I would like to focus my remarks on three issues, building on Adam's statement. I will look at the strategic effect of current UN peace operations, peacekeeping's place in Canada's broader strategic relationships and the need for strategic innovation in UN operations.
To turn first to strategic effects, I think we must admit that the effects of peacekeeping are currently in question. The UN is going through a difficult period, with missions from Congo to the Golan Heights under a high level of pressure. We have seen the end of a series of largely successful UN state-building operations in places such as Liberia, Haiti and Côte d'Ivoire, and I think all those cases, despite many problems such as the cholera scandal in Haiti, showed that the UN can build states and can stabilize very weak countries.
But today, three-quarters of UN peacekeepers are deployed in five big missions in Africa—in Mali, Central African Republic, the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan—where they face even greater challenges and the chances of an easy win are essentially nil. UN forces in Lebanon and the Golan Heights also face heightened risks due to the insecure situation in the Middle East.
Nonetheless, I think we should emphasize that peacekeeping operations today do still have positive strategic effects. Even if they cannot deliver easy stability, they limit and contain violence in fragile states such as Mali, ensuring that jihadi groups and other non-state groups do not overthrow governments and create regional instability. They protect and facilitate vital humanitarian aid, saving many lives. Most importantly, they provide frameworks for long-term political peacemaking processes.
They do not do these things perfectly. The UN is honest about its failures. We have seen a series of UN reports, including the HIPPO report, which Ameerah Haq led, being very straight about the challenges that the blue helmets face. There is considerable space for improvement. UN peace operations are not always the right tools for dealing with weak states—cases such as Somalia.
Nonetheless, peacekeeping has proven to be resilient. We have not seen a collapse of the peacekeeping mission as we did in the 1990s in cases such as Bosnia and Somalia. I think peacekeeping is continuing to prove its strategic worth.
This relates to peacekeeping's place in Canada's broader strategic relationships. In addition to their immediate impact, peace operations are a rare source of consensus among states in a period where there is very little consensus about international security. The vast majority of UN members continue to support blue helmet operations. Adam referred to the action for peacekeeping initiative. It's worth noting that 149 nations and four regional organizations have endorsed that initiative, showing that this is an area where the international community can still find common ground. It's also worth noting that all members of the P5, including China and Russia, have signed up for that initiative.
More specifically, I would argue that peacekeeping operations contribute to Canada's strategic relationships in three ways.
First, UN peacekeeping is part of your transatlantic burden sharing. You sometimes hear analysts draw a sharp dichotomy between NATO contributions and UN contributions, but for many European governments, especially France and the Mediterranean governments, the UN mission in Mali is a very important part of the regional security architecture, just as the missions in the Baltic run by NATO are an important part of European security. By contributing to UN peacekeeping in the Sahel, you are contributing to the security of your NATO allies, even if not under a NATO flag, and that is appreciated in Europe.
Second, there is a link between peacekeeping and your trans-Pacific security relationships. We're seeing a lot of Asia-Pacific countries investing more in peace operations, and most notably, we're seeing China really investing in peacekeeping as part of its global footprint. In an era where we face growing strategic competition with China, peacekeeping is an area of co-operation.
Although China still only has roughly, I think, 3,000 troops in UN missions, that number is likely to rise very dramatically in coming years. I think it is worth seeing working in peacekeeping as a way of developing relationships with the PLA.
It's sometimes said that China spies on other peacekeepers in UN operations. That is true. It is also worth saying that other countries spy on Chinese units in UN peacekeeping operations. This is a fact of life. More generally, I would emphasize that peacekeeping is a platform for co-operation with a number of Pacific partners.
Finally, peacekeeping can contribute to global counter-terror efforts. Peacekeeping operations should not become counterterrorism missions, and there are dangers where peacekeepers come into contact with jihadi groups. Nonetheless, in a case such as Mali, the presence of a UN force does help provide broad security and relief and a framework for political and economic work with communities recovering from jihadi rule. I think we should understand that peacekeeping can be an element, although only an element, in challenging terrorist organizations, especially in Africa.
I have one last very brief point about strategic innovation. I think it's important to recognize that the current peacekeeping system centring on the five big missions in Africa that I've mentioned is not permanent. UN peacekeeping often goes through periods of rapid change. We saw that in the 1990s and again in the 2000s. In recent years we've seen the UN take on new operational challenges, including the removal of chemical weapons from Syria and containing Ebola in west Africa, and we're seeing the UN at least considering new missions in new regions such as potentially patrolling the eastern Ukraine to end the Russian-Ukranian standoff.
As Adam has noted, the UN is also developing a new range of modalities for working with partners such as the African Union in places like Somalia. Peace operations are a flexible tool, and they're a tool that evolved often in response to crises.
Canada has long played an important role in guiding the evolution of peacekeeping. After all, essentially Canada made up peacekeeping in the 1950s. I think it is important that, not only the Canadian government, but also Canadian research institutes and think tanks continue to contribute to fresh thinking about the future of peacekeeping in an increasingly complex international security environment.
Thank you.