National Security

In Stand on Guard, Stephanie Carvin sets out to explain the range of activities considered national security threats by Canadian security services today. As new forms of terrorism and extremism appear, especially online, we need a responsibly widened view of such threats and how they manifest in the contemporary world. Canadians should not be more fearful, Carvin explains, but a more sophisticated understanding among security services personnel and the general public is needed if we are to anticipate and ameliorate threats to national security. As a former security analyst tasked with providing threat assessments to high levels of government, Carvin writes with both authority and urgency. Her book presents an insider’s look at the issues facing the Canadian security and intelligence community. Timely and accessible, Stand on Guard will be required reading for scholars, practitioners, and any Canadian concerned about national security in the twenty-first century.

Would you believe that RCMP operatives used to spy on Tupperware parties? In the 1950s and ’60s they did. They also monitored high school students, gays and lesbians, trade unionists, left-wing political groups, feminists, consumer’s associations, Black activists, First Nations people, and Quebec sovereigntists. The establishment of a tenacious Canadian security state came as no accident. On the contrary, the highest levels of government and the police, along with non-governmental interests and institutions, were involved in a concerted campaign. The security state grouped ordinary Canadians into dozens of political stereotypes and labelled them as threats. Whose National Security? probes the security state’s ideologies and hidden agendas, and sheds light on threats to democracy that persist to the present day. The contributors’ varied approaches open up avenues for reconceptualizing the nature of spying.

National security in the interest of preserving the well-being of a country is arguably the first and most important responsibility of any democratic government. Motivated by some of the pressing questions and concerns of citizens, Top Secret Canada is the first book to offer a comprehensive study of the Canadian intelligence community, its different parts, and how it functions as a whole. In taking up this important task, contributors aim to identify the key players, explain their mandates and functions, and assess their interactions. Top Secret Canada features essays by the country’s foremost experts on law, foreign policy, intelligence, and national security, and will become the go-to resource for those seeking to understand Canada’s intelligence community and the challenges it faces now and in the future.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which targeted the heart of financial and military power in the United States, Canada once again proved its credentials as a key American ally. With the imminent end of its combat role in Afghanistan, however, it is time to take stock of how Canada has adapted to the exigencies of the post-9/11 world and to consider the future directions for its foreign, defence, and security policies. This timely exploration and re-assessment of Canada's approach to strategic affairs offers a diverse set of nuanced, sometimes controversial, and always insightful perspectives on the most pressing security challenges that Canada currently faces. Bringing together noted experts on these issues – including a Canadian Senator, a past Minister of National Defence, former high-level military officers, and top scholars - this collection provides powerful ideas and guidance for the difficult task of formulating an overarching national security strategy.

The emergence of COVID-19 has raised urgent and important questions about the role of Canadian intelligence and national security within a global health crisis. Some argue that the effects of COVID-19 on Canada represent an intelligence failure, or a failure of early warning. Others argue that the role of intelligence and national security in matters of health is--and should remain--limited. At the same time, traditional security threats have rapidly evolved, themselves impacted and influenced by the global pandemic. Stress Tested brings together leading experts to examine the role of Canada's national security and intelligence community in anticipating, responding to, and managing a global public welfare emergency. This interdisciplinary collection offers a clear-eyed view of successes, failures, and lessons learned in Canada's pandemic response. Addressing topics including supply chain disruptions, infrastructure security, the ethics of surveillance within the context of pandemic response, the threats and potential threats of digital misinformation and fringe beliefs, and the challenges of maintaining security and intelligence operations during an ongoing pandemic, Stress Tested is essential reading for anyone interested in the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This text analyzes the history, evolution, and processes of national security policies. It examines national security from two fundamental fault lines--the end of the Cold War and the evolution of contemporary terrorism, dating from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and tracing their path up to the Islamic State (ISIS) and beyond. The book considers how the resulting era of globalization and geopolitics guides policy. Placing these trends in conceptual and historical context and following them through military, semi-military, and non-military concerns, National Security treats its subject as a nuanced and subtle phenomenon that encompasses everything from the global to the individual with the nation at its core. New to the Sixth Edition Fully updated with expanded coverage of ISIS, the "new cool war" with Russia, cybersecurity challenges, natural resource wars and development, negotiations with Iran, border threats, and much more. Includes a completely new chapter on "lethal landscapes" such as developing world international conflicts in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; the "siren song" of the Islamic State; and the dilemmas of guns, butter, and boots on the ground. Shifts the focus from globalization to a more widely-ranging look at security, from the individual level to the regional to the global.

Since the advent of the contemporary US national security apparatus in 1947, entrepreneurial public officials have tried to reorient the course of the nation's foreign policy. Acting inside the National Security Council system, some principals and high-ranking officials have worked tirelessly to generate policy change and innovation on the issues they care about. These entrepreneurs attempt to set the foreign policy agenda, frame policy problems and solutions, and orient the decision-making process to convince the president and other decision makers to choose the course they advocate. In National Security Entrepreneurs and the Making of American Foreign Policy Vincent Boucher, Charles-Philippe David, and Karine Prémont develop a new concept to study entrepreneurial behaviour among foreign policy advisers and offer the first comprehensive framework of analysis to answer this crucial question: why do some entrepreneurs succeed in guaranteeing the adoption of novel policies while others fail? They explore case studies of attempts to reorient US foreign policy waged by National Security Council entrepreneurs, examining the key factors enabling success and the main forces preventing the adoption of a preferred option: the entrepreneur's profile, presidential leadership, major players involved in the policy formulation and decision-making processes, the national political context, and the presence or absence of significant opportunities. By carefully analyzing significant diplomatic and military decisions of the Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, and offering a preliminary account of contemporary national security entrepreneurship under presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, this book makes the case for an agent-based explanation of foreign policy change and continuity.

National Security Law, 2e, is about the law governing the Canadian state's response to serious crises. The book approaches national security law as a system, organizing its discussion of law around five themes: structure, threats, information, response, and accountability. This edition is a comprehensive rewrite of the first edition.