The Canadian Peacekeeping Myth (Merged Topics)

[Edward Campbell]

Two points about Eeben Barlow's blog comments and the followup comments:

The problem to which Mr Barlow alludes, the the UN Peacekeeping Department (Directorate?) provides UN sanctioned "occupying forces" rather than "keeping the peace," is only partially valid. The prblem is structural in the UN. The UN is divided (since the 1940s with the last major adjustment having been made in the the 1990s) into five regional groups:
Regional Group Number of members Population (approx., rounded WP numbers) % of UN members population

GROUP    MEMBERS  POPULATION
  Africa           54           1.14 billion
Asia-Pacific   53           4.24 billion
  EEG             23               340 million (Caribbean and Latin America)
GRULAC       33               621 million
  WEOG         29               904 million
  None           1                 124,000 (Kiribati, a little, tiny Pacific Island nation)
  Total              193          7.24 billion

The seats are allocated in the General Assembly and Security Council thusly:

         
                                                                    The African Group
                                                                    The Asia-Pacific Group
                                                                    The Eastern European Group
                                                                    The Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC)
                                                                    The Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
                                                                    UN member not in any voting group

This is a holdover from 1948 and the beginnings of the Cold War and all that, it is, remarkably, fair in representation, but it is used, in an iron rice bowl (quota) sort of way in staffing and human resources. Thus, Groupe Afrique, as it styles itself, or did in the late 1990s, gets 16% of every damned job at every (non-elected) level in the UN and that means that one in every six staff members in the DPKO are African political appointees whose "job" is to serve their countries' needs in the UN not to serve the interests of the the world or even of Africa. It doesn't matter one iota how noble Justin Trudeau's motives might be, the business of peacekeeping in Africa is to meet the perceived political needs of which ever African states have their hands, for now, on the levers of power and influence. That extends down to missions, too, by the way. It is not because there are bad people in the UN, it is because the UN C2 superstructure is totally, completely, irredeemably FUBAR.

However, that is not a reason to ignore Africa.

Africa matters now and it will matter, more and more, to the all of us, in the future.

Simple human decency says that a country like Canada should have dropped a light brigade into South Sudan and destroyed the South Sudanese Army in a short, brutal campaign of exemplary speed and violence ... should have if we could have, but, of course, the Canadian Army is a fat, overstaffed, poorly managed corporal's guard, that cannot deploy any brigade anywhere because we don't have any nearly fully staffed brigades and even if we did they don't have enough logistical "lift," so they are useless once they have marched more than 15 km out of the camp gate ... unless a country with a real army (you know, one with trucks and people to drive them) decides to support and sustain us.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Simple human decency says that a country like Canada should have dropped a light brigade into South Sudan and destroyed the South Sudanese Army in a short, brutal campaign of exemplary speed and violence ... should have if we could have, but, of course, the Canadian Army is a fat, overstaffed, poorly managed corporal's guard, that cannot deploy any brigade anywhere because we don't have any nearly fully staffed brigades and even if we did they don't have enough logistical "lift," so they are useless once they have marched more than 15 km out of the camp gate ... unless a country with a real army (you know, one with trucks and people to drive them) decides to support and sustain us.

You should come out of your shell, ERC, and not sugar coat it - tell us what you mean  ;D

 

[captloadie]

Two of the things that my UN tour taught me are:
1) They pay too well;
2) They have a ruthless staffing process. Screw up and you don't get your contract renewed.

I didn't see as many issues with the contingents on tour, but the many UN Staff Officers, police, and civilians (who run the missions) were all too scared ruffle feathers, because it meant not getting their contracts renewed for another year. As much as the argument that you need Africans to fix Africa makes sense, it doesn't apply in a UN context. I believe UN missions need to be led (on the civilian and military sides) by nations who don't need the UN handout, that will make the tough decisions, despite what NY HQ dictates, and are willing to walk away if need be.

 

[Jarnhamar]

After winning a battle in Juba, the South Sudanese troops celebrated their victory with an uncontrolled four-hour rampage through a popular residential compound preferred by foreigners. One aid worker was allegedly raped 15 times…looting and stealing was the order of the day along with the murder of a journalist.

So what would have Canadian soldiers stationed 1 km away done in this situation?  Move in and start shooting South Sudanese troops? 

 

[Kirkhill]

So what would have Canadian soldiers stationed 1 km away done in this situation?  Move in and start shooting South Sudanese troops?

Probably not.  But they should have.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Two points about Eeben Barlow's blog comments and the followup comments:

The problem to which Mr Barlow alludes, the the UN Peacekeeping Department (Directorate?) provides UN sanctioned "occupying forces" rather than "keeping the peace," is only partially valid. The prblem is structural in the UN. The UN is divided (since the 1940s with the last major adjustment having been made in the the 1990s) into five regional groups:
Regional Group Number of members Population (approx., rounded WP numbers) % of UN members population

GROUP    MEMBERS  POPULATION
  Africa           54           1.14 billion
Asia-Pacific   53           4.24 billion
  EEG             23               340 million (Caribbean and Latin America)
GRULAC       33               621 million
  WEOG         29               904 million
  None           1                 124,000 (Kiribati, a little, tiny Pacific Island nation)
  Total              193          7.24 billion

The seats are allocated in the General Assembly and Security Council thusly:

         
                                                                    The African Group
                                                                    The Asia-Pacific Group
                                                                    The Eastern European Group
                                                                    The Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC)
                                                                    The Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
                                                                    UN member not in any voting group

This is a holdover from 1948 and the beginnings of the Cold War and all that, it is, remarkably, fair in representation, but it is used, in an iron rice bowl (quota) sort of way in staffing and human resources. Thus, Groupe Afrique, as it styles itself, or did in the late 1990s, gets 16% of every damned job at every (non-elected) level in the UN and that means that one in every six staff members in the DPKO are African political appointees whose "job" is to serve their countries' needs in the UN not to serve the interests of the the world or even of Africa. It doesn't matter one iota how noble Justin Trudeau's motives might be, the business of peacekeeping in Africa is to meet the perceived political needs of which ever African states have their hands, for now, on the levers of power and influence. That extends down to missions, too, by the way. It is not because there are bad people in the UN, it is because the UN C2 superstructure is totally, completely, irredeemably FUBAR.

You're absolutely right and lets also not pretend that Mr. Barlow doesn't also have his own agenda.  I've followed his blog for the past five years or so, the man knows his stuff; however, he is no fan of the United Nations or most African governments, particularly South Africa, where he has been vilified by the ANC. 

He is a businessman though and part of his rant against the UN has as much to do with trying to generate business for his security companies as it does with any sort of hatred for the UN.  He does have a point though as the track record of his companies on operations is good while the UN's and other Western Governments is notoriously bad.

Here is an earlier post of his (key takeaways highlighted):

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

AFRICA MUST STOP DEMILITARISING ITS MILITARIES

Having sat through numerous debates and discussions on ‘peacekeeping’, I have always been surprised and disappointed that this costly and failed approach to security and stability is, for some very (not so) strange reason, still being advocated and encouraged. 

The truth is that without sustainable peace, Africa will never see real development and prosperity. Economic development and stability is ensured by good governance, law and order, and the application of sound policies. But if the policies and approaches are wrong, no amount of strategy and tactics can provide peace and stability.

Ending a conflict or war can only be assured when the state has the political will and the military might—and will—to engage the enemy. This must result in the enemy or threat being decisively beaten, and begging and pleading for mercy to save it from complete annihilation. This requires a strong and capable deterrent force with strong military policies in place.

If a government cannot negotiate from a position of total strength, it is merely giving the adversary time to rebuild and rearm its forces and continue the conflict.  Besides, the terms of negotiation must be dictated by the government and not by the enemy or threat. Indeed, it must be an unconditional surrender or nothing at all. During negotiations, the enemy or threat must be subjected to intense intelligence scrutiny to ensure that the call to negotiate was not a deception measure aimed at reducing pressure on the crumbling threat forces.

A well-trained, well-equipped, well-led and disciplined armed force, correctly postured and able to rapidly project decisive force, is a significant deterrent to an armed adversary. So why have some African governments decided to demilitarise their armed forces and instead turn them into ‘peacekeepers’?

The mere thought of ‘peacekeeping’ when and where a conflict or war is raging is nothing short of idiotic and suicidal. But in order to remain politically correct, and in the good books of the UN and those governments driving the (failed) peacekeeping approach, this new form of ‘un-warfare’ has taken hold in some African governments whilst emasculating their armed forces.

Simultaneously, it has expanded the current and future market for ‘peacekeepers’ and other ‘partnership forces’ to enter fragile and troubled countries—the results of which, to date, have been catastrophic, disgraceful, and disastrous to say the least. The numerous scandals created by these forces have simply added to the already tarnished image of the ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘partnership’ approaches.

Besides, if peacekeeping was such a valuable tool in the arsenal for halting the spread of conflict and war, why aren’t these forces standing between the warring parties in Nigeria, Libya, Cameroon, Niger, Burundi, and so forth? And if they are there, such as in Mali, South Sudan, Somalia—why aren’t they keeping the peace?

Sadly, many African governments have allowed themselves to be cajoled and hoodwinked into training their armed forces for peacekeeping missions—a euphemism for demilitarising and emasculating the armed forces. Soldiers have now become ‘peacekeepers’ and ‘nation builders’ and time and money is spent on irrelevant ‘free’ training programmes supposedly aimed at keeping the peace and building nations—especially where there is no peace and governments have become fragile or failed. Soldiers have become quasi-policemen as opposed to fighting men who can and will fight to annihilate armed opposition or enemy forces.

The demilitarising of African armed forces has had serious knock-on effects such as a lack of intelligence gathering capacity—especially HUMINT, an inability to fight to decisively end conflicts and wars, a neglect of doctrine development and training, the neglect of essential combat equipment along with the procurement of unsuitable equipment, a watering-down of essential combat skills, the acceptance of bad advice, and so forth.

This, however, suits those powers who have encouraged a mission diversion to ‘peacekeeping’ as they are guaranteed that African governments and their armies will be required to call for foreign help when the wheels fall off. And fall off they will—and are.

Anyone who dares criticise the farce of ‘peacekeeping’ is shouted down and viewed as a warmonger. It is, after all, not politically correct to criticise a failed approach that gives violent and murderous threat forces—viewed by many in the West as ‘moderate terrorists’, ‘pro-democracy fighters’ and ‘freedom fighters’—the advantage. Also, ‘human rights’ have overridden common sense as national armies are expected to show tolerance and understanding to the very people trying to kill them, murder and terrorise the populace, destroy infrastructure, and collapse the government.

The ‘peacekeeping’ mantra has become a dangerous cancer that is eating away at the combat effectiveness of African armies—and it is subsequently endangering the populace, destroying societies, and eroding the stability of states.

For Africa to survive in an ever-increasing turbulent environment, be independent, and ensure the safety and security for its people, the concept of ‘peacekeeping’ needs to be given a very serious rethink. 

Perhaps the time has come for African governments to stop demilitarizing their armed forces and instead redefine their missions—away from peacekeeping and towards enemy and threat identification, deterrence, targeting, and annihilation.

After all, that is what the armed forces are supposed to do—isn’t it?

However, that is not a reason to ignore Africa.

Africa matters now and it will matter, more and more, to the all of us, in the future.

Simple human decency says that a country like Canada should have dropped a light brigade into South Sudan and destroyed the South Sudanese Army in a short, brutal campaign of exemplary speed and violence ... should have if we could have, but, of course, the Canadian Army is a fat, overstaffed, poorly managed corporal's guard, that cannot deploy any brigade anywhere because we don't have any nearly fully staffed brigades and even if we did they don't have enough logistical "lift," so they are useless once they have marched more than 15 km out of the camp gate ... unless a country with a real army (you know, one with trucks and people to drive them) decides to support and sustain us.

Pretty much, our units are all undermanned and even worse it's by design.  A Canadian Infantry Battalion is supposed to have how many soldiers in it exactly?  I know on paper it's roughly 800+; however, the Army only has allocated 550ish to each Battalion.  Even the paper trail is vague and weak, if you read the latest and greatest from Army Doctrine, B-GL-309-001/FT-001"THE INFANTRY BATTALION IN BATTLE".  The most you'll get is an Org Chart, actual numbers though?  Not a chance because that would mean actually being held to a certain standard, no numbers means no need to justify anything and an Infantry Battalion can be whatever we feel like it being.

I've heard this many times "We know your establishment is only 550ish but if you deploy those positions will be topped up, by Reservists and augmentees".  How exactly is a unit considered "high-readiness" when it's only at 65% effective strength?  Call it what you want but we've got a ragtag Army with a hodgepodge collection of equipment?  Worst of all, whenever, this is brought up your labelled as some sort of "negative nancy". 

 

[The Bread Guy]

So what would have Canadian soldiers stationed 1 km away done in this situation?  Move in and start shooting South Sudanese troops?

Medak 2.0?

 

[Altair]

So what would have Canadian soldiers stationed 1 km away done in this situation?  Move in and start shooting South Sudanese troops?

If need be why not?

Responsibility to protect civilians>raping looting soldiers from a undisciplined force.

Unless that's being too simple but I don't see how even the UN could blame Canadians acting under those conditions.

 

[YZT580]

If need be why not?

Responsibility to protect civilians>raping looting soldiers from a undisciplined force.

Unless that's being too simple but I don't see how even the UN could blame Canadians acting under those conditions.

Think about Tripoli.  Your duty officer receives a call from down the road requesting assistance.  He immediately boots it up to hdq NY who put him on hold for at least 30 minutes and then deny request.  Dissatisfied, he contacts his own hq who, since they are not involved directly (they are in OW) refuse the request because of political repercussions.  People die, so sorry.  It is a very brave commander or one who plans early retirement who will act on his own and dispatch a suitable force to contain the situation: particularly when it involves so-called allies. 

 

[McG]

Think about Tripoli.  Your duty officer receives a call from down the road requesting assistance.  He immediately boots it up to hdq NY who put him on hold for at least 30 minutes and then deny request.  Dissatisfied, he contacts his own hq who, since they are not involved directly (they are in OW) refuse the request because of political repercussions.  People die, so sorry.  It is a very brave commander or one who plans early retirement who will act on his own and dispatch a suitable force to contain the situation: particularly when it involves so-called allies. 

That is how it would have played out 15 to 20 years ago.  However, the Canadian government has indicated that the Canadian mission will have a mandate to protect civilians, and the UN has indicated that it gives such a mandate but troop contributing nations apply national caveats against such active intervention.  That tells me that the TF Comd will have the prerogative to launch a response force.  The only job of the duty officer in all this is to tell New York and Ottawa that the Canadian contingent is already wheels turning.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Responsibility to protect civilians>raping looting soldiers from a undisciplined force.

Unless that's being too simple but I don't see how even the UN could blame Canadians acting under those conditions.

Thing is, though, that the host country may not be too happy with U.N. troops shooting up their own folks, massacre/ethnic cleansing/suppressing rebels (pick one) or not.  And unless the U.N. has changed recently, if the "willing" host country is unhappy, U.N. NY HQ is unhappy.

... the Canadian government has indicated that the Canadian mission will have a mandate to protect civilians, and the UN has indicated that it gives such a mandate but troop contributing nations apply national caveats against such active intervention.  That tells me that the TF Comd will have the prerogative to launch a response force.  The only job of the duty officer in all this is to tell New York and Ottawa that the Canadian contingent is already wheels turning.

Fingers crossed that'll be the case ...

 

[Altair]

Thing is, though, that the host country may not be too happy with U.N. troops shooting up their own folks, massacre/ethnic cleansing/suppressing rebels (pick one) or not.  And unless the U.N. has changed recently, if the "willing" host country is unhappy, U.N. NY HQ is unhappy.Fingers crossed that'll be the case ...

Host country is sad that their troops got killed while they were raping innocent aid workers? Boo hoo?

Give them some hurt feeling reports and let the UN try to smooth things over.

Not our problem.

 

[George Wallace]

Host country is sad that their troops got killed while they were raping innocent aid workers? Boo hoo?

Give them some hurt feeling reports and let the UN try to smooth things over.

Not our problem.

You really don't get it, do you?  Although we a Peacekeepers may have those personal feelings, we, as professionals, are hamstrung by the orders that bureaucrats and politicians in the UN have given us, and the "molasses in January" speed by which they operate.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Host country is sad that their troops got killed while they were raping innocent aid workers? Boo hoo?

Give them some hurt feeling reports and let the UN try to smooth things over.

Not our problem.

No host nation = No UN mission, since the UN must be invited at the beheadst of the host nation. Even Afghanistan was the case for this.

For Bogart's article, I 100% agree that African/Arab/Asian problems must be solved by Africans/Arabs/Asians and that the western intervention should either be seen as a short term means of allowing Africans or whoever to come to an agreement or start working towards an agreement to end the bigger issues. If there is a largescale genocide ongoing in South Sudan than the optimal case is a NATO/Armed UN intervention to stop the genocide, followed by a humanitarian/political/military "whole of government" system to stabilize and allow the Africans to sort out the problems. Somalia is a reasonable case in point- we took losses, pulled out, and Somalia is still without a functioning government.

We, the west, cannot implement a LONG TERM solution to any non-western problem. We can, however, at least set the conditions for those people to come to their own solutions. The key problem is when to go in with force, when to use diplomacy, and making sure there's an exit strategy. The problem with our mission to Africa is seemingly that there's no exit strategy since how can we reasonably know when the conditions for some of the more airy fairy ideas (prosperity, for example) have been met. Even something such as "protect the population" is complex for an exit strategy since many of these tribal rivalries have been ongoing for centuries and there's no clear cut end state.

Clausewitz stated that one must never enter into conflict without having a clear understanding of the nature of the conflict and without having a clearly defined aim. In conventional warfare this is easy... once the Germans surrendered, WW1/WW2 was over. The modern (not really modern, 4GW isn't a thing) operating environment is less clear cut. Without a clear cut "victory criteria" its difficult to measure effectiveness. I suspect the metrics of success will be hospitals and schools built, etc vice anything lasting on the ground.

 

[Kirkhill]

.....  That tells me that the TF Comd will have the prerogative to launch a response force.  ....

Will it be a prerogative or a requirement?

I think, that unless it is made a requirement, that the weak will take the line of least resistance - just like they do in New York.

 

[Altair]

You really don't get it, do you?  Although we a Peacekeepers may have those personal feelings, we, as professionals, are hamstrung by the orders that bureaucrats and politicians in the UN have given us, and the "molasses in January" speed by which they operate.

The UN allowed the use of force, individual nations and individual commanders made the choice not to intervene.

So if the UN gives the go to why no go to?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

We, the west, cannot implement a LONG TERM solution to any non-western problem. We can, however, at least set the conditions for those people to come to their own solutions. The key problem is when to go in with force, when to use diplomacy, and making sure there's an exit strategy. The problem with our mission to Africa is seemingly that there's no exit strategy since how can we reasonably know when the conditions for some of the more airy fairy ideas (prosperity, for example) have been met. Even something such as "protect the population" is complex for an exit strategy since many of these tribal rivalries have been ongoing for centuries and there's no clear cut end state.

Are you kidding me! We can't even implement a long term solution to western problems.

The UN went into Cyprus in 1964 to separate two western(ish for Turkey) powers: namely Greece and Turkey, from going to war over the Cypriot territory. Today - fifty-two years later - the UN is still there separating two parties who have felt absolutely no inkling whatsoever to try and resolve their differences peacefully and arrive at a political solution - which is the actual aim of the UN in peacekeeping (achieving a political solution).

How the hell are we going to manage with African problems that are orders of magnitude more complex to our understanding of issues?

P.S.: Personaly, I think its high time that the UN tells Greece, Turkey and Cyprus: "Sorry Old Chaps, but we are out of here in five years, wether you resolve your issues or not, and we ain't coming back if you screw it up."

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Will it be a prerogative or a requirement?

I think, that unless it is made a requirement, that the weak will take the line of least resistance - just like they do in New York.

If we send a Canadian TF Comd who is too mentally or morally weak to do what is right than that's a failure of the Canadian army and not the UN. Every leader (including Dallaire) has a choice and has to live with their own decisions. If this is the case, I hope that court martials and dishonourable discharges follow.

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Are you kidding me! We can't even implement a long term solution to western problems.

The UN went into Cyprus in 1964 to separate two western(ish for Turkey) powers: namely Greece and Turkey, from going to war over the Cypriot territory. Today - fifty-two years later - the UN is still there separating two parties who have felt absolutely no inkling whatsoever to try and resolve their differences peacefully and arrive at a political solution - which is the actual aim of the UN in peacekeeping (achieving a political solution).

How the hell are we going to manage with African problems that are orders of magnitude more complex to our understanding of issues?

P.S.: Personaly, I think its high time that the UN tells Greece, Turkey and Cyprus: "Sorry Old Chaps, but we are out of here in five years, wether you resolve your issues or not, and we ain't coming back if you screw it up."

I agree, but wasn't discussing the west, only Africa/Asia etc. The fact that I felt safer walking around in KAF than in parts of Winnipeg is telling.

As for the other points- NATO has been in Afghanistan for 14 years without the government and Taliban being any closer to any sort of final decision on the future of Afghanistan. As I stated, the key element is knowing what the conditions we want to achieve are (end state) and how to achieve them.

For East Timor, there was a military intervention, followed by UN presence which brought long term stability. Politics aside, had the UN/NATO driven Turkey from Cyprus, established a UN presence to stabilize the situation, then brought the political sides to the table than perhaps there would have been a long term solution? The point of warfare of any variety isn't to kill the bad guy... it's to achieve a suitable political solution to a political problem. The UN can be a tool to achieve this. Not the only tool. We as military persons tend to view our only tool as being a hammer... the effect is that we view all problems as nails when they may be screws or nails and screws.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Host country is sad that their troops got killed while they were raping innocent aid workers? Boo hoo?

Give them some hurt feeling reports and let the UN try to smooth things over.

Not our problem.

It is if said unhappy troops and other host security forces are between you & the airport ...