Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
The Canadian Forces and Arctic Sovereignty begins with Stephen Harper's December 2005 speech in Winnipeg. "You don't defend national sovereignty with flags, cheap election rhetoric or advertising campaigns" proclaimed the future Prime Minister, "you need forces on the ground, ships in the sea and proper surveillance"(3). This speech set the scene for a renewed government focus on Arctic sovereignty. It also foreshadowed how the issue was to be dealt with. In the years to follow, the government announced a series of significant plans for new Arctic defence programs: a new icebreaker, new patrol craft, a deep water port and a military base - to name only the most expensive.
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
I can recall a time, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when any attention paid to Southeast Asia by most observers in the West (outside of Australia and New Zealand, at least) was conditioned by that region's importance within the context of the Cold War. Books with titles such as Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia, or the preposterous assertion on the dust jacket of a volume on the Konfrontasi campaign that Britain's victory in Borneo was of "immense" importance in "stemming the spread of Communism," attest to the fact that political and military writers of that era —or at any rate their publishers—were mainly concerned with which Southeast Asian country would be the next "domino" to fall in what appeared to many to be communism's inexorable march through the region. Today, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, another simplistic, binary opposition between the West and "someone else" has been ushered in, the so-called "War on Terror," and so, like a soldier replacing the red lens of a military-issue angle flashlight with a green one, interest in Southeast Asia is now often structured around its character as an important centre of political Islam.
Today America finds a new market force emerging: companies that achieve an intimate connection between profit and purpose. And these businesses are supported by a developing system of investors and other financial actors that seek to place capital in firms that are achieving social impact. A new trail is being blazed for our country – open, far-reaching, transformative, offering an opportunity for renewal and growth. This is the Impact Economy.
Topic:
Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Monetary Policy
Sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In the 20thcentury, a tripling of human numbers was accompanied by dramatic gains in development, as measured in food production and economic growth. But much of that development was unsustainable—it focused on the needs of the present at the expense of future generations. Today, the world's nations must provide for an ever-growing population against a backdrop of food and water shortages, depleted resources, and a changing climate. Slower population growth would make that challenge easier to meet.
Topic:
Climate Change, Demographics, Development, Natural Resources, Food, and Health Care Policy
The great challenge of the 21st century is to lift billions from poverty, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and coping with a changing climate. That challenge will be easier to meet with slower population growth. Moreover, the means to slow growth—including family planning and other reproductive health services—are important ends in themselves. Family planning empowers women, improves public health, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and builds resilience to a changing climate.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Gender Issues, and Health
The question is never whether the United States has an energy policy. It has dozens. They come with various decision-makers at overlapping levels of authority, ample numbers of stakeholders, and generally lots of confusing and often contradictory signals.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, and Environment
A shift in relative energy consumption among regions and the development of new, unconventional supplies will be the most significant changes over the next twenty years. The dominant fuels in the world energy market until 2030 will continue to be hydrocarbons — oil, coal, and natural gas. Major shifts will occur, however, among the three fuels, among regions and in their supply. Globally, oil will continue to be the most widely used fuel as it supplies more than 90 percent of the energy for transportation. Coal, now the dominant fuel used for electric power generation, will lose ground to natural gas, a less carbon-intensive hydrocarbon. Natural gas will become the second largest overall supplier and well positioned to replace coal as the leading supplier for electric power. Developing countries will lead the way in overall energy growth, with Chinese and Indian energy demand growing fastest. Energy demand in developed countries will remain flat. For the United States, growth in gas shale and oil shale are likely to be “game changers,” altering the supply picture dramatically.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Markets, Political Economy, and Natural Resources
The financial plight of news media companies was alarmingly clear when the Knight Commission released its report in October 2009. Newspapers were closing or filing for bankruptcy. Print and broadcast news staffs were being cut and coverage reduced. There was growing concern that the loss of traditional media at the local level would lessen citizens' ability to have the information they need for their personal lives and for civic engagement, as well as their ability to hold government accountable.
Topic:
Democratization, Globalization, Government, and Mass Media
Critics of the Social Security program are fond of disparaging it as a "Ponzi" scheme or as a redistributive transfer of income from the young to the old. Others go even further, labeling the Social Security trust fund as a fiction or claiming the program is bankrupt. Some also suggest that the government bonds held in the trust fund are mere IOUs. Still others say that the program's legal basis is ephemeral, subject to the whims of Congress.
In November 2010, the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program held the latest in its continuing series of roundtable discussions on spectrum policy, “The Search for 500 MHz: Spectrum for the Next Generation of Wireless.” The Roundtable brought together technical experts, industry representatives, congressional staff, officials from the Executive Office of the President and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, industry analysts, officials from foundations and public interest groups, and academics.
Topic:
Globalization, Science and Technology, and Communications