Disarming Conflict

Canada’s contributions to international peace and security are grounded in the our collective sense that we are part of a common humanity and in the recognition that our own security depends ultimately on a stable, rules-based, and equitable international order.

The size and sustainability of our contribution to international peace and security are of course built on this country’s extraordinary prosperity and its climate of durable peace and stability at home. Blessed by what the peacebuilding guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development[i]refer to as a primary security and war prevention measure, namely the presence of“institutions capable of managing socio-political tensions and avoiding their escalation into violence,” Canada comes to the world stage with significant resources and responsibilities to try to advance beyond its borders the enviable conditions that prevail within them.

The fact that Canada does not face imminent or foreseeable military challenges to its sovereignty, territorial integrity, or internal order means that it enjoys considerable flexibility in considering the best ways and means of addressing security challenges beyond our borders. Because Canada is not burdened by the need to maintain high levels of military forces for security at home, it in effect enjoys a major ongoing peace dividend that allows it to focus attention and resources on security needs beyond our borders. Canada’s peace and security toolkit does not need to be dominated by the military, which means we have options—we can decide on the most effective way to deploy resources abroad in response to contemporary security threats.

If, for example, we believe that the most immediate way in which people experience insecurity is through unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably attend such conditions of insecurity, we might logically conclude that the most urgent requirement is to address these insecurities by the pursuit of more favorable social, political, and economic conditions. That in turn means that security preparedness requires a broad range of development initiatives as well as military engagement.

One simple measure of the way in which states respond to insecurity – of the relative emphasis that we place on military or non-military measures – is to look at defence-to-development spending ratios. In 2004 the Canadian ratio was 3.8:1.[ii] A comparison with other OECD states showed that the most balanced ratio was held by Luxembourg (1.2:1), while the most disproportionate ratio belonged to the United States (24.8:1). While those examples are both outside the mainstream, the ratios of several likeminded countries are more relevant, and in 2004 they ranged from 5.9:1 for Germany to 1.6:1 for Denmark, with the Netherlands at 2.2:1, Sweden at 2:1, Norway at 2:1, and Ireland at 1.8:1. In other words, Canadian peace and human security spending priorities were weighted more heavily toward the military than they were in most of these likeminded states.

In 2006 (the most recent year for which comparative figures are available) the Canadian ratio of defence-to-development spending had climbed to 4:1.[iii]By comparison, all of the others had moved toward a more balanced ratio – namely, Denmark 1.7:1, Germany 3.6:1, Ireland 1:1, , the Netherlands 1.8:1, Norway 1.7:1, and Sweden 1.5:1. The norm among these states was much closer to 2:1 than Canada’s 4:1. Luxembourg and the United states remained at the extreme ends of the spectrum. In Luxembourg development spending surpassed defence spending for a ratio of .9:1; in the US the ratio narrowed slightly to 22.8:1.

It is worth noting that if Canadian development spending had reached the declared target of .7 per cent of GDP by 2006-2007, the Canadian defence-to-development ratio would of course have been closer to 2:1 and thus closer to the ratios in the Nordic and some other likeminded European countries.

For now, Canadian contributions to international peace and security remain heavily weighted toward military engagement. Military preparedness will always be expensive given its extraordinary capital and personnel costs, but the obvious question remains: is it rational to devote only a quarter of our international peace and security dollar to mitigating the threats to security as they are actually experienced—namely, unmet basic needs, political exclusion, denied rights, social and political disintegration, and the criminal and political violence that invariably attend such conditions of insecurity?

Given Canada’s extraordinary wealth and the high level of stability and security that Canadians now enjoy at home, should Canada be doing more to support efforts that help the rest of the world to reach similar levels of peace and security—and in the process contribute to the durability of our own well-being? Second, whatever the level of the security effort that Canadians decide on, is the relative balance of our effort appropriate? Should three-quarters of our security effort be on military roles when the most prominent threats to the security of people come from non-military sources such as unfavorable economic, social, and political conditions?