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Begin New Search Topic Military Affairs Political Geography Canada Content Type Journal Article Publishing Institution Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies Publication Year within 25 Years

1. The Canadian Armed Forces Primary Reserves and Aid to the Civil Power

Author:
Mike Fejes
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Over the past twenty years, domestic military operations in Canada have seen a dramatic increase in the employment of the Primary Reserve (PRes) alongside the Regular Force. This raises an important question regarding how, in an evolving environment, the PRes can be successfully employed in future aid to the civil power roles? This paper argues that the current organization and terms of service for the PRes are not properly structured and mandated to support any large-scale and sustained aid to the civil power operation - and that this forces Canadians to accept risk when it comes to domestic national security. Theoretically, Canadians have relied for decades on what Sokolsky and Leuprecht have defined as an easy rider approach; where the government contributes just enough resources to ensure that the Canadian public respects and values the military effort. As demands increase, future domestic operations may now have to adapt to a new approach where the criteria for success becomes crisis resolution rather than crisis contribution. By examining the current roles and framework under which the PRes operates, the legal obligations that are currently in force, and the proposal that the PRes assume primary responsibility for domestic response operations, this paper concludes that assigning new roles and responsibilities to the PRes without additional legal obligations will not set the conditions for success should a large scale or lengthy call out be required.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Conflict, and Risk
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

2. Exploring the Meaning of Indigenous Military Service during the Second World War in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States

Author:
R. Scott Sheffield
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This article explores the meaning of military service for Indigenous men who volunteered during the Second World War. At its core, this question can help elucidate what is often the “big why?” invariably asked by people encountering this subject for the first time: why did young Indigenous men fight for a freedom, democracy and equality that they had never experienced? Employing a transnational lens, the article seeks to do interrelated things. First, it examines the meaning of military service for Indigenous men in each of three distinct phases: prior to their enlistment, while serving in the army and in combat, and after demobilisation and transitioning to veterans. Second, this study considers Indigenous perspectives and experiences in relation to, and the broader context of, the non-Indigenous comrades-in-arms with whom they enlisted, served, and sacrificed. In the end, this examination reveals a diversity of interpretations amongst Indigenous soldiers at each stage, but cannot be definitive in the face of such complexity and the ultimately idiosyncratic and personal nature of veterans’ lived experiences.
Topic:
Military Affairs, transnationalism, Indigenous, and Military Service
Political Geography:
United States, Canada, Australia, North America, and New Zealand

3. Embracing Indigenous culture in military organizations: the experience of Māori in the New Zealand military

Author:
Grazia Scoppio
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This article builds on a 2007 research on Indigenous peoples in the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) which identified best practices from New Zealand that Canada could draw upon to enhance participation of Indigenous peoples within the Canadian Armed Forces. Using organizational culture theory as a conceptual framework, this article further investigates the main approaches and practices that have enabled a positive partnership with Māori and the successful inclusion of Māori culture in the NZDF. Specifically, the paper investigates the mechanisms used by the NZDF and the internal and external environments of the organization supporting the participation of Indigenous groups in the New Zealand military. The discussion explores ways in which Indigenous practices and customs can be incorporated into other military systems and protocols. The paper concludes that, among military organizations, the NZDF is a leader in transforming the organizational culture by enabling the organization to embrace Indigenous culture and empowering Indigenous members within their ranks.
Topic:
Culture, Military Affairs, Indigenous, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
Canada, Australia, North America, and New Zealand

4. “Indigenous Communities are at the Heart of Canada’s North”: Media Misperceptions of the Canadian Rangers, Indigenous Service, and Arctic Securit

Author:
P. Whitney Lackenbauer
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This article critically interrogates the assumptions and critiques levelled at the Canadian Rangers by two ardent media critics: Robert Smol and Scott Gilmore. Situating the Canadian Rangers in the Canadian Armed Forces’ Arctic Operational Picture, it argues that the Rangers are an appropriate and operationally valued component of a Canadian military posture designed to address Northern risks across the defence-security-safety mission spectrum. Rather than seeing the Rangers as a sideline to the “serious” military show that Smol and Gilmore would like to see play out in the North, their proven ability to operate in difficult and austere environmental conditions – often reflecting applied Indigenous knowledge of their homelands – and to maintain interoperability with mission partners to address practical security challenges is highly valuable. By serving as the “Eyes, Ears, and Voice” of the CAF in their communities, the Rangers embody federal approaches to collaboration and partnership predicated on ideas that Northerners are best placed to make decisions in areas that impact them.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Military Affairs, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and Arctic

5. “Growing Together”: The Cultural Contribution of Indigenous People in the Canadian Military since the First World War

Author:
John MacFarlane
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
During the First World War the culture of the Canadian Army reflected the society of the time. Today Indigenous peoples are welcomed, their cultural heritage appreciated and encouraged. This transformation of the Canadian military can be explained in part by how our society has evolved but even more by how Indigenous members of the CAF have proven that they can ‘do the job.’ This article presents the perceptions of some Indigenous veterans who adapted, in various ways, to military culture while also retaining elements of their own culture. In most histories of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian military, the focus has been on how the Armed Forces changed them; but after a century it is increasingly clear how much Indigenous people have changed the military.
Topic:
Military Affairs, World War I, Indigenous, and Military Service
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

6. Canadian Dilemma: Is There a Path from Systemic Racism Toward Employment Equity for Indigenous People in the Canadian Forces?

Author:
Carol Agocs
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Indigenous peoples continue to be oppressed by racial discrimination enacted through legislation, policies and practices of the Canadian state, including the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Systemic racism, practiced through institutionalized policies and customary behaviour affecting people working in organizations, results in inequality for some groups and privileges for others. Since 2002 the CAF has been covered by the federal Employment Equity Act whose purpose is to address systemic discrimination by requiring employers to remove and prevent systemic barriers to equality for Indigenous people, women and “visible minorities” and to maintain a workforce that reflects the diversity of the Canadian population. Aside from its legal obligation, it is in the interest of the CAF to recruit and retain Indigenous People because they are an essential part of Canada’s labour supply. However Indigenous members of the CAF comprise a small and marginalized minority within a rigid, bureaucratic and culturally foreign organization. Implementing the Employment Equity Act could assist the CAF to address the Canadian state’s promise of reconciliation, fairness and equality for Indigenous people. This chapter reviews available evidence bearing on the CAF’s employment equity record, which presents a pattern of resistance to the Act’s requirements and failure to progress toward a representative workforce. In the absence of effective action to implement change, the CAF has yet to find a path from systemic racism toward employment equity for Indigenous People.
Topic:
Race, Culture, Military Affairs, Discrimination, Social Services, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

7. Organizational Influence on Individual Perceptions: The social representations of the Aboriginal military in the Canadian Armed Forces

Author:
Sebastien Girard Lindsay and Jean-François Savard
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report, the Canadian state is in the process of reaching out to Aboriginal communities. Public organizations must therefore be actively involved in integrating Aboriginal people into their communities so that they are representative of Canadian society as a whole. The question of the perceptions of Aboriginal employees becomes crucial because it may be a factor that facilitates or restricts the access of these people to public organizations. As such, Aboriginal people have a special, complex and rich relationship with the military. It seemed relevant for us to study the perception of the Canadian military with Aboriginal people. Using the theory of social representations, this research exposes the structure of these perceptions. We have discovered that the military perceives the army through the prism of excellence and legal authority. Thus, the perception scheme is not a priori an obstacle to the integration of Aboriginal people, but there are indeed prejudices and stereotypes on the periphery of the representational structure. These prejudices and stereotypes could constitute an obstacle to the effective integration of this population.
Topic:
Civil Society, Military Affairs, Indigenous, and Social Cohesion
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

8. Geostrategy and Canadian Defence: From C.P. Stacey to a Twenty-First Century Arctic Threat Assessment

Author:
Ryan Dean and P. Whitney Lackenbauer
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Geostrategy can be nebulous in meaning, leading to “concept creep” when applied by theorists. “The concept of geography is perilously all-embracing and, like other factors that purportedly explain everything, has the potential to end up explaining nothing in particular,” Gray warns. “One can speak of physical geography, human geography, economic geography, political geography, cultural geography, military geography, strategic geography, and many more. Unfortunately for neatness of analysis, the geographical setting for international power must embrace all of these.”10Canadian historian C.P. Stacey’s11 approach lends a methodological rigour to avoid conceptual overstretch, while remaining sufficiently expansive in its breadth of interpretation to consider the state actions needed to maintain a constructive world role writ large(clustered around issues such as strategic doctrine, global geopolitical imperatives producing the foci of regional involvement internationally, and global roles shaping how a country should yield its worldwide influence).12Stacey is an original Canadian defence thinker who teaches us that geography matters in strategic analyses and offers a starting point to develop a set of measures with which to appreciate Canada’s position in the international system. Accordingly, we begin this article by outlining how Stacey conceptualized geostrategy in his important, if often overlooked, The Military Problems of Canada.13 Although shifting great power polarity and advances in technology such as the emergence of new and more acute asymmetric threats and new strategic domains (such as space and cyber), require a modest revision of Stacey’s core methodology of military geography, his methodical approach continues to offer relevant insights to the identification and assessment of threats to Canadian defence. Having modernized Stacey’s geostrategic analytics, we then apply them to the Canadian Arctic as a case study. The region is undergoing a massive transformation, with climate change and geopolitical developments ending the region’s “isolation.” Nonetheless, the complex array of variables at play makes it difficult to anticipate what activities are going to happen – and, equally important, whereand when. Our analysis suggests that Stacey’s approach supports official military statements anticipating no near-term conventional military threats to Canada’s Arctic by encouraging a more deliberate parsing and analysis of geographical variables often conflated or overlooked in strategic assessments.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Geography
Political Geography:
Canada, North America, and Arctic

9. Contemporary Strategic Trends and the Canadian Army

Author:
Elinor Sloan
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
This article looks at key strategic trends, the sorts of missions in which the Canadian army is likely to take part over the next few years, and the implications for the army at the tactical/operational level.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

10. Revisiting Africa in Canadian Security Planning & Assessment

Author:
Christopher Roberts and Tim Stapleton
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
During the Second World War, Canadian expeditionary forces played a proportionally significant role in the war in Europe, but, just like the First World War, Canada avoided or was not asked to consider deployment of land forces in any significant way to African theatres of operations. Not since the South African War (also known as the Second Anglo-Boer War) of 1899-1902 had Canadian-raised combat arms units been sent to the continent. Between 1956 and 1969, however, Africa became an active theatre of operations for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), but in substantially new roles: peacekeeping (Suez, Congo) and military training and assistance outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria). Africa was the experimental lab for both of these new taskings, and the first time Canadians served alongside, under, or trained soldiers from newly independent African states. Canada’s early engagement with post-colonial Africa was led by security, commercial, and world order considerations, with the CAF and not official humanitarian and/or development assistance at the forefront. Where commercial and security concerns characterized Canada’s initial activity (1955-1965), between 1965 and 1975 development, “facilitated by, rather than caused by, the public’s increasing responsiveness to the humane internationalism of the era,” came to dominate Canada-Africa relations.1 From one of the lowest contributors to foreign aid on a proportional Gross National Product basis in the early 1960s, Canada had surpassed many other major and minor Western donors by the middle of the 1970s.2 Not unrelatedly, the 1970s also marked a nadir of Canadian defence spending, with the CAF shrinking in personnel, its presence in Europe halved, and its ships, aircraft, vehicles, and even small arms aging without replacement. Under Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, from 1968 to 1979, the government’s international fiscal envelope skewed spending heavily towards development at the expense of defence. Peacekeeping – or at least support for “Collective Measures for maintenance of peace and security embodied in the Charter of the United Nations”3 – that rated first mention in the 1964 White Paper on Defence – dropped to last in the foreign policy priorities articulated in the 1970 foreign policy overhaul, Foreign Policy for Canadians,4 and the subsequent 1971 White Paper on Defence. Military training assistance efforts shrank to a care and maintenance basis in the 1970s, totalling less than 0.25% of Canada’s growing annual foreign aid budget.5 Kilford concludes his chapter on the winding down of military assistance in the early 1970s with the observation that it took thirty years (until the early 2000s) “before the funds allocated for military assistance even came close to the amount spent in the 1960s.”6 These periodic shifts that privileged defence/security over development, or development over defence/security (to use two of the “3Ds” of diplomacy, defence, and development now in regular use), have represented a somewhat regular thematic influence in Canadian relations with Africa. At times, especially during the “human security” era of the late 1990s, development and security were seen as complementary. In the mid-2010s, however, there is wide consensus that security, development, and governance are the three crucial interlocking pillars required to underpin Africa’s economic prosperity, human empowerment, and regional stability. In other words, one cannot be prioritized at the expense of the others if any kind of long-term stability is the goal of local and international stakeholders. Over fifty years of pursuing development and conflict-management in Africa and fifteen years of doing the same in Afghanistan have produced agreement on the three pillars but no consensus about how to go about cultivating them concurrently. Many good intentions around state-building, poverty alleviation, humanitarian intervention, and conflict amelioration have foundered on the shoals of the hard reality of political and economic complexity and vested interests, both local and international. This is the conundrum which lies behind this “African security” themed issue of the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies. It follows a workshop the editors co-chaired, in June 2016 at the University of Calgary, on the precise theme of “Revisiting Africa in Canadian security planning and assessment,” an initiative which grew out of that conundrum.7 As Canada signals it will again increase its involvement in addressing African security and development challenges,8 the workshop examined the difficulties in mobilizing consensus around what Canada and other external actors can and should do, as well as some of the multifaceted security challenges facing contemporary Africa, from terrorism and transnational criminal networks to political elites who are not that interested in deepening constitutionalism. This collection of essays showcases the research and insights of a handful of the over thirty participants at the June workshop.9
Topic:
Security, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Africa, Canada, and North America