Great. I will just continue on and I will describe what I mean.
We need to understand where peacekeeping fits in the spectrum of operations. There is something that we use in peace and conflict studies called the "conflict bump". In effect, it is a graph that shows the escalation of conflict in a society, moving up towards a peak, and then a de-escalation of conflict, back towards peaceful outcomes for a society, a community, a region, perhaps even a nation writ large. We learn about this tool in peace and conflict studies because it allows us, in a two-dimensional way, to imagine what happens to a country when conflict escalates, or when there are trigger events that move a community into violent armed conflict. This would also apply where the international community notices elements in which diplomacy and defence, development and humanitarianism, and longer-term interactions such as peacemaking would occur in a spectrum over time.
We know now that conflict has many emergent threats and triggers yet we no longer know how to map it out in that two-dimensional format.
I do have the graph here. You can see the bump, but I don't want to refer to it if we don't have it in front of us.
The idea here is that peacekeeping can be injected once the conflict has begun to de-escalate and hostilities have been suspended to make room for the international community to intervene with that particular tool. However, other aspects of conflict and peace need to be in place for sustainable outcomes to occur and for the community itself—or the nation itself—to become responsible in its own governance structures and move forward as a peaceful community.
Before you jump to the conclusion that conflict no longer happens in that type of linear model—as once was the case between states and as we have advanced into what we call post-Westphalian concepts of armed conflict and war—consider that the best minds have not yet developed a better way to diagram conflict in two dimensions. We don't have access to three-dimensional models in our discussion today.
It's really a conversation about how we picture conflict and where the conflict mechanisms can inject and create the change that we're looking for.
One of the things I teach—especially to the Canadian Armed Forces—is what happens when we come at operations from the wrong end of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What I mean, if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy—I referred to it at the beginning of my talk—is that when it comes to human behaviour, the bottom levels of the pyramid need to be addressed first. Only then can an individual begin to accommodate their other needs and wants, all the way up from basic physiological needs to self-esteem, belonging, love and then self-actualization. Some people have pictured this pyramid from a community perspective: If a community experiences conflict, especially violent armed conflict, most of their needs and wants are not met and they immediately drop to the bottom of the pyramid. It takes quite a bit of time to manage your way out of that bottom layer and into the other levels, and then to move up to self-actualization.
There is a defined order of human needs, and when satisfied in the appropriate order, human potential can be realized. When the ability to satisfy all parts of the hierarchy of needs is compromised, human satisfaction—let alone human potential—cannot be met.
People are dominated and their behaviour is organized only by unsatisfied needs. We're talking about that post-conflict environment. If hunger is satisfied, it becomes unimportant in the current dynamics of the individual. A person lacking food, safety, love and esteem would likely hunger for food above anything else. All other needs become non-existent. After the basic needs are met, other and higher needs immediately emerge, and it is these rather than psychological hungers that dominate the person. When a need or a want becomes chronic, as in hunger, it's as if the person lives only to satisfy it.
The act of intervention aims to satisfy these human needs. Instead of addressing the emotional and physical basic human needs affected during conflict, many of our late 20th and early 21st century models of intervention focused expectations on the top of the pyramid, addressing democratic liberalism, political mentorship, human rights and gender equality, and nationwide educational systems through security sector reform and economic strengthening. Yes, these actions have purpose and meaning; however, they are often mismatched with the realities on the ground.
The mismatch often offsets any real capacity to attain mission goals and to forge successes recognized in the political community. More than a little Canadian blood has been shed because of the mismatch between political aims and the efficacy of the mechanism in the conflict environment. In other words, while we set goals to achieve state self-actualization—the top of the pyramid—our interventions are in complex environments where civilians and belligerents seek only basic necessities and personal security—the bottom of the pyramid.
What will the results be if mechanisms like peacekeeping are mismatched continually against political aims and the available resources to attain the aims?
The international community—and more specifically, western states—are fixated on the top of Maslow's pyramid, and we wonder why peacekeeping does not get war-affected peoples to the top of the pyramid more quickly. Why aren't they self-actualized when we leave? Managing expectations of the efficacy of the conflict management tool is critical. If we begin with the bottom part of the pyramid, there are mechanisms in place to address issues as we move up the pyramid in a conflict-affected society, but we often skip steps, so we have to be careful about that.
Lastly, and in summary, I have three recommendations to propose to the committee.
The first one is to manage your meanings—your peacekeeping meanings that is—because meanings matter. The second is to be sure to consider which end of the pyramid you think Canada should set its sights on, and then resource the heck out of the operation. Third, place Canada at the heart of discussions to innovate the conflict management tools for the emergent security environment of the 21st century. Recall that, “We have to do good things, but we also have to do them for strategic reasons.”
Thank you.