Banner

Defence and Human Security

Fighter Aircraft (1): Threats and Priorities

Posted on: May 29th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

The current deployment of Canadian fighter aircraft for bombing attacks in Iraq and Syria, along with the resurgence of “air power diplomacy” from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean, should refocus attention on the Ottawa melodrama known as the CF-18 fighter replacement program. The dénouement was once again put off when Ottawa announced refurbishments intended to keep the CF-18s flying to 2025; it’s a useful delay that furnishes more time for debating the options, including those that some find unpalatable. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Air power becoming the new gunboat diplomacy

Posted on: January 14th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

Fighter aircraft probing air defences, expanded surveillance and reconnaissance missions, extended long-range nuclear bomber patrols – they are all part of the new lingua franca of east-west diplomacy. (more…)

Close Encounters with the Russian Military: Implications for Arctic Security Cooperation?

Posted on: November 25th, 2014 by Ernie Regehr

What does the recent burst of Russian military activity or brinkmanship, as some have characterized it, mean for the Arctic? While current Russia-NATO strategic posturing may accurately reflect the sorry depths to which relations between Russia and most of the Western world have sunk, a new SIPRI report on “Russia’s Evolving Arctic Strategy” is among some timely antidotes to the return-of-the-cold-war-in-the-Arctic narrative.

Close encounters with the Russian military do seem to be on the rise. Russian bombers have been on more frequent flights over the Barents, Norwegian, and Baltic Seas, as well as along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America. Further south there has been a Russian air presence over NATO vessels in the Black Sea, and ships of the Russian navy sailed near Australia’s northern exclusive economic zone in a not fully appreciated military accompaniment to the G-20 summit.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

NATO and the Arctic?

Posted on: July 25th, 2013 by Ernie Regehr

Recurring speculations about an expanded role for NATO in the Arctic – a discussion recently dampened by NATO’s welcome declaration that it does not anticipate such a role – reflects continuing uncertainty regarding an appropriate institutional framework for cooperative security arrangements in the Arctic. That NATO is proposed at all is a classic case of politics, especially security politics, abhorring a vacuum.  Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Fighter aircraft and Arctic sovereignty

Posted on: May 18th, 2013 by Ernie Regehr

It is a staple of Canadian politics to invoke temporary northern visions to curry temporary southern favor, a tradition fully honored in the current plan to spend as much as a billion dollars per year – for some 40 years – to acquire and operate a new fleet of fighter aircraft. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Canada-US Military Cooperation in the Arctic: Bilateralism or Multilateralism?

Posted on: April 25th, 2013 by Ernie Regehr

As Senior Fellow in Arctic Security at The Simons Foundation, the following introduces a posting on my Disarming Arctic Security blog on the Foundation website. Click on the link below for the complete article.

Canadian/American military cooperation in North America is hardly a new phenomenon, and it’s getting a major boost in the context of expanding military capacity throughout the Arctic. Security cooperation among Arctic neighbours is obviously to be welcomed, but a 2012 agreement does raise important policy questions. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Circumpolar Military Facilities of the Arctic Five

Posted on: April 15th, 2013 by Ernie Regehr

As Senior Fellow in Arctic Security at The Simons Foundation, the following introduces a compilation of military facilities found on the Foundation website. Click on the link below for the complete document.

In 2011 the Canadian Senate Committee on Security and Defence, in its interim report on Arctic sovereignty and security, asked whether the Arctic is “again becoming militarized.” That question prompted the following compilation of current military facilities in the circumpolar region. Continue reading at  The Simons Foundation.

New Fighter Aircraft: 36-year Life-Cycle Cost Estimate Comparisons

Posted on: April 10th, 2012 by Ernie Regehr

Buying and operating contemporary fighter aircraft is hugely expensive, and the table (below) of cost comparisons suggests it doesn’t much matter whether they are fourth or fifth generation editions, whether stealth or not, still in development or off-the-shelf. The only real way to save money on fighter aircraft is to buy and operate fewer of them.

(more…)

Preventing War: an audacious fantasy or a practical objective?

Posted on: November 28th, 2011 by Ernie Regehr

The approaching season of peace and goodwill invariably rekindles
our longing for a world in which swords are beaten into ploughshares and nation refuses to take up sword against nation. The hope may be genuine, but few of us can imagine, much less believe, that this audacious vision might actually find reality in our lifetime.

(more…)

New proposals for a durable Afghan peace

Posted on: October 4th, 2011 by Ernie Regehr

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reviewing his strategy[i] for engaging the Taliban following their assassination of his chief peace envoy, High Peace Council (HPC) Chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani, in an attack that also severely injured the Director of the HPC Secretariat, Masoom Stanekzai.[ii] A review is in order – not to question the continued pursuit of a political settlement with the Taliban[iii], but to consider what a comprehensive peace process might actually look like. Three recent reports offer some compelling guides.

(more…)