In Stand on Guard, Stephanie Carvin sets out to explain the range of activities that are 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.
Stand on Guard: Reassessing National Security Threats to Canada
By Stephanie Carvin
© 2021
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. Yet, despite the centrality of national security, the study of the intelligence community in Canada has been largely neglected by scholars. 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, the editors and contributors aim to identify the key players, explain their mandates and functions, and assess how they interact with each other.
Top Secret Canada fills a large gap in the literature on Canadian foreign policy, defence, and security. Featuring essays by the country’s foremost experts on law, intelligence, and national security, it will be a go-to resource for those seeking to understand Canada’s intelligence community and the challenges it faces both now and into the future.
Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community
Edited by Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau, and Craig Forcese
© 2021
Founded and rooted in Enlightenment values, the United States is caught between two conflicting imperatives when it comes to war: achieving perfect security through the annihilation of threats; and a requirement to conduct itself in a liberal and humane manner. In order to reconcile these often clashing requirements, the US has often turned to its scientists and laboratories to find strategies and weapons that are both decisive and humane. In effect, a modern faith in science and technology to overcome life's problems has been utilized to create a distinctly 'American Way of Warfare'. Carvin and Williams provide a framework to understand the successes and failures of the US in the wars it has fought since the days of the early Republic through to the War on Terror. It is the first book of its kind to combine a study of technology, law and liberalism in American warfare.
Law, Science, Liberalism and the American Way of Warfare
Stephanie Carvin and Michael Williams
© 2014
Prisoners of war have featured in virtually every conflict that the US has engaged in since its revolutionary beginnings. Today visitors to Washington will frequently see a black POW flag flying high on government buildings or war memorials in silent memory. This act of fealty towards prisoners reflects a history where they have frequently been a rallying point, source of outrage and problem for both military and political leaders. This is as true for the 2003 Iraq War as it was the American Revolution. Yet, the story of prisoners in American wars (both enemies taken and soldiers captured) reveals much about the nation itself; how it fights conflicts and its attitudes towards laws of war. A nation born out of an exceptional ideology, the United States has frequently found itself faced with the contradictory imperatives to be both exemplary and secure: while American diplomats might be negotiating a treaty at The Hague, American soldiers could be fighting a bloody insurrection where it seemed that few if any rules applied. By taking a historical approach, this book demonstrates that the challenges America faced regarding international law and the war on terror were not entirely unique or unprecedented. Rather, to be properly understood, such dilemmas must be contextualized within the long history of those prisoners captured in American wars.
Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo
Stephanie Carvin
© 2010