The Best Laid Plans: Canada's Proposal for a United Nations Rapid Reaction Capability

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, substantive reform of the United Nations has emerged as a major issue on the political agenda, and one of the most innovative proposals is Canadian. This proposal, submitted to the General Assembly in September 1995, calls for a United Nations rapid reaction force or capability that will enable the United Nations to respond more quickly and effectively to crises and conflicts. Ostensibly, the belief which underlies this proposal is that the post-Cold War international environment facilitates cooperative action in international security, provides an opportunity to reinforce international norms supporting peacekeeping, and creates greater political demands for the international management of violent conflict. The only dominant obstacles to the attainment of this benign vision, according to the Canadian proposal, are economic and fiscal. However, there are much deeper obstacles, masked by a Charter discourse that reflects a multilateralist and collectivist ideology, that have to do with sovereign rights and national interests. Although the Canadian proposal is designed to be both pragmatic and realistic in the short term, its long-term goal is to create a United Nations standing emergency force largely independent of national authority. This outcome will result over time from the implementation of the incremental structural reforms necessary to create a functional short-term rapid reaction capability. However, the proposal's very pragmatism and realism ensure that instead of increasing the ability of the collective to respond independent of national concerns, the implementation of reform as proposed by Canada will reinforce the national principle. In failing to confront the core issue of political will, a United Nations rapid reaction capability simply provides another means for states, specifically the great powers, to exploit and advance their national interest. If its proposal is adopted, Canada's ability to make choices about international commitments will likely be reduced. Those commitments will be made by others, namely the Security Council and its five permanent members. Driven by long-standing support for internationalism and peacekeeping that has become part of its defining myth, Canada will have no choice but to commit military resources to a United Nations capability and respond positively to Security Council decisions regarding its deployment. Thus, Canada is likely to find itself increasingly subservient to the wishes and desires of others, primarily the great powers led by the United States. Paradoxically, a proposal designed to increase Canadian influence on ideological and functional grounds will have the opposite result. To understand this paradox, our analysis looks at the Canadian proposal within the context of the differing views of the secretary-general and the Security Council on the ability of the United Nations to respond to threats to international peace and security. Canada's proposal supports the position of the secretary-general, even though the Security Council will remain the central decision-making body for rapid reaction development and deployment. Subsequently, an assessment of the key requirements for an effective United Nations rapid reaction capability indicates that simple structural developments are insufficient to overcome national dictates. Finally, the proposal is examined in the context of the defining myth of Canadian internationalism to demonstrate that Canada has 'trapped' itself in precisely the situation the proposal is designed to offset -- subservience to the great powers. THE UNITED NATIONS CONTEXT OF THE CANADIAN PROPOSAL Political conditions, practical experience, and current demand, as well as recent peacekeeping failures, set the broad context for several proposals calling for the development of a United Nations rapid reaction capability.(f.1) Their specific referent is Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's 1992 Agenda for Peace(f.2) -- which is also the source of the difficulties and paradoxes that they entail. …