United Nations Peacekeeping (catch all)

[Tom Odom]

Matt

You said:

I understand, obviously, the mission does not begin with the military and, as they say "theirs not to reason why," etc., but you don't think military unwillingness plays a role in a politicians' willingness to commit? It's like Scheuer's quote that Clinton would ask for ideas for using Special Ops in Afghanistan, and an unwilling Hugh Shelton would provide "plans that looked like the Invasion of Normandy."

I said:

all are in fact irrelevant because the militaries do the mission the politicians hand them. We get to shape that process and we may influence the mission design. But ultimately they make the critical decision.

I would say we are in agreement. It is an iterative process up until the point the politician gets to decide. Even then the ways and means decisions that flow from a decision to act continue that iterative process.

As for Dallaire's force, it is fanciful and I don't think it will happen. I love the Canadians for their efforts in sustaining peacekeeping under the UN banner. I just don't see the UN model as an effective combat force necessary in an enforcement mode.

Best
Tom

[Rex Brynen]

As for Dallaire's force, it is fanciful and I don't think it will happen. I love the Canadians for their efforts in sustaining peacekeeping under the UN banner.

Slightly off-topic, but you may need to frame that in the past tense.

Between past NATO peacekeeping in the Balkans, followed by the huge demands of the Afghan deployment on the relatively small Canadian military, we've had a sharply declining presence in UN missions. As of August, we had some 177 Canadian forces on deployment to UN PKOs, placing us 56th among troop contributing countries (somewhat behind Mongolia at 49th).

It remains to be seen whether, post-2011 termination of our Afghan combat deployments, we'll reemphasize UN missions or not. Much may depend on the party in power, with the current Conservatives noticeably cooler to the idea than the Liberals.

[davidbfpo]

The background to Dalliare's comment is that he is the co-director of a Canadian think tank, which has recently released 'Mobilizing the Will to Intervene': http://migs.concordia.ca/W2I/documen...2IAugust09.pdf

It is a long paper (160 pgs) so not read beyond the summary.

KOW have a rather sharp riposte: http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com/2009...anadian-style/

There you go MattC86 - a little reading inside the Beltway.

davidbfpo