Abstract
If Canada can be considered a model middle power, then peacekeeping has been for Canadians a classic middle-power activity. The Canadian peacekeeping record is impressive. As any average Canadian can boast, Canadians have been a part of every peacekeeping operation established since the Second World War. Over 100 000 Canadians have taken part in over 32 operations across the globe — a handful of Canadian observers and pilots were in Kashmir in the late 1940s. In 1956, one thousand Canadian soldiers were part of the first major UN emergency force (UNEF I) in the Sinai, an emergency force conceived by a Canadian, Lester Pearson. Through the 1960s and 1970s Canadians wore the blue helmets in other parts of the Middle East, in Africa and South East Asia. And then there was Cyprus. From 1964 until late 1993, Canadian soldiers tried to keep Turks and Greeks apart on the tiny island in the Mediterranean. When, in 1988, United Nations peacekeepers won the Nobel prize, Canadians felt it was for them.
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Notes
On the failure of General A.G.L. McNaughton as a mediator in the dispute, see John English, The Worldly Years; The Life of Lester Pearson, 1949–1972 (Toronto: Alfred A.Knopf Canada, 1992), 37–8.
See J.L. Granatstein, ‘Peacekeeping: Did Canada Make a Difference? And What Difference Did Peacekeeping Make to Canada?’ in John English and Norman Hillmer (eds), Making a Difference? Canada’s Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order (Toronto: Lester Publishing Limited, 1992), 225.
See John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order 1943–1957, Vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979)
King was extremely reluctant to have Canada take part in the UN Temporary Commission on Korea. See English, Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, 1897–1948 (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1989), 326.
James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Growing Up Allied (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980)
Geoffrey A.H. Pearson, ‘Canadian Attitudes to Peacekeeping’, in Henry Wiseman (ed.), Peacekeeping: Appraisals & Proposals (New York: Pergamon Press for the International Peace Academy, 1983), 119.
See Leigh Sarty, ‘Sunset Boulevard Revisited? Canadian Internationalism after the Cold War’, International Journal XL:VIII, Autumn 1993, 759.
See Denis Stairs, The Diplomacy of Constraint: Canada, the Korean War and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), xi.
See Norman Hillmer, ‘The Canadian Diplomatic Tradition’, in Andrew Fenton Cooper (ed.), Canadian Culture: International Dimensions (Waterloo, Ontario: Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism/Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1985): 57.
See Alan James, Peacekeeping in International Politics (London: Macmillan in Association with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1990), 8ff.
See William J. Durch’s ‘Introduction’ in his edited The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 12.
See Richard A. Preston, Canada in World Affairs, Volume XI, 1959–1961 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1965), 265
For comment on the Defence White Paper, see Leonard Beaton, ‘The Canadian White Paper on Defence’, International Journal XIX:3, Summer 1964, 364–70
J.L. Granatstein, Canada, 1957–1967 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986), 226.
See Canada, Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs: Meeting New Challenges: Canada’s Response to a New Generation of Peacekeeping (Ottawa: 1993) 60–2; See also Alastair Taylor, David Cox, J.L. Granatstein, Peacekeeping: International Challenge and Canadian Response (Toronto: Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 1968) 180.
Canada, White Paper on Defence: Defence in the 70s (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1971), 5.
J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 381.
On this point, see John English, ‘Problems in Middle Life’, in Margaret O. MacMillan and David S. Sorenson (eds), Canada and NATO: Uneasy Past, Uncertain Future (Waterloo, Ontario: University of Waterloo Press, 1990), 47–66.
Dr Jennifer McCoy paraphrased in Robin Hay, ‘Civilian Aspects of Peacekeeping: A Summary of Workshop Proceedings, Ottawa 9–10 July 1991’, Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, Working Paper 36, 21; See also Louis A. Delvoie, ‘Canada and Peacekeeping: A New Era?’, Canadian Defence Quarterly 20:2, Autumn 1990, 9–14.
Jane Boulden, ‘Building on the Past: Future Directions for Peacekeeping’, Behind the Headlines 48:4, Summer 1991, 16.
Nancy Gordon and Bernard Wood, ‘Canada and the Reshaping of the United Nations’, International Journal XL:VII, Summer 1992, 502.
Paul Diehl, International Peacekeeping (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 182.
See Ken MacQueen, ‘Eloquence, Emotion Shone in a Fine Debate’, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 1 February 1994, A4.
Joseph T. Jockei, Canada and International Peacekeeping (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies: 1994), 66
Lewis Mackenzie, ‘Military Realities of Peacekeeping Operations’, RUSI Journal 138:1 (February 1993), 21–4.
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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Hayes, G. (1997). Canada as a Middle Power: The Case of Peacekeeping. In: Cooper, A.F. (eds) Niche Diplomacy. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25902-1_4
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