It's a great question, because there are criteria, and every country has them and the UN has them: identifiable end date, good chance of success, exit plan, criteria for success, in the national interest, etc. Every one of them is ignored, and they have been historically. They're never applied.
They are driven very much by the media that are covering that particular event. The absence of the media in Rwanda and the presence of the media in the Balkans are good examples of where the priorities were.
So I can certainly offer criteria. I just outlined some of them. But they will not be listened to.
With the UN, it's the same thing. In the Brahimi report that I mentioned, he said adequate budget, clear rules of engagement, well understood and implementable mandate—all that—and they're never applied. It's just an academic exercise.
I was blessed with the failure of that system, because when I needed some troops to come and secure the Sarajevo airport, we had 32 nations in that force and the only nation that responded to my telephone call within 12 hours to a request to borrow a battalion—and it had nothing to do with my being a Canadian—was Canada. It said, “Yes, sure; do you think it'll work, General MacKenzie?” That was the criterion. Thank God it did.