It’s a familiar scene in classrooms and lecture halls across Canada. A teacher or professor keen to introduce a topic about Canada and its role in the world leads with the ever popular discussion question, “what values does the rest of the world associate with Canada?” Hands begin to go up, and classically Canadian ideals such as, “multiculturalism,” “acceptance,” and “igloos,” are suggested. More often than not, “peacekeeping” is also added in the mix. When this is suggested it elicits a patriotic response. Our heart swells imagining people around the world thinking fondly of Canada as the harbinger of peace, and lover of all things non-violent. They think of Canada, a country whose own Foreign Affairs Minister fathered the concept of peacekeeping. Canada, they imagine, a country who valiantly defends human rights in places of conflict worldwide. Canada, who specializes in apologies and just wants everyone to have a good time. In short, Canada the peacekeeper. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Canada is no longer the peacekeeping force it once was, and for this we should be ashamed. Furthermore I argue that in face of these failures, Canada should revamp its efforts in peacekeeping and live up to our supposed reputation.

I’ll begin with a question. What do Rwanda, the DRC, and Congo have in common? Several things actually. All three are central African nations that have been ravaged by civil war. All three have GDPs that rank below $60 billion per year. All three have, at some point or other, hosted Canadian peacekeeping troops. And all three currently provide more troops to the UN peacekeeping force than Canada. Of the top ten contributors, six are African nations, with Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal completing the group. In fact, Canada the peacekeeper doesn’t even break the top 50 contributors to UN peacekeeping forces. We rank 65^th, amongst other such military and economic forces as Zambia, Tunisia, and Sierra Leone. Our contribution? 84 police officers, 13 military experts, and 21 soldiers as of September 2014. Still feeling proud of our peacekeeping reputation now?

There are several reasons for the decline of Canadian peacekeeping participation. The first is the incidences of failures the UN experienced in peacekeeping missions during the mid-90s. Between the Rwandan genocide in the presence of Canadian-lead UNAMIR forces in 1994, or the torture of a Somali teenager by Canadian troops in 1993, the ‘90s provided strong disincentive for future Canadian participation in UN endeavours.

While this was happening, NATO began to rise to prominence as an instrument of humanitarian intervention, providing a second distracting factor. Since the 1990s Canada has chosen to participate more with NATO, fighting alongside the US and its allies in wars based on humanitarian intervention, a concept which it is important to note is fundamentally different than peacekeeping. Peacekeeping is dependent on the conflicted country’s consent, and uses lightly armed troops to enforce peace agreements, a practice which has been shown through statistics to decrease the likelihood of a return to violence. Humanitarian intervention, on the other hand, is based off of military supremacy and the enforcement of peace using things like no fly zones, precision airstrikes, and offensive counterinsurgency operations.

The effects of these NATO led interventions have been felt greatly in Canada. Earlier this year Canada finally finished returning her troops home from a decade-long war that one would be hard pressed to call a success.  Thus the Afghanistan war is the third cause of the decline of Canadian participation in peacekeeping operations, as it consumed the majority of the Armed Forces’ resources and capacities. Due to the war Canada drastically scaled back its training and education for peacekeeping operations, and in 2013 closed the doors of the Pearson Center, a military training base intended to train foreign and Canadian military personnel in peacekeeping operations.

More recently decreases in peace support operation (PSO) training and contributions to UN Peacekeeping missions overall, can also be seen as a reflection of the Harper administration’s prioritization of missions that the US deems valuable, over those which the UN deems valuable. This can be seen recently in Libya, in which Canada assisted NATO in bombing runs meant to depose the Gaddafi regime, a mission which arguably destabilized the state and lead to the ongoing war today.  If my predictions hold true, we should have the example of Syria and Iraq to point to in a few years as another botched humanitarian intervention for Canada to be ashamed of.

So what should Canada do? I have two possible solutions to this question. The first is that we make a concerted effort to revamp our peacekeeping traditions. At one time, 1 in 3 Canadian Armed Forces members wore a blue beret (UN peacekeeping outfit), a goal which I believe we should attempt to return to. We should reopen the Pearson Center, and expand its budget to better train our forces in peacekeeping and nation-building.  We should realign our military interests with those which aim to preserve peace, as opposed to those which aim to make war. In doing this, Canada can return to its former role of being a leader in peacekeeping efforts, a role in which we can use institutions such as the Pearson Center and UN missions to spread our knowledge and peacekeeping ideals to other military forces worldwide.

It is interesting to note that in discussion, guest speaker Capt. Lisa Haveman noted that in Afghanistan, Canadian forces were more adept at nation-building endeavours than their American counterparts, a trend which bodes well for a Canadian return to peacekeeping practices. I don’t think it’s an unattainable goal for Canada, and her forces, to realign ourselves with more multilaterally supported peacekeeping missions, which are more likely to garner long term peace. Doing so would gain Canada greater prominence in the global security arena, and provide greater nation-building efforts to conflict-ridden states than bombs from a CF-18 ever could.

And the second option? The second option is one in which we maintain the status quo. We continue to train our military forces solely to make war, continue to bomb in the name of peace, and continue to follow Western interests into conflicts that are ill-advised. While I won’t judge anyone who prefers this option, I must insist that if we continue to go this route, we should stop patting ourselves on the back for peace we do not keep.

In my eyes, this is what Canadian peacekeeping in the 21^st century comes down to. We can return to the values that Pearson instilled in us, values that we pride ourselves on and enjoy presenting to the world. Or we can carry on with the realist attitude that all wars can be solved with bombs, and that all soldiers should be warriors, and in doing so forget our past peaceful ideals. Personally, I prefer the former.

I have a bit of a bone to pick with the Wu-Tang Clan- I think they were too simplistic when they wrote C.R.E.A.M. “Cash, Oil, and Guns Rule Everything Around Me” would have been more accurate, though perhaps less lyrically oriented, I must admit. When we look at the vast majority of global insecurity today, we can often pick either oil or guns as the fuel of the conflict, with blood money being the primary outcome. Oil is all the media talks about, so let’s spend some time on guns, or more broadly, “arms,” instead. This is a security studies class after all.

My argument for the week is thus- the UN Permanent Security Council is fundamentally flawed, because all five of its members benefit greatly from armed conflict. That is to say, those five great powers that we charge with making peace are the five who benefit most from making war. Let me tell you a bit about the arms industry, and why we’ve trusted the biggest thugs of all to throw away their strongest revenue generators and attempt to make world peace. I’ll begin by explaining the situation as it is today, and then applying it to the current conflict in Syria and Iraq.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are the following- the US, the UK, China, Russia, and France. Would you care to hazard a guess at the five biggest arms dealers in the world? That’s right- the US, the UK, China, Russia, and France. Together they make up 79% of the world’s arms trade, which is valued at roughly $100 billion. The US on its own makes up more than half of this number, supplying the world with 44% of its weapons. I’m reluctant to use the term “military-industrial complex” for fear of sounding like a hemp-wearing hippy, but it’s hard to argue when there is so clearly so much to gain from waging war.

As noted by a classmate in an astute blog post entitled, “Veto the Veto in the UN Security Council,” the five permanent members hold veto powers on all UN Security Council resolutions, allowing them to shoot down any action intended to indicate wrongdoings or create peace in conflict zones worldwide. Recently, Russia has used its veto power to shoot down a condemnation of Crimea’s referendum as being illegal, one which could have set a precedent for an international intervention. Together Russia and China also vetoed sanctions against Syria in 2012, a move which could have slowed or prevented the conflict it has become today. In 2011, the US vetoed a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, allowing for the IDF to continue its violent persecution of the Palestinian people.

While it is easy to dismiss these vetoes as simple reflections of state allegiances, I suggest there is a (slightly) more hidden agenda. When you see these resolutions fail, ask yourself why? Who is Israel’s biggest military ally? Where does Israel buy its weapons from? Who are Syria’s primary allies, and with what is it arming itself? You don’t even have to ask yourself about Ukraine, because it’s agreed upon by most that Russia is arming the separatist rebels. In every case that the veto is used by one of the five permanent members, it is not hard to trace the money trail back to the “veto-ers” arms industries who stand to gain greatly from the continuation of the conflict in question.

On the note of conflict, let us now turn to the war in Syria and Iraq which I have written both of my past blog posts about. Before delving into these, let us first examine the Syrian civil war pre-US involvement, and pre-expansion into Iraq. As noted previously, China and Russia both vetoed sanctions against Syria. From 2004-2007, Russia and China supplied Syria with $6.2 billion worth of arms, and from 2008-2011 an additional $2.4 billion. The war began in 2011, and weapons have been in even higher demand ever since (Source). “Not fair,” says the US, the UK, and France, “I want in on this money cow.” This brings me to my own blog posts.

In “Why Obama is Doomed to Repeat the Mistakes of His Predecessor,” I outlined why Obama’s air campaign in Iraq was misguided and bound to fail in the long term. In “Why the Latest Face in the War on Terror is a Sham,” I explained why the Khorasan group was likely not real, and suggested instead that the US had hyped them up to create a façade by which they could legitimize their war in Syria.  In both, what I neglected to explain was why the US might want to be in Iraq and Syria in the first place.

When examining the “broad coalition” Obama spoke of, it is interesting to note the Arab allies who are taking part in the war- namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan. These are some of the US’ strongest arms-trading partners in the Middle East, with trades from 2008-2011 (again, pre-war) totalling roughly $53 billion. These countries get to protect their interests in the region through warfare while the US benefits economically from every bomb they drop. In addition, the US and its coalition are arming various warring factions in the region, including the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Iraqi military, and the increasingly mythical “moderate Syrian rebels.” It is also worth noting that the UK has recently begun airstrikes against ISIS, while France has also announced it would increase its support– now all five of the permanent “Security Council” members are in on this cash grab!

But enough about how the US is indirectly benefiting from the war in Iraq and Syria, let’s talk direct economic stimulation. A report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments announced that the war against ISIS has already come close to costing $1 billion. That’s $1 billion largely going into the American defense industry. Don’t believe me? Consider one very small case study- on September the 22^nd the US fired 47 Tomahawk missiles at various targets in Syria. These missiles cost $1.4 million each, bringing the day’s cost in Tomahawk missile launches alone to $65.8 million. That’s $65.8 million in missiles that will need to be replaced, putting $65.8 million right in the pockets of the American Raytheon Corp, who manufactures the Tomahawk. Not bad for a Monday. The Navy currently has roughly 4,000 Tomahawk missiles stockpiled and buys them at a rate of around 200 per year. From this very specific example, one which ignores the vast amount of other military technology currently being employed against ISIS, it should be clear that the US has effectively created an economic stimulus package via missile strike. Growth from destruction – it would be poetic if it weren’t for the fact that it comes at the cost of civilian lives.

By looking at the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, it should be clear that the idea that their mission is to make peace is a laughable one. These permanent members benefit greatly from conflict, from war, and from militant and civilian death alike. In short, the permanent members of the UN Security Council benefit most when the world is the exact opposite- insecure. And given their ability to veto all UNSC resolutions, I see no change in sight. So perhaps the term “military-industrial complex” isn’t so far-fetched after all. Perhaps the hemp-wearing hippies have been right all along.