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Defence and Human Security

Defence in the Absence of Military Threats

Posted on: May 11th, 2016 by Ernie Regehr

Any review of defence policy obviously needs to include a frank assessment of the threats and security challenges faced and likely to be faced – hence the opening section below on “threat assessments.” While all security environments face challenges, for Canada these are significantly mitigated by the good fortune of being part of an unusually stable region – the subject of the next section, “Canada in a cooperative security community.” A basic understanding of the foundations of durable security, at home and beyond our borders, is also key and is explored in the section on “National security as human security.” Some significant levels of consensus regarding the foundations of security and current challenges to them are necessary for setting out clear roles for the Canadian Armed Forces in advancing security and the funding levels required to sustain them (the subject of the final two sections of this report: “defence as aid to civilian authorities – at home and abroad,” and “funding security”).  Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

F-35? ‘No’ is logical, fair

Posted on: February 28th, 2016 by admin

Letter to the Globe and Mail, published 28 February 2016.  

Re Canada To Stay In F-35 Buyers’ Club (Feb. 25): Canada remains, as your report notes, a member of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. But that is a U.S.-led 12-member consortium where Canada had little influence over the aircraft the group finally produced – the F-35. Joining the JSF never meant automatically buying whatever aircraft emerged. Had that had been the case, the CF-18 replacement decision would have been made in 1997.

Canada entered the JSF program in 1997 for two reasons: to get access for the Canadian aerospace industry to a major U.S. military development and production program, and to monitor developments in contemporary fighter technologies. Canada was not joining a buyers’ club; it was joining a producers’ club. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada “will not buy the F-35 fighter jet,” it wasn’t an illogical rejection of the JSF, it was the eminently logical rejection of the F-35, given the Liberals’ conclusion that “stealth” and “first-strike” capabilities do not fit Canadian requirements.

Is it unfair to reject the F-35 before a selection process has even begun? Only if you think it’s unfair to go into a showroom and announce you’re looking only for a four-cylinder sedan. The dealer may want to show you a V-8 SUV, but there is nothing unfair about declaring in advance you’re not interested.

Ernie Regehr, Waterloo, Ont.

Time to review Canada’s arms export policy

Posted on: January 31st, 2016 by admin

John Lamb and Ernie Regehr

Having now at least acknowledged that it has the authority, indeed responsibility, to cancel export permits to ship armored combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia under certain conditions, the Government needs to take the next logical step – to review and revamp the military commodities export policy that has been allowing such sales for some three decades.

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Fighter Aircraft and New Canadian Defence Imperatives

Posted on: January 15th, 2016 by Ernie Regehr

That the Liberal election campaign could make unequivocal promises not to buy the F-35 fighter and to withdraw Canadian CF-18 fighter aircraft from their current mission in Iraq and Syria, without triggering any significant blowback from Canadians or the Canadian defence community, testifies to the declining relevance of fighter aircraft, both to North American security, including the Arctic, and to Canadian military operations and peace support missions beyond our borders. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Where we stand

Posted on: November 17th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

Published as letter to the Globe and Mail, November 17, 2015

There may be little that can be said with certainty about the Islamic State phenomenon, but one thing is remarkably clear – the war on terror isn’t reducing, and certainly isn’t defeating, terrorism. Yet, we’re advised we have no option but to intensify that failed war (IS Is Waging A Two-Front War – So Must We; Nov. 16).

The Pentagon claims U.S.-led bombing has killed some 20,000 IS fighters, yet U.S. intelligence sources report a surge in recruits, currently some 30,000 fighters from 100 countries. This highly successful IS recruitment is in fact aided by a bombing campaign that is now carried out mainly by Western states, feeding the IS narrative of a crusade against Islam.

As U.K. analyst Paul Rogers puts it, “In blunt terms, [IS] is actually being strengthened by the air war, and it can be assumed it wants more.” In the wake of Paris, the world seems set to oblige.

If we don’t know the solution to the IS menace, and we manifestly don’t, we should at least stop fuelling it. Accepting refugees is the right thing to do; dramatically increasing humanitarian support in the region is critically important, both to support the victims and to dampen IS recruitment.

Bolstering Syrian peace talks and pursuing more inclusive governance in Iraq gets closer to addressing the roots of these multiple crises and thus would be worthy added national objectives.

Ernie Regehr, Waterloo, Ont.

The Arctic Coast Guard Forum: advancing governance and cooperation in the Arctic

Posted on: November 12th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

The eight states of the Arctic region have agreed to establish a new means of cooperating in support of public safety, search and rescue, and environmental protection in the Arctic, making the Arctic Coast Guard Forum another step toward solidifying the Arctic as cooperative security community. As US Admiral Zukunft said of the new Forum: “we have an opportunity to… make [the Arctic] a region that focuses on humanitarian concerns, on environmental concerns, on the way of life of indigenous tribes, and not as a war-fighting domain.” 

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation

Baltic vulnerability dramatically overstated

Posted on: September 21st, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

Except for Kuwait, all post-Cold War invasions have occurred during conditions of advanced internal division and crisis. That doesn’t describe the Baltic States.

(Reprinted from Embassy Magazine, September 16, 2015 – page 7)

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Russia, NATO, and Baltic vulnerability

Posted on: September 1st, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

The Pentagon is sending state-of-the-art F-22 fighter aircraft to Europe for the first time, further confirmation that NATO and Russia have locked themselves into increasingly provocative military behavior from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. Both sides obviously believe demonstrations of intimidating military capacity enhance security, but it’s an article of faith unsupported by evidence. In fact, vulnerability to military interference in states small or large owes much more to political weakness than to military weakness or the lack formidable friends. In other words, preserving national sovereignty and defending against foreign predators – in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, for example – depend much more on the quality of governance than on military preparedness and defence. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Fighter Aircraft (3): Industrial Strategy as Defence Policy

Posted on: July 15th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

When in 1997 Canada first joined the US-led Joint Strike Fighter program, critics, including this one, feared that what was then a strictly industrial participation program would in time be promoted as a de facto decision to buy whatever aircraft emerged from that venture – namely, the F-35. Of course, all assurances at the time were to the contrary, but by 2010 a decade-old industrial strategy had indeed become defence policy. Continue Reading at The Simons Foundation.

Fighter Aircraft (2): Defence at Home and Abroad

Posted on: June 18th, 2015 by Ernie Regehr

Canadian defence policy is focused on three contexts: i) defending Canada, ii) defending North America, and iii) contributing to international peace and security. Fighter aircraft are not “essential” to Canadian action in any of these contexts. Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.