From peacekeeping to war-fighting: Perception is reality

Marching Orders
How Canada abandoned peacekeeping – and why the UN needs us now more than ever

From peacekeeping to war-fighting: Perception is reality

From Washington to Ottawa to Afghanistan, the refrain is the same: “Canada is a nation at war; peacekeeping is over.” Almost daily, generals, politicians and experts tell the Canadian public that the world is a dangerous place, and that our role on the world stage should be a military one. Increasingly, they say that UN peacekeeping is an outdated vocation for today’s Canadian Forces.

Is this true? Is the world more dangerous today than at any other recent time? Must Canada give up its cherished role as a peacekeeper and instead climb on board the U.S.-led “War on Terror”?

The perpetual beating of war drums in the Canadian political discussion could be mistaken for a military mission itself, or a “PSYOPS,” the military term for a psychological warfare mission – like dropping leaflets from airplanes to try to convince the enemy to surrender. The goal of this media-focused campaign would be to persuade the Canadian public to give up the notion of Canada as a peacekeeper, and accept new war-fighting missions under U.S. leadership.

It is no accident that Canada’s blunt-talking Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, delivers Canada-needs-to-get-tough lines to journalists in perfect, sound-bite rapid succession. The quotable general has been well trained to be a most effective advocate for building up the military to better fight terrorist “scumbags” around the world.

“We get public speaking training, how to present a lecture or treat a subject. We learn from past experiences,” he revealed to Profit magazine recently. “When I was in Afghanistan, we had people from the BBC come in to help us create the right perceptions, because perception is reality.”1

General Hillier is on the front lines of a defence lobby intent on perpetuating the notion that the military is a war-fighting force and that peacekeeping is nothing but a quaint anachronism. Once the public accepts this perception, the vision of a new Canadian military will become a reality. Fuelled by billions of new dollars, thousands of new recruits, and state-of-the-art weapons, it would be ready to fight wars around the world – all in the service of the “War on Terror.”

Fanning out behind General Hillier is a legion of retired military brass, academic hawks and industry lobbyists who are organized into a public relations machine comprising a range of think tanks and university departments, frequently well funded by the Department of National Defence itself.2

General Hillier shares this vision of a new war-fighting Canadian military. Chosen to lead the Canadian Forces by Paul Martin’s Liberals in January 2005, he has said that his goal is to transform the military into a force that has the funding, capability and political support to fight wars abroad alongside allies such as the United States.

“We’re into a new era where instability and terrorists and militia forces are threats,” he said last summer. “Global instability could cause some of these things to come home to roost in Canada, and I want the population to really understand that we are asking these young men and women to die.”3

The war that Canada is currently fighting in Afghanistan is aimed not only at killing insurgents, but also at challenging the idea that our military’s primary role should be that of peacekeeper.

While the defence of Canada has always been the primary purpose of the Canadian military, Canada faces so few military threats that the armed forces have been available for international peacekeeping missions.

General Hillier is using the dangerous mission in Kandahar – a mission that he personally sought out for Canada – to convince Canadians that we need a more powerful military to defend our country. Those who think as he does argue that the defence of our country relies on our ability to fight wars in other countries (the away game) before those threats can reach continental North America (the home game).

Following this line of thought, the defence of Canada requires co-operation with the U.S.-led war on terrorism, which is based on the idea that the best way to defend the American homeland is to invade someone else’s homeland.

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