Week 7: “Terrorism is like the Harlem Shake. It was over two weeks ago”.

This week I started the class by asking students, in groups of threes, to ranks the most serious threats to Canada. What I received in response surprised me. Among the responses, all three highlighted threats to the economy and the environment and, to a certain extent, energy. All also highlighted clandestine or illegal migration in some way as well as cyber-security. None, however listed terrorism. Instead, one of my students said the above quote that is the title of this entry.

A couple of thoughts on this.

1) This is interesting, because it is quite clear that the Canadian government believes (or says it believes) thatterrorism is a priority threat to Canada.  So either it is doing it’s job very well, or not very well at all.

I mean, teaching this course five years ago, I would have expected terrorism to be on the top of everyone’s list. Global events may have moved on, but I at least expected a terrorism shout-out from at least ONE of the groups. (To be fair, there are only 10 in the class). Instead, the threat was seen as overblown and not really affecting Canada. Terrorism, apparently, is something that happens elsewhere.

2) I mentioned to my students that they had taken a very “wide” view of security rather than more narrow, traditional security issues (ie: national defence, protection of sovereignty). When I asked them whether or not it was wrong to “securitize” things like the environment, or the economy, no one really seemed to think it was that bad of a proposition. (Though givern the state of the F35 issue here in Canada, I’m not sure I’d want the Department of National Defence running the economy.)

3) That being said, when I asked them what they meant by suggesting that protecting the environment/climate change are important security issues, they pointed to the melting ice up north, and how an ice-free North West Passage has important security/sovereignty implications for Canada. When I asked about the economy and energy issues, they pointed to similar concerns about the Alberta oil sands. Cyber issues were related to reports that other governments have hacked into Canadian government computer systems or other private sector institutions. In other words, these “wide” security issues were linked to what might be considered more narrow ones.

4) No student believed that Canada could solve its security issues alone - some international coordination was required. When I asked how, views differed. We considered International organizations, networks, etc. There did not seem to be a single way of dealing with these issues as a whole. 

5) Finally, I showed my students a clip from the new James Bond movie, Skyfall (posted above). SPOILER ALERT: In it M is testifying to an inquiry after MI6 has ‘royally’ screwed up (pardon the pun) on several occasions.  She argues that states no longer know who their enemies are; that they are fighting against and in shadows.

Personally, I reject this view. I think states know who their enemies are, where they come from and what they are doing. For whatever faults our bureaucracies may have, they are clever. A bolt out of the blue is, at least in the West, thankfully rare.

But my students largely were on Team M. For example, one pointed out, the armed forces of a state were now far more likely to be facing a teenager or child soldier with an AK-47 rather than an armed soldier of another state.  Threats, in this view are more fluid and difficult to identify.

What, I wonder does this mean for combating threats in the future?