Preventative military missions ‘not a bad idea,’ but hard to assess
The challenge is knowing where and when to go and how to convince politicians and the public that a mission is worthwhile, says MacEwan University's Jean-Christophe Boucher.
Denis Calnan
The Hill Times
26 Sep 2016
While it may be difficult to measure and evaluate the successes of a preventative approach to conflict resolution, many defence analysts agree with Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance’s comments that it is the direction the world’s militaries are going in. The challenge will be resources.
Earlier this year Mr. Vance told The Canadian Press that militaries now often have to “stitch together and reweave the social, political, and economic fabric” of countries, rather than have clear wins that come with wars.
Stephen Saideman, the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University, described it as follows: “Prevention’s always less expensive than actually fighting a war. It’s like medicine. It’s far cheaper to prevent something from happening than having to actually deal with the bigger problem once it starts.
“So it’s a very sensible approach. The challenge is always getting politicians and others to commit to these kinds of efforts because its easier to get people to respond to some things that are in the news and prevention is never in the news because it’s acting before things blow up,” he added.
“I think it's pretty wise of Vance to be focused on prevention as something definitely Canada can contribute to.”
Stéfanie von Hlatky, the director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy and a professor at Queen’s University, described it as "expectation management."
“I think [Mr. Vance is] probably also speaking to some of the other commitments that Canada might make, including peace support operations, as part of the UN. And so here, an emphasis on prevention is very important, but also very difficult to achieve if you’re getting involved in a place like Mali,” she said.
Prof. von Hlatky said Canada can contribute to conflict prevention by training and assisting peacekeepers and military observers.
“It can do it quite well,” even though the capacity is limited, she said.
“Increasing the professionalization of foreign forces that could train with Canadian Armed Forces for instance; that to me is a way where Canada can make a real impact in terms of peace support operations without necessarily committing huge forces.”
She said a missing connection between military and foreign policy may hinder Canada’s efforts in conflict prevention.
“At the end of the day, the defence policy is not well connected and complementary to development efforts and foreign policy objectives, then that conflict prevention piece becomes very difficult to achieve,” said Prof. von Hlatky.
“So, I think that part is maybe missing from the current exercises to see how all these different parts fit together,” she said.
“And [that's] how a single country, like Canada, can truly get involved in conflict prevention, because conflict prevention to me, is a very political dynamic; it’s a political effort,” Prof. von Hlatky added.
If Canada does aim to ramp up its efforts in conflict prevention, it will face hurdles in terms of knowing where to go and how to measure its successes.
“Conflict prevention is a difficult one, just like deterrence, because if you deploy and there’s no conflict then you don’t know if the force worked … or if in fact there would not have been any conflict to begin with,” said Elinor Sloan, a professor of international relations at Carleton University.
“So it’s a hard concept to deal with. I guess you would have to look at countries that are at a tipping point or about to boil over. And if that’s the case then you need to have, I would say, a dramatically enhanced oversees intelligence gathering capability,” said Prof. Sloan.
She says that very little conflict prevention is currently happening.
“Conflict prevention is a big part of the responsibility to protect, but right now … I would say most if not all operations are reacting to something that has happened,” she said.
“For instance, we’re thinking of going to Mali. Why? Because there is terrorist activity in the north. So in other words, we’re not deploying to prevent the rise of terrorist activity in the north; we’re deploying because it’s already there and has to be addressed. Same as ISIS, dealing with ISIS,” said Prof. Sloan.
“Ideally, you would prevent conflict, but it’s hard to conceptualize. You just have to have such an increase in intelligence resources and also the manpower to prevent conflicts. It’s hard to imagine when there are so many conflicts already out there that are already hot in fighting and need to be addressed and resolved,” she said.
Conflict prevention is “like a buzzword,” said Jean-Christophe Boucher, an assistant professor in political science at MacEwan University.
“It’s not a bad idea,” he said, but he agrees that the challenge is knowing where and when to go and how to convince politicians and the public that a mission is worthwhile.
“If you’re trying to convince a politician that we should intervene … in a country because something might happen. Then that becomes a really hard sell for the public,” he said.
“It’s a counter-factual problem. So, if you deploy troops and nothing happens, how do you know that it's your intervention that allowed peace to continue. There’s actually no way to know this,” he said.
“I don’t see this as being a realistic policy with clear objectives,” Prof. Boucher added.
