the Soviet Union could be considered the impetus, since they no longer were to reign in their client states.

Just my  :2c:
 
cupper said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the beginning of the end was with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
I'd suggest that the end was the collapse of the Berlin Wall, five years earlier.

When communism collapsed (everywhere except Canadian university Arts faculties), there was no further impetus for the two bloc leaders -- US and Soviet Union -- to bitch-slap* their proxies into accepting peacekeepers because their sideshow activities were threatening to upset the applecart of 'strategic balance.'


* - bitch-slap is an accepted International Relations term....honest.
 
Journeyman said:
I'd suggest that the end was the collapse of the Berlin Wall, five years earlier.

When communism collapsed (everywhere except Canadian university Arts faculties), there was no further impetus for the two bloc leaders -- US and Soviet Union -- to bitch-slap* their proxies into accepting peacekeepers because their sideshow activities were threatening to upset the applecart of 'strategic balance.'


* - bitch-slap is an accepted International Relations term....honest.

That's where I was going with that.
 
Funny enough I just wrote something on this elsewhere yesterday, and my reply fits pretty well. If anyone knows a particular individual on Facebook and has seen this already, my apologies.

- - - - - -

I think the change, if any, is to be found in the increasingly internecine nature of 'civil' conflicts and border spats. Much of what we think of as 'traditional peacekeeping' was pre-1991, and so most parties had a patron on one side of the iron curtain or another- either the U.S. or Russia would have somewhat greater say in curbing excess via the simple expedient of cutting off availability of weapons, and the like. Yet at the same time, this patronage also provided a political umbrella. Conflicts prior to the fall of the Soviet Union seldom reached the intensity we see today, and if they did, they were probably in places so inconsequential that no party concerned itself with it.

Belligerents are more 'on their own' today. With the global bipolarity dynamic gone, the U.S. and Russia need not try to court proxies by showing a degree of tolerance or by providing weapons. Conversely, aggressors are more diplomatically isolated, and as a result probably less inclined to give a damn what everyone else thinks- they know they have nothing to gain but what they can forcefully take.

Traditional peacekeeping seems to have been more about keeping both (all?) sides honest, and within the bounds that the major powers were willing to accept. The thought that a belligerent just might not give a damn what we think is new to within two decades. Cajoling and chiding doesn't work anymore, and there are few carrots left to offer.

But the stick hasn't worked out too well either. So now what?
 
CDN Aviator said:
More, bigger, swifter striking stick.

I wasn't aware that we had any significant deficiencies in our ability to pummel the ever-living f*** out of third world dictatorships. It would seem to me that western militaries that maintain the legacy of the intended to role to fight the soviets are probably suited for any conventionally forceful tasks we might imagine in a peacekeeping context.

For intervention to work - because when we start talking about use of force, intervention is what's really being spoken of, whether we call it peacekeeping or not - we need the means, the will (in turn informed by both moral and legal legitimacy) and the credibility. The means clearly isn't lacking for the *coercive* aspect. Moral legitimacy seldom is lacking, and legal framework is often provided by the mission mandates for traditional missions.

We can go after the enemy's *means* to commit belligerency - be it smashing Ghaddafi's or Assad's army - or their *will* to by making them no longer want to. We can make them no longer want to through incentive (we'll help you rebuild), or through disincentive (smashy smashy).

So I see two things lacking. First, credibility, as in, 'dick around and we'll destroy you'. This makes disincentive much harder, as we must be seen as willing to back our words with force. We're great as sitting back and watching atrocity and they know it. And I think we're still weak on the *non* coercive means; the stuff that shapes the *human* battlespace and acts more as the positive incentive to cease hostilities. Whether it's uniformed - IA capabilities, etc - or civic, in the guise of diplomacy, development, aid, etc.

We used to be much more willing to incentivize cooperation and disincentivize intransigence, but the disincentives that applied decades ago in the form of cutting off political support don't seem to play anymore. In Kosovo and Libya we've taken the first cautious steps I think into normalizing forceful disincentive.

But if we accept that legitimation of sufficient armed force to coerce a belligerent will be rare, then the alternatives have to be properly resourced, and the peacekeeping nations collectively will have to get their stuff together and take more unified approaches in convincing third world d-bags that it's in their tangible interest to cease atrocity.

And if we're going to continue down the Libya/Kosovo route, we'd better get more switched on about figuring out the end game post bellum.
 
Brihard said:
I wasn't aware that we had any significant deficiencies in our ability to pummel the ever-living f*** out of third world dictatorships.

Afghanistan. Libya.

Those are going/went well, right ?

We can make them no longer want to through incentive (we'll help you rebuild),

Incentives have really worked keeping DPRK in line too........



Libya we've taken the first cautious steps I think into normalizing forceful disincentive.

Libya was step one in showing R2P, without serious commitment of forces might not be such a good idea.

 
CDN Aviator said:
Afghanistan. Libya.

Those are going/went well, right ?

At what point in those conflicts have we been at all hindered by an inabilit yto kill people or break things that was not easily remedied by bringing in other kit that we just didn't have in theatre yet? You're clearly missing the point I'm trying to make here. When I speak of 'the means', I mean 'can we actually do it?' I would say resoundingly 'yes'. We've won every real *fight* we've gotten into, in the purest conventional tactical sense. The worst hit we took was Op Medusa, yet there was a damned nice road through Pashmul by the time I got there, and we had a FOB at either end of it.

Since I spoke of defeating state powers - the 'third world dictatorships' I mentioned - I have to point out that the government of Afghanistan has been on our side for some years now. And the rapid and violent dismantling of Libya's military speaks for itself.

Please try not to drag this too far off track into different discussions of counterinsurgency. While the sort of conflict in which one may peacekeep and the one in which one may wage COIN definitely overlap at the edges, that isn't really the part of the spectrum of conflict being talked about here.

CDN Aviator said:
Incentives have really worked keeping DPRK in line too........

This is a thread about peacekeeping, so this is a strawman on your part. Containment of rogue nuclear powers is a different discussion entirely.

CDN Aviator said:
Libya was step one in showing R2P, without serious commitment of forces might not be such a good idea.

Agreed. Which is the 'will' and 'credibility' I spoke to. Libya was an easy win(ish). The Libyan armed forces were easy to dominate militarily, and could not easily or effectively defend. The same approach would likely not work nearly so well in such a place as, say, Syria.
 
Brihard said:
And the rapid and violent dismantling of Libya's military speaks for itself.

I was there. That it took NATO that long exemplifies our inability to "kill or break things" in an impressive manner. It hardly qualifies as "rapid". Libya was not a tough nut to crack and we still struggled.

It could have been over in a quarter of the time, had we had a bigger stick and the ability to use it faster.



 
CDN Aviator said:
That it took NATO that long exemplifies our inability to "kill or break things" in an impressive manner. It hardly qualifies as "rapid". Libya was not a tough nut to crack and we still struggled.

It could have been over in a quarter of the time, had we had a bigger stick and the ability to use it faster.

Please tell me per contributing nation what percentage of that nation's tactical bombing capacity was deployed. We (the collective 'we') did have both the 'sticks' and the ability to use them- and chose not to. Most of them simply never left their hangars back home. I bet pretty much every nation that contributed aircraft could have, if we had chosen to, contributed five or ten times the number of combat aircraft than we actually did. Based on the numbers of aircraft publicly announced by participating nations there look to have been less than 150 bomb trucks, and that's without me having gone to the effort to whittle that number down by the nations whose aircraft didn't actually drop ordnance. If you're going to insist the west does not possess the ability to do what I've said we can, please tell me what assets are lacking completely, as opposed to simply sitting at home after nations chose not to deploy them?

I would in response suggest looking at the Gulf War, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq if you want an indicator as to how quickly and effectively the west can destroy an army if we choose to take the gloves off and actually send a considerable amount of force.

Also, make allowance for the fact that not going all out was a policy decision borne of the need to be seen to be exercising restraint and to avoid collateral damage. And for the fact that the only Western ground forces were unconventional ones, necessarily limited in numbers, and consequently limited in how much battlespace they could 'eyes-on' and FAC some birds in.

I was there.

And I was in Afghanistan. Doesn't mean I get to argue that conflict based merely on my presence, without the bothersome analysis of relevant factors.
 
Brihard said:
If you're going to insist the west does not possess the ability to do what I've said we can, please tell me what assets are lacking completely,

Right at the most basic, there was of a shortage of bombs. OUP stretched many of our allies to unsustainable levels, even though it was essentially in their backyards, with a secure logistical tail. The RAF for example could not manage to deploy its Typhoons to OUP and maintain domestic QRA without shutting down the OTU and deploying the instructor pilots. The RAF narrowly avoided not being able to deploy required SIGINT aircraft by a matter of days. There was an acute shortage of dedicated ISR aircraft.

We were not lacking of anything completely. The was a shortage of everything.

I would in response suggest looking at the Gulf War, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq if you want an indicator as to how quickly and effectively the west can destroy an army if we choose to take the gloves off and actually send a considerable amount of force.

That capability existed in 1991. We're in 2012. Even our own military is considerably smaller. The UK's military is not getting larger either. Without US involvement, your entire scenario does not get off the ground.

Also, make allowance for the fact that not going all out was a policy decision borne of the need to be seen to be exercising restraint and to avoid collateral damage. 

That same constraint will continue to apply wherever we go.
 
But, i agree on one thing, this is quite the side track and will follow your request and not derail it further.
 
CDN Aviator said:
Right at the most basic, there was of a shortage of bombs. OUP stretched many of our allies to unsustainable levels, even though it was essentially in their backyards, with a secure logistical tail. The RAF for example could not manage to deploy its Typhoons to OUP and maintain domestic QRA without shutting down the OTU and deploying the instructor pilots. The RAF narrowly avoided not being able to deploy required SIGINT aircraft by a matter of days. There was an acute shortage of dedicated ISR aircraft.

We were not lacking of anything completely. The was a shortage of everything.

That capability existed in 1991. We're in 2012. Even our own military is considerably smaller. The UK's military is not getting larger either. Without US involvement, your entire scenario does not get off the ground.

That same constraint will continue to apply wherever we go.

OK, fair enough- I didn't realize that actual physical ordnance had been in such short supply.; I'll absolutely buy that. Long term, that's a relatively easy one to solve if it's merely a matter of making and stockpiling more ordnance, and keeping it checked out.

I agree that US involvement is going to be pretty close to a sine qua non of getting much done when it becomes time to get coercive, and I have no trouble believing that Libya stretched the ability of the west minus (mostly) the U.S. to do these things.

Regarding the sustainability of larger forces- would it be fair to argue that a larger, more forceful surge early on, taking greatest advantage of still-concentrated enemy force, could have a greater return on investment in the short term, allowing for a fairly rapid reduction in forces down to more sustainable levels? Strategically, is there likely to be any threat that would emerge so quickyl and so seriously that a redeployment away from an intervention mission could not realistically be achieved quickly enough?

Again, I still maintain that we've drifted well away from what we'd consider to be peacekeeping in most traditional models. And in Libya we had the curious factor of being almost completely reliant on air power, rather than augmenting with mechanized ground forces that can recce, contain, fix, and strike enemy forces in their own right- the combined arms whole, I think, being more than just the sum of its parts. A 120mm HEAT will do an AFV just as well as a GBU, after all. I also would argue that, in the intervention context, a Western mechanized force would have the additional benefit of giving enemy forces someone to surrender to. That was also seen in Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

It's hard to argue some things based on Libya due to how nearly completely is was an air war from our end of things. If authorization of force under R2P is to continue in future, ground forces would seem to be a requisite if what we did in Libya was in fact as logistically challenging as you suggest.

Of course, I'm also a grunt, and tend to think of things in such terms- so take my bias into account.
 
We posted across each other there...

Maybe there's room for a split here to separate discussion on the viability of forceful intervention?
 
A bump with the latest from the PM marking National Peacekeepers’ Day....
"For several decades, Canada has made important contributions to peacekeeping operations around the world.

"Tens of thousands of Canadian Armed Forces members, police officers and civilians have worked tirelessly to promote Canada's interests and international stability.  This has included placing themselves between hostile forces, supervising cease-fires and the withdrawal of opposing troops, providing valuable support to international security operations and stabilization efforts through capacity building, training and policy development, and participating in strategic deployments of equipment and uniformed personnel and civilian experts."

“On this day, let us pay tribute to the remarkable work accomplished by all Canadian and international peacekeepers and remember with deep respect the more than 275 citizens of our country who paid the ultimate price while on peacekeeping missions.

“Let us also remember those Canadians currently keeping up the proud tradition of peacekeeping in places such as Haiti, Israel, Cyprus and South Sudan, and wish them a safe return home.

“Today, I call on all Canadians to join me in saluting and thanking these heroic and selfless individuals who sacrifice so much to help make the world a better place.”
 
The US is expressing a new I terest in UN peace operations, so Canadian proponents are taking the opportunity to champion the idea of the CAF as a peacekeeping force.

If we want to craft a force capable of undertaking the lead nation role on a peace operation, then we need to craft a force that is capable of undertaking the lead nation role on a combat operation.

Can Canada's army return to peacekeeping?
For the first time since 9/11 and with the world still aflame, the U.S. is urging allies to revive the concept of United Nations peacekeeping. But is it too late for Canada's combat-focused army, once the best in the blue helmet business, to be part of the new program?
Toronto Star
Mitch Potter
Mar 30 2015

When the most senior military brass from more than 100 countries gather for a historic summit you might expect Canada’s top soldier to join them.

Especially when the entire point of the gathering is to modernize and reinvigorate a Canadian idea for the age of threats like the Islamic State militant group, being there moves beyond expectation into the realm of mandatory.

Yet examine the images from UN headquarters in New York on Friday, where the planet’s military leaders gathered in unprecedented numbers in a major drive to rewire peacekeeping for the 21st century, and Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Tom Lawson, is not in the picture. He wasn’t there.

As everyone knows, the Canadian Forces are not in the blue helmet business anymore. From a peak of 3,300 Canadians deployed to honour Lester B. Pearson’s Nobel Prize-winning concept of UN peacekeeping, only a token 90 serve today — 30 soldiers and 60 police officers.

Our army, once a leader in protecting civilians trapped by conflict, now is wired pretty much exclusively for war.

But what you probably don’t know is that a UN peacekeeping renaissance is in the works. And the effort is depending on technologically advanced allies like Canada to step up big.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon laid down the opening marker Friday in his address to the Chiefs of Defence Conference, calling for the “unity and backing” of developed countries to smart-wire, train, equip and staff a bigger, faster, fleeter international army of blue helmets to meet evermore complex challenges.

UN peacekeeping has never been busier, despite Canada’s exit from the realm. A record 130,000 international, military, police and civilian staff today serve in 16 operations around the world. These are unprecedented numbers.

But those missions are more complex, difficult and dangerous than ever. And the UN chief, with the full backing of the United States, is calling for not only additional “boots on the ground” from developing nations, but also new tools and technology, including surveillance drones, strategic airlift, medical evacuation and modern intelligence capabilities to better protect civilians and blue helmets alike.

The world must oppose “this terrorizing campaign by ISIL/Da’esh,” said Ban, using other terms in use for the Islamic State. But military actions, he said, are far from “the only options or only ways” to defeat extremism. Part of the answer is a stronger international partnership aimed at root causes, including a new global consensus to rebuild the “unparalleled legitimacy” of UN peacekeeping.

Canada is hardly alone in its drift away from peacekeeping. Europe has also dialed down its contributions, with EU member nations now providing fewer than 7 per cent of the overall UN peacekeeping force from a high of more than 40 per cent. The top 10 contributors today comprise troops from South Asia and Africa.

But the White House, which provides $2.5 billion (U.S.) of the UN’s annual $8.5-billion peacekeeping budget, wants its allies back in the peacekeeping game. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to get involved personally in September, when he will chair a meeting at the UN General Assembly to tally up new blue helmet pledges.

The U.S. pivot on peacekeeping marks a turning point, according to Jean-Marie Guehenno, a former UN peacekeeping chief and now president of the International Crisis Group. Since the attacks of 9/11, U.S. policy has focused on NATO and alliances to meet conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

“Now, when the U.S. says, ‘You’re our allies, and one of the best ways to show that friendship is to contribute to the UN,’ that’s quite a signal,” Guehenno told The Associated Press.

Should Canada answer the call? Could we, even? Some Canadian analysts argue our current combat-ready, NATO-aligned military orientation makes the notion of a significant, sustained return to peacekeeping almost a non-starter.

“It’s not impossible. But to take the Canadian Forces as they currently exist and to recraft them into a force capable to leading a peacekeeping mission in the absence of its allies is a pretty significant reconsideration,” said Philippe Lagassé, associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa.

“When Canada operates overseas, it does so in heavy dependence of allies, and particularly the United States, for things like transport and logistics. Looking to any approach that doesn’t fit with that vision would involve a major reassessment of Canada’s force structure.”

But Walter Dorn, one of the last Canadian defence scholars who still teaches advanced peacekeeping classes, says the issue warrants serious reconsideration, given the level of U.S. interest in a blue helmet revival.

“The U.S. effort is genuine. I’ve been to Washington three times in recent months to talk with the (U.S.) Department of Defense on helping bring United Nations peacekeeping technology into the 21st century,” said Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College and the Canadian Forces College.

“And I think the key here is that the two approaches can coexist. It’s not one or the other and nothing in between. We can excel in combat and excel in peacekeeping. It comes down to questions of training and political will.”

In recent years the Canadian Forces have been “wired for war,” said Dorn. “But the skills we once had are not completely gone. Close to 30 per cent of Canadian officer command and staff having served as peacekeepers.”

Dorn has spent years arguing for a partial Canadian pivot back to peacekeeping. Among the potential dividends, he notes, are recouped costs. Canada pays every penny of its deployments alongside NATO — price tags like the $14 billion spent on war with Afghanistan. But the world pays for a significant part of UN peacekeeping, with contributor nations reimbursed about 25 per cent of soldiers’ salaries and close to 50 per cent on equipment costs.

“It’s the reputation dividend that is harder to quantify, and it’s not a simple equation,” said Dorn.

“It’s sheer naivety to think that peacekeeping alone makes all the difference. But at the same time, reputation does matter. And when you are seen as contributing to the cause for peace you are viewed as less of an aggressor,” he said.

“You look at Canada’s unique role in the genesis of peacekeeping, our absence of colonial baggage, our multilingual forces. You add to that the big change now, with the UN and the U.S. very serious about getting developed countries to return to peacekeeping.

“What it adds up to is a perfect moment to Canadians to reflect on where we are going, as a military and as a nation.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/03/29/can-canadas-army-return-to-peacekeeping.html
 
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