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On Sept. 29, 1941, Lieutenant-General Andrew McNaughton described the more than 124,000 Canadians in Britain as “a dagger pointed at the heart of Berlin.” It was, however, a dagger increasingly dulled by inaction. Knowing this, McNaughton attained authorization from Ottawa to commit troops to “minor”... -
Twenty-five men were executed during the First World War. Twenty-two men faced the firing squad for the crime of desertion, two for murder and one for cowardice. Whether these executions should have taken place has been fiercely debated for decades. While our modern sensibilities likely... -
Those Newfoundlanders who voted for Confederation in the 1948 referendums did so for pragmatic, unsentimental reasons. The country, especially that part of it beyond the Avalon Peninsula, was indigent, isolated, poverty-stricken, dependent on the whims of a fickle fishing industry. Most of these people had never been... -
On its Global Affairs website, the Government of Canada describes the conflict in Syria as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.” It quotes UN figures: 13.5 million people inside Syria in urgent need of help; more than a quarter-million dead, hundreds of thousands... -
Sometimes political leaders do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s 1963 non-decision on arming U.S. Bomarc air defence missiles stationed on Canadian soil with nuclear warheads was a case study in how not to govern. It flew in the face... -
Both sides to this debate seek the same outcome: heightened awareness of, and greater public participation in, Canada’s annual Remembrance Day observances. The question hinges on the most effective means of achieving this goal. By enshrining Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday, on a par...
Face to Face: Is the North Warning System obsolete?
ANDREA CHARRON is associate professor and director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba. The North Warning System (NWS) is a series of ground-based, unmanned (but contractor-maintained), short- and long-range radar stations arrayed from Alaska to Greenland. The system has always suffered from an identity crisis. Its ability...
