Canadian Security Policy Research Articles

Of Canaries and Ropes: Theoretical and Policy Dilemmas Stemming from Canada’s Huawei 5G Networks Saga

In late May 2022 Canada joined its four other partners in the intelligence-sharing community dubbed the "Five Eyes", and banned the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei from participation in its 5G network. This article explains what has been at stake for Canada and other countries in this saga, doing so in a way that emphasizes the tightly intermeshed nature of internal and international security. The metaphors in the article’s title draw our attention to the manner in which Canadian security policy interests have been increasingly affected negatively as a result of high-tech interdependence with China. This paper explores the reasons for, and implications of this surprising denouement of an "engagement" strategy that at one time possessed a great deal of allure in Ottawa, but is now regarded with increasing skepticism.

Communications satellites in Canadian security policy: History and prospects

This article traces Canada’s early interest in space, before turning to its late 1960s decision to focus on a domestic, commercial/civilian communications satellite system in geostationary orbit and the subsequent decline in Canada’s military space efforts. It then highlights the wake-up call of the 1991 Gulf War, which demonstrated the critical importance of military communications satellites to future operations, and the steps Canada has taken to gain assured access to such satellites in the decades since. The final section outlines recent advances in low Earth orbit satellite communications (LEO satcom) and the ways in which these systems can address shortfalls in their geostationary cousins. Drawing reference to a new international security environment, it concludes that Canada should move expeditiously to incorporate LEO satcom into efforts to address the growing imperative of military satellite communications in the Canadian Arctic.

Made in Canada: The evolution of Canadian counter‐terrorism policy in the post‐9/11 world

AbstractLiterature on Canada‐United States (US) counter‐terrorism (CT) cooperation from the early 2000s presumed that Canadian CT policy was driven by US security imperatives and fear, leaving little room for Canada to develop its own path in fighting terrorism. It presumed that: the Canadian government was more worried about the US reaction to terrorism than terrorism itself; Canadian security policy sought to be “separate but cooperative”; and Canadian policy was informed by “wise” understandings of the US. We argue these assumptions no longer hold. Since 2011, with the rise of the Islamic State and foreign fighter activity, the Canadian government took independent steps to address national security concerns in a multilateral environment. We use process tracing to track evolutions in the Passenger Protect Program (Canada's “no‐fly list” policy), showing how Canada has increasingly asserted agency in response to violent extremism. It suggests the prior scholarly consensus on the US role in Canadian CT policy must be rethought.

Passwords, pistols, and power plants: An assessment of physical and digital threats targeting Canada’s energy sector

The study of energy sector security is in flux. A traditional focus on exploring the nexus between terrorism and physical energy infrastructure has given way to a new and specific emphasis on cyber attacks targeting electrical power grids. A noticeable gap in the literature exists in terms of presenting a more comprehensive assessment of the general threat environment. Our paper, and the larger project from which it stems, intends to fill this void and prompt more nuanced and empirically driven research on the topic that informs Canadian security policy. Our findings are informed by interviews conducted with American and Canadian energy sector officials, and a questionnaire carried out with energy sector companies. By examining a broader suite of disruptive threats to the energy sector, we paint a more inclusive picture of the many gateways through which the energy sector could be targeted.

Quality of Life Principles and Canadian Security Policy

In the Canadian security policy domain, the political culture tends to be based on theories and practices that are potentially dangerous to Canadian overall health. There is a paradox in Canada, while Canadians have the “right to life” and most Canadians cherish universal healthcare, traditions of Canadian security policy can sometimes jeopardize Canadian overall health. We argue that Canadian security policymakers should prioritize quality of life principles and reconsider the undercurrents and assumptions of security policy that impact Canadian health. Therefore, our purpose is to question these normative traditions in Canadian security policy and offer the basics for a new security policy framework. Since first principles are the starting-point for any policymaking, as these principles are prior to action and are applicable across a variety of topics, this policy paper will introduce standards by which policymakers should proceed with security policies. Our intended audience is political scientists familiar with political thought and policy theory, so we get right to the point. We will not be defining every technical concept that arises, as we have omitted anything superfluous to our overall purpose. So, what security traditions put Canadian overall health at risk? What are the relationships between quality of life principles and security policy? What would a new security policy framework look like and how could it be implemented? These are the questions before me which we will explore, in order to open discussion on Canadian security policy and health.

Canada and conflict: A hard-hitting look at Canadian security post-9/11, from the Afghanistan war to US relations and Arctic sovereignty by Patrick James

Patrick James Canada and conflict: A hard-hitting look at Canadian security post-9/11, from Afghanistan war to US relations and Arctic sovereignty Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012. I56pp, $16.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-19543220-6Did 10 years following 9/11 do more to shape Canada's security policy than any previous decade in country's history? And has there been a fundamental transformation of Canadian security policy in that time? To argue yes, as Patrick James does, is a bold move (118). Even if questions remain for some readers, this short volume could serve as a jumping-off point for compelling discussions in right seminar at senior undergraduate or junior graduate level.Despite broad title, Canada and Conflict is centred on five specific issues of Canadian security policy (narrowly defined), asking how each changed as a result of 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on US and war in Afghanistan that followed. Analyzed through lens of Canada-US relations, topics are a mix of continental and global issues: border management, Arctic, ballistic missile defence (BMD), and international interventions in Iraq and Libya. In each case, James accounts for policy decisions in terms of four forces: realism, liberalism, the world of ideas, and domestic politics. An empiricist, James concludes that a different mix of factors is determining for each issue. Nevertheless, he sticks to his thesis that Canadian security policy in decade after 9/11 has been fundamentally different from before, and presents his arguments in this light.As a teaching tool, Canada and Conflict is a work of synthesis, based on existing, predominantly Canadian, scholarship and memoirs. Before getting to Canada- US issues, James spends chapters 2-4 reviewing war in Afghanistan from a Canadian perspective. Some of this material is narrative, and at times argument recedes. James' claim, though, at book's halfway point, is that kinetic war in Afghanistan was an influential force that moved Canadian security policy away from a pre-9/11 focus exclusively on peacekeeping and human security, and back to a more balanced position where realist national security considerations are again equally important (64). The author is aware that development assistance agenda came to define Canada's purpose as war went on, with Afghan security needs in a supporting role, but his primary point is simply that Afghanistan reopened within at least some Canadians an acceptance of proactive forceful engagement as a means to advance national interests.James introduces and presents his five Canada-US cases in chapters 5 and 6. Despite book's brevity (seven chapters in 137 pages) and avowed selective focus, a few extraneous points make their way in, such as explanatory material about United Empire Loyalists after War of 1812 (68), and about how Colonel Gadhafi came to power in 1969 (71). James' basic assessment is that Canada-US relations during twentieth century were largely driven by liberal cooperation, with legacy realist forces emerging where interests actually diverged (the Arctic) and Canadian domestic politics intervening on sensitive issues like BMD (85). James recounts political theatre over BMD in Chretien and Martin eras, albeit without delving too deeply into BMD's technical merits as a security policy issue.The crux of Canada and Conflict is question of whether 9/11 transformed Canada's approach to each of issues dealt with in five cases. No one can doubt that 9/11 had a tremendous impact on Canada's security policy environment. James is on solid ground in pointing to urgent need to keep US border open and functioning post-9/11, and steps that had to be taken to achieve this, culminating in current bilateral Beyond Border initiative. One might note, though, that for Canada, this is above all an economic imperative, demonstrating that it is not easy to maintain a narrow focus on issues that are primarily about security, as James sets out to do (1). …

The Cost of Bandwagoning

the morning of n September 2001, the temptation to interpret the attacks as a hallmark of our individual and collective lives, to infuse the events with transformational properties, has been ever present. An Ekos poll published on 27 September 2001 showed that 77 percent of Canadians believed that their lives would be deeply and permanently changed by these terrorist attacks.1 David Bercuson rightly noted that, [as] with all such sweeping generalizations, no one will really know until many years have passed.2 Now, over a decade later, one can examine the effects of these events on Canadian security and defence policy with the sobriety the passing of a decade can bring. One common interpretation of Canada's response to 9/11 is that Canada experienced the events by proxy, through the United States. As Jonathan Paquin argues, Since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, the foreign and security policies of no other US allies have been more affected than those of Canada.3 The United States did not present Canada with a choice. On 20 September 2001 President George W. Bush made his expectations of other nations clear Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.4In this article, I consider the impacts of 9/11 on Canadian security policy and, particularly, the notion that the attacks intensified Canada's posture toward the United States. I first examine the existing literature on the nature of Canada-US relations and Canada's behaviour as an example of or as a defence-againsthelp strategy, because, although theoretically plausible, this characterization of the Canada- US defence and security relationship could use further empirical assistance. Second, I argue that the ways in which states allocate their resources can provide a measure of how states perceive and react to their security environment. In this context, if the soft-bandwagoning hypothesis of Canada-US security relations is accurate, we should be able to trace the pattern in their respective military budgets. Finally, I develop an error correction model that analyzes the dynamic relationship between Canadian and US military budgets between 1991 and 2010. Findings from 1991 to 2001 show Canada's soft-bandwagoning with the US, as changes in US military budgets correlate with Canadian military spending. After 9/11 however, there appears to be a break in this relationship, as no evidence supports the bandwagoning argument. On the contrary, Canadian military spending in the period from 2001 to 2010 seems to be primarily influenced by Ottawa's federal budget variations. These results suggest counterintuitively that 9/11 did not heighten Canada's bandwagoning with the US in security and defence matters, but rather led to a more emancipated Canadian security approach.WHAT FLAVOUR OF SOFT?In its relations with the United States, Canada has two possible overarching approaches, one of opposition and one of accommodation.5 In international relations, these two postures give rise to two distinct strategies. States can either ally against the principal threat or soft-balance that threat by taking actions that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but that use nonmilitary tools to delay, frustrate, and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies.6 By choosing to accommodate stronger states such as the US, states can adopt a bandwagoning strategy either in its hard version, i.e., by directly allying with the source of the insecurity, or its soft version, where support of US foreign policy preferences is only moderate or symbolic in nature.7In Canada, this fundamental dichotomy between opposition and accommodation of a stronger power has structured our discussion on foreign policy. In fact, one could argue that Canada's coming of age at the beginning of the 20* century took the form of a structural discussion between policies of opposition and accommodation. …

Canadian Security Policy

Studies of Canadian security policy have traditionally centred on certain key debates and issues, such as Canada's role in multilateral organizations; its international standing as a middle, model, or principal power; and the relative importance of the United States in Canada's international security policies. With the end of the Cold War, a number of other perspectives and debates took their place alongside these established issues and concerns. These included debates and perspectives on human security, gender and security, and the decline of Canadian internationalism. In recent years, the h September 2001 attacks on the United States, Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, efforts to renew the Canadian forces, and the diffusion of novel international relations theories have allowed new perspectives and debates on Canadian security policy to come to the fore. The aim of this issue of International Journal is to highlight the work of scholars who are contributing to these new perspectives and debates on Canadian security policy. In so doing, our objective is to encourage the growth and evolution of Canadian security policy as a field of academic study. Indeed, at a time when junior international affairs scholars are increasingly pressured to abandon the study of Canada in favour of multiple-country analyses, we feel it is vital to show that the study of Canadian security policy is far from exhausted and remains a worthwhile academic endeavour.Authors who contributed to this special edition were asked to address an emerging debate and/ or offer a novel theoretical perspective on a contemporary Canadian security policy issue. Philippe Lagasse's article examines the record of General Rick Hillier, Canada's chief of defence staff from January 2005 to July 2008. Arguing against those who claim that the general's impact on Canadian defence was largely positive, Lagasse demonstrates that Hillier's legacy is a mix of successes, ambiguous achievements, and a notable failure. Justin Massie's article uses a constructivist approach to explain recent Canadian international security policies that appear to realist observers. To understand these seemingly irrational policies, Massie argues, one must appreciate the predominant role played by three identity-based strategic cultures in shaping Canada's international security policy. David S. McDonough's article assesses how the Canadian military's mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan has affected Canada's international influence. According to McDonough, taking on a significant military operation in Afghanistan has failed to boost significantly Canada's ability to influence allies or shape alliance trends. David Grondin and Miguel de Larrinaga explore the biopolitical governance underlying the North American security and prosperity partnership. Adopting a Foucauldian perspective, Grondin and de Larrinaga highlight how the partnership is propelling continental integration undemocratically through the biopolitical management of borders, mobility, and migration. David Perry's article examines the causes and consequences of the Canadian military's increasing reliance on private military firms. Based on an analysis of the military's future personnel and funding prospects, Perry concludes that private firms will play an ever-larger part in Canadian military operations and that not enough has been done to confront the dilemmas that accompany this new reality. Paul Robinson's article assesses whether Canada should create a foreign intelligence service. Arguing against those who favour the establishment of such a service, Robinson outlines why Canada does not need a foreign human intelligence capability and what ethical difficulties the Canadian government is likely to face if it chooses to build one. …

A History and Genealogy of the Freedom-from-Fear Doctrine

A discussion of the relevance of the human security agenda, and of its impact on Canadian foreign and security policy, is these days likely to cause scholars and policymakers to suppress a yawn. Such a reaction largely stems from a belief that all relevant aspects of the human security agenda have been fully understood and scrutinised. The full story has been told, so to speak. In this paper we argue against the idea that the human security agenda is a story of the past, at least when it comes to: 1) understanding what made the human security agenda possible in the first place; and 2) how the alleged new diplomacy that accompanied the human security agenda was a reflection of broader politico-economic changes within rather than outside of Canada. Using a Foucaultian genealogical perspective, the following analysis provides an alternative account of the origins of the Canadian human security agenda. In so doing, it challenges and adds to the dominant historical narrative of the origins of the human security agenda, produced by government documents, policymakers, and some academic analyses. Specifically, this article presents a genealogical investigation of the Freedom from Fear (FFF) doctrine. The FFF doctrine emerged from a narrowing of the human security concept by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) in the late 1990s. Our genealogical investigation analyses why DFAIT chose to narrow its human security agenda around FFF. Second, the article examines the underlying rationale of this narrower FFF agenda. We conclude that the FFF doctrine was shaped by a political economy of power that existed in Canadian society.

Conditions of emergence and their (bio)political effects: political rationalities, governmental programmes and technologies of power in the landmine case

The landmine case has usually been understood as an issue in which domestic politics did not play an important role. Known for unprecedented worldwide involvement of NGOs, the story, with a complete ban of antipersonnel landmines in the end, was traditionally thought to be the result of successful mobilization of global civil society. While not denying the input of global civil society, I suggest that a crucial moment enabling it to emerge and gain momentum was brought about by domestic transformations in Canada. While dealing with the question of what political rationality lies behind the emergence of international norms, I use concepts from critically oriented new public management literature and Foucauldean analytics of government. Also, two methodological moves are advanced. First, the need to refocus from macro-juridical diagnosis to micro-level analysis of government in Canada. Second, I argue that one cannot fully understand these micro-level practices and discourses without the examination of two crucial domestic structural conditions and their synergetic effect allowing the landmine case to emerge: (i) transformations of Canada's non-profit and voluntary sector and (ii) procedural and substantive changes in Canadian foreign and security policy. What follows is a Foucauldean theorization of the landmine case. The transformations of Canada's non-profit and voluntary sector will be examined through the notion of political rationalities. The theorization of procedural and substantive changes in Canadian foreign and security policy will be understood as a specific governmental programme carried out against the background of a changing security dispositif. Finally, the actual dynamics of the landmine case will be interpreted through the concept of governmental technologies. The conclusion addresses the findings of this article and sums up some lessons of the landmine case.

Smoke and Mirrors: Globalized Terrorism and the Illusion of Multilateral Security

Smoke and Mirrors: Globalized Terrorism and the Illusion of Multilateral Security, Frank P. Harvey, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, p. x, 345.Following the second Gulf War, international observers were quick to criticize the unilateral behaviour of the United States. Without a UN mandate, the allies had undermined the very institution they had created to foster multilateralism following the Second World War. Yet, Frank Harvey makes the case that not only is unilateralism the new trend in American foreign policy, it is desirable in an age of terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Harvey begins by scrutinizing the foundations of multilateralism and their applicability to the post 9/11 world. He concludes that not only is the higher moral ground associated with multilateralism a fallacy, but that multilateralism can be dangerous in an era where rapid responses to security threats are needed. To justify his conclusions, Harvey examines both the buildup to the 2003 Iraq conflict and the issue of Ballistic Missile Defense. He concludes with an analysis of future U.S. and Canadian security policy.

Defending the “Realm”

Kim Richard Nossal is professor and head, Department of Political Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Research for this essay was made possible through a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: grant 410-2001-1075, Culture strategique et grande strategie au Canada, 1870-2000.FOR MANY IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM, security is about efforts to protect the political community against the possibility of predations by others. In other words, it seeks the maintenance of the community's territorial integrity and the protection and advancement of the interests of citizens. In most cases, the focus of national defence is relentlessly fixed on the state and its citizens alone. Indeed, most understandings of defence employ the elementary binary inside/outside division that underwrites most understandings of contemporary world politics.(1) In this view, those inside the state are the proper focus of efforts to provide citizens with security and well-being. By contrast, those outside the state are unambiguously defined as the Other and thus beyond the definition of altruism, to be assisted and defended only if it is in the state's interests to do so. Of course, this relentless pursuit of self-interest, defined purely in terms of the state and its citizens, is a core assumption of most theorizing about international relations, particularly realism and its many strands.(2)In the Canadian context, however, defence policy--at least as it has been pursued by Canadian policy-makers over the last century and a half--actually makes little sense if it is examined using such standard assumptions. It is not that those individuals who have comprised or governed the Canadian polity since 1867 have been any less self-centred, selfish and ungenerous towards outsiders in world politics. Rather, Canadian defence policy can only be understood when it is conceived as a policy designed to defend something more than just Canadian territorial integrity and the security and well-being of Canadians.But to be able to frame an analysis of Canadian defence, we need an ideational construct that goes beyond the restrictive definition of the sovereign state that is imposed on us by most strands of contemporary international relations theorizing. Instead, we need a concept that more closely reflects the way in which Canadians and their governors have conceptualized strategic culture,(3) in other words, what--and who--is to be defended and made secure. In this essay, I propose a different way to capture the broadened conceptualization of the focus of Canadian that Canadians and their governors have used in their defence policy. In particular, I will argue that Canadians have conceived of their grand strategy as seeking to defend a broader definition of political community than just Canada--they have sought to defend a broader realm, and it is only when Canadian security policy is seen as having been framed within this broader definition that it makes sense.I recognize that is a word that long ago passed from common usage, perhaps not surprisingly given its intimate connection to a form of governance that has long been discarded in most places in the world. For the commonest meaning of realm is the jurisdiction of a monarch, reflecting its etymological origins from the Old French reaume, derived from the Latin regimen, rule. While it has evolved a related meaning--a sphere or domain--it is still most commonly used in reference to the monarchy, sometimes with a hint of irony.However, my choice of a term that is deeply rooted in 19th century government is purposeful. While recognizing the word's linkage to a monarchical past, I use realm in this essay with an eye to both its meanings: a realm connotes a sphere or domain that is both a political space and an ideational construct of political identity and community that goes beyond the state as it is usually defined in international relations. …

A Not So Benign New Century

THE TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES in September 2001 led the Canadian government to pay renewed attention to the security of the country and its citizens. Whether to provide enhanced protection to Canadians or to assuage concerns in Washington, the government moved rapidly to improve security at airports and border crossings, to broaden the powers of police and intelligence agencies, to tighten laws governing immigration and refugee flows, and to stockpile antidotes to a variety of biological warfare agents. All of these measures were aimed at combating what were traditionally referred to as 'unconventional' security threats but are now often called 'asymmetrical' threats. They do not, however, significantly improve Canada's ability to confront enduring or emerging 'conventional' security challenges to its interests, rooted in political instability or interstate conflicts in many areas of the world.Throughout the years of the cold war, Canada's international security policy was reasonably well focused and had a fair degree of coherence, largely because there was an identified adversary, the Soviet Union, and a well understood threat, a global nuclear war resulting from a military confrontation between the two superpowers. With the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union, the adversary and the quasi-existential threat both disappeared.Like most Western countries, Canada experienced considerable difficulties in adjusting its international security policy to the new realities of the 1990s. By the middle of that decade, the government decided to adopt a security policy that gave pride of place to the so-called human security agenda on the grounds that 'serious long term challenges are posed by environmental, demographic, health and development issues around the globe' and that the best response to those challenges was to be found in 'the promotion of democracy and good governance, of human rights and the rule of law, and of prosperity through sustainable development.'(1) In pursuit of this new policy orientation, the Canadian government launched a variety of initiatives, which generally garnered strong domestic support and widespread international attention, positive and negative.Whatever the merits of the new emphasis in Canadian security policy, and they are debatable,(2) one of its by-products is a steadily diminishing attention by policy-makers to more traditional security challenges to Canada's political, security, economic, and social interests worldwide. This is not to suggest a lack of awareness of these issues within the Canadian government system (as the Department of National Defence's excellent annual Strategic Overview makes clear(3)), but rather that they have not been given the attention they deserve by Canada's political leadership. A good part of the evidence for this is to be found not only in the statements and actions of Canadian political leaders, but also in the steady erosion throughout the 1990s of the diplomatic, military, and financial resources Canada would need to address these issues seriously.(4)This article attempts to identify and examine a few of the major long-term international security challenges to Canadian national interests and suggests in general terms some of the capabilities Canada will need to address these challenges in co-operation with its allies and other like-minded countries.RUSSIA AND IS NEIGHBOURHOODIn the cold war era, Soviet strength was the primary concern of the West; in the post-cold war era, it should be Russia's weakness. The collapse of the Soviet system left in its wake a Russia beset with formidable problems, most of which have grown worse in the intervening years. The central government is corroded by cronyism, corruption, and organized crime and is daily faced with challenges to its authority from a variety of centrifugal forces. The economy is in a lamentable state: Russia's gross domestic product is smaller than that of Sweden, a country of only nine million people, and its per capita GDP is less than half that of Malaysia. …

Charting Canadian‐European relations in a turbulent era: Staying the course, or bearing away?

This paper examines the nature and substance of the Canadian‐European relationship at the close of the millennium. In broad terms, this paper is a summary of the findings of a research group that sought to situate Canadian interests within the larger context of political change and integration taking place in Europe. The context of European integration and expansion are described, as well as security and economic relations with Canada. MacLean suggests that the cause of change in Canadian‐European relations is based in the structural transformations occasioned by the increasing integration taking place in Europe. He concludes that although this relationship has changed markedly, it remains integral to Canadian foreign, security and economic policy.

The inter‐American dimension of future Canadian security policy

Canada's links with and involvement in Latin America have become more extensive over the past decade but, Paul Dufour, John de La Mothe and James Muffin note, in at least one important area —scientific research and technological development — Canada's relations in the region are weak. The authors examine the new “strategic” understanding of the role of science and technology in foreign relations, the greater need for international cooperation to cover the increased costs of conducting research, and the strengths and weaknesses of scientific and technological production in Canada and the countries of Latin America. They outline the ways Canada could build on its links within the region to forge a mutually beneficial partnership in scientific and technological research efforts that could enhance trade and economic development.

Trends in Canadian Security Policy And Commitments

Canadian governments actively promoted the creation of NATO and demonstrated commitment to an Atlanticist security orientation throughout the Alliance's formative years. The goal of ensuring ongoing yet constrained American engagement in European security affairs obviously accounted for this early Canadian support for the North Atlantic concept. But there were composite motives at play, including a predisposition for multilateralism over an exclusively bilateral security relationship with the country's North American ally and guarantor. The consummate irony, of course, is that Canadian security policy since at least the mid-1960s has contributed to the undermining of the very principles on which the country's Alliance membership was founded. Thus, the muchdiscussed commitment-capability gap in Canadian defense policy constitutes but a surface manifestation of a basic misreading of intra-Alliance political and military linkages that has now persisted for more than two decades. The 1987 White Paper has introduced a measure of belated corrective to the Canadian security policy drift, but it may well represent a classic instance of "too little, too late," especially since it echoes an existing declaratory stance more than it provides a blueprint for a renewed Atlanticist action policy.