Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I have a few written notes that I will use, and then I will be very keen to join your discussion and answer your questions.
If I turn to my notes, my first point for the committee is that a study of the future of peace operations that begins from the premise that peace operations or peacekeeping are military operations distinct from war-fighting sets up a false dichotomy that may diminish the study's influence in the formulation of Canada's future defence policies.
Peace operations and peacekeeping operations are forms of warfare in which, as in all the other forms of warfare, means and tactics are adapted to meet the needs of particular circumstances. To set these operations outside the realities of warfare confuses policy and defence planning, and raises unrealistic expectations in our community. As we have seen in the Afghanistan campaign, these confusions can hinder the operations of the Canada Forces in the field and harm Canada's national security.
Scholars have long described warfare as occurring along a spectrum of conflict. At the lowest end, one might place unstable peace or ceasefires during conflicts. At the high end, we find total war with few limitations on the scale or ferocity of operations.
Examples of operations conducted at the low end of the spectrum include the large deployment of the United Nations into the Middle East in 1956, an operation that is still ongoing; and into Cyprus in 1964, an operation that is also still continuing. In both cases, lightly armed forces were deployed in situations where the likelihood of the UN becoming involved in armed conflict was very low.
At the high end of spectrum, we find the world wars, and along the length of the spectrum we find so-called limited wars, for instance in Korea in 1950; and in the Middle East in 1956, 1967, and 1973, and in Lebanon, for instance, more recently.
All wars, as defined by their particular characteristics, can be placed here or there along the spectrum of conflict.
Wars that share particular characteristics often assume particular modes of conduct and tactics. For instance, urban warfare, guerrilla warfare, revolutionary warfare, and civil warfare have their own defining characteristics and, thus, often their own defining modes of operations and combat. However, they are all wars by general definition. They have their own grammar, but not their own logic. In other words, they are identified by their particular means and modes, not as operations set aside from the general circumstances and demands of warfare.
Thus, peacekeeping and peace operations, too, are not distinct from warfare. Rather, they are another type of military operation. They have their own grammar and they have their own logic.
When we assume today that peace operations are not warfare because they occur in particular circumstances under the direction of international authorities and use particular tactics and modes of operations, we make a serious error. Moreover, when we assume that all future peace operations must be stuffed into the configurations of the operations of the 1950s and 1960s, then we make a dangerous error as well.
Let me support these remarks with two illustrations from Canadian military operations during the period 1990 to 2010. The Canadian Forces were deployed in the former Yugoslavia in 1991 under a UN blue flag, and were equipped for that mission on the assumption that it was a peacekeeping operation. Our combat units arrived in theatre with a mere six rounds of rifle ammunition per member, and in white painted vehicles. They almost immediately came under fire from well-equipped local forces. For 10 years these units attempted to conduct peacekeeping operations in the midst of a conventional war. The Liberal government of the day refused to acknowledge this fact and sacrificed the lives of 25 soldiers, and created scores of seriously wounded casualties as a result.
Today the Canadian Forces are involved in a war in Afghanistan. At the unit level, this is as deadly a war as any we have fought around the world, and it is conducted with every conventional weapon the Canadian Forces own. Yet in the midst of this war, Canadian soldiers and public servants serving the Government of Canada are conducting complex peace operations—development and humanitarian missions, for example. Our Afghan mission cannot be labelled as either a war or a peace operation; rather, it is a conflict mission we are waging with the means and methods appropriate to the circumstances.
The questions that this committee is addressing and the recommendations that it will make are important, but a study aimed at influencing future defence policies that reaches conclusions based on the notion that peace operations are separate and distinct from warfare may seem incredible, and thus be set aside by defence planners.
The international environment in which the Canadian Forces can expect to operate in the future will not allow for the deployment of peacekeeping forces not prepared at the outset for the rigours of combat among people in disintegrating states and communities.
I would hope that the committee would break from past attempts to separate peacekeeping missions from warfare and be the first to boldly alert Canadians to the operational realities and limitations of what I call third-generation UN missions--warfare by another name--and to the dangers these conflicts present to the men and women of the Canadian Forces.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.