CIAO DATE: 05/2013
Volume: 12, Issue: 1
Fall 2009
Editorial (PDF)
Terry Terriff, John Ferris, Jim Keeley
This issue of The Journal of Military and Strategic Studies presents five articles. Andrew Richter examines strains in the Canada-US defence relationship, and its future. Stephen Clarkson and Erin Fitzgerald take a constructivist look at that relationship, asking how Canada helps to construct US military power. Daniel Kielstra looks at the Canadian involvement in the Cyprus conflict in 1974. John Hickman discusses changes in Japanese treatment of prisoners of war during the inter-war period. Esteban Dalehite and Liucija Birskyte assess factors that affect the willingness to of individuals to perform military service in the United States. Finally, a timely addition to this issue is a commentary by Michael Zekulin, probing the security challenges facing the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
Olympic Security: Assessing the Risk of Terrorism at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games (PDF)
Michael Zekulin
The Olympic Winter Games are coming to Vancouver Canada in February 2010. This paper dissects and examines the challenges facing those responsible for planning and implementing security at the Games. It identifies three specific challenges which previous Olympic security planners have faced including: logistical challenges, inter-agency cooperation and a dependence on volunteers. Following an explanation of these issues, each one is examined in the context of the Vancouver experience. This paper finds evidence to support the contention that the challenges associated with Olympic security planning generally, coupled with issues unique to the Vancouver Games may affect security at the Games. It suggests that while a large scale attack by international terror groups such as al-Qaida appears unlikely, the threat of smaller scale attacks or disruptions from domestic groups remains a possibility.
A Special Military Relationship? Canada's Role in Constructing US Military Power (PDF)
Stephen Clarkson, Erin Kelly Fitzgerald
Since World War II, the United States’ military capabilities have surpassed those of any other country. However, its room for manoeuvre is not infinite. Through their interactions with the United States, other countries provide assistance for and place limitations on it. Given its medium-sized economy and its supportive but not uncritical strategic assistance, Canada can be seen to have made a significant contribution to American offensive capacity at certain historical moments. In the realm of continental defence, however, no other country has played a more important role. By virtue of geographic contiguity to its southern neighbour, Canada is uniquely placed to serve either as a buffer against external threats to the United States or as a conduit of insecurity. Its participation (or lack thereof) in US continental defence initiatives lowers or raises the costs of US security. This paper will explicate whether Canada plays a role in assisting the US in its overseas operations and in providing for US security against continental threats – ranging from the Axis Powers to the Soviet Union to terrorist cells – and if so, to what extent.
Shared Sacrifice? An Inquiry into the Willingness to Perform Compulsory Military Service (PDF)
Esteban G. Dalehite, Liucija Birskyte
The recurring debate over mandatory military service has been revived as the U.S. all-voluntary military force is stretched to its limits in the war on terrorism. With the purpose of shedding light on preferences for compulsory military service, this article presents an inquiry into the characteristics of individuals that are more willing to perform compulsory military service. Using a national data set on high school students, one of the main insights derived from this study is that the characteristics of high school students willing to perform compulsory military service agree substantially with known characteristics of military recruits. In other words, high school students favour compulsory service in the military if they already have a predisposition to enter the military voluntarily. The research shows that the person who may be more willing to perform compulsory military service has the following characteristics: Parent in the military, low socio-economic status, conservative, male, and from the Mountain, Pacific, and Southern regions of the United States. Regional variations in willingness to perform compulsory service appear, in part, to capture regional variations in religiosity.
Explaining the Interbellum Rupture in Japanese Treatment of Prisoners of War (PDF)
John Hickman
A puzzle is presented by the interbellum difference in the Japanese treatment of prisoners of war from faithful adherence to flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. This article first analyzes versions of the indoctrination in brutality thesis appearing in works of popular and scholarly history before articulating two constructivist accounts that explain the interbellum rupture. Where one constructivist account focusing on national political elites explains non-adherence yet fails to assign policy making responsibility to agents with power over prisoners of war, a second constructivist account focusing on theatre military elites both explains non-adherence and assigns the policy change responsibility to agents with power over prisoners of war.
Taking Care of Business: Canada's Forgotten Cold War Conflict in Cyprus, July-August, 1974 (PDF)
David A. Kielstra
Canada’s response to the Cyprus crisis of 1974 represents a little known event in Canadian Cold War peacekeeping history. Following a coup on the island, two NATO allies were on the verge of war while the United Nation’s Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) wrestled to deal with the unfolding crisis. This paper places the experiences of Canada’s contingent in UNFICYP alongside Canada’s domestic response for a holistic assessment of Canada’s Cyprus actions. Unique material including veteran interviews, diplomatic documents, and UN radio logs also provide a more personal narrative. It was determined that the more robust form of peacekeeping practiced in Cyprus was a key measure to prevent further violence. Canada’s decision to dramatically bolster its UNFICYP presence through reinforcements and heavy weaponry also challenges the long-held assumption of a Trudeau-era withdrawal from international commitments. The Cyprus crisis clearly represents an assertive step forward for Canadian peacemaking on the world stage during the Cold War.
Permanent Allies? The Canada-US Defence Relationship (PDF)
Andrew Richter
The Canada-US defence relationship is at a crossroads. While the two countries have been close allies since before World War II, a series of disputes and developments over the past few years have raised new tensions in the relationship. This paper will look at two such issues -- the 2005 Canadian decision to decline participation in the US missile defence program, and Canada's low level of military expenditures and the effect it has had on the Canadian Forces (CF). The paper concludes that while the relationship is declining, some recent positive developments provide some hope going forward.
Canada's Army - Post Peacekeeping (PDF)
MGen. Lewis MacKenzie (ret'd)
Canadians have been comfortably living with the myth of Canada as a peacekeeping nation since the Suez Crisis of 1956. The myth is so compelling that many, too many, actually insist that our current role in Afghanistan is peacekeeping in the Pearsonian tradition. Faced with this durable myth the restructure, expansion and reequipping of our Army is made all the more politically challenging. Of all the countries in the world that would benefit from maintaining "an Army afloat", Canada stands at the head of the list. Paradoxically, unification and integration foisted on the Canadian Forces in the 70s has stood in the way of this imaginative development.
War Poems (PDF)
Suzanne Steele
Suzanne Steele is an award-winning poet/writer (diploma for excellence, Scottish International Poetry Award, short-list Robert Louis Stevenson Award for Literature, National Library of Scotland/Scottish Arts Council), member of the Scottish School of Poets, Edinburgh, Banff Writers Studio 2006, St. Peter’s Artist Colony, and guest Raving Poet. She is widely published and has read in Canada and the U.K., on the CBC and other radio stations. Her blog, poems and contact information can be found at www.warpoet.ca.
Benjamin P. Nickels
Ravi Rikhye