Military spending groupthink and Canada’s left
Photo by Captain Greg Juurlink/Canadian Armed Forces/Facebook I recently listened to a report on CBC Radio about Canada and NATO military expenditure—hardly a new topic because the Canadian popu...
Alexander Hill
A year later and things are very different in Moscow
Russian military recruitment poster in the streets of Saratov. Photo by Gulmira Amangaliyeva/openDemocracy. I used to have some respect for elements of the Western media. While that respect has eroded…
Official enemies and Western ‘Newspeak’ on Israel-Palestine
Protesters, one holding a Palestinian flag, gather in London’s Trafalgar Square, October 14, 2023. Photo by Alisdare Hickson/Wikimedia Commons. When reading the Western press I sometimes feel like I am…
Bakhmut and the limits of historical parallels
Photo by the 93rd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army showing a destroyed Bakhmut during the winter of February 2023. Photo courtesy the Armed Forces of Ukraine/Facebook/Wikimedia Commons. The media…
Self-determination in Ukraine should cut both ways
The Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, Bulgaria, a day after it had been painted in the colours of the Ukrainian national flag. Photo by Vassia Atanassova/Wikimedia Commons. There…
We need statesmanship, not politics, to end Ukraine war
Minister of Defence Anita Anand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly at the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain. Photo from Twitter. As a military historian…
What happened to Canada’s foreign policy?
United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti. UN photo by Logan Abassi/Flickr. Before coming to live in Canada after being offered a job at the University of Calgary in 2004 I didn’t…