Shielding the Arctic from NATO’s return to Territorial Defence

NATO Defence Ministers have signalled their intention to create a new north Atlantic Command, one with Arctic operations also in mind. Along with current deployments in the Baltic states and Poland, intensified air patrols on its eastern and northern flanks, European ballistic missile defence, and a new logistics command for Europe, this new Caverject, Edex) * Phentolamine * Papaverine Alpostadil as medication for erectile dysfunction. on line viagra Drinking 2 to 4 liters of water in a glass and viagra no prescription australia then add half teaspoon of turmeric in it. One would levitra order prescription be amazed to know that a majority of men in middle and later life. And then there’s a constant pressure of performance at all sphere in our lives. sildenafil 10mg command reflects NATO’s shift from out-of-area missions and back to the Cold War priority of defending the territories of NATO member states. Whatever that shift means for Eurasian security writ large, alliance-dominated territorial defence preoccupations in the Arctic would bode ill for its evolving cooperative security framework.

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Canada and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The following letter has been sent to the Prime Minister, urging support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and urging the Government of Canada to redouble its nuclear disarmament efforts. 

November 15, 2017
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
Ottawa, ON

Dear Prime Minister,

Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (CNWC) writes respectfully to urge you to reconsider your present opposition to the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on July 7, 2017. We have taken note of various statements by Governmental representatives and particularly the arguments advanced in the October 5 letter to CNWC from the Foreign Minister, the Hon. Chrystia Freeland.

We recognize this Treaty as a milestone on the long quest for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and thus take strong exception to your characterization of the Treaty as “useless.” We deeply regret your Government’s failure to recognize the validity and importance of the Treaty, agreed to by a majority of the world’s states, which creates a legally binding instrument to prohibit the possession and use of nuclear weapons – paralleling the treaties prohibiting chemical and biological weapons.

The elimination of all nuclear weapons, and an end to the military doctrine of nuclear deterrence, is an objective that Canada has long shared with the international community, knowing that the use of even one of the 15,000 nuclear weapons still in existence would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences. The tenacity with which nuclear weapon states seek to retain and even “modernize” weapons whose use would be in direct violation of international humanitarian law, makes a mockery of the solemn commitments they made and legal obligations they assumed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Canada must take extreme care not to aid them in their abdication  of responsibility.

CNWC represents more than 1,000 distinguished Canadians, honoured by appointment to the Order of Canada, who have called for Canadian leadership in nuclear disarmament efforts, specifically encouraging the launch of negotiations toward a comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Convention that will set out both the vision and the practical time-bound actions required for verifiable, irreversible nuclear disarmament – that is, the realization of a world without nuclear weapons. The Treaty is a step towards such a Convention. Indeed, the Treaty’s historic significance has been dramatically reinforced by the award of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to the civil society coalition, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, most clearly associated with promoting the Treaty.

Rather than disparaging the Treaty because states with nuclear weapons refuse to support it, Canada should be faulting the obstructionist tactics of the nuclear weapon states, for it is they who are now doubling down on their refusal to meet their disarmament obligations; they are refusing to implement their own collective “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

We wish, in this letter, to respond to the Government of Canada’s statements on this matter.

*Your Government continues to argue that today’s precarious global security environment
precludes negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Actually, it is precisely the current security environment – notably the US-North Korea conflict and the breakdown in relations between US/NATO and Russia – that makes heightened nuclear disarmament diplomacy an urgent necessity – as it was in the Cuban Missile Crisis. There is no perfect time to seek nuclear disarmament – there is only now. The 186 non-nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT have never made the fulfillment of their non-proliferation obligations contingent upon an ideal security environment. They make their bold commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons in the interests of public well-being and of making the
world more secure. It is now the responsibility of states with nuclear weapons to also serve public wellbeing and make the world more secure by taking decisive action to further reduce and then eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

*Your Government continues to argue that the Treaty is ineffective because the nuclear
weapons states are not participating. Actually, not only are they refusing to respect the Treaty, but in October 2016 the U.S. went further to instruct its NATO partners to reject the U.N. resolution mandating negotiations for the Treaty. That is not leadership, and it is an instruction that Canada, as a country that has traditionally fostered multilateralism and supported the United Nations, should have rejected. We should have taken our customary place at the negotiating table. To argue now that the Treaty is “divisive” is to suggest that the rest of the world is to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapons-free world, so as not to disturb that minority of states whose arsenals hold the world hostage. The source of
division is not disarmament, but is the refusal of the nuclear weapon states to meet their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. The time has come for real progress in implementing the promise made by the nuclear weapons states in the context of the 2010 NPT Plan of Action – that is, “the nuclear weapon States commit to undertake further efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate all types of nuclear weapons, deployed and non-deployed, including through unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral measures.”

*Your Government continues to argue that, since the new Treaty counters NATO’s Strategic Concept, which still names nuclear weapons the “supreme guarantee” of security, Canada cannot participate in the Treaty in good faith. Actually, as the Canadian Pugwash Group argues, Canada should sign the Treaty and state that it will, through dialogue and changes to its own policies and practices, persist in its efforts to bring NATO into conformity with the Treaty. It is wrong for Canada to give a higher priority to the outdated political policies of NATO than its legal obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, obligations upheld by the International Court of Justice.

*Your Government continues to argue that the Treaty fails to include credible transparency and verification provisions, or measures to deter non-compliance. Actually, the Treaty adopts the tried and tested verification arrangements under the NPT, requiring each state party to maintain its safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency, or to enter such an agreement if it has not yet done so (Article 3). It also includes a provision for the establishment of an additional competent international authority for the purpose of verifying the irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons of
the nuclear weapon states (Article 4). Were Canada a participant in the Treaty, it would then, at further meetings, be able to seek improvements, such as making the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol a requirement.

*Your government continues to argue that its work toward a treaty to control fissile materials is of far greater importance than the new Treaty. Actually, the twenty years’ discussion of a prospective fissile materials treaty has produced not a single negotiation. Such a treaty would have value and credibility only if it went beyond the current focus on halting new production to also address the huge stocks of fissile materials already possessed by the nuclear states – enough material to make many thousands more nuclear weapons. Your government should urge states to move this process out of the moribund Conference on Disarmament, where a single state can veto progress, into the U.N. General
Assembly, where the majority can take decisions.

In urging your Government to join the new Treaty, we also encourage Canadian action on other steps – notably to encourage, as a matter of great urgency, the nuclear weapons states to de-alert their arsenals, and to support calls for the removal of tactical nuclear weapons from the territories of NATO non-nuclear weapons states in Europe.
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We wish you and your colleagues well in carrying out your responsibilities in these extraordinary times. We would welcome an opportunity for representatives of CNWC to meet with you to further explore ways in which Canada can redouble its efforts in support of a world without nuclear weapons.

This letter is signed by a representative group from the more than 1,000 honorees of the Order of Canada who are calling for stronger government action for nuclear disarmament.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Acker, OC
Bruce Aikenhead, OC
Gerry Barr, CM
Michel Bastarache, CC
Anthony Belcourt, OC
Monique Bégin, OC
Ed Broadbent, CC
Margaret Hilson, OC
Laurent Isabelle, CM
Bonnie Klein, OC
Joy Kogawa, OC
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, CC
Bruce Kidd, OC
Margaret MacMillan, CC
Marilou McPhedran, CM
T. Jock Murray, OC
Alex Neve, OC
Peter Newbery, CM
James Orbinski, OC
Landon Pearson, OC
John Polanyi, CC
Ernie Regehr, OC
Douglas Roche, OC
David Silcox, CM
Jennifer Allen Simons, CM
Gérard Snow, CM
Veronica Tennant, CC
Murray Thomson, OC
Setsuko Thurlow, CM
Lois Wilson, CC

Wars and Rumours of Wars: On War Prevention

The idea that there will always be wars and rumors of wars not only has the imprimatur of scripture, but contemporary belief in the inevitability of war and faith in its utility are powerful enough to drive gargantuan expenditures of human and material treasure in preparation for it. So there must be something to it. Indeed, talk of war prevention can come off as naïve, sounding unschooled in the hard knocks of the real world.

But in fact, schooling in war prevention is sufficiently advanced-in both research and practice—to embolden us heretics to suggest that, just maybe, war isn’t intrinsic to the natural order after all.
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Continue reading at Peace Magazine (Vol.33, No.4: Oct-Dec 2017).

Arctic Security and the Canadian Defence Policy Statement of 2017

The Government’s long-awaited defence policy statement, which arrived last Spring, sensibly portrays Arctic security challenges as rooted largely in significant public safety challenges rather than in traditional, or primarily military, challenges to the defence of Canada. The Arctic operations of the Canadian Armed Forces thus focus on aiding civilian authorities, rather than on deterring or responding to state-based security threats. This means that the cells usually are packets of microscopic potentials, which awaits their instructions to change into the cell walls of the heart and the muscles surrounding blood vessels, causing them to relax (for a muscle to contract, it needs calcium ions (Ca2+) to cross its’ cell membrane). tadalafil online order You will find that most probably, the buy cheap viagra check out that website things that you do well had memorable first experiences and the ones you don’t had negative experiences. These all-natural male enhancers are herbs and give you the most pleasing respitecaresa.org viagra without prescription and sensational sex sessions everytime. In a single research, both tadalafil no prescription male and female study members who suffered from erectile dysfunction associated with their utilization of such psychotropic drugs as benzodiazepines reported a rise in arousal and also overall sexual satisfaction after they started out using sildenafil citrate. One essential dimension of sustainable Arctic security that does not receive adequate attention is the imperative, and the opportunity, to consciously shape the northern circumpolar arena into a durable regional security community by building on and reinforcing the current and fortunate absence of any state actors bent on militarily harming other Arctic states. 

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Canada, North Korea, and BMD: When defence leads to less security

Published in Hill Times 16 August 2017

Ballistic missile defence leads to less security

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With both the rhetoric and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities escalating, the Canadian response invariably turns to debating the merits of joining the American ballistic missile defence (BMD) system that is designed to intercept North Korean missiles.

Former Harper Government Defence Minister, Peter MacKay told the CBC, after Pyongyang’s latest test, he regrets not getting Canada signed on when he might have had the chance and laments the “allergic reaction” of many Canadians to any hint of joining the Americans in BMD operations.

It’s an allergy that is unlikely to wane as long as Donald Trump occupies the White House, but Canadians averse to BMD are actually more focused on the vagaries of the system itself than on the machinations of any particular American administration – the immediate issue being the system’s unreliable performance, while the long-term problem is that the better it works, the less security it will deliver.

The only reason BMD mid-course interceptors have been deployed at all – in Alaska and California, from where they are tasked to intercept in space any US-bound North Korean missile in the mid-phase of its flight – is because BMD is exempted from the Pentagon requirement that any new weapon system be certified for operation before being deployed. In this case, the deployed system is still in test mode, and the Pentagon itself characterizes it as having only “minimal capability.”

A major study by the American Union of Concerned Scientists is more categorical: “Despite more than a decade of development and a bill of $40 billion, the…system is simply unable to protect the US public, and it is not on a credible path to be able to do so.”

But both North Korea and the Pentagon are committed to trying harder. Unless Kim Jung Un is persuaded to change course, he will persist and eventually – inevitably – manage to affix a nuclear warhead to a missile reliably capable of hitting the American mainland. The threat is real. And unless the Pentagon loses the generous funding and political support it gets from Congress, it too will keep on trying and eventually – inevitably – will manage to build a credible capacity to intercept isolated missile attacks. And that’s when things get a lot more dangerous.

The more interceptors the Americans field, and the more capable they become, the more North Korea will add to its missile arsenal – and in any defence/offence competition, the advantage goes overwhelmingly to the offence. As Pyongyang sees it, complete success can be defined as assuring that as little as one percent of its missile arsenal gets through American defences.  But for Washington, catastrophic failure must be defined as only 99 percent of its intercepts of incoming missiles succeeding. Where would you place your bets – on North Korea succeeding one percent of the time, or on Washington succeeding 100 percent of the time?

But that’s only part of the BMD problem. As Washington tries to improve its odds by fielding more and more interceptor missiles (it is currently expanding its original arsenal of 30 interceptors to 44), Russia and China will not sit idly by if they perceive their own deterrent forces to be challenged by a steadily growing American interceptor inventory. On the calculation that offence in missiles will always trump the defence, both have a simple remedy available – build more and more nuclear-armed ICBMs aimed at North America.

The New START agreement of 2010, limiting US and Russian strategic deployments to no more than 1,550 warheads on 700 delivery vehicles each, expires in 2021. Under the Trump Administration renewal is already in jeopardy, and an expanding American BMD system will certainly not improve renewal prospects.

Add to that the implications of the American regional missile defence system (THAAD – Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) now installed in South Korea to protect it from the North’s shorter-range missiles. Again, the more interceptors that are deployed, the more the North is incentivized to add to its inventory of attack missiles to overwhelm the defences. And as the North Korean threat escalates, the more Japan and South Korea will be drawn towards developing their own nuclear retaliation (deterrence) options – potentially presaging further defections from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

At each escalating step along that way, security diminishes. Yet, a succession of former Canadian defence ministers and current defence analysts would still have Canada join that system. To its credit, the Government continues to resist these entreaties. The new defence policy says plainly that “Canada’s policy with respect to participation in ballistic missile defence has not changed.” But it adds a qualifier that bears watching, and it comes in the form of a promise to “engage the United States to look broadly at emerging threats and perils to North America, across all domains, as part of NORAD modernization.”

A nuclear-armed North Korea is indeed settling in as a durable threat but, unlike the American Commander in Chief, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has displayed moments of clarity. At an August 1 press briefing at the State Department he insisted: “We do not seek a regime change, we do not seek a collapse of the regime, we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula, we do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38^th Parallel.” To the North he said, “we are not your enemy…but you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us, and we have to respond.” He was harkening back to an earlier package that has always represented the best prospects – that is, final settlement of the Korean War, security guarantees for North and South, an end to American military prominence in South Korea, all in the context of a fully denuclearized Korean peninsula. He was also echoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s commitment to a new round of dialogue.

For Canada, the North Korean crisis is a challenge for the diplomats, not the generals. The task at hand is, to focus on rebuilding a coalition of states committed to de-escalation and to opening informal and ultimately formal channels of engagement with the aim of a nuclear weapons free Korean peninsula.

Hit a bullet, every time

The Globe and Mail, 03 June 2017

It’s a genuine feat to intercept a bullet with a bullet, which is what the Pentagon says it managed to do with this week’s successful missile defence test (Pentagon Successfully Tests ICBM Defence System For First Time, May 31).

Just don’t confuse that with protection from a North Korean missile attack.

The Pentagon still is not close to reliably intercepting missiles under anything approaching realistic conditions (for example, with active counter measures engaged). The problem is, any defence against nuclear attack with less than a 100-per-cent success rate amounts to catastrophic failure.

Even a missile defence system that reliably performed at a 90-per-cent success level would cede all the advantage to the attacker.

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Once North Korea manages to mount a warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental U.S. (something that isn’t imminent but is likely in the absence of any agreement to end its nuclear program), it faces the relatively simpler challenge of building enough such missiles to stay just ahead of a necessarily less than perfect American missile defence system.

North Korea is already doing that in response to the regional missile defence system (THAAD) the U.S. has now deployed in South Korea, as Pyongyang practises regular and multiple firings of tried and true Scud missiles – of which it can build as many as it thinks it needs to overwhelm the defence.

The real accomplishment of missile defence is to create powerful incentives to accumulate ever larger inventories of offensive missiles.

Ernie Regehr, senior fellow, Simons Foundation; research fellow, Centre for Peace Advancement, Conrad Grebel University College

Exporting arms

Letter in today’s Globe and Mail in response to the editorial, “Ottawa Comes Clean on Arms Exports” (17 August 2016)

The choices for controlling military exports are not to either “block arms sales to anyone who might actually use them” or “be realistic about weapons sales” (Ottawa Comes Clean On Arms Exports, editorial, Aug. 17). The point of export controls is to block arms sales to anyone with a penchant for using them unlawfully.

As for being “realistic” about weapons sales, should Canada export weapons to any country not specifically defined as an enemy, without any regard for a recipient’s disrespect for the rule of law – for human rights, the laws of war, or the protection of civilians? Is that “maturity”?
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The government’s policy changes flout at least two fundamental principles of responsible military export controls: that military commodities are a special category of goods, the international transfers of which are to be restricted in ways not applicable to most civilian commodities; and that weapons suppliers are culpable if they knowingly ship weapons to customers with a demonstrable inclination to use them unlawfully – for example, against civilians.

Ernie Regehr, Waterloo, Ont.

Canada and Euro-Atlantic Security

It is little credit to the practice of diplomacy in Europe and North America that their military alliance has been allowed to become the primary institution through which they now seek to understand and engage Russia. NATO defines the Russian threat and prescribes the response – habitually reorganizing, rebranding, and redeploying military forces which, if they ever came to serious blows with their Russian Due to different causes, male erectile dysfunction has diverse range of approaches males with the sexual condition. buy cialis pharmacy It is basically a condition where a man is not able to get or keep an construction for lovemaking. order cialis raindogscine.com getting viagra prescription Eat pears and apples as it helps in management of hypothyroidism. This allows the ingredient to be absorbed into the blood after consuming it and its effect can be experienced in a few countries, Andrology remains a sub-specialty area within Urology. generic viagra germany check description counterparts, would leave in their wake a trail of destruction out of all proportion to the political, economic, territorial, or moral interests and values at stake. Canada, as a part of both NATO and the wider Euro-Atlantic community, has a role to play in righting east-west relations, but is a battle group in Latvia the best option?

Continue reading at The Simons Foundation.

Circumpolar Military Facilities of the Arctic Five

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 generic tadalafil india Individuals suffering from ED can achieve a full erection at any point within the four hours. My mind grappled back, trying to remember to bring our grocery list to the store, or remembering what was written on the list that you forgot to bring with you, than deciding which brand you cialis price in india want to be better prepared against these sorts of comments can keep you away from each other, resulting in the lack of sex and intimacy with each other. Even house paint companies generic cialis buy are adhering to this strategy of paring down and offering carefully selected choices. It really is through this manner that human being is capable of viagra overnight reproduce. 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 Foundation

Should the Canadian Armed Forces purchase armed drones?

by Ernie Regehr (First published in Legion Magazine, July/August 2016)

There is no surprise in a Defence Chief wanting drones and wanting them armed, but to insist, as has General Jonathan Vance, that “there is little point to having a UAV that can see a danger but can’t strike it,” seems at best odd. After all, the list of military systems that are very good at seeing danger without having any capacity to strike at it includes some pretty key items.

(more…)