The Way I See it

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

On 15 August, the Russian and Turkish Presidents met in St Petersburg. This was their first encounter since their two countries’ bilateral relations went very seriously south after Turkey shot down a Russian jet in November 2015. The two leaders made all sorts of nice noises about their commitment to repairing their relations after the fall-out of recent months. But it was clear that Putin, interested in wresting Turkey from its western moorings of now well over half a centur

Some thoughts on the impact of a Brexit victory for the future of the European Union. The UK referendum on whether Great Britain stays in the European Union (EU) would be an exacting test for the Union under any strategic circumstances. Coming as it does at a time when EU members are engaged in a number of regional wars, overwhelmed by refugee flows, and only gingerly recovering from a colossal financial crisis, Brexit could be the straw that breaks the Union’s back. Great B

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 this five-​part series, I explore the development and scope of what I term World War IV. This series is based on my presentation at the CDA Institute Roundtable “Knocking on the Door of World War IV,” held in Ottawa on 10 June 2015. In dealing with the current challenges to international peace and stability, the West currently enjoys several strong suits. Here are what I think to be the most important ones. First, and most obviously, all the members of NATO and the Europea