Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shook up his Cabinet, rearranging key members of his foreign policy team ahead of federal elections scheduled for Oct. 19. The move was triggered by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s decision to quit politics, possibly with the aim of collecting a larger pension than he might have if he had waited until 2016. Baird is one of several ministers to depart in recent months, forcing Harper to recalibrate his strategy in what is shaping up to be a difficult election year. Baird’s replacement is Rob Nicholson, who until last week had served as [...]
When Americans think of civil-military relations, what jumps to mind is the interaction of the armed services and the executive branch of government. This relationship is central to American democracy, but also relatively straightforward. The Constitution makes the president the commander-in-chief of the military, and commissioned officers serve “at the pleasure of the president.” Officers follow the president’s orders or are fired. Yet as Mackubin Thomas Owens points out, “Those who neglect the congressional role in American civil-military relations are missing an important element.” In many ways, this is a more complicated relationship, since it lacks the clear chain of [...]
U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has drawn a good deal of criticism for its concept of “strategic patience,” which serves as the core for the recently released National Security Strategy. It’s understandable why the president’s national security team chose that specific language. It is meant to give more gravitas to an approach more jocularly described as “don’t do stupid [things]”—and is supposed to convey that the current management does not plan to respond impulsively to the challenges of the day. In a 24/7 news culture, when demands for the United States to “do something” erupt within minutes of breaking news [...]
