Evidence of meeting #15 for National Defence in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was war.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ujjal Dosanjh Liberal Vancouver South, BC
I have no other questions. The witnesses can take all the time that's left.
11:55 a.m.
Director, Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations
Mr. Chair, I will try to respond on the issue of non-state players.
First, historically, non-state players were not present in Bosnia or Somalia. During the war in the Congo from 1960 to 1964 there was a legal government, but there were also rebels in various provinces throughout Congo that had declared independence or that tried to attack the Belgian government. They also attacked peacekeepers who had remained in the Congo for four years. This is not necessarily then a new phenomenon, but it is something that is occurring increasingly often in conflicts.
Will this phenomenon continue to occur in the future? I believe that we need to be cautious here. A number of long-term conflicts are resurfacing. Be it between Ethiopia and Erythrea, between India and Pakistan or between Morocco and Algeria about the Western Sahara, these are past conflicts where peacekeeping operations were undertaken. We are well informed about them, these territories where there are non-state players and where peacekeeping operations have occurred.
Is there a possibility, as I was saying earlier, that this phenomenon will occur more and more often? I believe it is still too soon to say. In the 1990s and the early years of 2000, there were a significant number of such non-state players. However, research on this subject is still recent. The phenomenon of terrorist groups is a destabilizing element that did not exist five or eight years ago. al-Qaeda and Somalian groups were not present like they are today.
I believe that this is the answer I can give you concerning non-state players.
Noon
Chair, Defence Studies Program, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Chair, as far as the conventions go, it would be a great study. It's somewhat out of my league and time, but it's something that could be convened. It's very interesting, I think. You might talk to the JAG about that kind of stuff, but it's a lesson learned out of the thing.
With regard to non-state actors--that's one way to describe what's going on in these situations--perhaps the twin idea to that is that we are increasingly facing circumstances in many nations where there are ungoverned spaces, where the sovereign authority has no rule, or where, if there are governed spaces, they are governed by transnational gangs, drug dealers, cartels, and so on.
We don't have to go very far to see that. We have ungoverned spaces all through Mexico. Jamaica is going to be a criminal state, by some estimations, very soon. In Haiti, and all across the Caribbean, these problems are very big.
Not to be too much of an alarmist, but I wrote a book about this just recently: we have ungoverned spaces in Canada--Cornwall Island, aboriginal reserves, large parts of the Prairies, and other places. These are very difficult problems for Canada. As the RCMP police officers told me in my research for the book, there are 700 gangs in this country, and the aboriginal gangs—not to blame the aboriginals—are moving across the country. We have all kinds of difficulties like that heading our way too. Maybe they are not as serious, but we've learned something and we need to perhaps pay attention there.
So the theoretical point is that, yes, we should expect in future operations that there will be non-state actors; ungoverned spaces, and contests for these spaces; outside intervention by belligerents from other states; and that these will be, to say the least, messy operations.
Noon
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Bryon Wilfert
Mr. Coulon, with regard to the Congo, were you talking about the Katanga secessionist movement of Moise Tshombe?
Noon
Director, Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations
There was not only the Katanga secession. There was also Kasai, and there was, I think, another province, Equateur or something like that, that also seceded.
Noon
Liberal
Noon
Bloc
Claude Bachand Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have always said that a mission implies two theatres of operation. Some things happen on the ground, but there is also public opinion, which is probably just as important if not more. Everyone knows this, and the Americans have known since the Vietnam war. Many people say that the war wasn't lost in Vietnam, but rather in the American theatre of operations, when the public said that they were tired of the war.
I would like to know whether you believe that the Canadian public is sufficiently informed. When soldiers are deployed, people in Canada and especially in Quebec believe that it is to ensure that peacekeepers can restore peace in an exotic locale, that these are extraordinary people who separate the camps. I feel that the public is not sufficiently prepared for such missions, such as the one in Afghanistan.
Do you feel that it is important to make a greater effort to make the facts public, to keep the public in the loop? First, perhaps Canadians need to be straightened out and told that we are not going there simply to insert ourselves between the two camps who have agreed together to put an end to hostilities, and to separate them.
As MPs our we properly informing the public and ensuring success in both theatres of operations, as I mentioned at the start of my question?
12:05 p.m.
Director, Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations
If I may, Mr. Chair, I would like to answer that question, since it is to some extent the subject of the study I tabled in January and February.
Part of the study dealt in fact with the way that governments, journalists and even experts inform the public. I noted an inability or reticence from politicians, both Liberals and Conservatives, to use the words that need to be used during a conflict. For example, some public relations firms or pollsters suggested that government members should use soft words to describe Afghanistan, and to refer to it as a peacekeeping mission, that we were going to help women and children and rebuild the country. All the arguments used were extremely positive and soft. However, I believe that Doug made it clear in his presentation that, in reality, a war should be called a war. When we are in Afghanistan, we are helping women and children, we are protecting them and we are allowing them to go to school, but we are bombing and killing Taliban and al-Qaeda members. Afghanistan is not the Western Sahara. It is not a small peacekeeping operation off the beaten track.
The words we use are important, and when they are not appropriate, Mr. Chair, this leads to confusion in the public opinion and a rejection of the mission. The mission in Afghanistan is very unpopular in Quebec for all kinds of reasons. Furthermore, it is also not popular elsewhere in Canada because Canadians are confused about what we are doing. When the Canadian Forces, National Defence, conducted a poll of approximately 1,500 Canadians two years ago, they were asked what we were doing in Afghanistan. The majority of Canadians said that we were conducting a peacekeeping operation with peacekeepers. However, that is not true. Why do Canadians have that perception? It's because politicians, journalists and experts are not doing their jobs of informing the public, and this is not a uniquely Canadian phenomenon. I have demonstrated this phenomenon in France, the United States and in Germany, where everyone always speaks in vague terms without ever using the appropriate words for what is happening.
12:05 p.m.
Chair, Defence Studies Program, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
And in my 10 seconds, I'll say, Chair, that I have nothing to add.
12:05 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Bryon Wilfert
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Monsieur Bachand.
We will now go to Mr. Braid for five minutes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your very judicious timekeeping.
Through you, Mr. Chair, I'd like to begin with a question for Professor Coulon.
You indicated that in recorded history there have been approximately 120 peace operations, and that many have been successful. Could you define “success” for us?
12:05 p.m.
Director, Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations
I believe, with regard to military intervention, that the greatest success perhaps was when Rome destroyed Carthage. That was a success, since the objective was reached, Carthage was destroyed and the war was won. Another example of a success was when the United States obtained the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, and the surrender was signed on a battleship or in a conference room. This is one success that we can measure in concrete terms.
With regard to peacekeeping operations, it is more complex to determine success. It depends on a series of parameters. So, when we take a United Nations mandate, we see a certain number of objectives. The first objective is to establish a political process leading up to an election and the establishment of a democratic government. Sometimes, the election does not occur as here, in Canada, we would like it to occur. Nevertheless, since it might be the first time in 50 years that people have gone to the polls, if the voter turnout was significant enough, if there was not too much fraud, the outcome is not so bad. Perhaps we might consider this a failure, but for that society it is a first step towards something of value.
Next, a government is established. There are other elements in a United Nations mandate as well, such as disarming the militia, reintegrating child soldiers, reforming security sectors, rebuilding infrastructure. We know that it might be impossible to ensure 100% success in each of these very specific areas of a UN mandate. However, if the UN force withdraws, it can say that, despite everything, although it did not reach 100% of its objectives, it gave that society the tools it needs to move a little further towards reintegrating the international community. Success cannot be measured in terms of all or nothing, in some areas it might be 50%, 60% or 80%, but the UN force can leave with its head held high because it has done something.
That is the response I can give you. If you compare it to the example that I provided, it is clear that it is not the ideal.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Merci beaucoup.
Professor Bland, I have a different question for you. Moving forward, what factors should the Government of Canada consider when determining whether or not to participate in an international peace operation?
12:10 p.m.
Chair, Defence Studies Program, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
Not to dodge the question, but I can direct you to several numbers of white papers that list all that. We pay little attention to them, in the fact.
On the other hand, a first response that I think we need to look at is whether participating in a particular mission in a particular part of the world is important to Canada's national interest, and the first national interest is to maintain Canada as a secure, united, liberal democracy.
The next thing we need to understand is whether we have the capabilities for such a mission. Measuring the capabilities is not just whether we have a stock of goods and tanks and ships and planes and so on, but whether we have the capabilities in the circumstances we are going to face there. That's where we start to join the military planning option with the advice from professionals, in order to describe to the policy-makers the circumstances we are getting into, the capabilities we have, and whether we have adequate or inadequate capabilities.
As has already been discussed here, we need to understand how the civilian population understands the mission. Jocelyn is right on: we need to speak strongly to people on these matters. We need to tell them that this mission isn't going to be going to Cyprus and standing around--although that mission was important at the time--but a mission that's going to be more like Afghanistan.
Again I come back to my point. After our experiences, we--and I hope we start with Canadian politicians--need to start explaining to Canadians that they're operational military missions, meaning that you can't put them into little category boxes and then expect to have the statement that “This is a peacekeeping mission” define what the mission is actually about.
It's a bit iffy, but again, I am not too keen on having a list of what we should do or where we should go, because such a list is just not practical in the real world.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To our guests, welcome, and thanks for spending part of your day with us.
When I look around and see what's happening with the UN and what's happening with NATO and what's happening across the planet in terms of warfare, it becomes a question of who's leading the parade and where the parade is going.
When Canada was at war a number of years ago, we fought against one country. That was Germany in World War I. We knew what they looked like, and they knew what we looked like. World War II was kind of a replay of World War I with higher-tech stuff. Again, we knew what was happening.
As Mr. Bland has said, we can go out shooting, looking for wild turkeys or ducks or geese or whatever we want to cook, and not be there in the afternoon because we're off to war.
I would like to hear from both of you gentlemen on what you think is happening in terms of where the parade is going and who's leading it.
12:15 p.m.
Director, Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations
I could start with part of the answer.
I think the international system has developed a lot of instruments to make sure that we can intervene when we need to intervene with the right tools.
If you recall, at the beginning of the nineties, Iraq invaded Kuwait. We went to the Security Council. The Security Council wanted to do something, but the UN didn't have the means to deploy a large armed force immediately to the Gulf. Therefore, for one of the first times, the Security Council asked for a coalition, led by the U.S., which 45 other countries joined, and we decided to kick out Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
A few years later, during the Kosovo crisis, we were not ready to replay what happened in Bosnia with the UN there. Therefore, we asked the UN to do something. But we understood that several countries in the Security Council would block an intervention in Kosovo. NATO emerged as an organization that had the legitimacy from its membership and from a lot of other countries, and NATO launched an attack against Serbia to liberate Kosovo.
In the war of 2003, you saw what happened. There was division in the Security Council. I think the majority of the international community was against the war in Iraq, but the U.S. decided to go ahead and enter Iraq.
You have several kinds of tools, if I may say, that can be used to keep peace and security. Is there someone who leads? Well, some people around this table would say that the United States leads, because it is the superpower, and people gather around the U.S. and ask the U.S. to do something. But at the same time, the U.S. is not as predominant as we think. The Iraq war has sent a strong message to the U.S. and to the international community that it cannot do everything.
Perhaps Doug has other considerations on that.
12:15 p.m.
Chair, Defence Studies Program, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University, As an Individual
I think it's a deep, and in some respects worrying, question, or at least the answer is.
It's not just “our side”, if we can say it that way, that's learning lessons from these operations; so is the other side, or the many other sides. One of the lessons they may be learning is that we're not up to this kind of stuff; we will back off unless it's very close to home. It's very close to home in Mexico right now for the Americans.
The other idea that is worrying to some people is that the Cold War post-Second World War structure that we built for maintaining the security of liberal democracies is fracturing. I've just been thinking these days, given what's going on in Greece this morning and this week and what's going to go on for the next few weeks, that the European Union was a grand idea, and I use it in the past tense. Part of the grand idea was to have one economy--the euro--and that we would all be in it together. Well, now they're not so sure about that.
What is the experience with the Europeans in Afghanistan? Are we all in it for NATO? I'm not so sure about that.
Why are the Americans sending lots of forces into Afghanistan? It's because the other guys aren't going to send the forces in.
We may be approaching a situation where those who oppose liberal democracies see us as weak and divided, reinforced by the actions of ourselves and our allies and others that we are weak and divided.
If I just go back to Canadian....