“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.

Incursion at Howz-e Madad: An Afghanistan Vignette

On 20 June 2007, Canadian and Afghan National Army forces supported by Dutch and American air forces conducted one of a series of incursions into the Zharey District west of Kandahar City. This incursion, called Operation SEASONS, was representative of operations undertaken in the summer of 2007 by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in this area and is an evolution from how Canadian ground forces have been employed since they were re–introduced to the region in 2005. This account is based on the personal experiences of the author who observed these combat operations while they were in progress

The Mobile Striking Force and Continental Defence, 1948–1955

The need to project land force power within the confines of the northern portion of the North American continent may appear, at first glance, ridiculous in today’s world. In the early years of the Cold War, both Canada and the United States gave credibility to a land supported air threat to North America and took steps to meet such a contingency. The Canadian response was to configure the small, almost token, active Canadian Army into an airtransportable formation called the Mobile Striking Force (MSF). Some have suggested that the creation of the MSF and its operations in the 1948–1955 period was not only a waste of resources but distracted the Canadian Army from training for other, more important tasks which would become apparent in the 1950s.1 This may be an accurate assessment, but only in hindsight. The MSF did provide many positive benefits within the greater context of post-1945 Canadian defencec policy. The aim of this study is to examine the MSF’s organization, mission and planning in order to provide insight into these positive benefits

Dr. Strangelove Visits Canada: Project Rustice, Ease, and Bridge, 1958–1963

During the Cold War, many NATO governments developed highly secret contingency plans to maintain the continuity of government (COG) during and after nuclear attack. Canada was no exception. COG planning generally consisted of several elements including legal mechanisms and constitutional matters; document duplication and storage; skeleton bureaucracies; dispersion; transportation; and shelter. All were necessary to keep Canada functioning as a nation in the face of an attack by Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs. The most misunderstood element of COG planning has been the shelter component. Critics of civil defence programmes argued that protecting government leaders in shelters and not providing similar facilities to the population as a whole was “undemocratic,” designed to maintain the “power elite.”1 The reality of Canada’s COG programme was quite different from this propaganda line and its ability to protect the country’s leaders in underground facilities was much more limited than alleged. This study will concentrate on the strategic context, physical arrangements and concepts of operation developed to maintain the continuity of Canadian government in the era of the greatest danger during the Cold War, 1958 to 1963

Operational Manoeuvre Group: Operation SOHIL LARAM II, Kandahar Province, February 2008

In February 2008 Regional Battle Group (South) in Afghanistan, based on The 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles supported by Canadian “enablers” and working with Afghan national security forces, conducted a mission known as Operation SOHIL LARAM II in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. A weak NATO presence coupled with a corrupt police force had allowed the Taliban to turn Maywand into a safe haven. Following the dismissal of the police force, Op SOHIL LARAM II was successful in disrupting Taliban operations, reasserting government authority and regaining the confidence of the local population. In addition, the disruption of Taliban forces allowed the relief in place of Canadian battle groups to proceed without the usual interference

Microfluidic Focal Injury Models of Thrombosis and Hemostasis

Current ex vivo models of thrombosis either fail to accurately recreate the hemodynamics and focal nature of injuries commonly found throughout the vasculature or require excess amounts of material. Development of a novel microfluidic thrombosis model has allowed for the measurement of thrombus stability of platelet aggregates formed on collagen from a single non-lethal murine blood draw. It was observed that platelet accumulation exhibits a biphasic behavior, with maximum accumulation at an average wall shear rate of 400 1/sec, with engagement of alpha2beta1 integrin a mandatory factor due to complete loss of adhesion in blood from a knockout animal. It was found that PAR4 stimulation of pre-formed thrombi increased aggregate stability by 50%. Subsequent device designs were made to simultaneously measure platelet accumulation on collagen of eight samples under independent bulk pharmacological intervention. This provided a platform for rapidly and repeatable assessing the potency of receptor antagonists under relevant flow conditions with half-maximal inhibitor concentrations (P2Y1 inhibitor MRS 2179 IC50=0.23 uM, P2Y12 inhibitor 2-MeSAMP IC50=2.56 uM) comparable to published data, while an enzyme commonly used failed to have any effect due to transport limitations. Finally, investigation into the effects of tissue factor initiated coagulation in addition to collagen-induced platelet accumulation and activation revealed a number of technical hurdles required for further experimentation. The use of custom functional liposomes as linkers for surface immobilization provides a platform for careful titration of active tissue factor onto a surface at high densities (up to 35 active tissue factor molecules per um^2) for illumination into the role and extent of thrombin and fibrin formation during hemostatic injury. Additionally, geometries akin to late stage atherosclerotic vessels open the possibility of shear history affecting the growth and stability of platelet thrombi formed on collagen. Investigation of bulk phase shear-mediated von Willebrand Factor conformational changes could illuminate both mechanistic processes involved in pathological thrombosis and provide a basis for new biomarkers for patients at risk for a catastrophic thrombotic event