4. Programs

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Centre For Disinformation Studies

Beyond the AI Boom: Data Centres as Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Disinformation

As Canada accelerates its AI capabilities, data centres are emerging as important strategic assets, underpinning everything from cloud computing and public services to economic competitiveness and national security. In this article, Dorigen Gray explores how Canada’s continued reliance on foreign cloud providers creates challenges for technological sovereignty and shapes debates surrounding domestic data centre expansion. By examining how foreign actors can exploit these debates through influence operations, the article highlights why building resilient digital infrastructure will require balancing sovereignty, transparency, and public trust.

NATO and Canada

Paying Without Understanding: The Gap Between Canada’s NATO Commitments and Public Strategic Literacy

Canada has finally committed to meeting NATO’s spending expectations, but public support for those commitments may be far shallower than policymakers assume. As defence spending rises and global instability intensifies, Canadians increasingly support military investment while remaining uncertain about the obligations and trade-offs that collective security requires. This article argues that Canada’s greatest defence challenge is not necessarily financial, but democratic: a growing gap between the commitments Ottawa is making and the public understanding needed to sustain them. Without greater strategic literacy, support for defence spending risks remaining reactive, fragile, and vulnerable to changing political and economic conditions.

Bibi Hakim Women in Security

From the Frontlines to the Frontier: NATO’s Future Depends on the Power of Unconventional Networks

Historically, the mobilization of hundreds of Caribbean women into vital Allied logistics and technical roles proved that non-traditional networks are indispensable during global crises. Today, as NATO adapts to a shifting security landscape, the Alliance can draw directly from the legacy of these wartime networks to modernize its recruitment strategies and structural resilience.
Cyber Security and Emerging Threats

Assessing Canadian Nuclear Latency Amidst Declining Confidence in Extended Nuclear Deterrence 

As confidence in American commitments declines, new extended nuclear deterrence arrangements are emerging in the EU. Canada, geographically distinct from this emerging network, thus ought to reassess its nuclear- latent stance. The article concludes continued nuclear latency is the most strategic positioning for Canada.

Tessa McDermid Women in Security

Resilient to the Manosphere: How NATO Can Counter Algorithm-Driven Threats to Women’s Security

The manosphere is a network of communities united by opposition to feminism that has expanded from fringe corners of the internet into mainstream public discourse. In this article, Tessa McDermid presents how social media algorithms are mainstreaming manosphere ideology among Gen Z men, and how this poses threats to the safety and participation of women in NATO’s armed forces and to the Alliance’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) commitments. Addressing these risks requires NATO to update its WPS policy to explicitly incorporate manosphere produced threats, expand counter-radicalization programmes to recognize online misogyny as an extremist pathway, and to invest in digital and gender literacy training for military personnel.

Centre For Disinformation Studies

Democracy and Disinformation, Part 2: The European Case

The European Union has come to treat disinformation not as a problem of false information, but as a threat to democracy itself. In this article, Dominique Arseneau-Bruneau examines how legality, legitimacy, and speed shape the EU’s response to information confrontation and what its experience reveals about the limits of democratic defence.
Environment, Climate Change, and Security Uncategorized

Thawing Foundations: Permafrost and the Future of Arctic Defence

Canada’s Arctic security debate mostly focuses on the visible signs of geopolitical change. While Russian military activity, Chinese interest in polar routes, and NORAD modernization dominate the debate, one serious threat is occurring under Canadians’ feet. As permafrost thaws, the physical ground supporting Arctic infrastructure is becoming less stable. This is not only an environmental Read More…
Environment, Climate Change, and Security

Should NATO Treat Climate Data as Strategic Intelligence?

Should NATO Treat Climate Data as Strategic Intelligence? Climate change is recognised as a major threat that is shaping global security. Rising temperatures and extreme weather patterns are affecting economic stability and infrastructure resilience. As these risks become more frequent, climate data has become an important tool for anticipating these threats.  Climate data is long-term Read More…