Making Sense of Canada's “irrational” International Security Policy

Massie, Justin

doi:10.1177/002070200906400303

Cited by 21 publications

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“…A number of works on Canadian strategic culture have argued for the existence of several distinct, competing societal views of the Canadian use of force, and this case study draws extensively on this largely fourth generation strategic culture literature. Justin Massie (2009), for example, used the idea of competing subcultures in his study of Canadian strategic culture, as have Fortmann, et al (2004). 56 Christopher Twomey (2008), while not explicitly placing himself within the fourth generation camp, refers to the "multiple repositories of culture" as a useful means for explaining variations in state behaviour.…”

Section: Mapping Canadian Strategic Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…"Soft-bandwagoning" is defined by Massie (2009) as a reassuring attitude by Canada that it is not a direct or indirect threat to the U.S., while retaining important aspects of sovereignty (632).…”

Section: Mapping Canadian Strategic Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A Pearsonian approach to defence expenditure emphasizes that defence spending should be realistically matched with the threats against Canada and the operational requirements of the Forces, often leading to a "do more with less" perception. Direct threats to Canadian security tend to be seen as marginal or limited, with Canadian interests in the peace of the international system -rather than simply its "stability" --being the primary driver for the use of force (Massie 2009). …”

Section: Canada As a Pearsonian Internationalist Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…American strategy and at times more distant from it, depending on the impact to Canadian interests (Massie 2009). The perception of threats to Canada are viewed as high under this framework, and the world generally is seen as a dangerous, unpredictable, and unstable place.…”

Section: Canada As a Robust Western Allymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Libben

2017

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

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AcknowledgementsFirst and foremost, I would like to dedicate this dissertation to my parents, whose example inspired me to start a doctorate in the first place and without whose support I would not have been able to complete this thesis. To my mother, who read the first draft and the last draft, and who provided invaluable advice and suggestions every step of the way. To my father, who has been an academic and intellectual role model throughout my life, and provides a constant reminder to me to never stop being curious. To my sister, who has been a source both of academic inspiration and commiseration, and who helped me see the light at the end of the Ph.D.tunnel when things seemed dark. To my supervisors, Dr. Claire Turenne-Sjolander and Dr. Miguel de Larrinaga, who supported my ideas from the start and who helped me navigate my way to a final draft. To my friend Doug, who has always been there to listen to my triumphs and defeats, and who has always been willing to talk about the big questions with me. To all my friends, who I have relied on time and again to replenish my energy and regain my perspective.To my wife, who helped me reach the end of this thesis in ways big and small, supporting me with her food, her advice, her love, and her very existence. And to my dog Lyla, who did her best to prevent me from writing this thesis while at the same time reminding me that sometimes it's important to stop writing, get up, and go for a walk.iii Tables Table 1: Summary of the three generations of strategic culture Table 2: Strategic norms concerning the legitimate ends and means of defence policy Table 3: The Peacekeeping Sweet Spot Table 4: Breakdown of scalable strategic norms Table 5: Member States with more than 1,000 peacekeeping troops, 1990-2015 Table 6 With 16 ongoing peacekeeping operations currently deploying almost 100,000 troops, United Nations peacekeeping is the largest single source of multilateral military intervention in conflict zones. Because UN peacekeeping is entirely dependent on voluntary contributions from Member States, there a pressing need to better understand why nations contribute peacekeeping troops in the first place. Individual national rationales for peacekeeping contribution vary significantly, and incentives may include regional hegemonic aspirations, positive economic benefits from peacekeeping, desiring a seat at the Security Council, or a combination of any number of incentives. This has made it difficult to provide a generalized explanation about why states provide peacekeepers. This thesis proposes a model for understanding the peacekeeping contribution issue under the lens of strategic culture. The strategic culture approach focuses on elite beliefs about the objectives of the use of force, with national factors such a geography, history, domestic politics, and bureaucracy forming into cohesive and competing norms about the purpose of the military. Drawing on the fourth generation of strategic culture literature, this dissertation argues that strategic culture serves as an...

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Section: Mapping Canadian Strategic Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mapping Canadian Strategic Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Canada As a Pearsonian Internationalist Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Canada As a Robust Western Allymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Libben

2017

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

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“…FPA scholars have identified patterns in decision-making that they ascribe to a state's strategic culture (Johnston 1995). In Canada, strategic culture has been especially popular (Massie 2009;Massie and Roussel 2013), even if scholars continue to question its utility as a concept (Bloomfield & Nossal 2007, p. 228, Haglund 2009). Canada's evident attachment to peacekeeping is an illustration of this logic.…”

Section: Debates In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The cultural variable in foreign and defence policy

Hlatky

Breede

2016

Canadian Foreign Policy Journal

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Cultural awareness -whether in the form of training or briefings -has become a part of military pre-deployment routines. The need to understand culture became an operational necessity during the war in Afghanistan. This lesson was not integrated into planning immediately, but later rotations of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) formations did include established academics serving as advisors to commanders. In the United States, the military employed social scientists as part of their Human Terrain Teams in both Iraq and Afghanistan, recognizing that getting culture right is crucial for successful military operations (Kassel 2015). This approach proved controversial, especially as scientists voiced ethical concerns, but the spirit of the effort endured through Cultural Support Teams, where female service members were deployed in support of United States Army special operations combat forces. Through this initiative, the American mission was able to reach the local female population, an important demographic, which had previously been ignored in counterinsurgency operations (von Hlatky 2014).Culture is also important when different countries and organizations work together. In the context of multinational operations, cultural interoperability is as important as technical interoperability (Rubinstein et al. 2008). Alliances and partnerships preserve the institutional memory of cultural interoperability by representing a forum for socialization, joint training and mutual influence. While these examples illustrate how culture impacts the security realm of international politics, how have scholars integrated the cultural variable in their analyses? Is it possible to study culture in a systematic way to address empirical puzzles about war and military cooperation?The articles in this special issue take up this challenge and demonstrate the various ways culture factors into the implementation of major foreign and defence policy decisions. This introductory article will examine how culture has been theorized and operationalized in the field of international relations (IR), focusing more specifically on foreign policy analysis and security studies. Although culture transcends disciplinary boundaries, receiving substantial scholarly attention, we argue that there is greater potential for cultural analyses in IR to inform foreign and defence policies. While there is a sense that culture is important, scholars must take pains to empirically demonstrate how cultural variables influence the outcomes that are central to the security and defence community of practice: outcomes such as war, international cooperation, military intervention. How can we improve our analytical tools to better account # 2016 NPSIA

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Canadian Strategic Cultures: From Confederation to Trump

Massie

Vučetić

2019

Canadian Defence Policy in Theory and Practice

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Making Sense of Canada's “irrational” International Security Policy

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

Am I my brother’s peacekeeper? Strategic cultures and change among major troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping

The cultural variable in foreign and defence policy

Canadian Strategic Cultures: From Confederation to Trump

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