Keeping the Peace in a New World

LAST WEEK'S ANNOUNCEMENT OF future peacekeeping intentions provided some clarity on the resources committed to such efforts, though the precise locations for involvement remained vague. Until the Trudeau government finalizes its review of Canada's engagement strategy in the larger world, it remains a difficult thing to target any one area. Nevertheless, the pledge of 600 troops supplied by a $450 million budget represents an intention to elevate peacekeeping to a place of higher priority.Given modern realities, the announcement isn’t about attempting to recapture the lustre of the past but a necessary look to the future. When Lester Pearson won his Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, largely for designing the UN Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal crisis, military might was almost the exclusive purview of nation states. That paradigm ended a few decades ago and in its place are added terrorist organizations and non-state military actors in almost every corner of the globe. Any movement on peacekeeping must take that into account.In his Insurgents, Raiders and Bandits: How Masters of Irregular Warfare Have Shaped Our World, author John Arquilla lays out the challenge:

“We have entered an era of perpetual irregular warfare. The great captains of traditional forms of conflict have little to tell us about this. Nor can the classical principles of war provide much help … Today it is clear that attempts to retool them against insurgent and terrorist networks will prove just as problematic.”

This is the world the Trudeau government is negotiating in its attempts at peacekeeping and it will hardly be easy. Arquilla is one of the most respected thinkers of this era and the path he lays out represents an imposing challenge to the federal government’s chief water carrier for the peacekeeping venture, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.U.S. military might remains huge and engaged in numerous troubled locations. While its defence outlays of one trillion dollars constitute half the world’s military spending, Russia and China together spend only 15 per cent. Yet as efforts to defeat ISIS (Daesh) attest, all the remarkable technology and military might can often be blunted by geography, tribal alliances, ignorance of local cultures, refugees, and even the interloping actions of other large nation-states.Russia’s recent ventures aside, the world hasn’t seen a war between major powers in over 60 years, despite the fact that most military technology today had been designed for such altercations. And although the number of state-based military conflicts declined by 40 per cent in the last 20 years, military attacks by non-state actors like ISIS or Boko Haram in Nigeria have increased markedly.In regional disputes around the world like South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, or Mali, it would be futile to employ cruise missiles, large invasion forces, or even stand alone military bases. The only workable option is smaller deployments consisting of defense and development personnel working on helping small markets survive, utilizing water sources as a tool for conflict management , protecting the internally displaced, and holding as many peace discussions as possible to reduce tensions. There exists no handbook or how-to guide for such situations; everything remains fluid and physical harm to Canadian personnel is always possible.And it will be expensive, though unlike the billions spent in Afghanistan or Iraq. While it only cost Al Qaeda half a million dollars to fund 9/11, America spent $3.3 trillion in response. The economies of scale in such encounters will never change. But with the era of Afghanistan and Iraq now largely behind us, Canada’s decision to undertake a full review of its commitments in defence, diplomacy, and development, provides this country a chance to design a new international set of responses that reflect the realities listed above.For a number of years, Canada posted between 50-60 peacekeepers to UN efforts and it was an embarrassment. The government’s decision to return to its commitment to global peace operations represents a significant shift. Yet peace enforcement is a marked departure from traditional peacekeeping. The one reality Canada can count on is that the world it engages is unlike anything experienced before, but, as Albert Camus put it in 1945: “Peace is the only battle worth waging."