Vanguard Magazine

i iDeas 22 DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016 www.vanguardcanada.com Canadians served in peace efforts in Haiti in the mid-1990s and returned again in 2004. Captain Jonathan Bishop, a doctor with the Canadian Armed Forces Disaster Assistance Response Team, treats a child in the earthquake-stricken village of Balephion May 10, 2015. Photo: MCpl Cynthia Wilkinson. tional crime, such as money-laundering, tax evasion, racketeering, hi-jacking, and/ or home-grown terrorism, it is less clear how Canada's conventional forces can, should, or would be deployed to meet criminal acts of this nature. Traditionally, crimes like this have been left to federal policing, border services, and intelligence agencies. We would concede that Canada's military can be used to address a range of symmetrical and asymmetrical threats. Yet, fighting organized crime or contribut- ing to a tenuous "war on drugs" is not a military responsibility; it is an intelligence, police, and border security one. Moreover, "fighting terrorism" is a nebulous concept, and Canadians need to be given more in- formation on what constitutes a legitimate national security threat, why it needs to be defused, and how our military can contrib- ute to this goal by carrying out its principal function: National Defence. To be sure, there is very little hard evidence supporting the notion that ex- ecuting "extermination" operations of insurgents make us safer or more secure. Tellingly, the opposite might very well be the case if we consider how 'capture and kill' engagements can lead to a measure of 'blow-back' or retaliation—see Chalmers Johnson's book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, for more clarity on this issue. In all, the puta- tive "arc of instability," from West to East Africa to Pakistan may cause some prob- lems for Canada's allies in the future, but is it a security challenge best resolved by resorting to blunt force? Challenges posed by Russia and China Finally, Vladimir Putin's gratuitous sa- ber-rattling and a resurgent—and more assertive—China have been pitched as critical impediments to the West's broader strategic plans for Asia and Europe. Curi- ously, there would appear to be a lingering assumption that China and Russia are now agitating for war—for example, Chinese Admiral Wu Shengli's recent warning to the US Navy to respect China's (still unset- tled) territorial claims in the South China Sea, or US Defense Secretary Ashton Cart- er's attempt to present Russia and China as a long-term risk to world peace. Canada's armed forces could provide a moderate level of assistance should China or Russia behave in an undeniably belligerent fash- ion, but for all their bluster, neither one of these country's actually possess the means to contest or undermine Canadian sover- eignty and/or American hegemony in the Pacific—and are generally more inclined to avoid conflict with the United States. Looking forward, this list—and the ac- companying assessments—suggest a more clearly defined and limited role for Can- ada's armed forces—we understand that this is not an exhaustive list, but it is nev- ertheless more realistic than the CFDS's reductivist "realpolitik" portrayal of global politics. We feel that it can also inform the equipment/asset purchases and training priorities that will need to be considered to ensure that Canada is actually prepared to meet some of these challenges in the fu- ture. With this in mind, where should the Trudeau administration concentrate its ef- forts and what will Canada's military need to perform its primary mission objectives? We think that there are three critical areas to take into account and they include: (1) legitimate territorial defence and claims (that is, protecting the country's sover- eignty); (2) humanitarian assistance and a return to our role as peace-keepers; and (3) rapid deployment teams will need to provide humanitarian relief when and where violent natural disasters materialize.

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