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Where have all the Blue Berets gone?

A recent discussion on the future role of Canada’s military forces demonstrated once again that some of Canada’s most well known defence and foreign policy experts don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to UN peacekeeping. Four years ago, David Bercuson, Director of the DND-funded Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, claimed in […]

Cannon fires a dud at NPT RevCon

“Canada has managed the extraordinary feat of presenting its opening statement to the NPT Review Conference without any substantive reference to ‘disarmament’ – one of the three foundational pillars of the Treaty,” reports arms control expert Ernie Regehr (“Canada’s opening statement at NPT: promoting nonproliferation while ignoring disarmament,” Disarming Conflict blog, 4 May 2010): Actually, […]

Five thousand one hundred and thirteen

For the first time, the United States has formally disclosed the current size of its nuclear stockpile–5113 weapons as of 30 September 2009 (Anne Gearan, “U.S. comes clean on size of nuclear stockpile: 5,113,” Associated Press, 3 May 2010). U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the number, and provided figures for previous years, on […]

Cons, Libs talking about new Afghanistan role?

The federal Liberals and Conservatives are informally discussing Canada’s role in Afghanistan following the scheduled end of the combat mission in Kandahar, the Canadian Press reports (Steve Rennie, “Tories, Grits talking post-2011 role in Afghanistan; combat off the table,” Canadian Press, 2 May 2010): The overtures aren’t formal. People interviewed for this story stressed the […]

Blackwater trained Canadian troops

The National Post reported last week that the Department of National Defence has paid the notorious Blackwater security company, now called Xe Services, more than $6 million to train Canadian troops  (Tom Blackwell, “Blackwater trained our troops,” National Post, 27 April 2010): The department sent a succession of personnel to Blackwater’s Moyock, N.C., training compound […]