WRITER PROFILE
Chris Kilford is a fellow at the Queen's Centre for International and Defence Policy. An army officer, he retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2014 after serving as Canada's defence attache to Turkey for three years. Chris also served as the deputy defence attache in Afghanistan from 2009-10 and previous to that was the liaison officer between DND and the Senate Standing Committee on National Defence. He has an extensive background in Canadian foreign and defence policy making.
Articles by this writer
At first glance, Canada’s current overseas military deployments may appear rather haphazard with troops situated in relatively small numbers across thousands of miles. However, when the missions are collectively examined, a strategy becomes clear.
For some time now, Turkey has been increasingly seen as NATO’s “odd-man out”. The reasons given for this assessment are many, but are they justified?
The Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is only as good as the troops and support it gets from contributing countries. Given the recent concern over Canada’s upcoming contribution to the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), one might easily assume that up until now few Canadians had ever set foot in Mali. However, this is far from the case.
It all comes down to funding. As Deputy Director, I was part of the team that worked on the Martin defence policy implementation plan in late 2005, and then we switched to creating the Harper CFDS in early 2006 (it was finally published in 2008). As you can imagine, I paid close attention to this latest policy effort.
