Modern War: The Return of the Big Battalions

• Analysis
• January 17, 2023

There are better and worse ways of fighting engagements, wrote the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz. But, he added, these were just a matter of tactics and not what decided the outcome of wars.

The latter depended upon strategy, …

The Disinformation Industry – A Cure Worse than the Disease?

• Analysis
• January 25, 2022

In April last year, several hundred people marched through the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in honour of the SS Galicia Division, a collaborationist Ukrainian unit from World War Two. The event provoked me to write a piece that was published on …

Why Alexei Navalny Has Failed to Spark Revolution in Russia

• Analysis
• February 26, 2021

For the past few weeks, Russia-related news has been dominated by the story of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, the latest twist in the saga being a decision this week by Amnesty International to deprive Navalny of his status as a …

Is Putin the World’s Most Popular Politician?

• Analysis
• August 17, 2014

Reviled in the West as a dictator, Russian president Vladimir Putin is enjoying a surge of support at home. According to the latest results published by polling organization Levada (which is generally considered hostile to the Russian government), Putin has …

Moral Confusion in Gaza and Ukraine

• Analysis
• August 1, 2014

In my last post for the CIPS Blog, I drew readers’ attention to Robert Entman’s 1991 article comparing media coverage of the shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983 and Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988. It is …

Media Bias Frames Western Reporting on Ukraine

• Analysis
• June 5, 2014

In a 1991 article published in the Journal of Communications, Robert Entman of the George Washington University examined how the American media framed international news.  He compared coverage of two similar events: the shooting down of Korean Airlines Flight …

Political Legitimacy Is What Matters in Ukraine’s Popular Referendums

• Analysis
• May 15, 2014

A decade ago, The Spectator magazine commissioned me to write an article arguing that the British government ought to hold a referendum on the proposed new constitution for the European Union. I went further, and proposed that if the government …

The Putin Book Club

• Analysis
• April 3, 2014

“We must love all nations as we love our own,” writes Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov in his 1897 book The Justification of the Good. The “greatness and value” of nationality, he claims, lies “not in itself taken in …

Reaping the Whirlwind in Ukraine

• Analysis
• March 4, 2014

The Russian media had a good laugh on March 2 at the expense of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who denounced Russia by saying, “[y]ou just don’t invade another country on a phony pretext in order to assert your …

Four Myths About Russia

• Analysis
• February 3, 2014

The forthcoming Olympic Games in Sochi have served as a hook for Western commentators to indulge in a prolonged round of Russia-bashing. A collection of negative preconceptions about Russia continues to dominate discussions of that country. Four of them are …

In Face of Ukrainian Unrest, Doing Nothing is the Best Approach

• Analysis
• January 24, 2014

One of the strongest barriers to our understanding of world events is the tendency to view what happens in other countries as a sort of morality play in which good fights evil. This way of looking at the world encourages …

Russia is a Beacon of Sanity About Syria

• Analysis
• September 10, 2013

Published in the Ottawa Citizen, September 9, 2013

Russia-bashing and Putin-bashing, always fairly popular, have been much in fashion of late. Having lived for a while in Russia and before that the Soviet Union, as well as having devoted …

There is No ‘Sacred Duty’ to Canada’s Veterans

• Analysis
• August 6, 2013

Published in the Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 5, 2013

Seriously wounded soldiers should enjoy no special status or privilege with regard to medical care,” writes Michael Gross of Haifa University, who is probably the world’s leading authority on military medical …

How Not to Spend $75 Billion

• Analysis
• June 6, 2013

Humanitarian motives are given as the justification for a whole series of foreign policy endeavours nowadays, from the most peaceful forms of foreign aid through to full-scale military invasion and occupation of foreign countries. How is that working out?  Two …

Where is Canada’s Ron Paul?

• Analysis
• March 8, 2013

Ten years ago this month, almost the entire political establishment of the United States united in supporting the invasion of Iraq. On the political right, one lone voice stood out against it: the then Texas congressman Ron Paul. This weekend, …

‘Canada First’ Military Spending a Surrender to Bad Policy

• Analysis
• February 14, 2013

Published in the Globe and Mail, February 14, 2013

We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, and which will not, through a

Military Keynesianism: Wrong Then, Wrong Now

• Analysis
• December 17, 2012

In November 1906, the Russian Council of State Defence met to discuss its new naval shipbuilding plan, the centrepiece of which was a proposal to build two new battleships for the Baltic Fleet. Presenting the plan, the Naval Minister, Admiral …

Better Intelligence, Worse Policy

• Analysis
• November 20, 2012

Does secret intelligence make public policy worse? At a panel at the annual convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies this weekend, I learned something from one of my co-panelists which made me think that perhaps …

Bringing Russian ‘Liberal-Conservatism’ to the Fore

• Analysis
• March 29, 2012

Russia is back in the news again this week, due to the overheard conversation between Presidents Medvedev and Obama about missile defence, and Mitt Romney’s subsequent denunciation of Russia as America’s “number one enemy”. Former presidential candidate Senator John McCain, …

Reassessing the ‘Hearts and Minds’ Model of Counter-Insurgency

• Analysis
• March 12, 2012

A couple of news items today bring forth contrasting visions of counter-insurgency success and failure. The first recounts the apparently quite successful reconstruction of Grozny; the second, the massacre of 16 Afghans by an American soldier. The contrast makes …

Why the People Wanted Putin

• Analysis
• March 5, 2012

The full article was published in the Ottawa Citizen on March 4, 2012.

‘Svobodnykh mest net” (“there are no free places”)! Of all my memories of the months I spent as a student in the Soviet Union, perhaps the most …

Stolypin and Russia’s Veto of the Syria Resolution

• Analysis
• February 9, 2012

The Russian veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria has had leaders and pundits in the West lining up to denounce the Russians, accusing them of revealing their autocratic tendencies and putting their own narrow trading interests (for …

Observations on Russian Politics from a Moscow Bookstore

• Analysis
• January 31, 2012

While waiting for the Moscow archives to deliver up their secrets last week, I popped into the Russian capital’s largest bookstore, Biblio Globus, to check out the history section—and while there, I took a very quick look at the politics …

Nothing Much Will Change: the New U.S. Military Strategy

• Analysis
• January 10, 2012

The recently-published new U.S. military strategy, entitled Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, attracted a great deal of attention last week, with some critics denouncing what they claimed were excessive cuts in defence spending, and others …

Protection Racket

• Analysis
• November 1, 2011

The Responsibility to Protect may indeed protect some civilians, but unfortunately it also facilitates atrocities against others. Writing last week about the end of NATO’s mission in Libya, Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock proclaimed it as ‘A victory for the …

What Defence Policy is Really About

• Analysis
• October 21, 2011

Forum: DND and Academic Policy Advice.
In this forum, CIPS blog contributors respond to a report written by Douglas Bland and Richard Shimooka of Queen’s University, who argue that the Department of National Defense pays little attention to the views …