Armed Conflict

Peace push

Letter to the Editor, The Globe and Mail, re “NATO’s defence spending should go toward countries that need it, not to ourselves” (Opinion, April 27):

With NATO already spending more on military preparedness than Russia and China combined, calls to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP are rightly characterized as obsolete. But to then focus on supplying arms “to other countries engaged in wars we will not join” has its own disturbing implications.

A primary one is that arms-supplying countries become champions of others fighting “as long as it takes,” and the most likely consequence is to prolong unwinnable wars. Diplomacy that searches for reasonable and practical settlement options would then be pushed to the sidelines and characterized as weakness and betrayal.

It often emerges that contemporary wars of aggression are not inevitable. For foresight to replace hindsight requires early and persistent attention to brewing conflicts.

Peace initiatives should be guided by the ethic of as much as it takes, for as long as it takes.

Ernie Regehr Waterloo, Ont.

May 1, 2024

Good Governance and Arctic Security

Emerging security challenges in the Arctic require policies that squarely face changing conditions, strategic and environmental, but preserving the basic stability that still exists in the region must be a clear priority. Relying too heavily on military responses risks exacerbating rather than easing Arctic tensions, and it ignores the post-Cold War reality that vulnerability to military threats is linked as much to political as to military weakness. In other words, good governance at home – political stability, national unity, and ongoing public trust in the institutions of governance and accountability – and regional diplomacy should be at the core of Arctic security strategies.  Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

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Inevitable or Inadmissible? Threatening Nuclear Weapons Use

Of the world’s nine states with nuclear weapons, two – Russia and Israel – are now fighting high intensity wars. Another three of the nuclear nine – the United States, the United Kingdom, and France – are deeply invested in both wars, supplying weapons and expecting to influence outcomes. The other four nuclear powers – China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan – are building up their arsenals, hoping to gain strategic advantage in their respective zones of chronic tension. Continue reading at CIPS Blog (University of Ottawa, Centre for International Policy Studies)…

Towards Silencing the Guns in Ukraine

A discussion paper prepared for the Canadian Pugwash Group project on a Peace Table for Ukraine and Russia.

Though their land is torn by horrific war, what many Ukrainians fear is an early ceasefire. As deep as the desire to silence the guns may run, it is hard to get past the understandable suspicion that a ceasefire now would launch a settlement process that would reward aggression and ignore the full sovereign rights and interests of Ukraine. In a process driven primarily by the need to end the fighting, the ceasefire skeptics fear, it would be tempting to simply convert current military front lines into de facto boundaries – enshrining injustice rather than restoring peace.

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Towards a deliberately built peace: the inevitable negotiations on Ukraine

The likelihood of either side in this war ever being in a position to dictate settlement terms to the other is remote, and that means talks are inevitable.

Hill Times, Opinion, June 22, 2023

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Updating NATO’s Strategic Concept: The Nuclear Imperatives

The war in Ukraine once again confirms this inescapable nuclear reality – in war and in peace, nuclear weapons impose on humanity the daily, relentless imperative of figuring out how not to use them. Obviously, for no other weapon system is absolute prevention of its use the over-riding requirement. But the international community has declared nuclear weapons unique – the collective objective is to eliminate them, and most states, and certainly populations around the world, conclude that any use of a nuclear weapon would be “abhorrent to the principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience.”[i] And yet the nuclear powers continue to threaten their use, with Russia the most immediate and alarming example, and to extol the utility of these doomsday weapons. NATO’s current Strategic Concept confirms continued reliance on nuclear weapons in the collective defence of allies. But that strategic guidance document is now under review, offering Alliance members the opportunity to construct policy off-ramps from the path of nuclear peril they now travel.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

[i] From the preamble to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N17/209/73/PDF/N1720973.pdf?OpenElement

Security Spending in Insecure Times

Canada and all of NATO are necessarily rethinking their security postures in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, with all its ensuing horrors. But the haste with which NATO has come to focus on increasing military spending, in an already heavily armed alliance, ignores the centrality of non-military security measures. Peacebuilding and diplomacy, both seriously under-funded, are key to ending and preventing wars, and for building the conditions for sustainable peace. Continue Reading at The Simons Foundation…

Ilulissat and Arctic Amity: Ten Years Later

Ten years ago this month, the five Arctic Ocean states issued the Ilulissat Declaration.  In it they pledged to rely on existing international law, notably the Law of the Sea, as the framework through which they would seek the “orderly settlement” of disputes in this rapidly changing region. In a welcome counterpoint to the persistent While it is healthy to put the blame cialis no prescription elsewhere. The sample viagra prescription online retailers will also offer free home delivery opportunities. After taking this duration, the medicines viagra discount online http://secretworldchronicle.com/tag/8-ball/ work greatly in this area and Kamagra is one among them. Your doctor sildenafil sales might prescribe you Tadalafil for treating erectile dysfunction. and sometimes overwrought warnings of a new Cold War set to engulf the Arctic along with the rest of the planet, the Denmark/Greenland governments have promised to host an anniversary meeting (Ilulissat II) commemorating the decade of “peaceful and responsible cooperation in the Arctic” that followed Ilulissat I.

Read Further at The Simons Foundation.

Does Canada’s New Peacekeeping Policy Make Sense?

Stephen J. Thorne says Yes. Ernie Regehr says No. Read the debate at Legion Magazine.

Here is the “No” argument, written before the Mali announcement:

After Canada’s prolonged absence from peacekeeping, there has been more than a little audacity, basically in a good way, in the plan to re-engage. Because today’s conflicts are intractable, dangerous and complex, “new solutions” and “innovative approaches” are forthcoming, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Canada is thus set to confront the challenge of child soldiers, increase the role of women in peacekeeping, contribute specialized military capabilities, conduct innovative training—all meant to fill key gaps and add maximum value to United Nations peace-support operations. So far so good.

But then come the details. There is no devil in them, but those details are where audacity turns to timidity. Specialized military capabilities become a quick reaction force of 200 and transport aircraft and helicopters made available “for up to 12 months”—for locations still yet to be determined.

Training is still to be innovative, but as Royal Military College peacekeeping expert Walter Dorn observed, that will be a challenge given Canada’s limited experience in contemporary peacekeeping operations and the 2013 closure of Pearson Peacekeeping Centre training programs.

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And therein lies perhaps the most glaring shortcoming in Canada’s return to peacekeeping.

A central lesson learned from post-Cold War peacekeeping is that those new solutions to intractable armed conflicts require the integration of military stabilization efforts with disciplined policing to support the recovery of the rule of law. Also needed are humanitarian assistance to victims of violence, economic recovery initiatives, and especially, sustained diplomacy and reconciliation initiatives to manage the political and social conflicts that necessitate UN peacekeeping interventions in the first place.

Peacekeeping is necessarily multidimensional. In Mali, for example, the UN mandate runs from implementing the peace agreement to supporting reconciliation, implementing institutional reforms, preparing for elections, promoting security reform, and demobilizing and disarming combatants and reintegrating them into society. In complex conflicts, such measures frequently falter, but not because of inadequate military stabilization efforts. Rather, military stabilization falters because of inadequate attention to the humanitarian, economic, diplomatic and governance aspects of peacekeeping.

Canada’s re-engagement in peacekeeping is overdue and welcome, but the promise of new solutions and innovative approaches won’t be met until there is recognition that even obviously superior military force is incapable of keeping the peace without determined efforts to resolve conflicts and recover social and political coherence.

Peacekeeping and Canada’s interests in Mali

Letter to the Globe and Mail

Published 28 March 2018

I confess to being perplexed by arguments that Canada shouldn’t go to Mali because it’s dangerous, or hopeless, or not in Canada’s interests (Trudeau’s Mali Misadventure – editorial, March 22).

Peace support operations are by definition dangerous, they take place where political accord and governance are severely compromised. That doesn’t mean quagmire, it means it takes a long, long time to transition from armed conflict to political stability and the rule of law. And it is certainly in Canada’s interests to support the international community in its responsibility to support such transitions – for the sake of the people affected, to be sure, but also for the sake of building a more stable international order from which we all benefit.
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The Mali case is urgent precisely because it is complex and dangerous. It does have the benefit of a peace accord, and the government needs to tell us a lot more about what it will be doing in support of the non-military elements of the UN mandate in Mali.

That mandate includes helping implement the fragile peace pact, supporting reconciliation, implementing institutional reforms, preparing for elections this year, promoting security-sector reform, and demobilizing and disarming combatants and reintegrating them into society. How much of that will be part of the Canadian mission? Success is not guaranteed – but there’s little doubt where Canadian responsibilities and interests lie.

Ernie Regehr, Waterloo, Ont.