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Paul Robinson
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
Canada's leading centre for analysis and debate of international affairs.
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Author's Posts
Cyber Interference in the Federal Election? Part 1
- Analysis
- April 12, 2019
“We judge it very likely that Canadian voters will encounter some form of foreign cyber interference related to the 2019 federal election.” So says the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s equivalent to America’s NSA and Britain’s GCHQ, in a …
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Cyber Interference in the Federal Election? Part 2
- Analysis
- April 12, 2019
Part 1 of this blog dealt with the fairly generic alarms raised by the CSE regarding election tampering by foreign cyber threats. As far as the specific threat to Canada is concerned, CSE says the following:
“Since the 2015 federal …
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One Thing Trump is Right About
- Analysis
- January 20, 2017
Throughout the Cold War, the amount of military violence worldwide grew steadily, reaching a peak in 1992. A major reason was interference by the superpowers in local conflicts. The proxy wars that resulted when the United States and the Soviet …
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West Politicizes IMF to Support Ukraine
- Analysis
- December 10, 2015
By Paul Robinson
Power is shifting worldwide. As previously less developed economies grow at a faster rate than those of the West, Western states are becoming relatively less powerful. It is in the West’s interest, therefore, to use the years …
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Russia’s Endgame in Donbass
- Analysis
- November 27, 2015
By Paul Robinson
Although in recent weeks the attention of many has shifted to events in Syria, the war in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, has not entirely ended. Fighting continues to kill two or three people each week, and the …
READ MOREDebacle at Debaltsevo Calls For a New Approach to Ukraine
- Analysis
- February 18, 2015
Before coming up with solutions it is first advisable to determine the nature of the problem. Right now the United States is considering sending arms to Ukraine, while here in Canada the Defence Minister, Jason Kenney, has been mulling the …
READ MOREIs 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 …
READ MOREMoral 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 …
READ MOREMedia 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 …
READ MOREPolitical 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 …
READ MOREThe Putin Book Club
“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 …
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Reaping the Whirlwind in Ukraine
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 …
READ MOREFour Myths About Russia
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 …
READ MOREIn Face of Ukrainian Unrest, Doing Nothing is the Best Approach
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 …
READ MORERussia is a Beacon of Sanity About Syria
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 …
READ MOREThere is No ‘Sacred Duty’ to Canada’s Veterans
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 …
READ MOREHow Not to Spend $75 Billion
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 …
READ MOREWhere is Canada’s Ron Paul?
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, …
READ MORE‘Canada First’ Military Spending a Surrender to Bad Policy
Published in the Globe and Mail, February 14, 2013
…READ MOREWe 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
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 …
READ MOREBetter Intelligence, Worse Policy
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 …
READ MORETurning Scientists into Sybils
The full article was published in the Ottawa Citizen, October 25, 2012
Danger is ubiquitous but accurate and timely warnings of it are relatively rare; proper risk assessment is one of the great policy challenges of our time. A …
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Canada’s Military: A Solution in Search of a Problem
If we found a cure for cancer, would we then ask our scientists to invent a new disease so that oncologists had something to do? Something rather similar is being proposed for the Canadian Forces. A consensus has formed that …
READ MOREBringing Russian ‘Liberal-Conservatism’ to the Fore
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, …
READ MOREReassessing the ‘Hearts and Minds’ Model of Counter-Insurgency
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 …
READ MOREWhy the People Wanted Putin
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 …
READ MOREStolypin and Russia’s Veto of the Syria Resolution
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 …
READ MOREObservations on Russian Politics from a Moscow Bookstore
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 …
READ MORENothing Much Will Change: the New U.S. Military Strategy
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 …
READ MOREProtection Racket
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 …
READ MOREWhat Defence Policy is Really About
Forum: DND and Academic Policy Advice.
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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 …Why Israel Made the Deal
The full article was published in the Ottawa Citizen, October 20, 2011.
In 1991, the Italian parliament passed a law prohibiting anybody not only from paying ransom but also from even negotiating with kidnappers. Colombia later followed suit. The …
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