“Missed Opportunity”: Operation Broadsword, 4 Brigade and the Gulf War, 1990–1991

The decision not to deploy 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade (CMB) to participate in the Gulf War may eventually be of interest to students of Canadian defence policy. The current lack of available material on this subject will no doubt attenuate such efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief, and very tentative, discussion of relevant factors contributing to the decision not to go. In essence, the following should be considered a “toe in the water” rather than a “headlong dive.

The Military and Security Aspects of Obama’s Pivot to Asia

Rozdział z: The Quandaries and Foreign Development, ed. D. Mierzejewski, “Contemporary Asian Studies Series

Calibrating Official War Art and the War on Terror

This paper comprises primary research investigating contemporary official war art in Canada, Australia, Egypt, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Findings are drawn from fieldwork conducted in these countries during the height of the so-called War on Terror, in 2008 and 2009. My thesis suggests that the degree to which nations are willing to provide military support for contemporary artists, to gain access to the frontlines of the War on Terror, serves as a barometer for how different nations either enable or disable conflict-related cultural canons. I demonstrate that official war art can provide important benchmarks for the value and health of liberal arts in liberal democracies

Learning about America's Best: Resources on Educating, Training, and Hiring Returning Veterans and Service Members

This document provides a quick list of some of the many books, articles, and web sites that offer information for educators, trainers, employers, service members, veterans, and family members. It is part of a series of materials written to address the growing need for information and ideas that can help our nation's schools, training organizations, and workplaces make a welcoming, productive, and satisfying place for returning veterans and transitioning service members

Asymmetry of values, indigenous forces, and incumbent success in counterinsurgency: evidence from Chechnya

This article fills the gap in existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict, indigenous forces, and how socio-cultural codes shape the dynamics and outcomes of conflict transformation. Specifically, it identifies three key socio-cultural values commonplace in honorific societies: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. As sources of effective pro-insurgent violent mobilisation and support from among the local population, these values provide insurgents with an asymmetric advantage over much stronger incumbents. Using the case studies of the two Russian counterinsurgencies in Chechnya, the article shows the mechanisms on the ground through which Moscow’s deployment of indigenous forces against insurgents helped to stem the tide of conflict, reversing the insurgents’ initial advantage in terms of asymmetry of values

Intelligence within BAOR and NATO's Northern Army Group

During the Cold War the UK's principal military role was its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) through the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR), together with wartime command of NATO's Northern Army Group. The possibility of a surprise attack by the numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces ensured that great importance was attached to intelligence, warning and rapid mobilisation. As yet we know very little about the intelligence dimension of BAOR and its interface with NATO allies. This article attempts to address these neglected issues, ending with the impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War upon NATO thinking about warning and surprise in the mid-1970s. It concludes that the arrangements made by Whitehall for support to BAOR from national assets during crisis or transition to war were - at best - improbable. Accordingly, over the years, BAOR developed its own unique assets in the realm of both intelligence collection and special operations in order to prepare for the possible outbreak of conflict

A Force of Reason: Canada, Central America, and the \u3cem\u3eGrupo de Observadores de la Naciones Unidas para Centro America\u3c/em\u3e

Though the Cold War never led to open hostilities between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers did engage in a seemingly endless series of wars by proxy in their struggle for dominance over international affairs. One of the major arenas was Central America, where regional politics influenced by ideologies led to decades of internal and external strife. Yet a glimmer of hope for peace emerged in the early 1980s even though acrimonious relations persisted between the US and USSR. Central and South American governments, with the encouragement of more distant nations, began a process of negotiation that eventually led to a reversal of the cycle violence. Canada played a leading role in providing substantial diplomatic and military assistance. It was not the first time that the country had assumed the role of impartial arbiter in international affairs. However, Canada’s political involvement and its subsequent participation in the Grupo de Observadores de la Naciones Unidas para Centro America presented unique political and military challenges that foreshadowed the tremendous difficulties Canadian peacekeepers would face a few years later in the Balkans