“Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which must be protected, defended, and treated as such.” What happens when mountains lose their ice? Across the Rocky Mountains, glaciers have shaped landscapes, sustained ecosystems, and supplied water for generations, yet they are rapidly retreating, signaling a growing environmental crisis. The Read More…
4. Programs
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When Infrastructure Becomes a Battlefield: Why Civilian Resilience Matters in Modern Conflict
Over the years, modern warfare has shifted away from conventional battlefields to urban centers, exposing civilian populations and critical infrastructure to direct risk. Critical infrastructure refers to the facilities, systems and assets that are required for countries and economies to function properly. As a result, essential systems such as healthcare, energy, water, and communication networks Read More…
Critical Minerals, Critical Equality: Integrating Gender into NATO’s Critical Minerals Framework
Critical minerals are growing crucial to NATO’s defence-industrial capacity, but the governance of their extraction has largely omitted gender sensitive considerations. This article argues that as NATO intensifies efforts to secure defence-critical mineral supply chains, leveraging its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda can help develop a gender-responsive governing framework. Drawing on Canada’s emerging critical minerals framework, this article discusses the legal safeguards and inclusive governance that can strengthen supply chain resilience while embedding gender considerations. This way, NATO members can enhance both strategic mineral security and its commitments to sustainable peace and security in tandem with gender equality.
79th World Health Assembly: What Happened? And What Does It Mean For Canada?
On the opening morning of the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) in early May, the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern over the growing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); this marked the first time in the organization’s history that an Emergency Read More…
Beyond the AI Boom: Data Centres as Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Disinformation
As Canada accelerates its AI capabilities, data centres are emerging as important strategic assets, underpinning everything from cloud computing and public services to economic competitiveness and national security. In this article, Dorigen Gray explores how Canada’s continued reliance on foreign cloud providers creates challenges for technological sovereignty and shapes debates surrounding domestic data centre expansion. By examining how foreign actors can exploit these debates through influence operations, the article highlights why building resilient digital infrastructure will require balancing sovereignty, transparency, and public trust.
Paying Without Understanding: The Gap Between Canada’s NATO Commitments and Public Strategic Literacy
Canada has finally committed to meeting NATO’s spending expectations, but public support for those commitments may be far shallower than policymakers assume. As defence spending rises and global instability intensifies, Canadians increasingly support military investment while remaining uncertain about the obligations and trade-offs that collective security requires. This article argues that Canada’s greatest defence challenge is not necessarily financial, but democratic: a growing gap between the commitments Ottawa is making and the public understanding needed to sustain them. Without greater strategic literacy, support for defence spending risks remaining reactive, fragile, and vulnerable to changing political and economic conditions.
Building Multilateral WPS Resilience at NATO
With increasing geopolitical challenges and polarized public discourse, the WPS agenda faces a reluctant political environment. As a crucial element of lasting peacebuilding,
NATO must build resilience in its WPS agenda by planning multilateral initiatives for today’s political context.
From the Frontlines to the Frontier: NATO’s Future Depends on the Power of Unconventional Networks
Historically, the mobilization of hundreds of Caribbean women into vital Allied logistics and technical roles proved that non-traditional networks are indispensable during global crises. Today, as NATO adapts to a shifting security landscape, the Alliance can draw directly from the legacy of these wartime networks to modernize its recruitment strategies and structural resilience.
Assessing Canadian Nuclear Latency Amidst Declining Confidence in Extended Nuclear Deterrence
As confidence in American commitments declines, new extended nuclear deterrence arrangements are emerging in the EU. Canada, geographically distinct from this emerging network, thus ought to reassess its nuclear- latent stance. The article concludes continued nuclear latency is the most strategic positioning for Canada.
Resilient to the Manosphere: How NATO Can Counter Algorithm-Driven Threats to Women’s Security
The manosphere is a network of communities united by opposition to feminism that has expanded from fringe corners of the internet into mainstream public discourse. In this article, Tessa McDermid presents how social media algorithms are mainstreaming manosphere ideology among Gen Z men, and how this poses threats to the safety and participation of women in NATO’s armed forces and to the Alliance’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) commitments. Addressing these risks requires NATO to update its WPS policy to explicitly incorporate manosphere produced threats, expand counter-radicalization programmes to recognize online misogyny as an extremist pathway, and to invest in digital and gender literacy training for military personnel.










