Canada is a historic peacekeeper in a world that struggles to keep peace.

In the summer of 1944 representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the USSR, and China gathered in Washington D.C. to discuss the creation of a new international, multilateral institution designed to prevent future wars between major world powers. Against the backdrop of two of history's most destructive wars, World War I and World War II, global leaders sought to replace the world's old, ineffective international institutions with new ones. The product of the conference, the United Nations, became the world's main international organization, with near-universal membership and peacekeeping operations around the world.

In the Cold War that followed WWII, the US and the USSR competed for power while their nuclear weapons made them reluctant to have a direct confrontation (this reluctance is often called the ‘deterrent' effect of nuclear weapons). Conflict in the Cold War shifted away from the developed world and toward so-called satellite states - Nicaragua, Vietnam, Korea, Angola, Afghanistan. Intrastate and transnational conflict, or wars within the borders of a single state and across multiple states, became more common in the 1950s and continued through the 20th century. Millions died. UN peacekeeping missions, once largely a matter of putting a peacekeeping force in between two adversaries, turned into increasingly complicated affairs as the line between solider and civilian blurred. Genocides, failed states, and intrastate conflicts in the developing world also became common. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, many of these ongoing satellite conflicts became ‘orphaned,' with the former great powers pulling out their armies and money. And though the 1980s and 1990s saw less conflict than previous decades, at its close the 20th century was one of the most destructive on record.

1. International Terrorism and Non-State Actors

Since the UN's founding in 1946, there have been almost no major conflicts between industrialized nations; however, a new host of threats now occupy the international security agenda. 9/11 highlighted, perhaps more than any other event since 1989, the power of transnational groups. Organized without the open support of any nation, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 killed nearly 3,000 people, contributed to a world-wide economic downturn, and radically altered political landscapes in the US and abroad.

Though terrorist groups such as Al'Qaeda and acts like 9/11 are not new - Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Spain, Nepal, and others have dealt with modern terrorism for decades - they are now getting more attention. Securing ports, airports, and borders is a major concern (and issue of debate) in many countries, particularly those that participated in the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Canada included. Non-state actors in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia vying to either control the state or disrupt it have displaced communities and led to the deaths of thousands, beginning as early as the 1950s. Canada's current mission in southern Afghanistan, where Canadian Armed Forces are locked in a struggle with Taliban forces and other insurgents for control of the area, faces this reality .

9/11 has also highlighted the vulnerability of states and their limited ability to respond to non-state-based threats. The "War on Terror," as it has been called by the US, is one such response. At home, it has meant stricter border security, tighter immigration policies, and increased domestic policing.

Abroad it has meant wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and international coalitions aimed at disabling terrorist groups by freezing their financial assets, arresting terrorism suspects, and monitoring the movement of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. So-called "rogue states" such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Syria have also been put under increased scrutiny by the international community, primarily over their nuclear programmes and arms trafficking.

International institutions have also been challenged by new threats. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, begun by a ‘Coalition of the Willing' without official authorization from the United Nations Security Council, is one such challenge. Instead of relying primarily on the UN, the US and its allies have assembled new ad-hoc multilateral initiatives in their response to terrorism, including the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Iraq coalition, and new bilateral security partnerships with Pakistan, India, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and others.

These responses are viewed both positively and negatively. Some argue that these new arrangements allow countries under threat (e.g. the US after 9/11) to act swiftly and decisively. Critics have pointed to their ineffectiveness in terms of combating terrorism and the negative effects of their implementation, especially on civilian populations.

The United States has come under particular international scrutiny for a range of actions that undermine international law - its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, its use of CIA interrogation bases abroad, its transfer of prisoners (like Maher Arar) to countries like Syria that practice torture, and its use of landmines in countries like Afghanistan. The US administration has responded to criticism by arguing that its actions are essential to homeland security and winning the global "war on terror."

2. Transnational and Intrastate Conflict

Looking beyond terrorism, the international community's ability to respond to conflict happening inside and across states - transnational and intrastate conflict - is also mixed, and some of its tools controversial. Ongoing violence in the Sudan, Somalia, Northern Uganda, and parts of Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, (more recently Kenya) and elsewhere kill thousands each year. Genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, and the former Yugoslavia were not prevented by the existing UN intervention apparatus. In order for the UN to intervene, the United Nations Security Council must rule, under Chapter VII of its Constitution, that the circumstances of the conflict justify foreign intervention and the violation of a country's national sovereignty.

As is the case in many conflicts, traditional ‘sovereignty' and the legitimacy of a government may be difficult to determine. Governments of such ‘failed states' cannot control their borders, or in some cases are the primary agents of violence themselves. One response to Chapter VII's limitations in these cases is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a document that proposes that the international community must intervene if a state cannot or will not respond to domestic incidences of genocide or mass murder. Another response has been international focus on a ‘human security agenda' that emphasizes the security of individuals, rather than states, and often includes issues not often discussed in conventional security dialogues (e.g., access to food, water, and shelter, human rights, the rule of law, and political rights and freedoms). Both R2P and the human security agenda have raised concerns that each advocate the violation of state sovereignty or might further entangle foreign peacekeepers and troops in domestic crises with no clear solutions.

Complicating these agendas is the changing nature of conflict on the ground. Peacekeeping and peace building operations have become multi-dimensional. Beginning in the 1950s, the division between enemy combatant and civilian narrowed - and in some conflicts it no longer exists at all. Difficulties distinguishing between civilian and enemy, establishing a ceasefire, and getting clear consent from authorities have complicated humanitarian interventions and peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, and Afghanistan. The era of ‘first-generation' peacekeeping - which involved placing peacekeepers between two sides to prevent them from coming to blows (e.g., Canadian peacekeepers in Cyprus) - seems out of date.

Today, interventions abroad are now largely embroiled in either second-generation peacekeeping operations, where opposing sides are not clearly defined, consent is questionable, and the security environment is markedly more hostile, as was the case in Somalia, Bosnia, and others, or in a yet-to-be-defined amalgam of peacekeeping, policing, international development, diplomacy, counterinsurgency, and open conflict, as is the case in southern Afghanistan. This is sometimes termed 'peacebuilding' because the ‘peace' has yet to be established.

In response to the changing nature of peacekeeping, governments including Canada's have initiated ‘3D' or ‘whole-of-government' peacebuilding approaches that coordinate defence, development, and diplomatic personnel in an effort to create a sustainable security environment. Under 3D, physical security is prioritized alongside economic development, education, access to basic needs, the development of infrastructure, and the transfer of security responsibility to local authorities.

3. Nuclear Proliferation

International efforts to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have also faced many challenges since World War II, particularly as states such as Libya, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Brazil, Argentina, North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and others sought to bolster their nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons stockpiles and delivery capabilities. The international proliferation regime, made up of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and a host of other multilateral treaties targeting specific aspects of nuclear proliferation , have had limited success preventing new states from developing nuclear arms. Under the terms of the NPT, China, the US, the UK, France, and Russia - the five nuclear powers - promise to share nuclear technology for peaceful energy production with the non-nuclear-weapon states, as well as work toward general disarmament . States not possessing nuclear weapons are for their part required to submit to regular International Atomic Energy Inspections as set out by the IAEA safeguards agreement. Under this regime, many states once pursuing nuclear weapons programmes have since abandoned them and submitted to IAEA inspections under NPT, including Brazil, South Africa, Libya, and Argentina, among others.

Several states have developed significant nuclear weapons capability despite the NPT. India and Pakistan never signed the treaty, and the former first tested a nuclear arm in 1974. Pakistan followed suit in the 1980s. Today, Pakistan and India collectively possess hundreds of nuclear arms and thousands of missiles that can deliver them. Israel, also a non-signatory, is believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it has never made this information public. In April 2003 North Korea became the first state ever to withdraw from the NPT; by October 2006 it had tested a small nuclear device. The regime is thought to have as many as a dozen working, if basic, warheads. Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all signatories to the NPT, have attracted increasing international attention over their attempts to build civilian nuclear programmes that could potentially produce weapons. The US used the possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' to justify its invasion of Iraq, although this was later disproved. Iran now faces United Nations Security Council sanctions in response to its nuclear programme, though the Iranian leadership insists its nuclear ambitions are civilian-only. The possibility that any of these regimes collapse, lose control of their arsenals, or sell nuclear equipment to terrorist groups or other states - especially impoverished North Korea and unstable Pakistan - has become an increasingly pressing issue since 9/11. 

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