Canada’s peacekeeping myth ‘needs to fade away,’ retired general writes in memoir

Canada's former top soldier, retired general Wayne Eyre, argues in his new memoir that the country's longstanding reputation as a beacon of peacekeeping has become outdated. Eyre, who served as a captain in the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry during the Battle of Medak Pocket in 1993, contends that traditional, UN-style peacekeeping is no longer effective and has been a "ghost" for decades.

He describes the battle, where Canadian forces faced heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, as a turning point that marked the end of traditional peacekeeping. Eyre asserts that multiple belligerent sides in the former Yugoslavia targeted the under-resourced peacekeepers, leading to a failure to prevent the violence from escalating further.

He notes that traditional peacekeeping missions, which involved deploying a minimally armed force to separate combatants, were ultimately ineffective in the face of the violent escalation in the region.