Difficulties of the Peacemaking Process

All countries have different attributes that make up what they are, together those different parts make up the uniqueness of each country. Canada has since its creation been known as a peaceful nation that avoids violence, one that specializes in peaceful deals just like its independence. This way of keeping the peace rather than forcing it and making it minimizes the cost of lives and resources that war is, and it has stopped conflicts with minimum loss in many areas of the world. Areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq have become destabilized and have had terrorism along with deaths resulting from it increase after peace making has occurred rather than peacekeeping, it has worsened the situation rather than help it. Peacemaking goes against what peace is because it is funding and causing more fighting voluntarily, it makes the solution worse because it only escalates the situation. Peacekeeping is the best way to fix a conflict with minimal bloodshed, other ways only results in more violence and fighting. It is backwards to include the word peace in peacemaking when it is only the helping of one side in the conflict. It goes against the definition of peace to fix a conflict in any other way other than negotiations and compromises, other ways only lead to more violence and deaths.

The process of peacekeeping operates on the basis of not getting directly involved in the fighting between sides, instead it focuses on stopping the fighting and what is causing it. It is much better to fix a problem at the source rather than only try to deal with the outcome, this way the root of the conflict is fixed rather than the outcome which is the fighting. Through peacekeeping life and money loss is at a minimum since the people sent out to the other countries aren’t directly involved in the fighting, they instead facilitate talks and negotiations between those in the conflict. This way of not getting directly attached to one side of the conflict makes it so that funding and resources do not have to be funneled into side if they are losing. A good example of this is the vietnam war in which countries were directly involved in either side of the war, soldiers from the USA were directly involved in fighting with those in south vietnam against north vietnam. This was a huge sink on american soldiers lives and money spent on weapons trying to help south vietnam win, as they lost more and more ground all that happened is more funding was needed. Instead peacekeeping would have kept the huge resource sink that war is to a minimum, rather than wasting lives in the fighting instead what would happen is that a compromise would occur between each side. Then americans would not have to be put into the war, they would not even have had to be drafted and trained. Through this peacekeeping countries help solve violent conflicts while distancing themselves from being involved in any of the fighting. With negotiations and compromises both sides get what they wish for to an extent, it solves the problem that caused the fighting rather than only fixing the fighting that is had caused.

There are situations throughout history where peacekeeping has stopped fighting from turning into full on invasions and war, one prominent example of this is the Suez Canal. The canal was nationalized as part of Egypt and this lead to countries like Britain and France to worry what they would do with the control they had. Israel, The United Kingdom and France began bombing and invading the country of Egypt to regain control of the canal. The fighting worried many countries that it could get worse and because of that a UN peacekeeping force was created to help resolve the Suez Crisis and other situations in the future, rather than have the fighting continue and support one side of the conflict instead what happened is negotiations occurred and there was no longer any reason to fight which stops it from happening again. Peacekeeping in this situation stopped many lives from being lost in the resulting fighting that would occur and it did this while resolving the basis of the problem, the issues were all resolved so while some parties did not achieve what they wished for everyone had the best possible outcome. Canada and other UN countries did not get directly involved in shooting with either side while still stopping any further losses of life and avoiding the huge money sink that war is. Another example is of the UN peacekeeping missions in Sierra Leone during the years of 1999 to 2006, peace talks, negotiations and cease fires were all monitored by the UN. The facilitation that the UN provided help end the civil war in Sierra Leone and disarm 75,000 combatants, elections were then held and the government gained control over the country peacefully without UN troops being directly involved in fighting for any side. It has helped the country greatly while keeping billions of dollars from being poured into funding fighting and from having troops from foreign countries fighting for either side. Peacekeeping has stopped fighting in both situations even though they were decades apart, that is why today it is still the best way to stop conflicts from becoming any worse.

Peacemaking has been used in situations in areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq which are infamous for the trillions of dollars that had to be put into each invasion of each country. Rather than trying any method of peacefully trying to get people to want change in the government and negotiating with terrorist groups Afghanistan was invaded by NATO, this has resulted in Afghanistan being one of the most war ravaged countries on Earth. The invasion of the country will lead to the payments of around $2 trillion for just Afghanistan and with Iraq it will lead to a total cost of $4 to $6 trillion for both invasions. Only Iraq shows any sign of being helped through foreign intervention but it seems the situation will only get worse with ISIS now controlling very large parts of the country, by trying to only deal with a government that restricted rights of women's and had laws they forced change upon a group of people in which only a minority wanted it. Coming into the country and forcing what the world sees as right even if it is does not help since there is no will to change, all the effort and trillions of dollars put into trying to help these countries has no effect because they will revert to what they feel is right. There has to be a want for change for the change to stay, otherwise it is simply just a waste of effort and money and Iraq is an example of this. In just Iraq 4,424 soldiers died as a result of combat and over 30,000 were wounded and all this along with the financial cost of going to war for the country they have tried to help slowly revert back to its older ways. The terrorist governments that they removed from power have simply been replaced by more terrorist organizations and more terror attacks, throwing money and people at the problem has not fixed the issues that both countries face. World War One is an example of how peacemaking can lead to conflicts becoming much larger than they should be. Austria-Hungary going after the small country of Serbia led to a global war because of the involvement of so many countries, no negotiations occurred except a list of demands that could not be fulfilled and then the war started. Germany, Russia and France all joined in the fighting rather than trying to keep the peace, Germany simply joined Austria-Hungary in its fight rather than trying to resolve the conflict peacefully. Russia and France then joined Serbia and the conflict became a war between global powers because they each chose a side to help and resolve the conflict rather than trying to have negotiations and peacekeeping take place. While they all wished to destroy each other in the end all that they wanted was for the war to end, they had only made the conflict much bigger by picking sides. A conflict between two countries turned into a conflict that involved every global power at the time because of the idea that the best way to solve the issue of Austria-Hungary fighting Serbia was to pick a side and help them rather than try to work out a compromise. Throughout the first world war countries were destroyed and millions died in combat, billions and billions of dollars were poured into fighting. These examples show how the act of peacemaking can end up making small conflicts worth trillions of dollars and thousands of lives when they could be solved at a much lower cost through peacekeeping.

The process of peacekeeping is truly the only one that deserves to have the word peace in its name, rather than escalating the conflict it keeps it from getting worse. Lives and money are saved because no direct funding is put into either side of the conflict, instead negotiations are facilitated and resolutions where both parties compromise occur. In the Suez Canal this ended up saving Egypt from a full on war with France, Britain and Israel and it helped the country of Sierra Leone to become a much more peaceful place. In Iraq and Afghanistan peacemaking has caused the situation to become worse and those effects that can be seen as positive are only going away, large parts of Iraq are now controlled by the new terrorist organization of ISIS. That has all happened while thousands of soldiers died, tens of thousands were wounded and trillions of dollars were spent and it has not helped either country. Peacekeeping is the best way to stop a conflict, with minimal bloodshed and money spent from the countries wishing to help. Peacekeeping brings many conflicts to a close and it will in the future because it is the best and should be the only way to solve a conflict.