With Canada set to announce its next role in a peacekeeping mission this week, two retired Canadian generals say there’s actually no such thing as peacekeeping anymore.

Retired major-generals Lewis MacKenzie and David Fraser say given that there are very few regions of the world with peace agreements in place, there’s very little peace to keep.

Canada is set to host a peacekeeping conference in Vancouver, where the government will announce Wednesday where its efforts will be focused. In 2016, the Liberals committed to deploying 600 peacekeepers and provide $450 million to support United Nations peacekeeping operations. Both Mali and South Sudan have been identified by the U.N. as regions requiring attention.

On CTV’s Question Period today, MacKenzie, who led the U.N. mission in Bosnia, said the the lack of peace agreements in these areas mean these purported peacekeeping troops will likely be involved in violent conflicts.

“It’s not peacekeeping, it’s a protection mission and a protection mission requires combat skills,” he said.

“You’re dealing with factions. They couldn’t care less about the U.N. and some of them couldn’t care less about you, to the extent that they want to kill you. So let’s not call it peacekeeping, for God’s sake.”

Fraser said the risks extend well beyond the front lines.

“The whole concept is going to be fraught with a huge risk, not just for the soldiers on the ground, but up to and including the political risk of why we even sent these people over there,” he said.

“I think this government jumped into the idea of peacekeeping because they thought it was a good political position, but once they got into Africa and started looking at all these countries, they just found out it’s just a lot more dangerous than they ever thought it was.”