>Yet our contribution of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping is currently at the lowest point since 1956, when Canada led the creation of the first peacekeeping force. According to the UN’s latest figures, Canada now provides only 26 personnel – just 17 military and nine police officers – out of the total of 62,000 uniformed peacekeepers. While Canada was once the world’s number-one contributor, it is now ranked 76th.
Canada is **back.** Beyond joking, Trudeau’s foreign policy has been a disaster. He really walked into the job and thought throwing around progressive platitudes earns you geopolitical weight.
Godzilla52 on
This is largely a symptom of chronic underfunding of the armed forces for multiple decades. If it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Canada’s Armed Forces to provide adequate equipment & living/working conditions for it’s personnel in it’s existing domestic and international commitments, it doesn’t make sense to overstretch it even further when they obviously can’t handle it.
We’ve already been asking the armed forces to do more with less since at least the early 70s. Eventually we have to decide whether we want to significantly boost long term funding to facilitate everything from procurement, doctrinal, accommodations and overall modernization or to scale back funding and capacity significantly so that we’re able to properly fund and administer what’s left without neglecting it.
TightPants94 on
Not an excuse – but it’s also worth mentioning that the number of operations has taken a dive in the last few years. MONUSCO and MINUSMA have been wrapped up in the last few years, both ending with less-than-great results. Moreover, the costs taken for sending troops for peace missions are much higher for western militaries than those from the Global South (this is why we see such high numbers of Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani troops). IIRC, the UN pays around $1,500/month for each member, and the cost of training/kitting/deploying a Western-trained troop is much higher than what the UN can shell out.
Future UN deployments by the CAF will likely be what the author has noted in the RCAFs deployment of transport aircraft. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians recalled their helicopters from MONUSCO, which heavily affected the missions ability to operate in the Congo. This is arguably a place where the CAF should involve itself – in a strategy that augments missions rather than primarily mans them. It should be a quality>quantity game.
** Edit:
On top of the cost. I think there is also a fear from Western militaries for Mogadishu 2.0. So on top of taking the bill for deployment, the political blowback from killed peacekeepers is often too high for many governments.
N8-K47 on
I suggest reading into this more. There was a shift away from this type of peacekeeping in the 21st century. Read the wiki rather than an opinion peace. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_peacekeeping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_peacekeeping)
4 Comments
>Yet our contribution of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping is currently at the lowest point since 1956, when Canada led the creation of the first peacekeeping force. According to the UN’s latest figures, Canada now provides only 26 personnel – just 17 military and nine police officers – out of the total of 62,000 uniformed peacekeepers. While Canada was once the world’s number-one contributor, it is now ranked 76th.
Canada is **back.** Beyond joking, Trudeau’s foreign policy has been a disaster. He really walked into the job and thought throwing around progressive platitudes earns you geopolitical weight.
This is largely a symptom of chronic underfunding of the armed forces for multiple decades. If it’s becoming increasingly difficult for Canada’s Armed Forces to provide adequate equipment & living/working conditions for it’s personnel in it’s existing domestic and international commitments, it doesn’t make sense to overstretch it even further when they obviously can’t handle it.
We’ve already been asking the armed forces to do more with less since at least the early 70s. Eventually we have to decide whether we want to significantly boost long term funding to facilitate everything from procurement, doctrinal, accommodations and overall modernization or to scale back funding and capacity significantly so that we’re able to properly fund and administer what’s left without neglecting it.
Not an excuse – but it’s also worth mentioning that the number of operations has taken a dive in the last few years. MONUSCO and MINUSMA have been wrapped up in the last few years, both ending with less-than-great results. Moreover, the costs taken for sending troops for peace missions are much higher for western militaries than those from the Global South (this is why we see such high numbers of Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani troops). IIRC, the UN pays around $1,500/month for each member, and the cost of training/kitting/deploying a Western-trained troop is much higher than what the UN can shell out.
Future UN deployments by the CAF will likely be what the author has noted in the RCAFs deployment of transport aircraft. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainians recalled their helicopters from MONUSCO, which heavily affected the missions ability to operate in the Congo. This is arguably a place where the CAF should involve itself – in a strategy that augments missions rather than primarily mans them. It should be a quality>quantity game.
** Edit:
On top of the cost. I think there is also a fear from Western militaries for Mogadishu 2.0. So on top of taking the bill for deployment, the political blowback from killed peacekeepers is often too high for many governments.
I suggest reading into this more. There was a shift away from this type of peacekeeping in the 21st century. Read the wiki rather than an opinion peace. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_peacekeeping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_peacekeeping)