GUEST EDITORIAL, by Stephen Harper
Protecting Canadian Sovereignty and Contributing to Global Stability
Canada has unrealized potential as one of the world’s leading nations. Traditionally, Canada has played this role in the struggles against fascism and communism and in countless peacekeeping missions around the globe. With this position, however, comes responsibility. This is why Conservatives advocate a new defence strategy that can better project our military forces globally, while simultaneously increasing our continental efforts to defend North America. Rebuilding the Canadian Forces is at the core of Conservative defence policy...

INTERVIEW, by B.R. Brown
Japan’s Self Defense Forces
Admiral Ishikawa, Chairman of the Joint Staff Councils
The post 9-11 period has been one of tremendous change globally and this is particularly so in Japan where the government and the Self Defense Forces have taken extraordinary measures to permit Japan to make a contribution to the war against terror. Linked to this is the complex issue of post-war Iraq and how to support that country on its road to democracy. Further complicating the issue for Japan, is the increased contribution to peacekeeping operations at various places throughout the globe and the need for internal restructuring of Japan’s Self Defense Forces. Before his recent retirement as Canada’s Defence Attaché in Japan, Capt(N) B.R. Brown interviewed the Chairman of Japan’s Joint Staff Council, Admiral Ishikawa, about his plan of action...

SPECIAL REPORT FROM BOSNIA, by Trevor Cole
Civilians Behind the Wire – CANCAP
The Contractor Support Program began operation in September 2000 at Canadian bases in Bosnia. Now, three years later, the program has transformed into CANCAP, the Canadian Contractor Augmentation Program, which hit Bosnia on September 14, 2003.

In the early days of the Contractor Support Program, some Canadian Forces personnel in Bosnia wondered why they had to work alongside civilians. There were elements of friction, and communication problems. But over those three years, all of that changed...

AIRPOWER REVIEW, by Anil R. Pustam
Fighter Aircraft
The importance of air power in modern military operations is now beyond dispute. New-generation combat aircraft, packed with the latest technologies and armed with modern weapons do not come cheaply but even small numbers provide a versatile and capable force that can be effective for many years. This article reviews the the following key combat aircraft types under development or in production: F/A-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Typhoon, Rafale, JAS 39 Gripen, F-15E/I/S/K/T Strike Eagle, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-16C/D/E/F Fighting Falcon, Mirage 2000-5/9, and the Su-30/35 “Flanker.”

INFO BRIEFS, by MGen (ret) John Leech
Robots ‘R’ Us: Unmanned Vehicles Take Off – Again
One of the modern military tools we hear more and more about these days is the Unmanned Vehicle System (UVS). Canada has helped achieve some successes in this field, but one can argue that we have never reached our potential in either the military or civil arena. But now, thanks to the timely work of a new association called UVS Canada and their first major conference, “Momentum 2003,” held recently in Ottawa, there is now a focus and a platform for the kind of collaboration necessary to start exploring this potential...

R&D, by Harold Stocker and Ingar Moen
Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS)
The future military is likely to include a collaborating, interoperable mix of humans and technologically 'smart' entities, called Autonomous Intelligent Systems. These computer-automated systems can perform independent planning of an operation based on the high level instructions that they receive and the details of the local environmental situation provided by their sensors...

AIR FORCE, by Peter Pigott
NATO Response Force (NRF)
It is no secret that the Cold War alliance is looking to find a role in the 21st century. Considered by many as too static to respond to today’s rapidly changing security threats, NATO planners are counting heavily on the NATO Response Force, a multinational, rapidly deployable land, sea and air unit capable of engagement at short notice anywhere and which is to be fully operational by 2006. “If the NATO Response Force works,” says US Marine Corps Gen James L. Jones, the alliance’s supreme allied commander, “NATO will be transformed.”

LEST WE FORGET, by Dave Brown
Call it Duty or True Bravery?
What are they made of, those veterans among us who have experienced war up close and personal? In a long career of writing newspaper columns I’ve interviewed hundreds of them and a common thread is their placid acceptance of having survived. They don’t seem to recognize bravery in their actions....

PAGES OF HISTORY, by Donald Sisson
East-European Vets Persecuted for Years
The recent death of Major-General Alois Siska, a Czech veteran and Bomber Command war hero, revived sad memories of the horrific treatment of Allied veterans by Eastern Block communist nations after the Second World War. Among the smoking ruins of Europe in 1945, Poland and Czechoslovakia were swallowed into the communist empire and their heroes humiliated and persecuted. For these heroes, there was no victory parade to cap the five years of bloody warfare and personal sacrifice...

COMBATING STRESS, by Diane Collier
For Better... or For Worse...
There is a very popular cartoon by military wife Sophie Patenaude that depicts a couple kneeling before a clergyman as they prepare to exchange wedding vows. The groom, handsome in his dress uniform and the beautiful bride in a swirling white gown are looking into each other’s eyes as the clergyman reads the wedding vows “….for better or for worse,” just then, the bride whispers to the groom “Well… how ‘worse’ are we talking???” Yes, just how bad will things get?...