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Defence and Human Security

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament III – Understanding the Other, when the other is Russia

Posted on: January 10th, 2019 by Ernie Regehr

It’s clear from Cold War arms control agreements that political harmony and broad strategic cooperation are not prerequisites for progress on nuclear disarmament. It is nevertheless hard to see the US and Russia launching new rounds of nuclear arms control talks without some serious efforts at building mutual trust and understanding within the Euro/Atlantic  political/security arena, even if that cannot be guaranteed to yield broad areas of agreement. Ultimately, better understanding and the rational management of conflicting interests will have to be underwritten by restrained political-military practices that seek to build confidence and, notably, point towards a renewed arms control agenda – in other words, the kinds of mutual security arrangements envisioned through the OSCE. The prospects for that level of political maturity taking firm hold in the current circumstances are not particularly bright – but that doesn’t mean they are any less necessary. Read further at The Simons Foundation.

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament III – Understanding the Other, when the other is Russia

Posted on: January 10th, 2019 by Ernie Regehr

It’s clear from Cold War arms control agreements that political harmony and broad strategic cooperation are not prerequisites for progress on nuclear disarmament. It is nevertheless hard to see the US and Russia launching new rounds of nuclear arms control talks without some serious efforts at building mutual trust and understanding within the Euro/Atlantic  political/security arena, even if that cannot be guaranteed to yield broad areas of agreement. Ultimately, better understanding and the rational management of conflicting interests will have to be underwritten by restrained political-military practices that seek to build confidence and, notably, point towards a renewed arms control agenda – in other words, the kinds of mutual security arrangements envisioned through the OSCE. The prospects for that level of political maturity taking firm hold in the current circumstances are not particularly bright – but that doesn’t mean they are any less necessary. Read further at The Simons Foundation.

Cancelling the Saudi Arms Deal

Posted on: December 20th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Globe and Mail of December 20, 2018, written in response to the December 18 op-ed by Bessma Momani of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Centre for International Governance Innovation, “Cancelling Canada’s Saudi arms deal would merely be a feel-good measure.”

Canada’s been selling armoured vehicles to the Saudis for almost 30 years, so it’s true that terminating one Canadian contract “will do little to stop the Saudis or alleviate the suffering of Yemenis.” No one has claimed otherwise.

But here are the pertinent questions. Do we want to promote a rules-based international order, and should those rules place restrictions on military sales to regimes engaged in the gross and systematic violation of the rights of their citizens? Should there be restrictions on the sales of weapons to states guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Canadian armoured vehicles go to the Saudi National Guard – its key attribute being loyalty to the royal family, and its key mandate being to protect the Saudi royals from dissidents, coup attempts and, ultimately, democracy. So, if you favour principled policies in support of a rules-based international order, should a state drawn to feminist values in its foreign policies be content to send weapons of repression to a state notorious for its systematic subordination of women?

Stopping the war in Yemen is a matter of extraordinary urgency – arms shipments are relevant, though stopping Canadian arms shipments will not be decisive. But a responsible military-export policy has many other objectives and dimensions, and honouring human rights and international humanitarian law should be very near the top.

Ernie Regehr, Waterloo, Ont.

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament – II: It’s Time to End NATO Nuclear Sharing

Posted on: November 12th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

The ongoing forward deployment of non-strategic US nuclear weapons in Western Europe raises fundamental issues of strategic stability (including pre-emption, nuclear first-use, and war-fighting doctrines), public safety, and meeting Treaty obligations. American B61 nuclear gravity bombs are currently based in five European NATO member countries under NATO’s nuclear sharing policy, an arrangement that will come under increasing scrutiny as those countries are asked to accept new versions of the bombs that Washington is now “modernizing,” and as they think about including a B61 delivery capacity in their next generation fighter aircraft. And, given that nuclear sharing is explicitly prohibited in Articles I and II of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, concerns about treaty compliance generally, including the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, should bring attention to NPT compliance issues. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

NATO and Nuclear Disarmament – I: NATO’s nuclear posture

Posted on: November 8th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

Last June there was all-party support for an extraordinary  recommendation by the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence. It called on the Canadian Government to “take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving the NATO goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons.” In October, the Government responded to say it agrees with the recommendation but essentially argued that its current policies and activities already constitute such leadership. A closer look at NATO’s nuclear posture indicates there is still plenty of room for improvement. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

From Defending to Exercising Arctic Sovereignty

Posted on: October 26th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

Questions about sovereignty are a constant in Canadian discourse on the Arctic – a current iteration being a study of “Canada’s Sovereignty in the Arctic” by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (FAAE). As of Oct 22, the Committee had held four sessions, heard 15 witnesses, and received four written briefs, and the overwhelming thrust of testimony so far is that Canada does not have an Arctic sovereignty problem. Furthermore, there is an irony in the application of northern sovereignty that the Committee has yet to address – namely, the inescapable reality that, in a challenging region made manageable through international cooperation, part of the responsible exercise of national sovereignty in the Arctic is the willingness to curb purely national prerogatives in favor of regional collaboration and collective well-being. Read Further at The Simons Foundation.

NATO’s Brussels Summit and the Arctic

Posted on: July 18th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

The run-up to this month’s NATO summit featured an array of pundits, experts and, notably, Canadian Parliamentarians, encouraging the Alliance to step up its presence and collective operations in the Arctic. As it turned out, NATO leaders wisely resisted the entreaties. The Brussels Summit Declaration is silent on the Arctic, and NATO officials, when asked about it, were just as inclined to talk about Arctic cooperation as they were about military expansion and Russian or Chinese threats in the high north. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Circumpolar Military Facilities of the Arctic Five – updated

Posted on: July 16th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

This compilation of current military facilities in the circumpolar region continues to be offered as an aid to addressing a key question posed by the Canadian Senate more than five years ago: “Is the [Arctic] region again becoming militarized?” If anything, that question has become more interesting and relevant in the intervening years, with commentators divided on the meaning of the demonstrably accelerated military developments in the Arctic – some arguing that they are primarily a reflection of increasing military responsibilities in aiding civil authorities in surveillance and search and rescue, some noting that Russia’s increasing military presence is consistent with its need to respond to increased risks of things like illegal resource extraction, terrorism, and disasters along its frontier and the northern sea route, and others warning that the Arctic could indeed be headed once again for direct strategic confrontation. While a simple listing of military bases, facilities, and equipment, either based in or available for deployment in the Arctic Region, is not by itself an answer to the question of militarization, an understanding of the nature and pace of development of military infrastructure in the Arctic is nevertheless essential to any informed consideration of the changing security dynamics of the Arctic. Continue reading at The Simons Centre.

 

Ilulissat and Arctic Amity: Ten Years Later

Posted on: May 16th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

Ten years ago this month, the five Arctic Ocean states issued the Ilulissat Declaration.  In it they pledged to rely on existing international law, notably the Law of the Sea, as the framework through which they would seek the “orderly settlement” of disputes in this rapidly changing region. In a welcome counterpoint to the persistent and sometimes overwrought warnings of a new Cold War set to engulf the Arctic along with the rest of the planet, the Denmark/Greenland governments have promised to host an anniversary meeting (Ilulissat II) commemorating the decade of “peaceful and responsible cooperation in the Arctic” that followed Ilulissat I.

Read Further at The Simons Foundation.

Does Canada’s New Peacekeeping Policy Make Sense?

Posted on: May 16th, 2018 by Ernie Regehr

Stephen J. Thorne says Yes. Ernie Regehr says No. Read the debate at Legion Magazine.

Here is the “No” argument, written before the Mali announcement:

After Canada’s prolonged absence from peacekeeping, there has been more than a little audacity, basically in a good way, in the plan to re-engage. Because today’s conflicts are intractable, dangerous and complex, “new solutions” and “innovative approaches” are forthcoming, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Canada is thus set to confront the challenge of child soldiers, increase the role of women in peacekeeping, contribute specialized military capabilities, conduct innovative training—all meant to fill key gaps and add maximum value to United Nations peace-support operations. So far so good.

But then come the details. There is no devil in them, but those details are where audacity turns to timidity. Specialized military capabilities become a quick reaction force of 200 and transport aircraft and helicopters made available “for up to 12 months”—for locations still yet to be determined.

Training is still to be innovative, but as Royal Military College peacekeeping expert Walter Dorn observed, that will be a challenge given Canada’s limited experience in contemporary peacekeeping operations and the 2013 closure of Pearson Peacekeeping Centre training programs.

There is a commendable focus on getting more women into peace-support operations, but for Beth Woroniuk, co-ordinator of the Canadian Women, Peace and Security Network, the point is not simply to increase the presence of women in “existing paradigms of military response.” It is to “emphasize diplomatic conflict resolution and peace-building approaches to ending armed conflict and building sustainable futures.”

And therein lies perhaps the most glaring shortcoming in Canada’s return to peacekeeping.

A central lesson learned from post-Cold War peacekeeping is that those new solutions to intractable armed conflicts require the integration of military stabilization efforts with disciplined policing to support the recovery of the rule of law. Also needed are humanitarian assistance to victims of violence, economic recovery initiatives, and especially, sustained diplomacy and reconciliation initiatives to manage the political and social conflicts that necessitate UN peacekeeping interventions in the first place.

Peacekeeping is necessarily multidimensional. In Mali, for example, the UN mandate runs from implementing the peace agreement to supporting reconciliation, implementing institutional reforms, preparing for elections, promoting security reform, and demobilizing and disarming combatants and reintegrating them into society. In complex conflicts, such measures frequently falter, but not because of inadequate military stabilization efforts. Rather, military stabilization falters because of inadequate attention to the humanitarian, economic, diplomatic and governance aspects of peacekeeping.

Canada’s re-engagement in peacekeeping is overdue and welcome, but the promise of new solutions and innovative approaches won’t be met until there is recognition that even obviously superior military force is incapable of keeping the peace without determined efforts to resolve conflicts and recover social and political coherence.