The Canadian Strategic Review 1983

L.C. Green is a university professor of political science and an
honorary professor of law at the University of Alberta.

This collection of essays published by the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies will be of interest to specialists rather than to the general reader. The dozen papers or so are grouped under four headings: 1) The International Military Strategic Environment; 2) Canadian National Security Issues, with papers by R.B. Byers and Michael Slack on national defence and by Stanley C.M. Ing on arms limitation (although one might have expected Stanley Ing’s paper titled “Regional Issues,” which is concerned with Canadian policy toward the Middle East and Central America to have appeared under this rubric rather than in the section devoted to the International Military Strategic Environment); 3) the International-Economic Strategic Environment; and, finally, Canadian Economic Issues.

Since the volume is an annual, it is not surprising that much of the material is statistical and that it tends to be descriptive rather than analytical. However, taken with similar annual surveys, it provides the means of tracing trends and variations in Canadian policy per se and the manner in which such policy reflects or dovetails into allied policies. From the point of view of research, as distinct from general reading, the 1983 Review serves a useful purpose and may be safely recommended to specialists in the field of strategy, allied defence planning, and the like.