Archive d'auteurs: Paul Robinson

Ten years ago this month, almost the entire political establishment of the United States united in supporting the invasion of Iraq. On the political right, one lone voice stood out against it: the then Texas congressman Ron Paul. This weekend, Dr. Paul is keynote speaker at the annual convention of the conservative Manning Centre here in Ottawa. His presen… Read More

Published in the Globe and Mail, February 14, 2013 We have in this country a federal government that increasingly is engaged in trying to determine which business, which regions, which industries will succeed, and which will not, through a whole range of economic development, regional development corporate subsidization programs. I believe that in the… Read More

In November 1906, the Russian Council of State Defence met to discuss its new naval shipbuilding plan, the centrepiece of which was a proposal to build two new battleships for the Baltic Fleet. Presenting the plan, the Naval Minister, Admiral Birilev, admitted that there was no overarching defence policy which justified the shipbuilding program, but arg… Read More

Does secret intelligence make public policy worse? At a panel at the annual convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies this weekend, I learned something from one of my co-panelists which made me think that perhaps the answer was yes. It is worth considering in more detail. We can, I hope, all agree that the First World War was a… Read More

L’article complet a été publié dans le Ottawa Citizen, 25 octobre 2012. Danger is ubiquitous but accurate and timely warnings of it are relatively rare; proper risk assessment is one of the great policy challenges of our time. A decision this week by an Italian court to sentence six scientists and a government official to prison for failing to predict… Read More

If we found a cure for cancer, would we then ask our scientists to invent a new disease so that oncologists had something to do? Something rather similar is being proposed for the Canadian Forces. A consensus has formed that there is no foreseeable direct military threat to our security – but many are arguing that the logical consequence is that instead of enjo… Read More

Russia is back in the news again this week, due to the overheard conversation between Presidents Medvedev and Obama about missile defence, and Mitt Romney’s subsequent denunciation of Russia as America’s “number one enemy”. Former presidential candidate Senator John McCain, meanwhile, has leapt on the bandwagon, proclaiming, “[i]t maybe could be, sa… Read More

A couple of news items today bring forth contrasting visions of counter-insurgency success and failure. The first recounts the apparently quite successful reconstruction of Grozny; the second, the massacre of 16 Afghans by an American soldier. The contrast makes one wonder why the Russians seem to have done rather better at pacifying Chechnya than West… Read More

L’article complet a été publié dans le Ottawa Citizen, 4 mars 2012. ‘Svobodnykh mest net” (“there are no free places”)! Of all my memories of the months I spent as a student in the Soviet Union, perhaps the most vivid is that restaurants were few and far between and when you did find one, you couldn’t get in, because the doorman would inevitably turn you aw… Read More

The Russian veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Syria has had leaders and pundits in the West lining up to denounce the Russians, accusing them of revealing their autocratic tendencies and putting their own narrow trading interests (for instance arms exports) over issues of human rights. A 100-year old document I found last week in the State Archi… Read More