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By: Alexander Corbeil Clashes in Tripoli last week between rival militias from Zintan and Misrata highlight a disturbing trend in post-Gaddafi Libya. With the powerful tyrant now dead and his forces thwarted by a combined Libyan-NATO effort, a power vacuum has emerged. The National Transition Council’s leader Mustafa Abdel-Jalil warned that Libya faced “bitter options” Read More…
By: Ben Hartley In China this week, Prime Minister Harper is balancing Canada’s two most important trade relationships as he seeks to diversify the Canadian export market. Once understood as an idealistic and Euro-centric state, Canada has turned to the highest bidder for Alberta crude in the Asia-Pacific region after US President Obama’s recent decision Read More…
By: Amina Abdullayeva Russia has two main problems with NATO at present: missile defence in Europe and NATO’s presence in the Arctic zone. While the missile question is at the forefront of the media these days, the Arctic issue is less acute, simmering in the background with the potential to cause problems in the near Read More…
By: Rodnie Allison In four years Canada will receive the first of sixty-five F-35A multi-role combat aircraft. These aircraft represent much more than a means to regulate airspace or dictate conditions on the ground. They represent a commitment to the NATO alliance structure, the integration of strategic industrial resources among like-minded governments, and finally, the capacity Read More…
In 1994, Nelson Mandela announced that South African foreign policy would forever be guided by the international pursuit of human rights and true democracy. Yet eighteen years later, the country appears to have lost sight of not only Mandela’s guidelines, but of any coherent global strategy at all. In a time when the international community Read More…
By: Alexander Corbeil The Syrian revolution is sliding towards a full fledged civil war as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has stepped up operations this past week against Syrian security forces. While army units loyal to Bashir al-Assad have cleared the suburbs of Damascus of rebel fighters, the takeover of areas on the regime’s doorstep Read More…
By: Rodnie Allison In what can only be considered an unprecedented rupture in Canada-US cooperation on energy policy, last week’s formal repudiation of the Keystone XL expansion project will have significant implications for energy security, and wider continental relations writ large. According to the former president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute, Jack Mintz, the Canada-US Read More…
By: Ben Hartley New leadership in Pyongyang invariably changes the strategic calculus of China and the US on the Korean Peninsula. The appointment of Kim Jong-un as Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army is an important indication of the legitimacy of Jong-un, and points to the ruling military cadre’s interest in maintaining internal stability. Read More…
By: James Marcus Bridger As was the case for much of the Cold War, Somalia once again finds itself playing host to a number of competing local, regional, and international actors. The beleaguered Transitional Federal Government (TFG) now controls the capital Mogadishu, thanks to an offensive launched by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)—a Read More…
Even as the debt crises of Italy and Greece continue and the economic malaise of the “big two” of Europe, France and Germany, has made the headlines in the past few months, Europe watchers may have noticed that the latest region to be affected is in fact outside the Euro-zone altogether. Worries are surfacing that Read More…