Is Mali the right job for the Canadian Forces?

By: Amanda Connolly, iPolitics

The UN mission is extremely dangerous — but it may play to the CAF’s skill set

The UN mission in Mali is the world’s most dangerous.

Sixty nine peacekeepers have been killed in attacks there since the mission started in 2013. The dynamics on the ground are complex to say the least, with a fledgling peace process being propped up by the blue helmets. A broader French counterterrorism mission across the Sahel is fighting to keep Islamist terrorists from again seizing control of Mali’s north as they did in 2012 amid the chaos of an army coup in the capital. And the country is ground zero for a network of criminal drug and people-smuggling rings that stretch across the region.

That’s the bad news. The good news — at least from Canada’s perspective — is that a Canadian peacekeeping mission in Mali could actually help the situation on the ground.

As speculation mounts across the defence industry that Canada will soon announce a contribution to the mission in Mali, experts say it’s worth considering the ways in which, despite the risk, the mission could benefit from the unique capabilities of Canada’s military.

“Mali has a legitimate peace process ongoing and it needs to be fostered in order for the country not to break out into war again,” said Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Canadian Forces College and chair of the Master of Defence Studies program at the Royal Military College. He studies peace operations.

“I think that the mission is proving quite successful at stabilizing the situation in Mali and that it’s indispensable for the peace process to move forward. So supporting the mission in Mali would make a key contribution to Africa.”

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said in August that Canada will commit 600 troops and about 150 police officers to UN peace support operations. Since then, there has been no specific commitment from the government to any particular mission, beyond an acknowledgement that the mission will be in Africa, that it will be a long deployment — and that it will be dangerous.

But as General Jonathan Vance, chief of defence staff, told the Senate defence and security committee last month, the fact that a mission is dangerous doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable.

“A risky mission that has great potential for success may be a mission that you want to invest in, and in the military, we do risk,” said Vance on September 21. “We’re good at that, if we can mitigate it. If the risk is not mitigatable and is out of all proportion and at the same time there’s no hope of moving forward, then it’s probably the wrong mandate and it would very likely be a mandate on which I would advise the government that it would need to do more work with the UN before you would commit troops.”

And as Senator Mobina Jaffer pointed out in the same meeting, Mali is no Afghanistan.

Canada lost 158 members of the Canadian Forces during that nine-year war but developed extensive expertise in managing insurgent warfare. That knowledge could be useful in supporting allies already on the ground in Mali, given heightened recent tensions there due to terrorist attacks and social unrest.

“Mali fits the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces quite well,” said Dorn. “Because of our Afghanistan expertise, we can operate in areas where there are IEDs and we’re well aware of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. So the peace operation there, although it’s a different mode of operation … we still have the expertise in those kinds of environments from Afghanistan.”

Responding to recent attacks, the Mali mission recently expanded by an additional 2,500 troops, bringing the total number of international troops stationed there to just over 15,000.

Most of those soldiers come from African or non-Western nations like Bangladesh and China. Germany maintains a force of 570 soldiers, the largest Western contingent in the UN mission.

The mission now faces a critical equipment gap: The Dutch, citing operational strain, are scaling down and preparing to pull out their Apache attack choppers and Chinook transport helicopters early next year.

Given statements from Canadian officials in the past about the need to identify gaps in existing missions, that raises the question of whether Canada could fill at least part of that operational gap by providing Chinooks to assist with troop transport as it did with the French counterterrorism mission in 2014, when Canada sent Globemaster III strategic lifters.

Canada has 15 brand-new Chinooks, delivered in 2014 at a cost of some $4 billion and currently stationed out of CFB Petawawa, as well as Griffon helicopters mounted with machine guns during the war in Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referenced that contribution of Globemasters during a press conference last week with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. He was responding to a question about whether the subject of Mali came up during his talks with Valls. Asked whether that suggests the government sees the looming helicopter gap as an opportunity for Canada to fill an operational gap, a spokesperson for Sajjan said it’s still too early to say exactly what the mission will be.

(Credit: United Nations – Department of Field Support. Cartohraphic section)

“As the government looks to re-engage in peace support operations, we are looking at ‎all the ways in which Canada can contribute. As you saw with our expanded mission in Iraq, one of the things we look to do is find gaps in existing missions and look to filling them,” said Jordan Owens, press secretary for Sajjan. “But still too soon for me to confirm a location or specific contribution.”

Three other missions also come up frequently in discussions about a Canadian contribution: the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

And while iPolitics has reported in the past that South Sudan is not being considered by the government, both the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo present challenges that might suggest they wouldn’t be the best fit for a government looking to make a specific, focused impact.

“(Mali) is clearly one of the more difficult in a certain way, but it’s also one of the more clear-cut missions at the same time in the sense that South Sudan … Central African Republic, you’re wading into in essence a civil war (there) as opposed to a counterterrorist operation, which is really what’s happening in Mali,” said George Petrolekas, who served with the military in Bosnia, Afghanistan and NATO and is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“The Congo is the largest, best-financed and most enduring UN mission in Africa and it still hasn’t brought resolution to anything. South Sudan and Central African Republic are difficult for me because in a sense they’re civil wars going on and it’s not as clear-cut.

“Mali has its own difficulties, just because of the fact that it’s more of a fight as opposed to classical peacekeeping. So in the Congo, because of its size, we would just be a drop in a bucket of water. The presence wouldn’t necessarily be felt.”

Petrolekas also pointed to the recent increases in allegations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic and hinted at the negative impact those could have on Canada’s international reputation.

There were 69 allegations made in 2015 against UN peacekeepers — an increase from 52 in 2014 and 66 in 2013 — roughly one-third of that number against peacekeepers in the Central African Republic and 16 against peacekeepers in the DRC.

“When you think of allegations that have been made against UN troops in other peacekeeping missions like in the Congo and the Central African Republic … it doesn’t mean that you’d be doing the same things but you’d be tarnished by the actions of others. There’s less of a chance of that, I think, in Mali,” Petrolekas said.

It’s also possible the mission will be a joint one, with Canadian troops split between several missions in Africa, Dorn suggested. He cautioned, however, that with the DRC being so far behind in development and basic infrastructure, the difficulties in measuring firm progress there might see a smaller contingent of troops deployed there, with a main force in Mali.

“In terms of meaningful impact, both missions would give great opportunities, so it’s quite possible that we’ll make a contribution to both missions,” he said. “I think the main effort will be in Mali.”

Majority supports peacekeeping missions in active fighting areas

Taline McPhedran, CTVNews.ca

Nearly 70 per cent of Canadians support deploying Canadian Forces on UN peacekeeping missions in active fighting areas, a poll conducted for CTV News has found.

The Nanos Research survey also found that nearly 80 per cent of Canadians either think that participating in UN peacekeeping missions is a very good (37 per cent) or good (37 per cent) use of Canadian Forces personnel and equipment. Only six per cent of Canadians think it’s a poor use of personnel and equipment, while four per cent think it’s a very poor use.

In August, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to deploying 600 Canadian troops on UN peacekeeping missions, but wouldn’t say where they would be going. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan visited the United Nations on Thursday and met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, and possible Canadian peacekeeping missions were under discussion.

Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan speaks during the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial meeting at Lancaster House, in London on Sept. 8, 2016. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / AP-PA, Stefan Rousseau)

The survey found that seven in 10 Canadians support (30 per cent) and somewhat support (39 per cent) deploying Canadian Forces to active fighting areas. Alternatively, 14 per cent somewhat oppose while 13 per cent oppose the idea.

More than three in four Canadians support (48 per cent) or somewhat support (30 per cent) Canadian peacekeepers being allowed to shoot first when feeling threatened, with 11 per cent somewhat opposed and 6 per cent opposed.

More people in the Atlantic provinces supported the idea than in other parts of the country:
Atlantic: 85 per cent support/somewhat support
Quebec: 68 per cent support/somewhat support
Ontario: 80 per cent support/somewhat support
Prairies: 79 per cent support/somewhat support
British Columbia: 80 per cent support/somewhat support

One possible Canadian mission, supported by France, would be a deployment to Mali, where al-Qaeda-linked groups are becoming difficult to control. Another mission possibility would be to the Central African Republic, a politically unstable nation with multiple militia groups.

A majority of Canadians were also found to support (42 per cent) or somewhat support (37 per cent) making it a priority for Canada to have a seat on the UN Security Council. Eleven per cent somewhat oppose and six per cent oppose making it a priority.

Canadians are also overwhelmingly in favour (78 per cent) of having flexible end dates to peacekeeping missions, based on mission status, while 15 per cent think missions should have a firm end date.

Methadology

The national dual-frame (land and cell) hybrid telephone and online survey of 1,000 people was conducted between Sept. 24 and 27th, 2016. The margin of error for a survey of 1,000 respondents is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

CAF Disaster Assessment Team sent to Haiti: DART on Standby

By: David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen 

The Canadian government has sent a Canadian Disaster Assessment Team (CDAT) to Haiti and put aside up to $3 million as an initial humanitarian response for those in Haiti and other countries in the region affected by Hurricane Matthew.

“The CDAT will rapidly assess the situation, which is a critical step in ensuring that a Canadian response to the hurricane is coordinated, evidence-based and tailored to the needs on the ground,” the government stated in a news release. Canada is also supporting the United Nations disaster assessment teams in Jamaica and Haiti, who are still examining the situation and assisting local authorities.

Canadian military sources say the Disaster Assistance Response Team is getting ready to move out when they get the word.

Here are more details from the government news statement:

On October 4, 2016, Hurricane Matthew tore through Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Over 1.24 million people are estimated to have been affected by Hurricane Matthew in Haiti.
Haiti was the hardest-hit country and requires attention in at least 11 communities around the Grand’Anse, Nippes and Sud areas, where there has been coastal flooding.

The role of the CDAT is to meet with local and international representatives to assess the needs on the ground and to identify potential follow-up response options for the Government of Canada.
The CDAT comprises three experts from Global Affairs Canada and three officers from the Canadian Armed Forces, including the Disaster Assistance Response Team Commander.

CAF Will Never be under UN Command: CDS

By: Lee Berthiaume, CBC News 

The country's top soldier is pushing back against suggestions the Liberal government wants to use Canadian troops for political purposes by deploying them on United Nations peacekeeping missions.

The opposition Conservatives accused the Liberals this week of treating the military like "pawns" by promising to support peacekeeping operations in exchange for a UN Security Council seat.

The Liberal government has promised up to 600 troops for future peacekeeping operations, as well as 150 police officers and $450 million for peace support operations.

But chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance said Wednesday that Canadian troops will be deployed as peacekeepers for no other reason than to help bring peace and stability to another part of the world.

"I reject the notion that this is done simply for political reasons and putting troops in harm's way into risky areas for anything other than the true merits of the value of the use of military force," he said.

Vance told the Senate defence committee that his staff members are looking at various UN mission options to see where Canada could best contribute. The government still has not decided on a specific mission, he added.

Vance wouldn't say which missions the government is currently considering, but he acknowledged that many — if not all — carry some degree of risk. He said he wouldn't advise Canada participate in a mission with unnecessary or unmanageable risk.

"But a risky mission that has great potential of success may be a mission that you want to invest in," he said. "And the military, we do risk. We're good at that, if we can mitigate it."
Canadian troops under Canadian command

Some have worried that Canadian peacekeepers could be put into a no-win situation, or bound by endless UN bureaucracy that might tie their hands or otherwise put them at risk, such as in previous missions in Rwanda and Bosnia.

Vance said UN commanders might give Canadian troops specific tasks, but he would "never" let the UN have the last word on when or how Canadian peacekeepers could act. He said he is the one who writes the rules of engagement for Canadian troops, which would continue with a peacekeeping mission.

"I never relinquish Canadian command of those troops," he said. "We have learned a lot since the days of Bosnia and Rwanda and elsewhere. And one of those is you're never out from under Canadian command."

Will a Sizeable Canadian military deployment to Mali make matters worse?

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch

Defence Watch received some views about the potential upcoming Canadian Forces mission to Mali from of an individual involved in the NGO community who has recently returned from that country. They have asked that their name not be published. Here is what that person has written to Defence Watch:

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is clearly seen as a party to the conflict by the many islamist groups, and by local powerholders profiting from the black market routes running through Northern Mali, but also increasingly to the north and south borders from Bamako.

MINUSMA was the expected passive UN force locked in by the financial and political interests of participating African contingents.

MINUSMA in Northern Mali has weak counter-IED capability, weak medical, weak engineering assets, and weak tactical ISR. They have had a weaker track record of protecting civilians who displaced themselves near UN bases. Canadians in MINUSMA would likely take casualties from IEDs or ambushes from local forces, so no happy story about blue helmets helping a transition to a peace that no local powerholder really supports. There’s no economy in Mali except the international assistance money they are getting to support this fight, and black market routes connecting Libya to Senegal to Ivory Coast for guns and drugs.

Given the context in Mali it is difficult to guess why the government can win a media victory with the Canadian public over sending more than a few advisers to MINUSMA, or a support company or two such as a role 3 hospital or engineers.


With MINUSMA’s track record something will happen soon that will cast a bad light on the mission (such as the performance of African contingents in making security worse for IDPs in South Sudan), which will expose the folly of placing CF combat assets under UN command run by African interests with little to no interest in tactical security of civilians.

International NGOs in Mali barely operate in the North, and the few that do, like the ICRC, distance themselves sternly from MINUSMA. So no easy media victory for the government in claiming that the Canadian mission will enable the delivery of aid. Whatever Canadians decide to do, it will always be overshadowed by the backroom efforts that the French are throwing around in aid, governance and foreign military support to the government.

The French seem to have an attitude to contain MINUSMA so as not to interfere with their strategic objectives and the influence networks in their former colony. The authorities in Bamako and the different clan-based politics are caught in a political struggle over the change of president sometime next year. So no happy story about governance and democracy promotion for Canadian aid either.

That struggle alone may generate more violence than the jihadist threat, leaving the CF with a weak operational situation as the UN mission gets evacuated and the narrative of the mission slips away from a story of a mission focused on north-south reconciliation and protecting governance from an islamist threat.

Where it would make some strategic sense for the CF to commit to Mali is if the mission is really in support of the US-French/Eurocorps (there are German and Belgian military deployed with the French not under UN command) counter-terrorism mission for West Africa.

AFRICOM may be asking Canada to shore up MINUSMA for better alignment to anti-extremists intelligence and influence activities. Working in continuation of US counter-terrorism objectives would make the most sense for the CF in Mali and with other Canadian commitments in Western Africa, but it would make a deployment under MINUSMA a travesty of the official aims of the UN mission and what will likely be couched in terms of absolute virtues by the government to sell the deployment to Canadians. Frankly the context in Mali is awful if the government hopes to score an easy PR win with the peacekeeping romantics in Canada. That security council seat may be a more substantial justification, but may come at a heavy price when something goes south in Mali to make the Canadian mission look bad.

Opportunities for a CF contingent to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance may be limited. There are few international aid agencies active in Northern Mali where Minusma is deployed, and NGOs and agencies such the International Committee of the Red Cross who are very active through the Mali Red Cross rely on their own contacts with local communities and all armed groups.

MINUSMA is a party to the conflict in Mali, and aid agencies hoping to maintain their neutrality to access beneficiaries and ensure the safety of their staff often stay away from Minusma and UN coordination mechanisms in their field operations.

My personal comment is that a sizeable CF deployment outside of few staff officers or a field hospital may very well decrease the security and access to beneficiaries for Canadian-funded aid activities in the South of Mali. The statement by Minister Bibeau in support of the mission makes it a bit odd, since there will be no direct contribution at best to Canadian aid project outcomes by deploying the CF in Mali, and at worst Canadian funded aid projects can become the soft targets of the increased Canadian security involvement in country.

The good news is that a CF deployment would likely come with additional money for Canadian agencies present in Mali, notably the Canadian Red Cross who have started a sizeable maternal and child health program in support of the Mali Red Cross and ministry of health North and South of Bamako.

Peacekeeping expected to cost less than non-UN missions

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — One side benefit of Canada's return to peacekeeping is that it could end up costing a lot less than leading a NATO force in Latvia or the war in Iraq.

The Liberal government announced last week that it will make up to 600 troops available for future United Nations peacekeeping operations, though it stopped short of saying where they could end up. Specialized units and equipment, such as military aircraft and medical personnel, are also on the table.

The commitment is in addition to the approximately 800 personnel participating in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Canada's promise in July to send up about 450 soldiers to lead a NATO force in Latvia starting next year.

Yet unlike those two missions, in which Canada is required to foot the entire bill, the UN reimburses countries that provide soldiers to peacekeeping missions, to the tune of more than $1,300 a month for each soldier. It will also often reimburse countries for the deployment of high-tech equipment.

Such reimbursements money wouldn't entirely offset the costs of a Canadian peacekeeping mission, said Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping at the Royal Military College of Canada, "but it can be a lot of money that the UN pays out."

That would certainly ease the pressure on the military, which has been contending with tight budgets for years. Defence spending hit record lows last year, falling to less than 0.98 per cent of gross domestic product even as the number of Canadian military operations abroad has ratcheted up.

While Dorn said he doesn't believe the reimbursements were a major factor in the Liberal government's decision to re-engage with peacekeeping, "it's a bonus."

But retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie, who led a UN force in Sarajevo in 1992, says his fear is the government could end up using peacekeeping to justify spending less and less on the military.

"You could stand there on your political platform and explain why you're giving the military less money because we're going to make sure they're committed to UN operations where they won't need the full suite of military equipment," he said. "A blue beret and a pistol, to exaggerate."

MacKenzie's concerns are rooted in memories of the 1990s, when the Chretien government deployed thousands of Canadian soldiers on UN missions around the world even as it made deep cuts to defence. Former defence chief Rick Hillier would later describe the period as a "decade of darkness" for the military.

Dorn acknowledged the concerns, saying that at the time "a lot of the soldiers complained that peacekeeping was a way for the government to spend less on defence. They weren't getting the kind of equipment they wanted. More warfighting, heavier equipment."

But Dorn said in his research, he has seen no evidence of what he called the "myth" of peacekeeping being used to justify spending less on the military.

The Trudeau government is currently conducting a defence policy review to determine the future missions and needs of the military. That includes what equipment the Canadian Armed Forces require.

The new policy is expected to be unveiled early next year, in time for the federal budget. While the government has said it will maintain operational funding levels for the military, it has not said whether it will make more money available for new equipment.

- Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Nation Star-struck by Blue Helmets

By: Michael Den Tandt, National Post 

There is a planet, considerably closer than Proxima Centauri B, where the spirit of redshirted, Stephen-Harperhating partisania lives on, undimmed by last year’s change of power. It is a land that time forgot, mystical and unsullied. It is a land of … oh heck, it’s at One Yonge Street, the editorial boardroom of the Toronto Star.

In this ineffable high country of the mind, the Canada of 30, 40 and 50 years ago lives on, as though locked in amber. Lester B. Pearson, jovial and stolid, bestrides a convention stage next to the electric young patrician, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Bad guys and bank robbers wear natty suits and hats. And peacekeeping, Canada’s singular contribution to planetary justice, bestrides the world like a colossus.

Why, we had 3,300 soldiers in Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia “in 1993 alone,” the Star’s editorial enthused Sunday, as it celebrated Canada’s imminent return to its blue-helmeted United Nations-supporting past, with 600 soldiers bound for peacekeeping duty in various parts of Africa. Canada is back, indeed. It is way, way back.

But, could trouble be afoot? “Peacekeeping is more complicated now,” the editorial continues, with a worldweary droop to its rhetorical shoulders, “requiring a combination of military, political, humanitarian and development skills. Forces in conflict are rarely composed of well-disciplined armies; instead peacekeepers often find themselves dealing with a chaotic mix of tribal militias, terrorist groups, broken states and unprincipled governments.”

Having unburdened herself or himself of this revelatory gem, the Star’s editorial writer gets bullet-chewing tough — on the former federal government, the one not currently sending any Canadian soldiers anywhere.

“It’s wise to re-engage carefully, especially given Canada’s record of relative inaction in peace operations under former prime minister Stephen Harper. Favouring isolation over UN activism, he allowed a celebrated tradition of Canadian peacekeeping to wither.” Terrible!

However, the Star’s writer concludes with evident joy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have set the stars back on their proper course. “The Liberal government is going a considerable way in correcting Harper’s neglect. With millions of innocent civilians at imminent risk of brutalization and death in war zones around the world, Canada has a humanitarian duty to take meaningful action in easing the threat.”


To call the foregoing nonsense understates it some. That The Star saw fit to print this is amazing, even in a time when newspaper editorial writers are called upon to dash off their offerings in minutes, like performance art.

Where to begin? A briefing book provided to Foreign Affairs minister Stéphane Dion following his appointment to cabinet, obtained by Postmedia’s David Akin via access to information, outlined the status quo ante — peacekeeping at the close of the Harper era.

There were five small Canadian “peace-support” missions underway, under UN auspices, in October 2015 — in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Haiti, Cyprus and Israel/ Lebanon. Canada ranked 68th among 124 countries in troop contributions to UN operations — and was the ninth-largest contributor, worldwide, to the UN’s annual peacekeeping budget, with an annual outlay just shy of US$240 million.

Additionally, the document shows, Canadian soldiers were contributing in small numbers to the Multinational Force and Observers mission in the Sinai, the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the NATO Kosovo Force, as well as European Union support operations in the West Bank and Ukraine. Hardly a portrait of neglect.

More importantly, this portrayal of Canadian military history — which I have heard repeated in various iterations by Grit partisans for years, running into decades — contains bomb-cratersized holes. Most egregiously, it airbrushes the laudable peace-building aspects of the Afghan mission from 2002 to 2014, as well as the failures of peacekeeping in Somalia and Rwanda in the mid-1990s, from the frame.

It was a Liberal government, that of Jean Chrétien, that exacerbated the Somalia debacle with its shoddy handling of the aftermath, and its wrong-headed disbanding of the Airborne Regiment. The same government presided over the catastrophic failures of the Rwanda mission. It was also a Liberal government that launched the Afghan mission, both in its post-9/11 initial phase in 2002 and its more robust humanitarian and combat phase beginning in late 2005. Liberals enthusiastically backed the Afghan mission — until the day Harper took power in 2006, after which they began enthusiastically bashing it. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan knows this history well, having served with distinction in Afghanistan.

The prime minister, his defence and foreign ministers are not to blame for a bad editorial, granted. But they do share responsibility for perpetuating a transparently false construct of a glorious peacekeeping past that hasn’t corresponded to Canadian soldiers’ reality for at least the past 25 years.

Should the coming deployments be ramshackle, the rules of engagement prohibitive, the demands impossible, these ministers will take the blame. And they will deserve it, having had ample occasion to learn from their predecessors’ mistakes — or talk to a few veteran sergeants, perish the thought, and hear them tell the reality of peacekeeping, versus the otherworldly myth.

Ivison: Liberals’ African peacekeeping plan unlikely to offer easy wins

By: John Ivision, The National Post 

OTTAWA — Harjit Sajjan is heading to West Africa this month on a fact-finding mission impossible.

The defence minister will search for an elusive United Nations peacekeeping mission that will maximize Canada’s chances of winning a seat on the UN Security Council but minimize the potential cost in Canadian lives and resources.

“That’s hard to find in Africa,” warned a senior military source.

Justin Trudeau’s belief in the United Nations as an effective institution runs from the top of his perfectly coiffed head to the tips of his stripey socks, and he is apparently prepared to send Canadian Forces into action to test it.

At a time when people like former UN assistant secretary general Anthony Banbury are lamenting an organization he called a “black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations, never to be seen again,” the Liberals are exploring a role in an African trouble-spot like Mali or the Central African Republic.

Trudeau and his team feel obliged to do something in the world. There was the small deployment to Latvia, as part of NATO’s mini-surge in eastern Europe, but these Liberals have a Chrétien-like aversion to being aligned too closely with U.S. foreign policy and they see the UN as much more sound ideologically than NATO.

A mission in Africa would bring about the happy coincidence of winning acclaim from the developing nations who will decide which country gets the “Western Europe and Others” seat on the UN Security Council in 2020 (Canada is in the running against Ireland and Norway).

Winning this prize would be all the sweeter given the Conservative government’s abject failure to do so in 2010.

“The UN thing looms much larger (for Trudeau’s team) than people credit,” said one senior source.

The military is gung-ho, not least because there are no other major deployments on the horizon — dangerous for morale (there has been a mass exodus of experienced soldiers since Afghanistan) and budgets (the view in National Defence Headquarters is that it would be a good idea to get the army out the door before the completion of the current defence review; “More missions mean more visibility,” said one NDHQ source).

None of this need necessarily be a bad thing. Dr. Walter Dorn, professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, has long argued that Canada should beef up the number of military personnel on UN deployment from its current level of less than 30.

Canada, he contends, has special capabilities that could be used in French-speaking West Africa, not least of which are language skills, and there is a “new generation” of peacekeeping missions that differ from those Canada experienced in Rwanda and Somalia because the UN has since adopted a “protection of civilians” mandate.

In the government’s defence, it can be argued that a mission to bolster local African forces would be useful in denying haven to Islamist terror groups. But even if the cause is noble, the Canadian public deserves a thorough explanation on where we might be going and what the mission might entail.

Will we have an end-date or a plan to hand off responsibility to another country? Is there even a peace to keep?

Nobody in Sajjan’s office was prepared to answer these questions, presumably on the basis that the minister hasn’t yet found his facts.

Yet Jon Vance, chief of the defence staff, told a change-of-command ceremony on Parliament Hill last month that the army would be deploying to Africa “very soon.”

If we are going, and it seems we are, let’s hope it’s not to Mali (apparently Sajjan’s trip will not take him to Bamako, though this doesn’t necessarily mean Canadians won’t end up there).

Of 27 UN fatalities so far in 2016, 24 of them were inflicted in Mali as part of the country’s nasty civil war. (In 2015, 12 of 34 deaths were in Mali, and 10 were in the Central African Republic, another potential landing place for Canadian troops).

As Banbury, who quit the UN earlier this year, wrote in The New York Times: “Our most grievous blunder was in Mali.… More than 80 per cent of the force’s resources are spent on self-protection.

“The United Nations in Mali is day to day marching into its first quagmire.”

For a Canadian military with recent experience of fighting in hostile terrain, where hard-won tactical gains were rarely sustained, the prospect of spending all its time and resources on “force protection” can scarcely be an attractive one.

Related
Matthew Fisher: Truck attack in France ups the ante for Canada’s peacekeeping mission in Mali
Canadian Army headed to mission in Africa ‘very soon’: top general

“I think they will be extremely leery of putting themselves in an area where significant groups target peacekeepers,” said one senior military source.

With the security situation in Sudan deteriorating, perhaps Central African Republic offers the best prospect for Sajjan to fulfil his impossible mission.

For reasons best known to themselves, UN bureaucrats sent soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo as part of its CAR mission, resulting in serious human rights violations by the soldiers. Banbury noted “a persistent pattern of rape and abuse of the people the UN was sent to protect.”

Protecting civilian populations from rape and abuse; winning the acclaim of emerging nations; avoiding cost in blood and treasure — that would be an ideal trifecta for a government launching its first peacekeeping mission.

It must seem such a no-brainer to the Liberals that they see no need to hold a parliamentary debate, or “consult with Canadians,” normally their favourite pastime.

“It seems anything labelled ‘peacekeeping’ gets a free pass,” said one defence source. “But given the destination, that’s a very bad idea.”

Petrolekas: Canada is ready for peacekeeping, and so are its soldiers

By: George Petrolekas, The Globe and Mail 

George Petrolekas served with the military in Bosnia, Afghanistan and NATO and is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

With a federal defence review in the offing, perspectives on peacekeeping have increased, as the Trudeau government promised increased Canadian participation in UN-led peacekeeping during the election.

Delivering on that promise is challenging, in part because UN peacekeeping is often viewed through a distorted lens – crystallized by Canada’s own peacekeeping monument in Ottawa showing a soldier in a blue beret armed with nothing but a radio, quelling violence by sheer moral presence. Even in the heyday of Canadian participation in UN-led peacekeeping there was little truth to that image – and even less so today.

The mythology of peacekeeping distorts views on how Canada should prepare, train and conduct UN operations – an image supported by a recentanalysis. The paper by the Rideau Institute makes two major arguments: One, that the Canadian experience in Afghanistan has rendered our country ill-prepared to participate in UN missions; and two, that Canada has forgotten the basic principles of peacekeeping.

The study’s main thrust is exemplified by this statement: “War-fighting and COIN [counterinsurgency] are enemy-centric, usually non-consensual missions that primarily involve offensive tactics, whereas peacekeeping is based on a trinity of alternative principles: consent of main conflicting parties, impartiality and the defensive use of force.”

The truth is that Canada’s military has never been more ready to undertake peace-related operations.

Canadian Forces certainly fought battles against the Taliban in Afghanistan but, overall, the Canadian approach to counterinsurgency was population-centric; in other words to protect and engage the population – not only from a security standpoint but in rebuilding civic structures and institutions.

Canada invested in people and projects: training the Afghan Army and police; building schools, roads, and infrastructure. Images of Canadians sitting for hours in village shura’s, sipping tea while negotiating, educating, and helping local populations were regularly shared with the media.

Secondly, if the UN were to undertake a peacekeeping mission in Syria, would Islamic State consent be needed? That would confer legitimacy on a terrorist organization and its crimes. The UN clearly recognizes a distinction through what are termed Chapter VI and Chapter VII mandates for UN forces.

Chapter VI mandates are applied in situations such as Cyprus, where two parties have achieved a form of truce and need UN assistance to monitor and de-escalate tensions. These mandates are few and far between. Chapter VII mandates recognize that there is a serious threat to world or regional peace and a UN force is charged to impose a peace by whatever means possible. There is no consent of conflicting parties needed or sought.

Nevertheless, mission mandates change, they are not static. Conflicts are dynamic and mission locations are inherently unsafe. In 1993-94, I served in Bosnia, outside Sarajevo. At the beginning, our task was to protect UN aid and food convoys from attack. Though we had no role in mediating the conflict we nevertheless had to be consistently prepared to fight in case the unarmed convoys were threatened. Our equipment was often found wanting.

Whether Canada is at war or in a war zone the difference is moot when it comes to protecting our soldiers. In Bosnia we circulated in open-top jeeps, passing through firefights and in a place where mines were ever present. Equipment acquired for the mission in Afghanistan was better, and has made us more capable.

In the middle of the Bosnia mission, a mortar exploded in Sarajevo’s central square, and our focus suddenly changed. Our tasks expanded to impose a total exclusion zone around Sarajevo, in part by seizing belligerent artillery which had rained up to 2,000 shells a day into the city. We negotiated, cajoled, reasoned and threatened – the threat of force was ever present. Near the end of my tour, the United Nations Protected Area of Gorazde was attacked, requiring a full-scale war-fighting response, including air strikes. Without that pushback, the UN’s promise to protect threatened civilian populations had no meaning.

Canada will never place soldiers in the untenable position that Dutch soldiers found themselves years later in Srebrenica. There, because the Dutch themselves were not under attack, they were considered to be complicit spectators to one of the largest war crimes of the last two decades after thousands of innocents were massacred. Strict adherence to impartiality and defensive fire has consequences.

For Canada’s military therefore, the premise has always been to have combat-capable soldiers and equipment, particularly when UN missions occur in conflict zones. Before any deployment, units undergo months of mission-specific training that includes cultural awareness, reinforcement of the Geneva Conventions, negotiating skills and incident simulation while practicing time and time again protection measures and controlled escalation.

The foundation, however, is and has always been for Canadians to retain the ability to escalate if conditions require, with the equipment to do so. In that sense, Canada’s Forces have never been better prepared for UN operations if Canada so wishes.

Canada to Seek Seat on Security Council

Written By: The Associated Press

Originally published February 11, 2016

Canada plans to make a bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday as he hosted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

At a news conference in Ottawa, Trudeau said he has indicated to Ban that Canada wants to “re-engage robustly” with the United Nations and the global community.

That includes “looking towards a bid for the UN Security Council," Trudeau said.

In 2010, Canada lost its bid for a two-year council term to Portugal, even though it held a seat at the table off and on for six decades. Critics blamed the historic loss on Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, saying that it failed to make a strong bid.

Paul Heinbecker, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, said Canada’s frosty relationship with the organization dates back to 2006 when a Canadian peacekeeper was killed during the Israeli-Lebanese war.

“The loss of the Security Council seat, I think, was indicative that the contempt that the Canadian government was manifesting for the UN was being reciprocated by the UN members,” Heinbecker said on CTV’s Power Play Thursday.

“They preferred a bankrupt Portugal -- a country they knew was bankrupt -- to a solvent Canada,” he said.

Heinbecker said former prime minister Harper “basically snubbed” the UN multiple times by choosing to not show up to events.

“I think what we saw today with Ban Ki-Moon and Prime Minister Trudeau in their press conference was a much warmer relationship, a much more enthusiastic relationship.”

Ban said he welcomes Trudeau’s plan and called Canada “one of our most important partners.”

He credited Trudeau’s leadership with helping secure the “breakthrough” global agreement on climate change reached at the Paris summit in December.

Ban also “highly” applauded Canada’s ongoing efforts to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees.

Ban said he and Trudeau had a “very constructive exchange” Thursday on a number of issues that also included global security and Canada’s contribution to UN peacekeeping missions, which has fallen from around 3,300 troops in 1993 to just 113 today.

The UN chief also seemed to nudge Trudeau to boost Canada’s international aid spending for poorer nations.

“I’m sure that Prime Minister Trudeau and his government will pay more focus on this matter,” Ban said.

Both Ban and Trudeau expressed their outrage over recent allegations that UN peacekeepers sexually abused underage girls in the Central African Republic.

UN Report Wants Ottawa to Cancel Saudi Vehicle Deal

Written by: Steven Chase, Globe and Mail 

A leaked United Nations report detailing human-rights violations by a Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign in Yemen has spurred calls in Britain to suspend arms sales to Riyadh and is increasing pressure on the Canadian government to do the same.

A Canadian LAV III in Afghanistan in 2006. Globe and Mail file photo

The Trudeau government opened the door last week to halting a $15-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia when it issued a statement saying it reserves the right to do so if events warrant – a shift in message after weeks of framing the Canadian sale of combat vehicles as a done deal.

The UN report is raising fresh hopes among critics of Canada’s unprecedented arms deal with Saudi Arabia that Ottawa might finally be persuaded to suspend the sale of weaponized armoured vehicles to a country that already has an abysmal record on human rights. The office of Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

(The Saudi arms deal: A primer on what we've learned so far)

In a new report obtained by The Guardian, a UN panel investigating the bombing campaign in Yemen has found “widespread and systematic” attacks on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law – revelations that are prompting the Official Opposition in Westminster to urge an immediate inquiry and suspension of British arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and Arab allies launched a military intervention in Yemen last year in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who was under threat from Houthi forces aligned with Iran.

Cesar Jaramillo, executive director of Waterloo, Ont.-based Project Ploughshares, an anti-war group that tracks arms sales, said he believes the UN panel’s findings should galvanize Canada to act on the Saudi deal.

He noted the report documented “systematic targeting” of civilians in Yemen, rather than simply indiscriminate bombing.

“This report is further evidence of the Saudi regime’s utter disregard for human rights,” Mr. Jaramillo said.

“Is this not exactly the type of report that Mr. Dion’s office said it would consider to determine whether export permits should be suspended or cancelled?”

Last week, Mr. Dion’s office announced that while the Liberals had no intention of cancelling the deal, they would not ignore developments in Saudi Arabia and would “factor this information into consideration of future permits.” Permits for exports are time-limited and would need to be renewed over the life of Canada’s 14-year arms deal with Riyadh.

According to The Guardian, the new UN report attributes 60 per cent, or 2,682, of civilian deaths and injuries in Yemen to air-launched explosive weapons dropped by the Saudi-led coalition. “The coalition’s targeting of civilians through air strikes, either by bombing residential neighbourhoods or by treating the entire cities of Sa’dah and Maran as military targets, is a grave violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. In certain cases, the panel found such violations to have been conducted in a widespread and systematic manner.”

The federal government has faced repeated requests to justify the shipment of weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country notorious for its atrocious treatment of women, dissidents and prisoners. The Liberals promised during the election campaign that they would revise Ottawa’s approach to international relations to improve this country’s reputation on the global stage, and marketed this change as “Canada’s back.”

Opposition parties on Wednesday intensified their demands for the Trudeau government to make public any study or report showing how the Saudi arms deal passes muster under Canada’s weapons export regime.

Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement, whose government signed the Saudi arms deal, called on the Liberals to release those deliberations and said it’s up to the Liberals to determine if the justification for selling the armoured vehicles is still solid. “Clearly if circumstances have changed, the Government of Canada … should come clean to the Canadian people and we can have a discussion.”

NDP foreign affairs critic Hélène Laverdière urged likewise, saying the Liberals themselves were urging the release of this information when they were still in opposition.

The Saudi deal – the largest advanced manufacturing contract in Canadian history – is no ordinary transaction between a Canadian company and a foreign government.

In this deal, the Canadian government is the prime contractor, responsible for delivery of what are believed to be hundreds if not thousands of combat vehicles to the Saudi Arabian national guard. As The Globe and Mail first reported, LAVs sold to the Saudis will be equipped with anti-tank missile cannons and medium-calibre machine guns.

The former Harper government used its diplomatic resources to lobby the Saudis hard for this contract, and Ottawa is fronting the deal on behalf of General Dynamics Land Systems Canada, a Canadian subsidiary of a major U.S. defence contractor.

The deal will support 3,000 Canadian jobs over 14 years, both in London, Ont., where the vehicles are assembled, as well as across the country.

The contract is currently in the material-procurement stage.

Before an export permit is issued, federal arms-control rules require Ottawa to ensure there is no risk that arms shipped to a country with a poor human-rights record could be used against civilians.

The Liberal government still refuses to release Ottawa’s deliberations on the matter, citing commercial confidentiality.

Follow Steven Chase on Twitter: @stevenchase

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.”