Prime Minister Stephen Harper has in effect declared victory in Afghanistan, at least as far as the original reason for sending troops to that country goes. His comments were made during a “secret” visit to Afghanistan on Monday (Campbell Clark, “Afghanistan no longer terrorism threat to world, Harper tells troops,” Globe and Mail, 30 May […]
Archive | May, 2011
Canada and global peace
Canada has moved up to eighth position on the annual Global Peace Index (“Canada jumps six spots and cracks top 10 in 2011 Global Peace Index,” Canadian Press, 25 May 2011): Canada has cracked the top 10 in a global security assessment that ranks countries based on how peaceful they are. The Global Peace Index […]
Budget crunch, Pentagon-style
Only in our neighbour to the south could you find the following two sentences side by side in a news article (Julian E. Barnes, “Gates Says Cuts Would Curb Military Capacity,” Wall Street Journal, 19 May 2011): “The defense budget, including the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently totals about $700 billion […]
Fantino to fix military procurement?
Jane Taber reports on the role of new Associate Minister of National Defence Julian Fantino, who is expected to focus on military procurement issues (Jane Taber, “Peter MacKay gets a wingman on military procurement,” Globe and Mail, 19 May 2011): Dimitri Soudas, the Prime Minister’s director of communications, explained that Mr. Fantino – the former […]
Afghan training mission details
CBC News reports details of the new Canadian training mission in Afghanistan (James Cudmore, “Canada’s Afghan training mission details revealed,” CBC News, 17 May 2011): In a first look at details of the training mission, Col. Peter Dawe, deputy commander of the mission, talked to CBC News about the new effort announced last year as […]
U.K. nukes to balance North Korea, Pakistan?
U.S. aerospace and defence magazine Aviation Week has succeeded in inventing the world’s most ridiculous justification for Britain’s “independent nuclear deterrent”–which is no easy feat given the quality of the entries in that particular competition over the years. According to AvWeek‘s Ares blog (“U.K. Trident Renewal: Maintaining West’s Nuclear Parity With China,” Ares, 19 May […]