The Mulroney government and humanitarian intervention in the former Yugoslavia
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702018754593 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
The Mulroney
government and
humanitarian
intervention in the
former Yugoslavia
Misha Boutilier
University of Toronto
Abstract
Based on primary and secondary sources, this article analyzes the policy of the Mulroney
government on humanitarian intervention in the former Yugoslavia between 1991
and 1993. It finds that the Mulroney government chose to play a leading role in the
international intervention in the former Yugoslavia, because doing so both allowed the
government to implement its vision of a post-Cold War world order that aligned with
its understanding of Canadian interests, and satisfied the demands and preferences of the
Canadian public.At the same time, the Mulroney government stumbled into unanticipated
situations in Yugoslavia, and failed to respond to them effectively.This led the government
to reconsider the assumptions that had motivated its initial enthusiasm for intervention,
and to commence a review of peacekeeping and intervention that it would not live to
implement.
Keywords
Canada, Canadian foreign policy, humanitarian intervention, human rights, peacekeeping,
peace enforcement, United Nations, Yugoslavia
Introduction
In a major address at Stanford University on 29 September 1991, Canadian
prime minister Brian Mulroney outlined his vision of the post-Cold War world
order. ‘‘We favour re-thinking the limits of national sovereignty in a world
where problems respect no borders,’’ he said. He labelled an absolute commit-
ment to non-intervention as ‘‘as out of date and as offensive to me as the
police declining to stop family violence simply because a man’s home is supposed
International Journal
2018, Vol. 73(1) 49–67
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702018754593
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Corresponding author:
Misha Boutilier, 22 Widdicombe Hill, Toronto, Ontario, M9R 1B3, Canada.
Email: misha.boutilier@mail.utoronto.ca
to be his castle.’’
1
Yet less than two years later, the foreign policy pursued by
Mulroney and his short-lived successor Kim Campbell faced intense criticism.
The Toronto Star charged that ‘‘Ottawa’s misguided humanitarianism’’ in Bosnia
had appeased the Serb forces and prevented decisive Western intervention.
2
This article explores why the Mulroney government intervened in Yugoslavia,
and how it responded to events there that challenged its initial assumptions. It
argues that the Mulroney government chose to play a leading role in the inter-
national intervention in the former Yugoslavia because doing so both allowed the
government to implement its vision of a post-Cold-War world order that aligned
with its understanding of Canadian interests, and satisfied the demands and pref-
erences of the Canadian public. At the same time, Mulroney’s government
stumbled into unanticipated situations in Yugoslavia and failed to respond to
them effectively, leading it to commence a review of peacekeeping and intervention
that it would not live to implement.
3
The origins of Mulroney’s interventionist foreign policy
The values that would later inform the Mulroney government’s pursuit of humani-
tarian intervention were deeply rooted in Canadian political culture, and were
expressed in postwar Canadian foreign policy. Yet Cold War divisions at the
United Nations (UN) and the hostility of postcolonial states to interventionist
principles meant that the consent of the parties to the conflict was necessary for
any peacekeeping operation to proceed. Peacekeepers were lightly armed, and gen-
erally avoided using force. Canada’s Cold War alliance commitments also made
peacekeeping a distinctly secondary priority.
4
1. Stanford News Service, ‘‘Mulroney on Canadian, U.S. roles in new world order,’’ 29 September
1991, http://news.stanford.edu/pr/91/910929Arc1160.html (accessed 6 December 2017).
2. ‘‘Beatty on Bosnia: Exposing our guilt,’’ Toronto Star, 20 August 1993.
3. For reasons of space, this essay focuses only on Canada’s intervention in the former Yugoslavia. It
does not consider Canada’s shorter intervention in Somalia. Readers interested in a discussion of
this mission may wish to consult the following sources: Grant Dawson, ‘‘Here is Hell’’: Canada’s
Engagement in Somalia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007); Charles S. Olivero, ‘‘Operation
‘Deliverance’: International success or domestic failure?’’ Canadian Military Journal 2 (2001):
51–58; Nancy Gordon, ‘‘Beyond peacekeeping: Somalia, the United Nations and the Canadian
Experience,’’ in Harald Von Riekhoff and Maureen Appel Molot, eds., Canada Among Nations
1994: A Part of the Peace (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994), 285–287; Aisha Ahmad,
‘‘Canada and Somalia: Learning from the legacy of failed intervention,’’ in Fen Osler Hampson
and Stephen M. Saideman, eds., Canada Among Nations 2015: Elusive Pursuits: Lessons from
Canada’s Interventions Abroad (Waterloo, ON: Centre for International Governance Innovation,
2015), 92–113; Canada, Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to
Somalia, Dishonoured Legacy: The Lessons of the Somalia Affair:Report of the Commission of
Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia (Ottawa: Public Works and
Government Services Canada, 1997).
4. David B. Dewitt, ‘‘Canadian defence policy: Regional conflicts, peacekeeping, and stability oper-
ations,’’ Canadian Defence Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1991): 41; Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers:
Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 65–
69, 98–100.
50 International Journal 73(1)
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