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Browsing by Author "Carroll, Michael"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Canada and the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force, 1957-1963
    (2002) Carroll, Michael
    The current financial crisis of the United Nations is generally traced to the peacekeeping mission in the Congo and its price tag. This paper proposes that the roots of financial unrest lie rather as early as 1956, in the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force. Peacekeeping funding quickly became a litmus test of support for the United Nations - a sign of policy beyond platitudes. In Canada, the political popularity of peacekeeping required that the Diefenbaker government play an active role in trying to resolve the UN's financial predicament. However, despite the advantages that UNEF and peacekeeping brought to an unstable world, there was in fact little that Canada or the United Nations could do to force individual nations to financially support collective UN policies.
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    From Kinshasa to Kandahar: Canada and fragile states in historical perspective
    (2016) Carroll, Michael; Donaghy, Greg
    Canada’s historic relationships to failed and fragile states from the 1960s to the present are explored from a variety of approaches, including archival research, oral histories, textual analysis and administrative studies to provide a platform for a national discussion of Canada’s future approaches and international relationships. Failed or fragile states are those that are unable or unwilling to provide a socio-political framework for citizens and meet their basic needs. They are a source of terrorism and international crime, as well as incubators of infectious disease, environmental degradation, and unregulated mass migration. Canada’s engagement with countries such as the Congo, East Timor, Bosnia, and Afghanistan underlines the commitment of successive Canadian governments to addressing the threats posed to Western security by state fragility. From Kinshasa to Kandahar brings together leading Canadian historians and political scientists to explore Canada’s historic relationship with fragile states. The collection spans the period from the 1960s to the present and covers a geographical range that stretches from the Middle East to Latin America to Southeast Asia. Authors embrace a variety of approaches and methodologies, including traditional archival historical research, postmodern textual analysis, oral history, and administrative studies to chronicle and explain Canada’s engagement with fragile and failed states. This collection reflects the growing public interest in the issue of failed states, which are of increasing concern to Canadian policymakers and are making headlines on the world stage. It helps explain the historic forces that have shaped Canadian policy towards failed and fragile states, and provides a platform for a national discussion about Canada’s future role addressing state fragility.
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    From peace(keeping) to war: the withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force
    (2005) Carroll, Michael
    UN Secretary-General U Thant's decision to abruptly remove UN forces, in response to Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser's demand, is seen as one of the factors that led to the 1967 War, as well as to a failure in peacekeeping. This article discusses the rights and wrongs of that choice and also the role of the UN and other countries in the crisis.
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    In the national interest: Canadian foreign policy and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909-2009
    (2011) Donaghy, Greg; Carroll, Michael
    Accomplished analysists and rising stars explore the evolution of Canada’s role as a world power and sense of itself within the global landscape in this engaging and provocative collection. Canada’s role as world power and its sense of itself in the global landscape has been largely shaped and defined over the past 100 years by the changing policies and personalities in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). This engaging and provocative book brings together fifteen of the country’s leading historians and political scientists to discuss a century of Canada’s national interests and DFAIT’s role in defining and pursuing them. Accomplished and influential analysts such as Jack Granatstein, Norman Hillmer, and Nelson Michaud, are joined by rising stars like Whitney Lackenbauer, Adam Chapnick, and Tammy Nemeth in commenting on the history and future implications of Canada’s foreign policy. In the National Interest gives fresh insight into the Canada First concept in the 1920s, the North American security issues in the 1930s, Canada’s vision for the United Nations, early security warnings in the Arctic, the rise of the international francophone community, conflicting continental visions over energy, and Canada/U.S. policy discussions. The impact of politicians and senior bureaucrats such as O.D. Skelton, Lester B. Pearson, Marcel Cadieux, Jules Leger, Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney are set against issues such as national defence, popular opinion, human rights, and energy production. In the National Interest also provides a platform for discussion about Canada’s future role on the international stage. With its unique combination of administrative and policy history, In the National Interest is in a field of its own.
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    Peacekeeping: Canada's past, but not its present and future?
    (2016) Carroll, Michael
    For Canadians there has been a great mystique surrounding peacekeeping. The idea that Canada is--or perhaps more appropriately was--a peacekeeping nation par excellence resonates deeply. Yet, however good this myth has made Canadians feel about themselves and their international contributions, it has ultimately done a disservice, leading to unrealistic expectations about what Canada and the blue berets could accomplish on the world stage. Furthermore, Canada's involvement in United Nations peacekeeping operations has not been motivated solely by altruism, but rather has been based on eminently practical factors of national self-interest. There is much that the Canadian Armed Forces has to offer the world in terms of future peace and security operations, but it remains to be seen whether peacekeeping factors into this equation.
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    Pearson’s peacekeepers : Canada and the United Nations Emergency Force, 1956-1967
    (2009) Carroll, Michael
    In 1957 Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the United Nations Emergency Force during the Suez Crisis. A crowning achievement in a distinguished career, the award also established Canada’s reputation as a peacekeeping nation. Was this reputation earned, or do accounts of Canadian peacekeeping reside in the realm of national myths that obscure complex historical realities? Pearson’s Peacekeepers explores the reality behind the rhetoric by offering a comprehensive account of the UN’s first major peacekeeping operation. The UNEF eased tensions and kept peace along the Egyptian-Israeli border for more than a decade. Yet peacekeeping has never been easy, and this mission was no exception: it faced tremendous challenges in its creation, its funding, and during daily operations. And the UN’s inability to imagine, let along manage, the withdrawal of peacekeeping paved the way for further hostilities between Israel and Egypt during the Six Day War. By providing a nuanced account of Canada’s participation in the UNEF, this book not only challenges perceived notions of Canada’s past, it helps to more accurately evaluate international peacekeeping efforts in the present. It will appeal to students of history and political science and to veterans and general readers interested in peacekeeping, the Middle East, international diplomacy, and Canadian military and diplomatic history.
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    UNEF: the origins and realities of Canadian peacekeeping
    (2017) Carroll, Michael
    When the Trudeau government was elected in October 2015, it did not take long for government officials and political observers to announce that “Canada is back.” Launching a high- profile bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, the prime minister announced: “we need to focus on what brings us together, not what divides us. For Canada that means re-engaging in global affairs through institutions like the UN. It doesn’t serve our interests – or the world’s to pretend we’re not deeply affected by what happens beyond our borders.”1 Peacekeeping was one of the ways in which Canada was to re-engage with the world, revitalizing the myth that peacekeeping is where Canada finds success on the world stage. But the reality behind the myth certainly questions the idea of “success.”