Defence and Intelligence

Watching the Watchers: The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in Action 0
- Analysis
- April 1, 2020
The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has had a brief and tumultuous life. It was under the gun from the start; once its authorizing legislation was passed in the summer of 2017 it had to get up …
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Cyber Interference in the Federal Election? Part 1 0
- 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 0
- 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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Time to Move Past the Errors of the War on Terror 0
- Analysis
- December 10, 2018
The aftermath of 9/11 produced many problems in many countries. Canadian police and security agencies made numerous mistakes as followers and participants in an ill-considered American-led War on Terror declared shortly after that tragedy. The evidence in two public inquiries …
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Thinking with Maps: Geospatial Reasoning in War 0
- Analysis
- October 31, 2018
by Antoine Bousquet

Visual representations of space have long served a role in military affairs, assisting the strategic planning of campaigns, the design and placement of defensive fortifications, and navigation in unfamiliar territory. Yet it is only in the past …
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UK Rendition and Torture: Lessons for Canada 0
- Analysis
- July 18, 2018
The British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has produced two reports on collusion in rendition (the legal term for shipping someone from one jurisdiction to another) and torture operations in the US-led War on Terror. They remind us in blunt …
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In Defence of Liberal Internationalism?0
- Analysis
- July 15, 2018
Alexandra Gheciu, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, and Associate Director of CIPS

At first glance, the recent — unprecedentedly acrimonious — G7 Summit had a silver lining: it seemed to demonstrate that …
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Small States vs. Middle Powers — What’s the Difference?0
- Analysis
- July 15, 2018
Njord Wegge, Senior Research Fellow, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

In early June 2018, Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide expressed in an interview with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) that Norway, as a “middle-sized economy,” benefited from …
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Russian Expulsions: “If there was ever a time for diplomacy, this is it”0
- Analysis
- April 5, 2018
By Jeremy Kinsman

About 50 years ago, Swedish writers Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo created addictive detective stories rooted in sociology. The reader knew who was murdered and often learned early on who did it. The mystery to be solved …
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The West Gets Tough on Russia. What’s Next?0
- Analysis
- March 29, 2018
Canada has now joined an international effort to punish the Russians for their role in the use of a nerve agent to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England.

Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland …
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What Canada Should Do about Russia’s New Aggression 0
- Analysis
- March 16, 2018
The crisis between Russia and the West over the poisoning of former Russia spy Sergei Skripal, daughter, Yulia, and a British police sergeant, Nick Bailey, has now moved to the global stage of the United Nations Security Council. The crisis, …
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From Spy Story to Global Crisis 0
- Analysis
- March 16, 2018
The biggest crisis in relations between Russia and the West since Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine is now in full force. The enormity of the action that led to this crisis — the poisoning of a former Russian spy …
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