Election 2015: We Continue to Debate the Peacekeeping Myth

In light of last nights Debate on Foreign policy - I decided to re-blog about a subject I have blogged about numerous times in the past - the Peacekeeping Myth that revolves around the Canadian Armed Forces. 

The Truth is, Canada was never a Peacekeeper to just keep the peace. We have stepped into Peacekeeping roles in order to protect our own interests and the interests of out Allies (NATO). Our Peacekeeping missions were a strategic warfare strategy that developed during the Cold War, and has died down since, 1991. This is why we are no longer a "Peacekeeping" nation. Canada's participation has always been in some way to bolster the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; albeit under a United Nations flag. 

The best place to start a review of Canada's so called Peacekeeping Past is with Dr. Sean M. Maloney's “Canada and UN Peacekeeping—Cold War by Other Means, 1945-1970” This book is not an operation history of each mission, but was put together in order to clearly outline that Canada was peacekeeping in order to win the Cold War, and not peacekeeping in order to keep the peace. 

The Canadian Military Journal has also debated this subject, while the current page has been archived, because this debate is (believe it or not) that old - and supposed to be OVER!  http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo7/no4/wagner-eng.asp
The Article, entitled "The Peaceable Kingdom?" used Maloney's work as a basis, as well as one of the greatest Canadian Historians, J.L. Granatstein's work “Canada and Peacekeeping: Image and Reality.”