The Relevance of R2P in Burma
Summary:French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner unleashed a major, and largely helpful, international debate when he called for coercive humanitarian action in Burma in the name of the “responsibility to protect.”
Multilateralism and Canada’s uranium enrichment ambitions
Summary:Canada has consistently advocated multilateral arrangements to limit the spread of weapons-friendly nuclear fuel cycle technologies like uranium enrichment, but the Canadian industry’s emerging interest in bringing uranium enrichment to Canada will put our multilateralism to the test.
The important and necessary international fuss over Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment technology is rooted in the dangerous reality that the same knowledge and skill that go into the partial enrichment of uranium (to produce low enriched uranium) for use as fuel for civilian nuclear power rectors can also be used for further enrichment and thus for producing highly enriched uranium that can be used to build nuclear bombs.
Accordingly, there is urgent interest in non-proliferation circles in [...]
Canada and BMD: three years later
Summary:It is three years since Canada said “no” to BMD, and it turns out the sky has not fallen in on Canada-US security relations and the US has even kept right on sharing missile threat information with Ottawa.
A recent report in the Ottawa Citizen quotes the US NORAD Commander, Gen. Gene Renuart, as saying that the US military “respect[s] the decisions taken by nations,” meaning the Canadian decision on ballistic missile defence (BMD), and so still gives Canada “full access” to information on missile threats to the continent.[i]
The suggested implication is that, BMD having been rejected by Canada, Washington’s continued willingness to share missile threat information is a surprising act of generosity. [...]
From amnesty to a peace process
Summary:A Peace to Keep in Afghanistan-VII: The Manley Panel said “achieving a genuine and stable peace in Afghanistan will necessitate a more thoroughgoing political and social reconciliation among Afghans themselves.” It is compelling insight but it did not drive any of the Panel’s recommendations – nor did it inform the House of Commons action on the Afghanistan mission.
Will a switch from counterinsurgency combat leave Afghans vulnerable?
Summary:A Peace to Keep in Afghanistan-VI: Beyond Kandahar city, very little of Kandahar province enjoys the day-to-day security protection of Afghan or ISAF forces after sundown.
This week’s vote in the House of Commons to extend the Canadian military mission to mid-2011 includes an explicit shift away from counterinsurgency combat to protection of reconstruction. A serious criticism of such a change, especially if it were to reflect a general shift in the security strategy of international forces in southern Afghanistan, is that withdrawal from the counterinsurgency effort in the south will leave the population there to the not-so-tender mercies of the Taliban.
The switch [...]
