Once pre-eminent among peacekeeping nations with thousands of “blue berets” deployed around the world, Canada now ranks 53 – between Paraguay and Slovakia – on the United Nations contributors’ list with less than a schoolbus-load of Canadian soldiers serving on UN missions overseas.
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“The need is greater than ever but Canada’s contribution has never been lower,” said Steven Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, an Ottawa research and advocacy group. “The Harper government doesn’t regard peacekeeping as a route to enhancing Canada’s international stature.”
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After a decade of bloody, inconclusive war in Afghanistan, Canadians tell pollsters they want their military to return to UN peacekeeping as a priority.
Sad. Some of my earliest memories of Canada as a peace keeping force was from the news of our efforts in Cyprus.
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Originally Posted by Dr.G.
Sad. Some of my earliest memories of Canada as a peace keeping force was from the news of our efforts in Cyprus.
What a snake pit that was and did we even accomplish anything in over 20 years of being there?
From the article...
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Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, who famously commanded the Canadian contingent of UN peacekeepers that secured Sarajevo airport, opening a lifeline to the Europe’s largest besieged city since the Second World War, says Canadians are living a bygone dream.
“There is no conventional peacekeeping out there; it’s a myth,” he said in an interview. The era of Cold War peacekeeping, with UN forces interpositioned along ceasefire lines is over, he added, and the UN has shown it isn’t good at coping with messy sectarian wars.
As a result, he said, “Not just Canada, but a whole hockey sock of regular contributors, Scandinavian countries, Senegal, Fiji – a lot of them fell by the wayside because the [UN] can’t run these.”
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What a snake pit that was and did we even accomplish anything in over 20 years of being there?
From the article...
True, it has been a "snake pit", but the actions of the Canadian peace-keeping forces defined a new style of peacekeeping by actively intervening between opposing sides rather than passively occupying ground between them. It helped to gain Canada the reputation of being a peace-keeping force.
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Some, both in and out of the military, defend the shift away from UN missions, claiming they are ill-suited to cope with the messy, mainly internal wars of the 21st century. But others regard turning away from the UN as short-sighted.
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Meanwhile, even as Canada opted out, UN peacekeeping has soared, with nearly 100,000 peacekeepers deployed worldwide on missions in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Canada’s handful of military and police personnel are dwarfed not only by top contributors like India, with more than 8,000 peacekeepers, but also Britain, France and Germany, which have also sent large contingents to war in Afghanistan.
Regardless of the reality, it is interesting to note what many Canadians would like to see in terms of our military's role abroad. We want to think of ourselves as peaceable folk, who help others. Is that not a worthy goal? Or should we just sit back, let the military have its F-35s, and bomb the crap out of everybody like our southern neighbour?
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The problem is the UN has no teeth. It's all bark and no bite! Just look at Syria. The UN's in there and Syria keeps on murdering it's people. And the UN Security Council is a joke - thank goodness we didn't get our seat on that farce.
Then again, it's impossible to do peacekeeping when you're not wanted by the country your trying to keep the peace in and it's impossible to tell who is friend or foe. Ex. Afganistan.
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Originally Posted by CubaMark
Also from the article:
Regardless of the reality, it is interesting to note what many Canadians would like to see in terms of our military's role abroad. We want to think of ourselves as peaceable folk, who help others. Is that not a worthy goal? Or should we just sit back, let the military have its F-35s, and bomb the crap out of everybody like our southern neighbour?
Once again for emphasis...
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Canadians are living a bygone dream.
“There is no conventional peacekeeping out there; it’s a myth,
Rwanda anyone? Standing by and watching hundreds of thousands get slaughtered... "peace keeping" at its finest.
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Canadian Peackeeping: We're #...uh... 53? What?
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