When Canadians talk about peace-keeping, we tend to see it very specifically as part of a U.N. sponsored action that has wide international backing. This was a major and important difference over Iraq between the US and Australia - the issue of UN support. Polls here showed the public divided about whether they would support the operation without UN support. Feeling on the issue was different from in the US, because the smaller group in favour of the operation supported it with or without the UN, rather than explicitly without the UN, as was the case there. Taken together though, the two added up to the largest majority in favour of any participating country.
We went into the First Gulf War without UN backing and then - probably the real watershed - into East Timor without UN support either. Since Canada participated in both operations in a small way, the assumption here was that Canada has also given up on waiting for the UN.
Australians don't have a concept of bringing law to the wild frontier. As the explorers moved past the Great Dividing Range into the interior, they found not the Great Plains but... a desert. Our character became more cynical.
The dominant concept in strategic thinking has been our isolation as an English-speaking country far from Europe and North America with distant, densely populated, culturally and racially different neighbours. So there is a conflict between our history and our geography.
The threat of invasion from these places dominated - and continues to dominate - defence planning and geopolitical thinking. We do, after all, have the world's largest Muslim nation on our doorstep.
This is really not so different from the US; during the 19th Century America built elaborate coastal fortifications to repel European invaders. However the fact that the perceived threat is so racially and culturally different imparted more urgency.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-11-01 11:17 pm (UTC)This was a major and important difference over Iraq between the US and Australia - the issue of UN support. Polls here showed the public divided about whether they would support the operation without UN support. Feeling on the issue was different from in the US, because the smaller group in favour of the operation supported it with or without the UN, rather than explicitly without the UN, as was the case there. Taken together though, the two added up to the largest majority in favour of any participating country.
We went into the First Gulf War without UN backing and then - probably the real watershed - into East Timor without UN support either. Since Canada participated in both operations in a small way, the assumption here was that Canada has also given up on waiting for the UN.
Australians don't have a concept of bringing law to the wild frontier. As the explorers moved past the Great Dividing Range into the interior, they found not the Great Plains but... a desert. Our character became more cynical.
The dominant concept in strategic thinking has been our isolation as an English-speaking country far from Europe and North America with distant, densely populated, culturally and racially different neighbours. So there is a conflict between our history and our geography.
The threat of invasion from these places dominated - and continues to dominate - defence planning and geopolitical thinking. We do, after all, have the world's largest Muslim nation on our doorstep.
This is really not so different from the US; during the 19th Century America built elaborate coastal fortifications to repel European invaders. However the fact that the perceived threat is so racially and culturally different imparted more urgency.