November 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 […]
Read MoreJanuary 31st, 2024
This was the theme of a one-day conference at Massey College, University of Toronto (November 30, 2023). Dr. Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon, Professor Emerita at Western University and Senior Fellow of Massey College, opened the conference with the question: “how can we engage Russia in the shared pursuit of pan-Arctic security, stability, and cooperation, while still holding […]
Read MoreJanuary 16th, 2024
Emerging security challenges in the Arctic require policies that squarely face changing conditions, strategic and environmental, but preserving the basic stability that still exists in the region must be a clear priority. Relying too heavily on military responses risks exacerbating rather than easing Arctic tensions, and it ignores the post-Cold War reality that vulnerability to […]
Read MoreNovember 10th, 2023
Of the world’s nine states with nuclear weapons, two – Russia and Israel – are now fighting high intensity wars. Another three of the nuclear nine – the United States, the United Kingdom, and France – are deeply invested in both wars, supplying weapons and expecting to influence outcomes. The other four nuclear powers – […]
Read MoreArmed Conflict, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
July 12th, 2023
Two Parliamentary Committees have recently recommended that Canada “reconsider” it’s 2005 decision against joining the US homeland Ballistic Missile Defence system. The Pentagon acknowledges the system has no capacity against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles, and its operational design means it also has no capability against cruise and hypersonic missiles. With continental security concerns shifting […]
Read MoreArctic Security, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament