The Way I See it

Foto del periódico ruso Kommersant en el quincuagésimo aniversario de la invasión a Checoslovaquia por el Pacto de Varsovia. (este blog fue publicado en la Página Web: https://cdainstitute.ca el 23 de agosto de 2018.) Durante cuatro meses en 1968, fui un pasante en Praga, la capital de la antigua Checoslovaquia, una ciudad de increíble belleza y gracia, a pesar del peso insoportable de veinte años de gobierno comunista. En teoría, cada día tenía que ir a mi lugar de trabajo –

photo from the Russian newspaper Kommersant on the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (This blog was posted on the website of the Conference of the Defence Association Institute at https://cdainstitute.ca on 23 August 2018.) For four months in 1968, I was an intern in Prague, the capital of the erstwhile Czechoslovakia, a city of incredible beauty and grace despite the unbearably heavy weight of twenty years of communist rule. In theory, every

For the UN, the Mali deployment has been politically one of its most important to date, one of its largest in terms of numbers of deployed personnel, and one of its most deadly in terms of personnel losses. At the time of writing, MINUSMA also appears to have been one of the least successful. Overall, implementation of the peace agreement has been slow, uneven and flawed. The ongoing violence has made it difficult for armed groups to withdraw from certain areas, let alone dis

Background In the 1990s, Mali was often put forward as a model of African democracy. It is not hard to understand why. Following an extended period of authoritarian rule after becoming independent in 1960, Mali held three elections as of 1992 in which power passed to the winner. An anomaly among the Sahelian states during that decade, it remains so in several other corners of the African continent two decades on. But in fact, Mali has more in common with its fellow Sahelian s

To say it is too soon to attempt to understand what has happened in Paris – and what may still be happening as I write these lines from Montreal in the early evening of 13 November – is to state the obvious. But amidst these horrific events, here is an attempt to set out some of the parameters. A first question is who the perpetrators are. According to early reports, the gunmen that have perpetuated the atrocities in Paris cried out Allah Akbar as they went about their evil.

Putin’s objectives in Syria have as much or more to do with Russian concerns about developments in the former Soviet Union as with the situation in and around Syria. But the overall thrust of his Syrian campaign can have an impact well beyond that. First and foremost, Putin is trying to project power abroad in an effort to compensate for the fading effectiveness of the model of growth and governance that have been associated with his now fifteen years at and near the pinnacle

In 2005, a UN World Summit that brought together governmental leaders from around the world agreed on a statement that broke new ground in the obligations of states and inter-​state relations. As theretofore, states were to have the primary responsibility for protecting their populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. The statement also recognized that the international community had a responsibility to assist a conflicted state in m

This blog originally appeared on the website of the Centre for Security Governance on 28 July 2014. Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has fought seven regional wars, has had to deal with two intifadas – and now possibly a third – as well as three localised conflicts in and around Gaza after abandoning the territory in 2005. There is not another country in the world that has had to contend with anything even remotely similar. Commentary on the latest conflict between Isr