CIAO DATE: 04/2013
Volume: 10, Issue: 2
Winter 2008
James F. Keeley, John R. Ferris
Welcome to the Winter 2008 edition of the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies (JMSS). As one of the few electronic journals dedicated to the study of security related issues in Canada, we are pleased to provide a forum in which security issues can be examined and discussed.
Should We Stay or Should We Go?: Canada and Afghanistan (PDF)
John Ferris, Jim Keeley
In coming months, Canadians will decide their policy towards Afghanistan. That decision will be political. One hopes it also will be rational, involving an assessment of our national interests, and the balance between gain and loss. Nor should our decision be determined by the weight of past sacrifices or policy. If we have been doing the wrong thing at a cost, why repeat the error and the sacrifice? The past, however, does show the need to treat the issue seriously, more than we did before we first decided to enter Kandahar in 2003, or to stay on there in 2006.
Carrying the Burden of Peace: The Mohawks, the Canadian forces, and the Oka Crisis (PDF)
P. Whitney Lackenbauer
Scholars typically cast the Oka crisis of August-October 1990 as an example of government aggression against Native Warriors valiantly trying to defend their traditional land from development. When a violent clash between the protestors and the Quebec provincial police led to tragedy, the Canadian Forces were called in to manage a complex internal security operation. This article critically analyzes the CF's involvement during Operation SALON in historical context, and concludes that the military's professionalism, rooted in rigorous training and strong leadership, helps to explain why and how the CF succeeded in "carrying the burden of peace" and restored order without further loss of life. Furthermore, it recounts how, under intense national and international scrutiny, the military won the "media war" for the hearts and minds of most Canadians through its successful media and communications strategy.
India's Drive for a 'Blue Water' Navy (PDF)
David Scott
India’s naval growth has become noticeable since 1998, under successive BJP and Congress administrations. Echoes with Alfred Mahan’s concepts surrounding ‘seapower’ are noticeable. This study considers India’s strategic intentions, naval capability-capacity, and naval deployments. India’s strategic intentions are for a long range ocean-going fleet. Her naval capability-capacity, underpinned by rising budget allocations, includes infrastructure base development, aircraft carrier and modern warship purchase and construction, air reconnaissance and submarine programs. Her naval deployments have taken Indian naval units deep into the Indian Ocean and its littoral; with further deployments into the Gulf, the Mediterranean, the South China Sea and the Pacific. Around this drive, a significant ‘blue water’ fleet is now appearing, to establish secure Sea Lines of Communications (SLOCS) for India’s rising energy needs, to counter China’s growing blue water projection, and to match India’s general desire for a great navy to reflect its Great Power aspirations.
The Weaponization of Oil in the Messages of Osama Bin Laden (PDF)
Mark S. Williams
This paper analyzes the use of oil as weaponization in the rhetoric of Osama bin Laden in the context of the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 October War. Central to bin Laden's own conception of his power is his ability to incite the Muslim community to support his worldview. This is manifested in his messages by his emphasis on colonialism and his appeal to Islamic values. This study focuses on the use of the weaponization of oil in the statements of Osama bin Laden against the West, Middle Eastern rulers, and the American people with the intent of weakening support for the Iraq War. This study contributes to the post-colonial understanding of the connections between colonialism and contemporary conflict in the Middle East.
Lecture One: Strategy and Grand Strategy (PDF)
David Pratt
Lecture Two: Historical and Theoretical Considerations (PDF)
David Pratt
Lecture Three: Canadian Grand Strategy – Is there One? (PDF)
David Pratt
Arthur Bleby. The Victorian Naval Brigades. Dunbeath, Scotland: Whittles Publishing, 2006.
John Beeler
John Beeler is a professor of history at the University of Alabama and his field of research specialization is Victorian naval policy. He has published two books on aspects of the subject, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone-Disraeli Era, 1866-1880 (1997) and Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design Policy, 1870-1881 (2001). In addition, Beeler edited Donald M. Schurman's Imperial Defense, 1868-1887 (2000) and is now editing the papers of Admiral Sir Alexander Milne (1806-1896) for the Navy Records Society. The first of three volumes was published in 2004.