Canadian Peacekeeping Research Articles

Objects and subjects: Strategic use of childhood in the debate over the Canadian contribution to MINUSMA

The debate over the scope of the Canadian military’s contribution to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali evolved from the ambitious promise of ground troops to the deployment of narrow support to the mission. This article examines how the strategic use of childhood in political persuasion shaped security discourse and the nature of the Canadian contribution to United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. This article analyzes political and media genres of discourse to examine mechanisms which (re)constructed, legitimized, and constituted childhoods during the debate on the Canadian peacekeeping deployment to Mali. Looking through the lens of critical discursive analysis, the article demonstrates the policy implications of rendering children as, what Marshall Beier defined, “security anxieties.” Representing children as potential security threats to the Canadian Armed Forces reveals their agency; it also, however, ignores the multiple, fluid roles of children in areas of conflict. This reductionist type of agency calls for correction on behalf of policy actors, furthering the objectification of children as a political problem. Examining how childhood is employed in influencing the debate about the use of military force, this article enhances our understanding of how narratives on childhood have consequences for global security. This article also displays significant opportunities to use the critical discursive approach to explore the diverse and complex experiences of children in conflict zones and (post)conflict societies.

Smart peacekeeping: Deploying Canadian women for a better peace?

Canada announced its renewed commitment to United Nations peacekeeping with a special mission to increase the representation of women through the Elsie Initiative. That announcement marks a crucial time to examine peacekeeping as a gendered project that requires reflection on power and inequality between states and peacekeepers through an intersectional analysis that pays attention to gender and race. The major justification for increasing the number of women in peacekeeping operations has remained instrumental: deploying more women will lead to kinder, gentler, less abusive, and more efficient missions. However, there is little empirical evidence to support these claims. This paper looks at Canadian peacekeeping and arguments for women’s increased representation in peacekeeping operations for improved operational effectiveness as a “smart” peacekeeping strategy. It looks at the contradictions and controversies in Canadian peacekeeping and gender and smart peacekeeping that includes the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in general and within Canada, operational effectiveness claims, militarized masculinity, and militarized femininity. Without qualitative empirical data from Canadian women peacekeepers themselves, smart peacekeeping claims, which “add women and stir,” are largely anecdotal and do not adequately facilitate meaningful change.

Political decision-making and the decline of Canadian peacekeeping

ABSTRACTThis article explores the reasons behind Canada’s declining participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations. It proposes a decision-making model that explains how politicians assess opportunities to commit personnel to peacekeeping missions by balancing their policy objectives with the pressures of electoral politics. Emphasizing the importance of voters in political decision-making processes, it argues that participation in peacekeeping is dependent on three key factors: a belief in the value of peacekeeping in principle; a belief in the value of a given peacekeeping operation; and risk aversion in response to the potential costs of peacekeeping. Tracing Canada’s declining participation in peacekeeping operations since the 1990s, it particularly focuses on how this calculus has, in different ways, limited Canada’s involvement in peacekeeping under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, arguing that the former undervalued peacekeeping as a means of obtaining its foreign policy objectives and as a feature of national identity, minimizing the perceived benefits of participation, while the latter has focused on the inherent risks of peacekeeping despite a professed commitment to peacekeeping in principle, maximizing the perceived costs of further personnel commitments. The decisions of successive Canadian governments have led to a free-rider problem in which Canada is willing to enjoy the benefits of peacekeeping but unwilling to bear the costs.

Preparing for peace: Myths and realities of Canadian peacekeeping training

During the Harper years (2006–2015), Canada significantly reduced the training, preparation, and deployment of military personnel for United Nations (UN) peacekeeping. Now, despite the Trudeau government’s pledge to lead an international peacekeeping training effort, Canada’s capabilities have increased only marginally. A survey of the curricula in the country’s training institutions shows that the military provides less than a quarter of the peacekeeping training activities that it provided in 2005. The primary cause of these reductions was the central focus on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Afghanistan operation and several lingering myths about peacekeeping, common to many Western militaries. As the Trudeau government has committed to reengaging Canada in UN operations, these misperceptions must be addressed, and a renewed training and education initiative is necessary. This paper describes the challenges of modern peace operations, addresses the limiting myths surrounding peacekeeping training, and makes recommendations so that military personnel in Canada and other nations can once again be prepared for peace.

Canada at Peace and Soldiers at War: Canadian U.N. Soldiers in Korea, Egypt, and Vietnam

In recent years, Canadian peacekeeping and UN involvement has assumed a place of high regard, reverence, and veneration, often at the expense of Canada’s military past. While its glorification is in many ways justified, the mythology surrounding Canada’s peacekeeping role has compelled many Canadians to view Canada solely as a peacekeeping nation. As a result, peacekeeping has become the “touchstone of our identity.” This mythology distorts the reality of Canadian military action to the point where Canadian veterans of NATO conflicts are often forgotten and it ignores the fact that many of the first peacekeepers left Canada “virtually unnoticed,” without the recognition and support of their nation. The mythology of peacekeeping misrepresents Canadian military conflicts and ignores that, in spite of the characterization of peacekeepers as nonviolent and unbiased actors, the majority of them were first and foremost Canadian soldiers, many of whom veterans of World War II. For the soldiers who came of age on the battlefields of Europe, the role of peacekeeping was a frustrating and politically charged experience, whereby they held no power and they felt they made very little positive impact. Despite the virtually universal glorification and celebration of peacekeepers in recent years, investigation of the “Cold War Home Front” demonstrates the difficulties faced by Canadian NATO soldiers, U.N. peacekeepers and their families in a society that wanted to move beyond the years of struggle, pain and sacrifice in war time and had little sympathy for the men and women who ‘chose’ to leave their families to serve in wars their nation was not fighting.

'Discourses of war and peace' Adam Hodges (ed.) (2013) New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 304. ISBN 978-0-19-993727-1 (hbk)

Discourses of war and peace Adam Hodges (ed.) (2013) New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 304. ISBN 978-0-19-993727-1 (hbk)Discourses of war and peace is a book predicated on the fundamental observation that 'Humans never engage in war without the mediating force of discourse' (p. 3). To this end, frames and narratives function to generate meaning and relationships and are widely used in this book to study the language of war and peace. In the context of this book, narratives are not seen as merely representing reality, but constructing the social reality by skipping the process of interpreting facts and directly seeking to depict the world as is (p. 50; Bruner, 1991). Hodges brings together a number of empirical studies from scholars working with ethnographic, sociolinguistic, communicative, and critical methods studying the legitimisation of war, peace, and their associated discursive practices. The legitimation and language of war have been popular and well-studied topics within discourse scholarship. Articles and books are published on these subjects on a regular basis (e.g. van Leeuwen, 2007; Hodges and Nilep, 2007; Reyes, 2011; Lukin, 2013) covering a breadth of literature too wide to account for in a single review. Drawing on the work of R. Brian Ferguson (2008) on the culture of war, among others, the author develops the premise of this book to view war as a cultural practice expressed in language as well as action: 'War is not wired into human brains, but rather exists as a culturally contingent phenomenon' (p. 4). The discourses of war explored in this book are mostly based on the Anglo- American discourse of the post-Cold War era, particularly language used to articulate the War on Terror.The book is divided into 4 parts, each section focusing on a different aspect of war and peace. Part 1 is occupied with legitimising military action by discursive means and contains the Critical Discourse Analysis-oriented studies. The chapters in this section study the language of American and English political leaders and policy makers in creating narratives and possible realities where war is seen as a necessary and justified action to ensure peace and safety, promoting the notion of perpetual peace (Kant, 1991). The explicit Western bias in this section is arguably the result of the events of 9/11 and the War on Terror, as observed by Dunmire (2009). In Chapter 5 of this section, Aditi Bhatia discusses the notion of possible worlds from Fairclough's (2003) perspective in her analysis of the British Weapons of Mass Destruction Dossier. Based on the work of scholars like Stalnaker (1999), possible worlds as a concept would have been useful to apply indepth in making apparent the nature of war in social reality, particularly in parts 1 and 2 of this volume.Part 2 deals with the question of how the use and presence of military force is framed in practice. In this part, Frame Analysis (Goffman, 1974) and elements of Speech Act Theory (Searle, 1969) are employed in investigating how the deployment and presence of military forces, foreign and domestic, are experienced and interpreted by different audiences and discourse communities. The studies presented in Chapters 6 and 7 of part 2 deal with Canadian peacekeeping operations in Somalia and American military bases in Okinawa, respectively. Frame analysis takes on a prominent role in parts 1 and 2 but many chapters could have benefited from a more strongly conceptualized framework as employed by Janis L. Goldie in Chapter 6. For example, the contributions of Kuypers (2009) on rhetorical criticism within frame analysis are particularly useful in studying this type of language.Part 3 consists of chapters by Chandler Hallman and Becky Schulthies investigating how people respond to armed conflicts. The chapter by Hallman compares the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Palestine and the ways in which the situation of Irish and Palestinian civilians is commensurated. …

Scarce Heard amid the Guns: An Inside Look at Canadian Peacekeeping, by John Conrad

John Conrad Scarce Heard amid Guns: An Inside Look at Canadian Peacekeeping Toronto: Dundurn, 2011. 327 pp. $26.99 (paper) ISBN 978-1-55488-981-5Reviewed by: Alistair D. Edgar, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLieutenant-Colonel John Conrad's second book with Dundurn Press follows up his earlier memoir, What Thunder Said, an account of his operational experiences in 2006 as Canadian logistics battalion commander supporting Task Force Orion in Kandahar, Afghanistan. As day-to-day war diary, What Thunder Said was stirring and insightful personal account of at times desperate Canadian logistics effort. It should be read alongside Task Force Orion Regional Command South commander Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Flope's excellent Dancing with Dushman (Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2006). Conrad's latest effort, informed by his own service as peacekeeper in Cambodia and in Bosnia, takes different turn, and an especially interesting one when read and understood against this background knowledge of his recent service in Afghanistan. Scarce Heard amid Guns offers significant Canadian history, written and presented in popular and personal rather than academic language.The motivating force behind Conrad's current venture is his frustration that the Canadian legacy has recently been maligned by soldiers seeking to ensure that sustained combat nature of Kandahar is noticed, and by political leaders who want to show that they 'get' proper use of Canadian (21). As Conrad observes with passion that his work well expresses, For heaven's sake, this country once had much broader philosophy (21).In place of this wider vision, a proposal to return to UN would be scoffed at, shouted down in dialogue, seen as real step backwards by those smart people whom Conrad believes are intoxicated perhaps by institutional groupthink, and whose prejudice is based on a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of history of Canadian participation with UN and true nature of peacekeeping (22).As Conrad argues in part I of Scarce Heard, there is popular mythology about that does not serve it well: first, that Canadian Armed Forces are, or should be, primarily force; second, that is about conducting unarmed, humanitarian missions for altruistic purposes; and third, that has been and remains heavily invested in peacekeeping. None of these assumptions and beliefs is true. Canada is not nation of peacekeepers, rather, it is nation capable of generating peacekeepers from finest military cloth (55), asserts Conrad; only combat-capable forces can be truly good peacekeepers. This is what makes Canadians good at it-world-class, competent soldiers, not just DNA (64).To support his case, author offers chronological tour of Canadian engagement in UN missions. He notes Canadian military participation in earliest operations, including UN Truce Supervision Organization in Middle East (UNTSO) and UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), with first Canadian fatality in UN mission being Brigadier-General Harry Angle, who died in 1950 when his plane crashed in Himalayas. Conrad takes us through three historical phases of operations. He labels first phase classic operations of 1956-1973, which included atypical UN Congo operation (ONUC), in latter stages of which Canadian BrigadierGeneral Jacques Mad Jimmy Dextraze served as chief of staff. The second is golden age of 1973-1988, latter year also marking beginning of Canadian involvement in Afghanistan with five officers who participated in UN Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan (UNGOMAP). …

Examining the Association between Psychiatric Illness and Suicidal Ideation in a Sample of Treatment-Seeking Canadian Peacekeeping and Combat Veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Our study examines the association between suicidal ideation and and self-reported symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and alcohol use disorder (AUD) in a sample of treatment-seeking Canadian combat and peacekeeping veterans; and identifies potential predictors of suicidal ideation. Actively serving Canadian Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police members and veterans seeking treatment at the Parkwood Hospital Operational Stress Injury Clinic (n = 250) completed measures including the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders Patient Health Questionnaire, the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, and the PTSD Checklist-Military Version (PCL-M) between January 2002 and December 2010. Regression analyses were used to determine the respective impact of PTSD, and self-reported symptoms of MDD, GAD, AUD, and anxiety on suicidal ideation. Most people met PCL-M screening criteria for PTSD (73.6%, n = 184), while 70.8% (n = 177) screened positively for a probable major depressive episode. PTSD symptom was significantly associated with suicidal ideation (β = 0.412, P < 0.001). After controlling for self-reported depressive symptom severity, AUD severity, and generalized anxiety, PTSD severity was no longer significantly associated with suicidal ideation (β = 0.043, P = 0.58). Although PTSD alone is associated with suicidal ideation, after controlling for common comorbid psychiatric illnesses, self-reported depressive symptom severity emerged as the most significant predictor of suicidal ideation. These findings support the importance of screening for comorbidities, particularly an MDD, as potentially modifiable conditions that are strongly related to suicidal ideation in military personnel's endorsing criteria for PTSD.

Who Wants a Mission? Canadian Forces' Resistance to a Role in the UN Transition Assistance Group for Namibia, 1978

In order to develop a more balanced understanding of Canadian peacekeeping, this article explores questions about resistance to the Namibia mission in 1978. It argues that the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces resisted a role in order to protect institutional interests. They wanted influence over government decision-making on commitments, to avoid costs and to protect their personnel from extreme risk. Woven throughout was the subtext that the UN was asking, and receiving, too much. The Canadian defence community resisted participation as much as a department and military subordinate to civilian political control possibly could.

The Canadian Peacekeeping Narrative: Myth, Legend, and Canadian Foreign Policy Beyond Afghanistan

Peacekeeping has long been a central motif in Canadian foreign affairs discourse. For some, Canadian peacekeeping has taken form as a legend: a story anchored in history yet elevated to a higher narrative form through romanticism and nostalgia. For others, Canada’s peacekeeping heritage is more akin to a myth: the personification of a poetic symbol or abstract ideal adapted to the capacity of a primitive people. As Canada’s military engagement in Afghanistan draws to an end, debate concerning the role of peacekeeping in Canadian foreign affairs is sure to be rekindled. This article will take stock of this debate and explore the significance of the peacekeeping narrative to Canadian foreign policy beyond Afghanistan. It will be argued that academic discourse often overlooks the most important implication of this debate: that whether or not this narrative is well-founded, its lasting impact on Canada’s cultural imagination and enduring popular support deserve consideration in the formulation of Canadian foreign and defense policy.

Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief (review)

Reviewed by: Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief Amy Shaw (bio) Suzanne Evans. Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief. McGill-Queen’s University Press. xii, 212. $29.95 The willingness of soldiers to put themselves in harm’s way for an intangible good, freedom and democracy, for example, or some more religious [End Page 362] goal, is and has been a key aspect of wartime rhetoric. The soldier’s altruism, however, is not the only form of selflessness that communities lionize. The soldier, a young man for most of history and this study, was somebody’s child, sent off by someone in the name of that higher cause. Suzanne Evans’s Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief takes a broad geographical and temporal focus to examine the way that societies have used maternal love and sacrifice as ultimate evidence of the righteousness of their cause. Evan’s introduction explains her motivations for this study. While a young mother herself, she was struck by an image of the ‘Intifada smile’: the serene pride of a mother who had just lost her child to martyrdom. Such a response seemed to go against all natural instincts, yet ‘the stories of women who publicly rejoice in the death of a child in support of their community have been told for centuries in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Sikh traditions.’ She also shows that it has, once upon a time, had a very clear place in Canadian society. This study is a useful, provocative effort to trace these connections. Evans examines the social construction of the mothers of Canadian soldiers during the First World War and compares it to those of martyrs from religious traditions. She looks especially at the socially appropriate response of the mother of a soldier who had been killed. The image she finds is of one not broken and bereaved, but serene, tearless, and proud, the sacrifice of her son in a higher cause testament to the fact that she had raised him well, and testament as well to her own selflessness. It is a disturbing image, but, as she shows, also widespread enough to be iconographic. Evans discusses the importance ascribed to the maternal bond and shows how this response has been used politically to rouse other members of a society to stronger efforts in pursuit of a common cause. The major focus of the book is on the Canadian experience, specifically during the First World War. Evans examines the widespread recognition of it as a ‘holy war’ fought in the name of Christian, democratic, and pacifist ideals. She shows how mothers were encouraged to serve as recruiting agents for their own families, and how their stoic responses to their children’s deaths were publicized to shame others into their own, albeit lesser, sacrifices. She discusses the way that the limited franchise granted to women in 1917 was based not on war service, as is popularly thought, but on the notion of maternal sacrifice, and the subsequent sense that these new voters would support conscription and Borden’s Union Government. Evans goes on to discuss how notions of maternal sacrifice and bereavement have shaped both war memorials and Remembrance Day ceremonies after the wars. The generalized, cross-cultural focus has weaknesses as well as strengths. There is a sense of incompleteness at times; the emphasis on [End Page 363] showing linkages across time means that images have been marked out for inclusion at the risk of a certain loss of context. It is not a long monograph, and carrying a theme forward from the Maccabees to Canadian peacekeepers will result in some overgeneralizations. The effort to include a vast chronological and cultural spread also leads, at times, to some jarring transitions. The discussion of the efforts of the War Graves Committee to shape and control bereavement and the memory of the First World War, for example, slides rather suddenly to peacekeeping and Canada’s self-identity as a peacekeeping nation. But this is perhaps a historian’s quibble, less significant for scholars in religious studies, where...

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Health Problems Among Medically Ill Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and four significant health conditions (gastrointestinal disorders, musculoskeletal problems, headaches, and cardiovascular problems). Participants included 707 Canadian peacekeeping veterans with service-related disabilities, from a random, national Canadian survey, who had been deployed overseas. PTSD severity was significantly related to gastrointestinal disorders, musculoskeletal problems, and headaches, but not to cardiovascular problems. Controlling for demographic factors did not affect PTSD's relationships with the three significant health conditions. The present study supports previous work in finding consistent relations between PTSD severity and specific types of medical problems.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Associated Risk Factors in Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans with Health-Related Disabilities

This study investigates posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its associated risk factors in a random, national, Canadian sample of United Nations peacekeeping veterans with service-related disabilities. Participants included 1016 male veterans (age < 65 years) who served in the Canadian Forces from 1990 to 1999 and were selected from a larger random sample of 1968 veterans who voluntarily and anonymously completed a general health survey conducted by Veterans Affairs Canada in 1999. Survey instruments included the PTSD Checklist-Military Version (PCL-M), Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), and questionnaires regarding life events during the past year, current stressors, sociodemographic characteristics, and military history. We found that rates of probable PTSD (PCL-M score > 50) among veterans were 10.92% for veterans deployed once and 14.84% for those deployed more than once. The rates of probable clinical depression (CES-D score > 16) were 30.35% for veterans deployed once and 32.62% for those deployed more than once. We found that, in multivariate analyses, probable PTSD rates and PTSD severity were associated with younger age, single marital status, and deployment frequency. PTSD is an important health concern in the veteran population. Understanding such risk factors as younger age and unmarried status can help predict morbidity among trauma-exposed veterans.

The cost of peacekeeping: Canada

The article briefly reports on the funding of Canadian peacekeeping activities and outlines the shift toward peacekeeping operations in Canadian defense activity and expenditure since 1989. It then analyzes equipment deployed or readied in support of deployment overseas, especially with regard to the Canadian Air Force. It finds that the costs that make overseas deployment possible are substantial and form a major hidden cost of peacekeeping that, in future, needs to be made explicit to properly guide defense and peace operations planning and budgeting.

Subthreshold PTSD: A Comparison of Alcohol, Depression, and Health Problems in Canadian Peacekeepers with Different Levels of Traumatic Stress

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with depression, alcohol use disorders and physical health problems. Subthreshold posttraumatic syndromes may contribute to these problems. Participants were previously deployed male peacekeepers who completed a battery of questionnaires, including measures of PTSD symptoms, depression, alcohol use, and physical health. Statistically significant differences were found 1) between groups with full and no PTSD on depressive symptoms, alcohol use disorders, and physical health problems, and 2) between subthreshold and no PTSD groups on depression and physical health problems. Results suggest subthreshold PTSD represents a distinct construct warranting further investigation.

Canadian peacekeeping: Proud tradition, strong future?

Peacekeeping has a place of pride in the Canadian national identity. Canadians feel that their nation is a natural leader in this international endeavour. How is this national identity expressed, and how has it come about? Is it justified? An answer to these questions requires a probe of Canadian public and military attitudes, a historical review of Canada's peacekeeping activities, and an examination of current Canadian contributions. The final question is: What is needed if Canada is to live up to the image of the proud and prolific peacekeeper?

Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping, and the New Imperialism

Somalia. March 4, 1993. Two Somalis are shot in the back by Canadian peacekeepers, one fatally. Barely two weeks later, sixteen-year-old Shidane Abukar Arone is tortured to death. Dozens of Canadian soldiers look on or know of the torture. The first reports of what became known in Canada as the Somalia Affair challenged national claims to a special expertise in peacekeeping and to a society free of racism. Today, however, despite a national inquiry into the deployment of troops to Somalia, what most Canadians are likely to associate with peacekeeping is the nation's glorious role as peacekeeper to the world. Moments of peacekeeping violence are attributed to a few bad apples, bad generals, and a rogue regiment. In Dark Threats and White Knights, Sherene H. Razack explores the racism implicit in the Somalia Affair and what it has to do with modern peacekeeping. Examining the records of military trials and the public inquiry, Razack weaves together two threads: that of the violence itself and what would drive men to commit such atrocities, and secondly, the ways in which peacekeeping violence is largely forgiven and ultimately forgotten. Race disappears from public memory and what is installed in its place is a story about an innocent, morally superior middle-power nation obliged to discipline and sort out barbaric third world nations. Modern peacekeeping, Razack concludes, maintains a colour line between a family of white nations constructed as civilized and a third world constructed as a dark threat, a world in which violence is not only condoned but seen as necessary.

Those Who “Witness the Evil”

For the better part of the last decade, Canadian peacekeepers have been encouraged to frame their activities in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia as encounters with “absolute evil.” Peacekeeping is seen as a moral project in which the North civilizes the South. Using the Canadian peacekeeping context, I reflect on President Bush's use of the phrase “axis of evil” in the New World Order. 1 argue that this phrase reveals an epistemology structured by notions of the civilized (White) North and the barbaric (Racialized) South. These racial underpinnings give the concept of an “axis of evil” its currency in countries of the North.

' Invicta Pax ' Monuments, Memorials and Peace: an analysis of the Canadian Peacekeeping Monument, Ottawa

This paper explores monuments to peace and peacekeeping, as distinct from monuments and memorials that commemorate the war dead. Two principal lines of enquiry are explored: the first examines whether it is possible to create secular monumental sculpture that promotes peace or espouses reconciliation. Secondly, the author asks whether monumental art is able to advocate peace without relying on the frameworks or discourses of commemoration and remembrance. Through an initial examination of the differences between 'monuments' and 'memorials' the paper explores the iconography and discourses of peace and pacifism. The paper then focuses on the Peacekeeping Monument in central Ottawa, Canada: a monument that was intended to mark forty years of international peacekeeping, but was unveiled in the same year that Canadian troops fought as part of a military coalition in the Middle East and were embroiled in a civil war in Africa. By comparing the Peacekeeping Monument with the nearby Canadian War Memorial the author explores the manipulation and creation of heroic landscapes, concluding that far from advocating peace and reconciliation, the Peacekeeping Monument captures a defined period in Canadian polity.

Lloyd Axworthy's Legacy

THE POST-COLD WAR DEBATES over whether and how Canada should be involved in overseas conflicts are coming to a close. Canada will both fight and keep the peace, due in large part to Lloyd Axworthy, who stepped down after four years as minister of foreign affairs to take a position at the University of British Columbia. Henceforth, when the Canadian Forces go abroad, they will do so, as they did in Kosovo, explicitly or implicitly in support of 'human security.' Axworthy, the author of the Canadian human security agenda, has thus won an important political victory and a long-lasting ministerial legacy extending beyond the Department of Foreign Affairs to its sometime arch-rival, the Department of National Defence. For with his human security concept he has paved the way for nothing short of rescuing Canadian defence policy from military irrelevance and strategic sterility.Although Axworthy placed human security at the heart of Canadian foreign policy, he did not coin the term. It came into international parlance largely as a result of a 1994 report by the United Nations Development Programme. Axworthy's own approach to the concept has been broad. As the Department of Foreign Affairs put it in a 1999 'concept paper' issued with his imprimatur: 'In essence, human security means safety for people from both violent and non-violent threats. It is a condition or state of being characterized by freedom from pervasive threats to people's rights, their safety, or even their lives.From a foreign policy perspective, human security is perhaps best understood as a shift in perspective or orientation. It is an alternative way of seeing the world, taking people as its point of reference, rather than focusing on the security of territory or governments. Like other security concepts - national security, economic security, food security it is about protection. Human security entails taking preventive measures to reduce vulnerability and minimize risk and taking remedial action where prevention fails.'(f.1)THE END OF THE NATIONAL INTERESTThe human security concept will endure as the justification for Canadian military intervention overseas, especially because it has opened the door to abandoning the Canadian national interest as the touchstone for decision-making. As foreign minister, Axworthy never quite gave up on the national interest when he talked about the role of the Canadian military in human security. For example, in justifying Canadian participation in the Kosovo War, he took recourse to the old and creaky argument that the Canadian national interest can be found just about anywhere in the world: 'in an increasingly interconnected world, where we are travelers, exporters and importers, investors and donors, we cannot afford to ignore the problems of others - even if we wanted to.'(f.2) Therefore, he went on, the pursuit of human security overseas, as in Kosovo, serves Canadian interests.This approach is neither convincing nor necessary to justify human security interventions. Take Kosovo. Few Canadians travel there, export to or from there, or invest money there. The same can be said of virtually all the other places where the Canadian Forces recently have been deployed on peacekeeping or peace enforcement missions. Where is the Canadian national interest in East Timor or, for that matter, on the Ethiopian-Eritrean frontier where Canada recently dispatched a very small peacekeeping contingent to join the United Nations effort?During the cold war, the dispatch of Canadian troops on peacekeeping missions to distant places outside the area of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was much more clearly in the national interest. Had a nuclear war ever occurred, the effects on Canada would have been calamitous. Canadian peacekeeping in locations such as the Middle East thus helped to dampen the possibility of a direct clash between the superpowers, reducing the chances of nuclear war. This link between Canadian security and Canadian military intervention disappeared along with the Soviet Union. …