National Defence committee  Thank you.

National Defence committee  Ask away.

National Defence committee  Yes. Although, as I say, in most high-risk environments, multinational forces may be the best option. We should be conscious that, down the road, the UN could be asked to go into somewhere like Yemen. If Mali is tough, Yemen would be a thousand times tougher. If the Security Coun

National Defence committee  I think that, in the piece you referred to, I was citing a study by the Danish Institute for International Studies of African units in MINUSMA and, certainly, that study did find very, very significant gaps in some of the African units' equipment. We have, as I say, seen African

National Defence committee  Look, multinational forces and coalitions of the willing are probably the best way to go if you're going into a situation where you want to proactively kill people. You see that in a counterterrorism situation or a situation such as Somalia. It tends to make sense to get together

National Defence committee  Yes, I would actually link this also to Mr. Garrison's comments. I think it's very important that Canada, when it's putting peacekeepers on the ground, make sure that its bilateral policy fits with its multilateral policy. We quite often see countries deploy peacekeepers but act

National Defence committee  It's not all for naught, but I think we have to recognize that we're not going to turn the Congo or South Sudan into Quebec or Ontario anytime soon. We are going to be leaving behind countries that, at best, will achieve a minimum of stability and will take a long time to devel

National Defence committee  I understand these concerns. I would simply respond with one anecdote. I was talking to a Swedish counterpart about the Nordic experience in Mali, and he said that initially they had gone in feeling very arrogant toward the non-western troops because they don't meet all NATO st

National Defence committee  The first thing I would say is that, clearly, there is a difference between comparing NATO and UN missions for Canada, but we're also talking about comparing UN and African Union missions, for example, in Africa. I think the development of the African Union peace and security ar

National Defence committee  I wish I didn't write stuff that people then read.

National Defence committee  That was not in the context of peacekeeping. What I was arguing was that you have a lot of very fancy talk about the evolution of global governance today. I was emphasizing that the core of the UN remains the Security Council, and the core task of the Security Council is in fact

National Defence committee  There is a very real risk that if relations with Russia deteriorate further, the Security Council will become more blocked. However, it is worth noting that, for Russia, the seat on the Security Council is a standing source of prestige and Moscow does not want the organization to

National Defence committee  On your question concerning adaptation, I think the UN is a more adaptive organization than we often recognize. Especially on the issue of intelligence, which five years ago was really a taboo subject, we've seen huge progress. A wide range of states are now strongly supporting U

National Defence committee  I think the UN is the natural framework for multilateral agreements around artificial intelligence and other forms of technology. What is interesting is that my colleagues who work on this here say that companies in Silicon Valley, companies developing new forms of technology, ar

National Defence committee  I believe it does. Although MINUSMA has many challenges, it is worth saying that it is a singular improvement over the African force that was briefly there beforehand. That is also true in the Central African Republic, if you compare the UN and African force. I think it is worth