March 25th, 2025
Amidst the new American President’s persistent rhetorical attacks on Canadian sovereignty we might still allow brief recognition of his repeated and, in some ways, unprecedented references to what he calls “denuclearization.” One can hardly quarrel with his view that “the power of nuclear weapons is crazy,” or his conclusion that “it would be great if […]
Read MoreArctic Security, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
February 26th, 2025
Diplomacy across the Arctic’s deepening strategic divide is now dangerously dormant, just as tensions rise and military operations scale up. Canadian sovereignty and national security have never depended solely—or even primarily—on military defence. In the Canadian Arctic, the military component is currently of growing importance, but Arctic security is still fundamentally a whole-of-government, or Team […]
Read MoreArctic Security, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
February 12th, 2025
Analysts and pundits now routinely warn that Canada must urgently beef up Arctic defences to protect Canadian sovereignty and territory from the expansionist ambitions of strategic adversaries – Russia and China (and these days, we could add a third). NORAD ‘modernization” is a primary response, and Ottawa has announced the planned expenditure of an initial […]
Read MoreArctic Security, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
January 19th, 2025
Among its strengths, Canada’s new Arctic Foreign Policy (AFP) upholds diplomacy as “a first line of defence for Canada’s national security.” For now, however, it seems this “line of defence” is to remain somewhat idle when it comes to dealing with the adversary identified as a prime threat to our security. The insistence that a […]
Read MoreNovember 29th, 2024
Not so long ago, the Arctic was a region of low tension and high cooperation. In the brief interlude from the final years of the Cold War and Mikhail Gorbachev’s famous 1987 call to establish the Arctic as a zone of peace to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, several notable agreements on international cooperation […]
Read MoreNovember 6th, 2024
Letter in the Globe and Mail – November 6, 2024 re “The defence of Canada is no numbers game” (Editorial, Nov. 4): Linking defence spending to GDP inevitably prompts questions over which GDP projections are more credible. It implies that if the economy goes flat or retreats, then Canada’s defence needs decline commensurately; if GDP rises, […]
Read MoreSeptember 17th, 2024
Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche, op-ed in the Globe and Mail September 17, 2024 Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to […]
Read MoreJune 27th, 2024
Ernie Regehr and Douglas Roche in The Globe and Mail June 27, 2024: President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials repeatedly threaten the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war. China is rapidly expanding its arsenal of nuclear-armed missiles. In response, the U.S. is signalling intentions to increase its number of deployed nuclear weapons. […]
Read MoreMay 1st, 2024
Letter to the Editor, The Globe and Mail, re “NATO’s defence spending should go toward countries that need it, not to ourselves” (Opinion, April 27): With NATO already spending more on military preparedness than Russia and China combined, calls to increase defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP are rightly characterized as obsolete. But […]
Read MoreApril 15th, 2024
This new report from The Simons Foundation Canada identifies 69 continuously staffed Arctic military sites. It includes maps and satellite images and covers the Arctic territories of the five states with Arctic Ocean coastlines and discusses the challenges of reducing strategic tensions and recovering diplomacy. As Canada’s first northern indigenous Governor General, Mary Simon, has […]
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