While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Lloyd Axworthy.
Eighteen months into Mark Carney’s government, Canadians can see elements of a foreign and defence policy scattered like puzzle pieces across a table — but no one has shown us the box with the picture illustrating what the pieces assemble into. On Sept. 17, Carney will add another piece to the pile: an address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg...
Canada has reached a historical crossroads. What our prime minister rightly labels an attack on our sovereignty through predatory U.S. tariffs is no mere trade dispute. It is a stark revelation: we share a border with an administration governed by a predatory regime whose goals are fundamentally hostile to Canadian independence. For too long, Canada has sleepwalked into a deep...
On July 17, the Department of National Defence announced that Canada would end or reduce its military participation in five long-standing international peace operations in Kosovo, Cyprus, South Sudan, the Sinai and the Democratic Republic of Congo, redirecting approximately 50 to 60 personnel to “higher-impact priorities.” Phased in through mid-2027, these changes do not constitute a dramatic rupture. They are...
Canada’s nuclear story has always been one of choice. In 1946, with Hiroshima still smouldering, Canada could have become a nuclear weapons state. It possessed the uranium, the scientific expertise, the industrial base, and the Manhattan Project experience that would have made it possible. The St Laurent government chose differently, pushing for international control of nuclear arms while directing Canadian...
This week, the world marks International Justice Day and the 28th anniversary of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. All these years later, it remains among the most consequential efforts ever made to hold war criminals accountable. Now Washington has announced its intention to “dismantle the ICC brick by brick, if necessary.”
“O Canada” was played in Saudi Arabia this week for the first time in 26 years. That quarter-century silence tells the real story behind Mark Carney’s visit to Jeddah. The last Canadian prime minister to visit Saudi Arabia was Jean Chrétien, in 2000, during a 12-day Middle East tour driven by a very different ambition: to reinforce Canada’s role as...
As NATO leaders gather in Ankara, Turkey, this week, much of the attention will inevitably be focusing on U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest complaints about burden-sharing and American leadership. That’s understandable. But, if the summit becomes consumed by familiar political theatrics, it will miss a far more important strategic opportunity. Ukraine has exposed a vulnerability in Russia’s war economy that...
When Canada signed the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States in 2002, the bargain rested on one assumption: that the U.S. offers a fair, humane process to people fleeing persecution. That assumption is no longer true, and this week the U.S. Supreme Court made it official. In two rulings on June 25, the Court sided with the Trump...
There are times when you feel the ground shift because something genuinely historic is underway. That was my reaction Monday morning watching Louise Arbour installed as Canada’s 31st Governor General. It was a defining, quintessentially Canadian experience, not just for the pageantry, the 21-gun salute, or the high ceremony of passing the torch. What made it remarkable was the passage...
Canada is embarking on its largest military buildup in generations. The government has committed to NATO’s new defence target, which will dramatically increase spending on military capabilities and defence-related infrastructure over the next decade. A dangerous world requires credible defence. But military spending alone will not make Canada safer, more influential, or more respected internationally.
The first international conference devoted to moving the world off of oil, gas and coal closed last week in Santa Marta, Colombia, where more than 50 nations agreed to hold a follow-up summit and strike a new global panel to draft a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels. It was co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, both middle powers, working...
FOR ALL OF MY adult life, I’ve been a Liberal believing in the defence of rights, the constraining of power, an equitable society, and an independent foreign policy. It’s been a narrative that many Canadians have strongly believed and supported.
Every March, millions of fans set aside their better judgment and give themselves over to the chaos of a basketball tournament aptly called March Madness. Its charm is simple. Anything can happen. Underdogs from small colleges sometimes topple the giants. We watch, we wince, we marvel. This year, the madness has spilled beyond the court into far more dangerous territory...
This past week, a New York Times columnist argued that a Canadian-led change to norms of international governance called Responsibility to Protect was now a “weak spot” that risks being exploited by today’s aggressors. The Responsibility to Protect was described by historian Martin Gilbert as “the most significant adjustment to sovereignty in 360 years.” It holds that when a government...
Canadian Forces exchange officers working with the U.S. military were “very likely” involved at some level in planning the weekend strikes on Iran, a former Canada major-general has warned. If true, this should raise alarm bells for Canadians because it means Ottawa’s insistence that Canada is “not involved” in this operation is not just implausible, it’s misleading.
Canada’s response to the U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran exposes a fault line at the heart of our foreign policy. We invoke international law and the “rules based international order” when adversaries engage in unlawful actions, but abandon those same rules entirely when it’s the Americans — whose current government 60 per cent of Canadians now see as a threat —...
Canadians take pride in our country’s role as a principled voice for international law, arms control and responsible multilateralism. In 2019, when Canada acceded to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), there was strong public support for our government’s pledge that Canadian arms exports would never contribute to human-rights abuses.
When Alfred Nobel drafted his will in 1895, he gave his Peace Prize a deceptively simple mandate: to honour those who had done the most to advance fraternity among nations, reduce standing armies, and promote peace through co-operation and dialogue. Nobel was no romantic: He was an industrialist who invented dynamite and amassed a fortune from armaments, and he understood...
I remember clearly a conversation in Luleå — known as the gateway to Swedish Lapland — with then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, as we negotiated the founding bargain of the Arctic Council. It was the mid-1990s, and Canada was shepherding the Council into being via the 1996 Ottawa Declaration. The critical issue was whether to include national...
Mark Carney won the federal election in April by building a coalition of Canadians who don’t normally vote the same way but were united by one overriding fear: the destabilizing threat of U.S. President Donald Trump. “Elbows up” was the rallying cry: the phrase, borrowed from hockey legend Gordie Howe, once described muscling into corners but became a way for...
In a world distracted by the dipsy-doodle diplomacy of U.S. President Donald Trump, it’s all too easy to dismiss Canada as a passive spectator in the long and troubled saga of the Middle East. But history tells a different story, one marked by bold diplomacy, principled independence and quiet but consequential leadership. Today, as the region edges toward wider conflict...
On this World Refugee Day, Friday June 20th, celebration feels out of place. Across the globe, the refugee protection system is stretched to its breaking point, while the number of displaced persons grows each day. Long viewed as a haven, Canada is not immune to the global tide of toughened border controls and political pressure. We should, of course, begin...
You have to be kidding – Canada considering involvement in Donald Trump‘s Golden Dome space defence initiative? Is this for real? Is Canada seriously contemplating joining Mr. Trump’s latest cockamamie idea? After winning an election on a clear promise to assert a more independent foreign and defence policy – including a move away from reliance on U.S. weaponry, military strategy...
The conflict between India and Pakistan is not a sudden wildfire — it is a bed of long-burning embers, lying beneath decades of unresolved history, territorial disputes, mutual distrust, and a clash of national religious identities. From time to time, a gust of wind — a political provocation, a militant attack, or a deadly border clash — fans them back...
When Liberals vote on March 9, they will be selecting not only their party’s leader but also the next Prime Minister of Canada. We have had the privilege of working with Liberal prime ministers going back to Pierre Trudeau and have seen first-hand the nature and number of demands made on the person who holds that office, as well as...
With each successive provocation, it is becoming clear that President Donald Trump’s fixation with Canada is more than a negotiating ploy. Whether or not Trump seeks to revisit 19th century thinking about America’s “manifest destiny,” his comments threaten Canadian sovereignty. His demeaning treatment of Canada and its prime minister — from his coercive threat of 25% tariffs to his mendacity...
In the 1970s, Richard Crossman, a minister in Harold Wilson’s UK government, published a set of diaries outlining the code of ministerial duties in a parliamentary system. Ministers, Crossman explained, were the essential link between the executive and legislative functions of government. They exercised decision-making power while being accountable to Parliament. This power required a degree of independent discretion, and...