Armies Of Peace

Written by J.L. Granatstein, one of the country's leading political and military historians, Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred-year history of the Canadian military. This thoroughly revised third edition brings Granatstein’s work up to date with fresh material and new scholarship on the evolving role of the military in Canadian society. It includes new coverage of the War in Afghanistan; NATO deployments to Poland, Latvia, and Iraq; aid to the civil power deployments; and the role of the army reserve. Masterfully written and passionately argued, Canada's Army offers a rich analysis of the political context for the battles and events that shape our understanding of the Canadian military.

"Canada's Army traces the full three-hundred year history of the Canadian military from its origins in New France to the Conquest, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; from South Africa and the two World Wars to the Korean War and contemporary peacekeeping efforts, and the War in Afghanistan. Granatstein points to the inevitable continuation of armed conflict around the world and makes a compelling case for Canada to maintain properly equipped and professional armed forces."--pub. desc.

This is the comprehensive account of the long and difficult road traveled to end the fifty-year armed conflict with the FARC, the oldest guerrilla army in the world; a long war that left more than eight million victims. The obstacles to peace were both large and dangerous. All previous attempts to negotiate with the FARC had failed, creating an environment where differences were irreconcilable and political will was scarce. The Battle for Peace is the story not only of the six years of negotiation and the peace process that transformed a country, its secret contacts, its international implications, and difficulties and achievements but also of the two previous decades in which Colombia oscillated between warlike confrontation and negotiated solution. In The Battle for Peace Juan Manuel Santos shares the lessons he learned about war and peace and how to build a successful negotiation process in the context of a nation that had all but resigned itself to war and the complexities of twenty-first-century international law and diplomacy. While Santos is clear that there is no handbook for making peace, he offers conflict-tested guidance on the critical parameters, conditions, and principles as well as rich detail on the innovations that made it possible for his nation to find common ground and a just solution.

In December 1917, nine months after the disintegration of the Russian monarchy, the army officer corps, one of the dynasty’s prime pillars, finally fell—a collapse that, in light of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, historians often treat as inevitable. The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856–1917 contests this assumption. By expanding our view of the Imperial Russian Army to include the experience of the enlisted ranks, Roger R. Reese reveals that the soldier’s revolt in 1917 was more social revolution than anti-war movement—and a revolution based on social distinctions within the officer corps as well as between the ranks. Reese’s account begins in the aftermath of the Crimean War, when the emancipation of the serfs and consequent introduction of universal military service altered the composition of the officer corps as well as the relationship between officers and soldiers. More catalyst than cause, World War I exacerbated a pervasive discontent among soldiers at their ill treatment by officers, a condition that reached all the way back to the founding of the Russian army by Peter I. It was the officers’ refusal to change their behavior toward the soldiers and each other over a fifty-year period, Reese argues, capped by their attack on the Provisional Government in 1917, that fatally weakened the officer corps in advance of the Bolshevik seizure of power. As he details the evolution of Russian Imperial Army over that period, Reese explains its concrete workings—from the conscription and discipline of soldiers to the recruitment and education of officers to the operation of unit economies, honor courts, and wartime reserves. Marshaling newly available materials, his book corrects distortions in both Soviet and Western views of the events of 1917 and adds welcome nuance and depth to our understanding of a critical turning point in Russian history.

The Allies claimed victory at the end of the Second World War, but the United States' invention of the atomic bomb and its replication by the Soviet Union posed new dangers for all nations. This book examines what Canada's Cold War Army did to prepare for nuclear war -- and why and how it did it. Although the war never materialized, officers, scientists, engineers, and designers developed a collaborative and systematic approach to problem solving that not only transformed the organization of Canada's army but also influenced how armies in the Western Alliance related to one another during the Cold War and beyond.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was the first international organization to be established after the Second World War, and Canada played a key role in its formation. Formal studies of UNRRA, however, have tended to focus on inter-governmental political and economic relationships and their consequences for shaping the post-war international environment. Armies of Peace is the first comprehensive investigation of Canadians' influence on the establishment and operation of this unique organization. This volume challenges the hierarchical and policy-oriented approach to the study of international organizations and offers a more nuanced understanding of Canada's international involvement. By recounting the stories of hundreds of Canadians who served at every level of the organization and in every country where UNRRA established missions, Susan Armstrong-Reid and David Murray highlight the wider contributions that the nation made. Giving voice to these Canadians' stories also provides a more complete understanding of Canada's role in post-war healing and foreshadows the challenges that Canadians faced in implementing international aid and development initiatives within developing countries during the Cold War. Featuring previously untapped primary sources such as private papers, diaries, and letters, and utilizing a cross-disciplinary approach, Armies of Peace is an invaluable addition to the study of international organizations, Canadian social history, and the history of nursing.

With an increase in United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world and with the problems faced by the UN forces in Somalia and Bosnia, there is growing debate about their future and the possible alternatives to resolving international and intercommunal conflicts. Thomas Weber examines the viability of unarmed peacekeeping through a detailed investigation of Gandhi's peace army, which has inspired many of the attempted campaigns of unarmed peacekeeping. The Shanti Sena, which is based largely on Mahatma Gandhi's ideas, was established in 1958, ten years after his death. Sena members, found only in India, are involved in conflict resolution on a grass-roots level, using peace-building techniques that have inspired international groups such as the World Peace Brigade, the Cyprus Resettlement Project, and Peace Brigades International. Relying on interviews with key participants and analysts of the peace army and archival documents, the book contributes greatly to the study of unarmed peacekeeping. It marks the first time anyone has chronicled in such detail the activities and history of the Shanti Sena during its most active years of 1957 to 1975.