Seven Years of CDSN-Ing? Not Over Yet

 Yesterday, April fools day, the Canadian Defence and Security Network helped the Embassy of Türkiye hold an event about the future of NATO.  Türkiye is the host of the next NATO summit (if it happens, see my next post), and they wanted to have an event in Ottawa to help set up the forthcoming event.

This event happened precisely day after our seven year SSHRC Partnership Grant officially ended.  Seven years ago, the PG grant funded the creation and operation of the CDSN.  It is a seven year grant, so I wanted to mark the official end of it.  To be clear, this is not the end of the CDSN.  We have DND funding via a MINDS Collaborative Grant to continue operating until at least January 2027 and perhaps another 18 months beyond that.  Moreover, we are waiting for the news about CDSN 2.0: the Civil-Military Relations Network.  We couldn't simply ask to be renewed--the SSHRC requires any 2.0 of a PG to be different--bigger/narrower, more ambitious/more focused. The CMRN will include more partners from around the world (bigger/more ambitious) and focus on civilian control of the armed forces at a moment were politicization of the armed forces is a significant danger to many democracies (narrower/more focused).  The odds of getting this second PG grant are quite good given the reviews of the earlier stages we have received, given the moment we are in, and given that the SSHRC is apparently funding more of these projects.  

Back to the event, we got asked by the embassy to help organize this event as we did something similar last year for the Embassy of the Netherlands in advance of the NATO summit in The Hague.  The CDSN has done a great many things over the past seven years (see below) with helping embassies in Ottawa connect with Canadians one of the frequent but unanticipated efforts.  Our grant application didn't have anything proposed in this vein, but by creating a comprehensive, national network linking academic institutions with military and government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and firms and having great staff, we have developed a reputation for reliably facilitating these kinds of events.  The grant funds, among other things, two amazing staffers, Melissa Jennings and Sherry LaPlante, and a rotating team of graduate student assistants, so we have much capacity to do things that were beyond the scope of the original grant.  

What have we been doing over the past seven years?  Well, we will put out the full and official final report this summer, but I can listicle:

• Five Summer Institutes that have helped to bridge the divides between the worlds of the academy, military, and government (it would have been six if not for the pandemic).
• Seven Podcast programs. We had planned on one and then in partnership with the Network for Strategic Analysis we started a podcast in French and then it exploded from there to creating our own podcast network
• Seven Capstones where we brought together the best speakers from our partners' events to network with each other and to help our partners extend their events beyond the time and place of the original conference or panel or whatever.
• Six Post-Docs: Linna Tam-Seto, Johanna Masse, Thomas Hughes, Ryan Atkinson, Manu Ramkumar, and Sanjida Amin.  They all brought much energy and intelligence and creativity to our events and activities.  Linna and Thomas are now co-hosts of our BattleRhythm podcast, and Manu is destined for podcast greatness if we get the next grant
• Annual Year Ahead Conferences helping those in the capital anticipate the events and dynamics in the near future.
• Several Book Workshops helping emerging scholars get feedback and publish their work.  
• About a dozen Undergraduate Excellence Scholars, which was an effort to encourage undergraduates from historically excluded communities to get more involved in defence and security. 
• A heap of surveys as we did both traditional surveys about Canadian attitudes about defence and security and survey experiments to assess, for instance, what forms of discrimination most greatly impact attitudes about the CAF. 
• Four research teams producing several books, heaps of articles, many papers on military personnel, security, operations, and civil-military relations. 
• and a whole lot more, including two MINDS Network Grants that expanded the areas of our research to include global health, supply chains, domestic operations, and climate security.

For the initial grant, we had to establish our objectives:

• Creating a coherent, world-class network. ✅
• Advancing the body of knowledge✅
• Tailoring research initiatives, directly informing policymaking✅
• Facilitating cross-sector information and data sharing✅
• Improving the defence and security literacy of Canadians✅
• Building the next generation of experts with an emphasis on equity, diversity, and inclusion.

As the✅'s indicate, I think we have achieved our objectives.  As Melissa put it in our first webpage, we sought to Research, Connect, and Amplify, and we did that in a big way.  We maintained our independence as we didn't receive any defence contractor money, and we consisitently spoke truth to power.  The best example of that might have been my op-ed calling for the firing of the Minister of National Defence in 2021 at the same time we had a grant application under review at the Department of National Defence.

 I am very grateful to the entire CDSN team and network.  I learned a lot, mentored a lot of students and emerging scholars, made a lot of new friends, got to travel a bunch, and I am pretty sure that the CDSN will be the most important thing I will have done in my career.  Some folks asked me about the Partnership Grant process, and when I told them about it and that I was working with the team to do it again, they noted that I must like this stuff.  Indeed, I do.  It has been a lot of work, but it has been incredibly meaningful. 

So, I hope to hear good news soon so that we can do this again for another seven years. 

 

Seven Years of Activities and Research: Presented and Celebrated

Last month, we celebrated seven years of CDSN-ing.  Our seven year grant ends in March,* so we held a Symposium on Monday focusing on our various activities and we filled our annual Year Ahead conference with our research teams presenting the culmination of their reserach projects.

Both days were terrific, and overall, it was a blast, as I learned a lot and I enjoyed how much everyone appreciated all the work we all did over the grant's timeframe.   

Our first day started with a roundtable about partnership, appropriately enough.  We had speakers from across the defence and security community: Caroline Leprince of DND, Cesar Jaramillo formerly of Project Ploughshares, Adam McCauley of CANSOFCOM, and our Visiting Defence Fellow Shawn Guilbault.  We talked about the challenges of bringing together actors with different perspectives, what each needs from and contributes to our partnership, and how we can better bridge the various gaps.

The second session focused on our post-docs--formerly (or still) emerging scholars who spent a year at one of our research centres, receiving mentoring on their research as well as much professional development and networking.  Linna Tam-Seto and Thomas Hughes now co-host our Battle Rhythm podcast, Manu Ramkumar may be doing similar stuff in the future, and Sanjida Amin is our current post-doc.  It was great to hear what they got out of the experience with us, and I am grateful for the insights and energy they brought the CDSN.  

The third session focused on our podcast network.  We started out with just one podcast on someone else's network, and now we have seven programs on the CDSN podcast network.  So, we talked about what each program was trying to achieve and what they learned along the way.  I chatted with Hannah Christensen of the NATO Fieldnotes podcast, Frieda Garcia Castellanos of Bylines and Frontlines from Women in International Security-Canada, and ....  They came to the podcast network in different ways, so it was really interesting to learn what they had picked up and what they wanted to do next.

The fourth session featured the victims of our book workshops--emerging scholars who had their books collaboratively scrubbed by local colleagues and experts the CDSN brought in. Stephanie Martel, Sara Greco, and Thomas Hughes spoke about their experiences with Srdjan Vucetic moderating the panel.   

Our fifth session had our past and present Undergraduate Excellence Scholars discuss their experiences.  Our aim was to include undergrads from historically excluded groups more involved in our network and in the Canadian defence and security community.  Chimdinma Chijioke, Armon Jeffries, Stella-Luna Ha, and Bianca Siem did different things, some were more involved in our stuff, some less so, some have moved on to graduate programs in defence and security, others are now employed in this sector, and some found work elsewhere.  This effort was not part of the original grant, but became a key CDSN activity as we realized we could do more to help foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable network and community.  These folks proved that our modest investment was well worth it.

The last panel of the day focused on what the CDSN Co-Directors learned from seven years of partnership, research, and my nagging for reporting.  Anessa Kimball, JC Boucher, and Stefanie von Hlatky were instrumental in our success partly because none were shy about telling me and the rest of the team what we could do better/differently, and this roundtable illustrated that nicely.

That evening, we had a wonderful reception that helped to celebrate our accomplishments and continue the networking that has been both vital to our efforts and helpful to the individuals who found us along the way.

The second day of CDSN fest was a twist on our yearly Year Ahead conference.  Usually, we ask our partners in the defence and security community about the issues that most concern them in the near future--the year ahead--and then organize panels around those issues.  This year, we did something different--we had our SSHRC-funded research teams present on some of the stuff they learned over seven years of research.

The first panel was our Operations theme--what is the CAF doing in the world and what are we learned about it.  Alex Moens presented the state of the NATO Field School, which has been his passion project for at least a decade.  Andrea Charron discussed the challenges of US-Canadian relations as it affects continental defence, which spoke nicely with Stéphane Roussel's analysis of the efforts to develop greater autonomy from the US.

The next session was our Civil-Military Relations theme organized and moderated by JC Boucher.  Nik Nanos, a key partner, focused on the trends he found in the polling he has done with us.  Alexandra Richards discussed  her research on how the different generations of Canadians vary in how they see defence and security issues.  Caroline Elie from DND's Public Affairs spoke about the challenges of informing Canadians about defence even as it becomes a very high priority and very salient issue. 

The third session was a keynote speaker: LGen Stephen Kelsey, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff.  He did an excellent job of providing a short talk that gave us lots of time and material to spawn a really fascinating Q&A.  

The fourth session was our Security theme roundtable.  It was interesting to see how much of the focus was on NATO as our original intent with this theme was to ponder a variety of conceptions of security.  Srdjan Vucetic addressed what would endure from Trump's NATO skepticism.  Maxime Philaire presented on defence cooperation beyond treaties.  Anessa Kimball considered the credibility of NATO's new 5% standard on military spending.  

Our last session focused on our military personnel theme, which was really the most timely as their work got underway before the abuse of power crisis that dominated the CAF from 2021 onwards.  Irina Goldenberg addressed the reserves, which has gotten more attention as of late.  Stéfanie von Hlatky discussed the efforts to broaden the CAF to be more inclusive.  Linna Tam-Seto discussed the transition of military people to civilian life.  Joakim Berndtsson addressed the total defence idea that is so real in Sweden and, in my words, pretty imaginary in the Canadian case.  

We had one last CDSN 1.0 dinner to mark the occasion with most co-directors, staff, and myself celebrating seven years of researching, connecting, and amplifying.  We recognized each person's
contribution with a CDSN shirt with an affectionate nickname on the back.  Our post-docs, Manu and Thomas, came up with this one for me and it is perfect:

    

 I am so very grateful to everyone involved in the CDSN--the staff, the co-directors, the students, the partners, the participants, and everyone else.  The seven years flew by because everything was so very interesting and fun and engaging.  I learned a great deal about Canadian defence and security, about partnerships, about administering and leading, about reporting, and much, much more.  Thanks again!

 

 

*  As I mentioned last summer, we have applied for a new grant that would extend the CDSN's life another seven years. Given the relevance of the grant's focus, civil-military relations, and our proven ability to deliver (see above), we feel our chances are very good.  We do have a MINDS network grant that will continue our operations until the end of 2026 and maybe beyond that, but that program is under review. So, our best chance of keeping this thing going is with SSHRC.  

A Day at DND HQ

The CDSN Summer Institute made its annual stop at DND HQ.  This has been a highlight
of each SI, moving from a couple of briefings in a morning to several over the course of a day to eight this year.  Since this is now an annual event with similar or even the same speakers, I can get an idea of where things are generally headed.  Since last year, we have a new government although not a new party in power, we have a new President in the US, and we have the same wars and hot spots to a large degree.  So, much foddre for comparison, and comparison not the thief of joy (that would be envy) but a source of much joy and insight.

The briefings were held under Chatham House Rule, so I cannot attribute any statement to any speaker, but I can give the gist.  To be clear, this was one of those events with the Rule is most helpful, as the folks were generally quite forthcoming saying stuff that they could not say in public.  I was actually pretty surprised by some of the things that were admitted, like an honest take on the readiness of the CAF.   

The biggest difference between last year and this year: the military is getting money and spending it.  So much discussion of 2% as a real thing, which was not the case last summer.  One service's* briefing, for example, was much less about regrets about what they could not do and more about reorganizing/reconceptualizing the balance of activities given that they have some of the resources they need to do stuff.   But to be clear, the goal might be to getting things to be adequate rather than excellent--that our bases would have drinkable water, not that we about to have all the stuff necessary to fight and win against Russia.

A second big difference was a recurrent theme of sovereign capabilties/strategic autonomy.  This is the Trumpness of it all--that Canada needs to build in Canada, that Canada needs to be less dependent on the US for stuff. However, still a lot of emphasis on stuff still doing well at working level, and I wonder, always, whether wishful thinking is coloring this since the working level stuff can be turned off at any moment and especially when Canada is in a difficult spot.   

One consistency that is inconsistent--that Canadians want the military to domestic operations and the military don't.  While the priorities of Canada first and then Europe and then Indo-Pac showed up in most slides regardless of service or civ vs mil, what they mean by Canada is not domestic crisis ops but defending the north from imaginary overinflated threats.  Oh and South America--not on the list of priorities--not surprising but always notable.  For me, the big missing piece, and it is less of a DND/CAF thing than a Canada thing, is the far right threat.  I think if we had this briefing in 2004, Al Qaeda would have been mentioned.  In 2014: ISIS.  Now?  Hmmmm.

 Speaking of the Arctic, well, oh my.  So, yes, Russia and China are doing stuff up north, but this does not really threaten the peoples up north.  But since those folks are aware of Russia in Ukraine and China towards Taiwan, when the Canadian government promotes threats to the Arctic so that the public supports more defence spending, the government is scaring, rather than reassuring, the northern communities.  While I have always been an Arctic Security skeptic--that the threat is overinflated--I hadn't realized that one of the consequences of threat inflation has been to upset the folks up north.

Golden dome came up here and there.  My big question--what does Trump's $61b mean for Canada--was not clearly answered, and I don't blame the folks who talked to us.  BUT the fun coincidence is that our current planned outlay for NORAD modernization is C$82b or so over 20 years, which is about US$62b.  It is fun, isn't it?  

One thing that was an undercurrent of the briefings is humility--there is only so much Canada can do.  Given the shortages in personnel (Navy leads by being short 23%), the CAF can't do everything.  The Latvia deployment is the show for the army, with 1650 or so troops.  This was a fun number for me, since our promise to NATO is 2200 or so.  Which means we can get up to 2,200 for exercises, imitating our allies who surge troops in when they feel like. The problem, of course is that if the balloon goes up, it will be very hard or impossible for Canada to send more troops into a very hostile airspace.  The last couple of days, I have been asked whether Canada could contribute to a peacekeeping/security guarantee mission to Ukraine if Russia and Ukraine stop fighting.  Putting aside the unlikelihood of a deal and that Putin would oppose NATO troops being part of such a thing, can Canada send troops to such a mission?  Only if Canada gets out of the Latvia business or at least cuts it quite significantly.  So, probably not is my answer.

 One tidbit that reminds us how limited Canada is: we have defence attachés in 44 countries, which means that more than half of our embassies either have a remote attachés or none at all (Canada has something like 110 embassies, which also means almost half the world has no Canadian ambassador/embassy).

Finally, the Carney campaign promised a defence procurement agency, and we haven't heard much about it.  But it does seem like it may actually become a reality but not quickly.

So, it was a terrific day in a great week, and we definitely drank from the firehouse.   Much to think about.  I am very grateful to the SSHRC and MINDS grant programs that made this week possible and to the Public Affairs group at DND for facilitating this day.  Our participants got a lot out of it, and so did I.

 

* The military refers to each branch/service as an environment--army-land, navy-sea, air force-air--but I find it it awkward and I am stuck in my ways. 

Looking for Upside? CDSN's Domestic Ops Rock

Niru, Manu, and some of the other participants.
The post workshop dinner is not way we do this
but it is not not why we do this.

 This has been a crushing few days, and the hits will keep on coming.  But I can take some solace from the work we have been doing over the past few years.  Three years ago, the CDSN received funding from the Department of National Defence's MINDS program to address "Global Emergencies and Canadian Resilience."  That year, the MINDS program wanted research networks that addressed, among many other challenges/priorities, global health, supply chain vulnerability, the new NATO climate security centre of excellence, and domestic emergency operations.  We are coming to the end of this three year grant, and our next MINDS network grant application will focus on other stuff as DND's priorities have shifted.

 

Our CDSN Post-Doc,
Manu Ramkumar gave a
great talk on the
Singapore case

So, this was the last of the three workshops in Toronto run by Nirupama Agrawal, a professor of disaster management at York University, on what we can learn from Canada's domestic emergency operations.  She keeps bringing together military folks who are the key connections in Ontario with Ontario emergency management people, Indigenous folks who are involved in this stuff, academics, and municipal folks who do this stuff.  I finally attended one of her workshops as she kindly did not schedule it this time as the same time as US Thanksgiving.  

I am so grateful to Niru.  She got her students involved, they did a great job of running the day.  It was held in the Royal Canadian Military Institute, where I got to stay overnight.  It is a funky place, with lots of displays, libraries, bars, and history.  See the pics below.  I did guess during my talk that there are no displays of domestic emergency ops, and I was mostly right.  There was some stuff about the Canadian Rangers, who are northerners who play multiple roles as the eyes and ears of the military in the Arctic, but not anything else.

Why does that matter?  Well, I opened my intro talk with a discussion of what the CDSN is and does, and then talked about Canadian civil-military relations.  My usual shtick that the military wants to be autonomous and has more autonomy than most democratic militaries, and that the civilians are not doing much oversight.  When it comes to domestic ops, there is a basic disjuncture--the military doesn't want to do it and it successfully gets it listed at the bottom of the priorities of every defence policy document, and the population values this stuff quite a lot.  The civilians in government do not seem to be interested in getting this preference through to the military.  

After I spoke, we had a number of speakers who have real experience in this stuff, and I learned that there is far better coordination and lessons learned among the various actors.  I still am not sure how much Ontario is really picking up its share of responsibilities on this (there is a basic temptation for the provinces to shirk since they don't have to pay the bills when the CAF does the work even though the CAF could bill them--politically impossible to do so).  The military folks there were super sharp and had good stories to tell about how things play out in such efforts.  There is definitely room for improvement as the CAF is always asked to do more than their assigned tasks when they do engage in a domestic op (hey, can you take my appliances out of my flooded basement?).  

 

 

 

WWI flag with the scars of battle

Once again, the biggest challenges are how to deal with natural disasters that affect the Indigenous communities since the history of settler-ness means these places have poor infrastructure and are vulnerable to disasters.  Yanking them out in an emergency and evacuating them may be preferable to their being killed, but it is a crappy way to live.  So, there was some discussion of some efforts to improve their capacity to protect themselves.

 

 

I am very, very pleased and proud of what Niru and her students have accomplished.  This grant is ending, but we will certainly stay in the Niru business in one way or another, and our civ-mil stuff will ponder the domestic ops of it all.  I am just very grateful for the accidental networking that led to this partnership.

 And now a few random shots from our tour of RCMI:

An original copy of the letter
Ike sent the troops on the eve of D-Day

 

Display of women at war
featuring future CDS
Jennie Carignan

Display of Carignan's A-stan gear

 

 

Summer Institute Days Drifting Away But Ah Oh Those Summer Institute Nights

I asked for a silly pose.  This was the last day
(yes, they are wearing CDSN SI t-shirts)
during the lunch break--they all went
together across the new bridge to the park
for a picnic rather than heading off in
different directions.

 Once again, I am energized by an amazing week of Summer Instituting.  This year is our third in-person SI, and it coincides with the start of efforts to re-apply for another seven years of CDSN.  Why do we put so much effort into this application?  In part because realizing this part of the grant, the Summer Institute, hits all the sweet spots--it helps engage our (my) curiosity as we learn all kinds of stuff, we meet people--participants and speakers--from all across the Canadian defence and security community, it is simply fun, and it feels good to foster the professional development of others and to break down the barriers between the different pieces of the community.

I write each year about the SI (see here for last year's post), and yes, each year is more effusive than the last.  Why? Simply because it keeps getting better.  We learn what panels work, and we learn how to tweak the simulation to make it work better.  Last year's participants finally hit what we had imagined this thing to be--one third emerging academics, one third policy folks from govt, one third military officers and senior enlisted types. This year, we had that and also one or two folks from the private sector who added an additional perspective.  The only thing missing in terms of participants is we would love to get some journalists involved.

Once again, our speakers nicely matched the participants as we had folks from academia (Canadian and American), from key partner organizations like Bridging the Gap and Out in National Security, from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, and the like.  We had a new panel on Whole of Government that brought in sharp folks from Privvy Council Office (nothing like it in the US) and Global Affairs Canada (State).  That panel worked great, even before I tossed in a grenade--why are the political advisors to missions these days mostly coming from inside DND rather than GAC?  Good times.  Our day at DND HQ was even better than last year's (with one caveat) as we extended from just three speakers in one morning to five over the course of the day.  We heard from Army, Navy, Cyber, military intel, and the Associate Deputy Minister.  The one caveat is that the prior two years, the Deputy Minister had a wide ranging Q&A with us, and that was pretty terrific.  We didn't have that this year, alas.

Above, I mentioned the we--it is very much a team sport.  Melissa, Sherry, and Racheal did most of the work, Morad kicked in some help as well.  All I did was smile and wave. Ok, I did more than that--I served as MC and I got to present some of my stuff in a couple of panels--one on civ-mil and one on public attitudes about the military (which is also civ-mil).  I am so very grateful to Team CDSN for pulling this off.  The SI is the hardest thing we do, and it is most important thing we do.  It helps foster generations of sharp defence folks who are better connected and better informed.  We once again had a very diverse crew along lots of dimensions--gender, region, occupation, ethnicity, etc, so this is very much a key part of one of the CDSN's key objectives--to foster a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable next generation of defence and security scholars, scientists, policy officers, and military officers.  

If you are interested in the Summer Institute, we will be putting out ads and accepting applications in early 2024, and you can check out more info at our website: https://www.cdsn-rcds.com/summerinstitute 

Below are a variety of pictures from the week that I took.  Racheal took better ones that will be on the CDSN website eventually.

I love a good meta picture as I caught them taking
pics after their picnic.

Last bits of simulation scheming

Phil had a wonderful procurement rant or two

Our reception brings together co-directors, participants, 

n

Stef vH and Anna repped WIIS-C which
co-organizes our midweek reception

We probably need a better backdrop for our
annual NDHQ picture.  But we had a great day

a theme across the week--the CAF is really challenged

Murray Brewster and Col Paul Doucette talk
defence and the media.

Al Okros, who is not very good at retiring, and 
Kristine Ennis-Heise of DND talk policy process

Thomas, Erik, and Luke talk bridging the gap

More simulation scheming

the view from the speakers' end of the table

We met at the hotel bar the night before the
event to break the ice. Bridgers Erik and Luke at
the kids' table (we had more folks show up than
could fit at the main table) hang with participant Husnain

The cool kids table at the closing reception

The folks who arrived early sat at this table. 
Hence not the cool kids

I was quoted in the simulation post-brief. I had no
idea... but then again, this happens in two years.

The sim took place in the future, so it has a
guess at who is in office down the road. 
I am guessing they will be half right.