Dispatch Box: Peacekeeping or Peacemaking?
ISSUE
What should the primary international focus of the Canadian Armed Forces be?
Peacekeeping refers to Canadian support and involvement in initiatives sanctioned by the United Nations where UN-authorized forces (the Blue Helmets) enter conflict zones to disengage combatants, help end hostilities, establish and monitor demilitarized zones, and encourage the diplomatic resolution of conflicts.
Peacemaking refers to Canadian support for and involvement in international combat missions, usually led by either the United States or NATO and designed to achieve strategic political and economic goals through the use of military force. Peacemaking is in many ways a euphemism for war. Examples of peacemaking initiatives are the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia in 1998, the NATO-sanctioned intervention into Afghanistan in 2001, and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CONTEXT
These two strategic options impose distinctive and often competing requirements and emphases on the Canadian Forces.
Peacekeeping
- Infantry trained in peacekeeping
- Construction engineers
- Heavy lift aircraft, transport helicopters
- Medical units
- Communications
- Transport ships
Peacemaking
- Infantry trained in fighting war
- Combat engineers
- Jet fighters, attack helicopters
- Armour, artillery, support infrastructure for combat arms
- Destroyers, frigates, nuclear submarines
- Transport ships
POLITICAL UPSHOT
Canadians remain divided on the type of military they want. In 2001 a clear majority supported the Chrétien government’s decision to commit troops to combat in Afghanistan. But many mistakenly thought it was a peacekeeping mission. By 2010 support for this mission was well below 50 per cent in opinion polls. And in 2003 a large majority of Canadians approved of the Chrétien government’s decision not to commit troops to the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Following the election in 2006, the Harper government enhanced the overall capacity of the military, with emphasis on strengthening its combat arms. Major acquisitions of armour, artillery, heavy lift aircraft, and transport helicopters were made, and there were plans to acquire 75 state-of-the-art F-35 jet fighters at an estimated cost of $16 billion. That dollar figure subsequently ballooned to more than $44 billion, and the Harper government never did agree to the purchase of these planes.
In the 2015 election the Liberal Party campaigned on reviewing the need for these planes while promoting the idea that the Canadian Armed Forces should return to more of a peacekeeping role over that of involvement in major combat operations. By 2022, after seven years of Liberal rule and after the re-election of the Trudeau government twice, new jet fighters for the Royal Canadian Air Force are still years away. And Canadian peacekeeping initiatives since 2015 have been limited to a small contribution of helicopters and a medical team to the United Nations mission to Mali over 2018–19. And then, in 2022 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, attention once again shifted to Canada’s role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and whether we were militarily prepared to defend Europe in a conventional war with Russia. So, what should be the role of Canada’s military over the 2020s and beyond?
What Do You Do?
- Should the Canadian military be repurposed as a primarily peacekeeping force, being resupplied with the equipment needed for peacekeeping? Would you be happy with the corresponding limitation in its war-fighting capabilities? Would our American and NATO allies be likely to agree with this course of action?
- Or should the Canadian military be re-equipped and trained to be an all-combat-arms war-fighting force capable of being deployed in world-wide military “hot-spots” alongside our American and NATO allies? And would most Canadians be willing to bear the higher costs of re-equipping the Canadian armed forces with state-of-the-art combat equipment, including the F-35s and new frigates for the Royal Canadian Navy?
