April 21st, 2010
A recent NGO conference in Afghanistan, sponsored by Ottawa’s Peacebuild, explored various dimensions of reconciliation and the need for a comprehensive peace process. The following is an adaptation of my presentation on the role and functioning of multilateral military forces in the absence of such a process. While the task at hand is to discuss […]
Read MoreApril 1st, 2010
In 2005 Canada joined five other states to propose a plan to move the four priority issues mired in the stalemated CD into a UN General Assembly process for action. The plan was abandoned in the face of strong opposition, but in the last session of the still moribund CD, Canada suggested it be given […]
Read MoreMarch 26th, 2010
The new US-Russia agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals (which reports say they have now concluded) certainly warrants the Joe Biden phrase for major accomplishments – “a big …ing deal.”.[i] But in one sense it is less than meets the eye. The very fact of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is worthy of celebration. It signals, […]
Read MoreMarch 19th, 2010
The current nuclear disarmament debate in the United States has been given an unusual twist by a group of US Air Force officials and academics who reject the goal of elimination but argue for radical, and unilateral, reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. To say that elements within the US Air Force are calling for […]
Read MoreMarch 9th, 2010
While the battles of the US-led military surge rage with renewed intensity in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, off the battlefield, much of the talk and not a few questions focus on the merits reconciliation. Reconciliation in the Afghanistan context refers to diplomacy that seeks to engage insurgency leaders in pursuit of a political settlement that will […]
Read MoreMarch 4th, 2010
It remains a prominent hope of at least some of those managing the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan that a combination of reintegration and escalated fighting will create openings for the diplomacy that is essential to finally ending the war that, in the words of Prime Minister Harper,[i] will never be won. In the current parlance […]
Read MoreFebruary 27th, 2010
The signs are growing that over the next year there could be an agreement to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from Europe. Both the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review and the current NATO Strategic Concept Review could set the stage for dispatching at least one Cold War relic — namely, the ongoing positioning of US […]
Read MoreFebruary 18th, 2010
The UN’s one disarmament negotiating forum recently seemed set to emerge from a wasted decade of deadlock, but the celebrations were premature. Disarmament is obviously way too important to be left to the Conference on Disarmament, so it’s time to look for another venue – and on that Canada has, or at least had, a […]
Read MoreFebruary 15th, 2010
Two former German security officials have responded, not entirely helpfully, to former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson’s sharp rebuke of the German Government’s call for the removal of US nuclear weapons from its territory.[i] Accusing Robertson of relying on “outdated perceptions” that are rooted in the Cold War, Wolfgang Ischinger and Ulrich Weisser make some good […]
Read MoreFebruary 10th, 2010
When the German Government became explicit in calling for the removal of nuclear weapons from German territory[i] some energetic backlash was to be expected. Now it’s started. Most thought strong reaction to removing the remaining US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe would come from the likes of Poland – an east European country not yet […]
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