The Middle Ground.

Canada's national culture is one of peace, harmony, and acceptance of others, jet we are often called upon to act militarily

For decades, Canada has tried to be a helpful fixer. Our politicians and diplomats have acted as go-betweens in trying to get enemies to be less hostile towards each other. Canada invented the concept of peacekeeping, and our soldiers, flyers, and sailors have taken part in almost every peacekeeping mission the United Nations has organized. We have pushed and pushed for peaceful solutions to conflict and some of our tax dollars have funded peace research and initiatives. Most recently, we have been deeply involved in the campaign to ban landmines, and we are now at work on a similar program to control the trade in small arms and light weapons.

But, Canada has also gone to war. Our young people fought and died in two world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45). Canadians fought in the Korean War (1950-53). And, Canadian pilots took part in the Gulf War (1991), and the bombing of Yugoslavia (1999).

Canada is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty, Organization (NATO) and North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad). Both organizations are always described by their spin-doctors as "defensive." But, NATO bristles with weapons and is a formidable war machine; Norad is designed to give early warning of attack so that nuclear missiles can be launched in retaliation.

Trying to keep a balance between military intervention and pressing others to negotiate peacefully calls for some very tricky diplomatic footwork. Perhaps, it's a measure of Canada's success that it is, from time to time, criticized by both sides. Our NATO allies have frequently complained that Canada doesn't pull its weight. The criticism is that our military is underfunded, and we don't spend enough on weapons. Peace activists, on the other hand, say that Canada cannot ask other nations to act peacefully while it sometimes uses its military capabilities aggressively.

It's certainly true that Canada's armed forces are in a poor state of repair. During the 1990s, the Department of National Defence took some serious budget-cutting blows. In 1994, Canada had 75,000 people under arms; six years later there were fewer than 60,000. Between 1993 and 1999, the defence budget was cut by 23%, and 21 bases were closed. At the same time, a lot of the equipment has aged and is in desperate need of replacement. The ancient Sea King helicopters are held together with bailing wire and chewing gum; the long-delayed purchase of replacements is supposed to get underway in 2001. The country's Leopard tanks are in a similar state of disrepair.

The people who wear the uniforms are feeling about as worn out and tired as their equipment. There have been stories of armed forces personnel using food banks because their salaries aren't high enough to buy groceries to feed a family. An inquiry in June 2000 heard about distraught soldiers on duty in Croatia in 1993; they were so angry and vengeful they plotted to harm senior officers who the soldiers believed to be incompetent. This followed earlier revelations that Canadian soldiers on peacekeeping duty in Somalia in 1993 beat a local teenager to death.

Also, in June 2000, The Canadian Military Journal published an article written by senior officers who had taken part in the bombing of Yugoslavia the year before. The article was highly critical of the way in which Canadian pilots were sent into combat. "Canada was the only nation [of 13 NATO air forces that took part] not equipped with anti-jam radios which forced the entire NATO air-strike effort to use single-frequency, jammable equipment," the authors wrote. They went on to point out that if the Yugoslavs had jammed that single frequency, "in all probability, Canada would have been politely told to go home." Canadian pilots also had to go into combat without night-vision goggles. The high-tech eyewear is pretty much standard equipment in other NATO air forces, but their purchase has been delayed in Canada as a cost-cutting measure.

These shortcomings are not new, but despite them the military continues to be given a lot of jobs.

The official policy of Canada's government says that our armed forces have to maintain a multipurpose, combat-capable force. In non-government language that means the military has to be ready to fight on land, sea, and air, but also to undertake the many peacekeeping duties Canada ada is called upon to perform. For a middle power with a vast landmass to defend and a tiny military budget, that's a tall order. The government's many critics say these tasks just can't be done on the cheap, which is what Ottawa tried to do during the 1990s.

Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie is very blunt in saying that Canada's politicians are placing too many demands on Canada's military. He fears this overtasking is going to have a high price. In an interview with The National Post in September 2000, General Mackenzie warned the government probably won't sit up and take notice unless there's a disaster: "It will take an operational mission where we end up with 200 dead Canadian peacekeepers."

And, while Canada's armed forces are being told they have to do more with less, a whole new set of demands might be on the way.

Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian Foreign Minister, was asked by the United Nations to report on its peacekeeping operations. Mr. Brahimi gave his analysis in August 2000.

When the Cold War ended in 1991, the world changed. Peacekeepers began to find themselves in the middle of battles. Instead of patrolling quiet demilitarized zones between armies that had stood down, they were now looking down the barrels of guns. The civil war in Bosnia (1992-95) was the first time this happened, then, there was the terrible bloodbath in Rwanda (1994), and, more recently, Sierra Leone (2000).

Mr. Brahimi recommends that if UN peacekeeping methods are to be successful in the future they are going to have to involve "real" armies. That means well-trained, well-equipped units that are ready and able to use maximum force when necessary. Mr. Brahimi recommends setting up a permanent rapid-reaction force under a unified command that would operate on a warfare basis. The manpower for this force would be supplied by member states, such as Canada. It would not be a standing army but would be available for call-up and deployment within 30 days to monitor ceasefires; the force would be given 90 days to muster for a more aggressive intervention. That means the troops would have to be permanently on stand-by in a state of battle-ready preparedness.

There would be effective communications, a clear and efficient chain of command, and sufficient firepower to deal with any threat that might be encountered. This "army" would be equipped to enforce international human rights standards and maintain the rule of law. Once the fighting has been stopped, lightly armed police and civilians would take over and work to re-establish order and government.

But, Lakhdar Brahimi put his finger on the plan's biggest problem -- money. "What is wrong cannot be put right without additional resources." There is little enthusiasm among the world's rich, developed nations for funding such UN programs. This is particularly true of the United States, the world body's biggest single contributor. Several years ago, the UN brought in a "zero-growth budget" policy. This happened as a result of American pressure to reduce waste.

There's another stumbling block, also coming from Washington. The new American President, George W. Bush, is not a fan of foreign entanglements, and neither is his Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Both have been sharply critical of U.S. involvement in the Balkans. It isn't realistic to expect any rapid-reaction force to be very successful without strong U.S. support in terms of money, manpower, and arms. Mr. Brahimi remains optimistic. "The international community spends nearly $800 billion on their armies," he says. "I'm sure they can find some little change for this organization."

Meanwhile, General MacKenzie says sending Canadian troops into hot spots with their guns blazing could be a big mistake. Our armed forces have been so busy with peacekeeping and humanitarian duties that combat training has been neglected. "There will come a day," says the general, "when the government turns to the military and says: `Okay, we need you to fight and kill people.' And the military will raise its hand and say: `Sorry, we don't do that any more.'"

FACT FILE

Canada's defence policy requires that the Armed Forces be able to muster a force of 4,000 and deploy it anywhere in the world within three weeks, and then add a further 6,000 troops within three months.

Canada spends 1.1% of its Gross Domestic Product on defence; the average among NATO's members is 2.1%.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Design a defence policy for Canada. The first step is to assess possible threats to the well being of Canadians. Some threats to be considered might be: an invasion by the United States, global instability caused by regional conflicts or humanitarian disasters, immigrants bringing their ethnic rivalries to Canada with them, the growth of organized crime groups and the acquisition by them of weapons of mass destruction, threats to Canada's claims to sovereignty over the Arctic. Once you have assessed the threats you need to decide which are the most likely to happen and how to counter them.

2. Edward Luttwak is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In the July/ August 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs, he made the case that few wars today have the potential to escalate to the point where the destruction of the world becomes possible. He argued that peace-makers, by imposing ceasefires and other agreements, "artificially freezee conflict and perpetuate a state of war indefinitely by shielding the weaker side from the consequences of refusing to make concessions for peace." He writes that he has no liking for war but that "An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when the belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively." Discuss Mr. Luttwak's ideas.

3. Suppose a leader in a far-off country begins a campaign to kill every member of an ethnic minority within the territory. Would you volunteer to join a Canadian military force to bring an end to the violence, remembering that there is a possibility that you could be killed? Discuss.

Websites

International Conference on
War-Affected Children
http://www.
waraffectedchildren.gc.ca/
menu-e.asp

International Action Network
on Small Arms
http://iansa.org/

United Nations Peace
Operations [Brahimi] Report
http://www.un.org/peace/
reports/peace_operations/

RELATED ARTICLE: REALISM

Peacekeeping missions have sometimes been hampered by the United Nations' reluctance to take sides. The idea being that the UN is neutral and its peacekeepers are there only to keep the peace.

But, often in conflicts there is a clear bad guy. Sierra Leone is an example. The Revolutionary United Front is guilty of many monstrous violations of human rights, and its leader, Foday Sankoh, is quite probably a psychopath. Few voices would be raised in protest if UN peacekeepers launched an all-out attack on such villains.

The Brahimi report on peacekeeping says that if the UN fails to take sides when there is a clear choice between right and wrong then the effectiveness of the mission is undermined. "In the worst case [neutrality] may amount to complicity with evil," the report says.

RELATED ARTICLE: JUST A SUGGESTION

Canadian author George Woodcock had a reputation for taking on the establishment and for supporting unusual views. In his 1987 work, If I Were Prime Minister, he wrote "I would like to see Canada leaving NATO and Norad, expelling American military units from its soil, turning the armed forces into a corps devoted to cleaning up and preserving the environment, and diverting the vast sums earmarked for replacing obsolete weaponry to two important peaceful purposes: rebuilding our shipping services and our merchant marine so that our products would sail to the world in Canadian ships; and devoting a much higher proportion of the community's wealth to foreign aid, aimed at achieving a situation where the just anger of poor people would no longer remain as a threat to the world's peace."

RELATED ARTICLE: VOICES OF YOUTH

Students, politicians, and experts gathered for a conference in Winnipeg in September 2000. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the effects of war on children. This is the kind of event that Canada pulls off quite well. There was no enormous publicity offensive, just young people exchanging ideas and beliefs with senior officials.

The First International Conference on War-Affected Children in Winnipeg came at the end of a consultation process. Under the leadership of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2,000 teenagers had been asked to take part in foreign-policy forums. Out of those discussions came proposals from teenagers on how to make the world a more peaceful place and one that protects children better. Some of those ideas are:

* vigorous prosecution of war criminals;

* military intervention to stop atrocities;

* avoiding the use of economic sanctions that cause hardship to civilians;

* making more money available for schooling in refugee camps and war-ravaged countries; and,

* prohibiting the production and trading of weapons, including small arms and landmines.

RELATED ARTICLE: THE GO-BETWEEN

Russia's President Vladimir Putin called on Canada for help in December 2000. On a visit to Ottawa, Mr. Putin expressed deep concern about American plans to build a missile defence system. Under the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the United States and Russia agreed not to attempt to build such a system. The ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of all subsequent disarmament agreements, if the United States violates that treaty by building a missile defence system the whole nuclear control and reduction program will be destabilized.

President Putin has enlisted Prime Minister Chretien as a go-between. As a military ally of the United States and as a country that is geographically between the two nuclear powers, "Canada has the full right to play a mediator role," Mr. Putin said.

Canada has often acted in this manner before. During the Vietnam War (1964-73) Canada offered what is known in the diplomatic world as a "backchannel" for communication. U.S. officials would pass information to Canada, and Canadian officials would carry these messages to the North Vietnamese for response.

All of this communication is unofficial and off-the-record. No doubt, there have been many other behind-the-scenes activities of this nature that have not yet come to light.