The Way I See it

In the wake of the coup, Erdogan has thrown down gauntlets to the US and the EU that they will have difficulty picking up. First, Erdogan has demanded the extradition of Fethullah Gulen arguing that he instigated the coup of 15 July. The US is demanding proof. A Minister in the Turkish government has accused Washington of complicity in the coup. Another cabinet member has likened Gulen to Bin Laden. He did not evoke Islamic State (IS) but he could have. At the same time, ther

This piece served as the basis for a presentation transmitted via Skype from Kiev, Ukraine to Kingston, Canada for a conference organized on the militarization of Russian foreign policy in June 2016 Introduction A young state, founded only in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine has since gone from one crisis to another. Its growth pains assumed a new quality in 2014, however, with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the incursion of Russian military elements into Eastern U

How will the relationship between Russia and China affect the future trajectory of Ukraine? This article will appear in a book on the militarization of Russian foreign policy, to be published by the McGill University Press in the fall of 2016. Introduction A young state, founded only in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine has since gone from one crisis to another. Its growth pains assumed a new quality in 2014, however, with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the incurs

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

Think what you may of Donald Trump – buffoon, demagogue, or political neophyte – he has touched some important nerves in the American body politic. As a billionaire, he is independent of big interests’ big money that seeks to capture the agenda of the Republican candidates on their way to the nomination and in the process hijack the political debate as it moves beyond the primaries to the presidential contest. He can therefore attack without a second thought one of the most i

The sixth and ninth of August 2015 mark the seventieth anniversaries of the nuclear bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The total death toll exacted by these first ever, and as yet only, use of nuclear weapons may never really be known. Estimates range from 70,000 to double that number depending on the counting criteria used. Nuclear weapons surely deserve the descriptor “weapons of mass destruction,” but it is also true that the incendiary bombs droppe

In this five-part series, I explore the development and scope of what I have termed 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. Part 4 of this series looked at the West’s strong points. This concluding post examines the other side of the coin. The situation, while anything but hopeless, is rather less than encouraging. Five issues stand out. First, the credibility

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

In this five-​part series, I explore the development and scope of what I have termed 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. Prominent German columnist Theo Sommer, writing in Die Zeit, recently argued that the West had nothing to fear from Russia and should stop “rattling its swords.” With the Soviet Union’s end, he observed, Russia lost one-​quarter of its t

In this five-​part series, I explore the development and scope of what I have termed 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. Three major areas of conflict – or what might be called rings of conflict – dominate contemporary political and strategic developments. On how they develop and interact hinge the prospects for world peace in the face of a possible World

In this five-​part series, Centre for Security Governance Senior Fellow David Law – who is a CDA Instiute Security & Defence Blogger – explores the development and scope of what he terms World War IV. This series is based on David Law’s presentation at the CDA Institute Roundtable “Knocking on the Door of World War IV,” held in Ottawa on 10 June 2015. The Ukraine crisis has given rise to the view that we may be entering a new Cold War. The use of this term raises all sorts of

Image by Dana Dramowicz This blog was originally posted on the website of the Security Governance Group on 3 March 2015. Thoughts on the meeting on the Ukrainian crisis that recently took place in the Belarusian capital with French President Hollande, German Chancellor Merkel, Ukrainian President Poroshenko and his Russian homologue Vladimir Putin . The 11 February meeting in the Belarusian capital with French President Hollande, German Chancellor Merkel, Ukrainian President

Picture from the website www.funnyordie.com This blog was carried on the website of the Security Governance Group on 17 February 2015. Russian President Putin is a crafty operator but he has several albatrosses around his neck. Western politicians need to take this into account when developing their policy responses. They also need to be thinking about how to best shape the post-Putin era. President Putin’s current mandate runs out in 2018. It has long been expected that he w

Neville Chamberlain showing the Anglo-German Declaration to a crowd at Heston Aerodrome on 30 September 1938 If we are honest about our efforts to prevent serious conflict, our track record is weak, to say the least. We fail to prepare for strategic discontinuities. We embrace deals that rest on sand. We often only seriously begin to address threats to our country’s population and material wealth when we no longer have the capacity to do so. A case in point is the story of Ne

This blog first appeared on the website of the Centre for Security Governance on 1 May 2014. Vladimir Putin’s ideology has three basic tenets. The first is that Russia has a right and a responsibility to protect Russian speakers outside the country, no matter what. The second is that Russia’s natural borders have been reduced by questionable diplomatic and political deals that must be reversed. The third is that Russia, like the America he recently criticised for just this re

Scenario-planning is a methodology that can help us think about the different ways the present can became future. This blog looks at four of the world’s possible strategic futures from the perspective of early 2014. As we enter 2014, the strategic landscape seems rather more than a little bit adrift, to say the least. The situation in the Middle East, three years after the beginning of the Arab spring, has gone from bad to very bad to even worse. Increasingly, the pattern see