June 30th, 2023
A discussion paper prepared for the Canadian Pugwash Group project on a Peace Table for Ukraine and Russia. Though their land is torn by horrific war, what many Ukrainians fear is an early ceasefire. As deep as the desire to silence the guns may run, it is hard to get past the understandable suspicion that […]
Read MoreJune 24th, 2023
The likelihood of either side in this war ever being in a position to dictate settlement terms to the other is remote, and that means talks are inevitable. Hill Times, Opinion, June 22, 2023
Read MoreMay 24th, 2023
While rising northern tensions clearly challenge notions of the Arctic as a durable zone of peace, current tensions are rooted in fears of a European conflict spilling northward, not in conflict endemic to the Arctic. Two decades of high north military expansion have certainly added to the region’s strategic uncertainty, but even more consequential are […]
Read MoreArctic Security, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
May 15th, 2023
The Department of National Defence (DND) is updating its 2017 defence policy statement, “Strong, Secure, Engaged” (SSE), pointing to a changed “geopolitical landscape” in which threats from that time “have intensified and accelerated…at an unprecedented rate.” Among those rising threats, the Defence Department includes “rapidly accelerating climate change, more sophisticated cyber threats, Russia and China’s […]
Read MoreJuly 29th, 2022
Nuanced changes to the nuclear weapons elements of NATO’s new Strategic Concept do not alter its substance. Once again, the alliance propagates the dangerous myth that nuclear weapons are the “supreme” source of security, doubles down on the threat of nuclear weapons use in response to conventional attack, continues to insist that alliance security depends […]
Read MoreJune 22nd, 2022
Russia’s brazenly illegal war on Ukraine certainly means business as usual is not a serious option for relations with Russia, including in the Arctic. But the effort to repel aggression in Europe should not be the occasion to escalate tensions and reject cooperation or engagement in a hitherto stable region. Given that pan-Arctic cooperation is […]
Read MoreMay 25th, 2022
From the Globe and Mail, May 24, 2022 By Ernie Regehr Russia’s recent threats to add nuclear attacks to its brutal assault on the people and infrastructure of Ukraine is a cruel reminder of the harsh, inescapable reality of nuclear deterrence – the very existence of nuclear weapons carries the ever-present danger that they will […]
Read MoreMay 4th, 2022
The war in Ukraine once again confirms this inescapable nuclear reality – in war and in peace, nuclear weapons impose on humanity the daily, relentless imperative of figuring out how not to use them. Obviously, for no other weapon system is absolute prevention of its use the over-riding requirement. But the international community has declared […]
Read MoreArmed Conflict, Defence and Human Security, Nuclear Disarmament
March 31st, 2022
Canada and all of NATO are necessarily rethinking their security postures in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, with all its ensuing horrors. But the haste with which NATO has come to focus on increasing military spending, in an already heavily armed alliance, ignores the centrality of non-military security measures. Peacebuilding and diplomacy, both seriously […]
Read MoreFebruary 15th, 2022
This is the issue debated in the January/February 22 issue of Legion Magazine, with Ernie Regehr arguing the “No” side and David Bercuson, of the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military, Security, and Strategic Studies, arguing “Yes.” Regehr argues that “de-escalating military tensions and halting the drift toward a Cold War with China are prerequisites […]
Read More