February 1 - 3, 2012
The Great Hall - University College
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba

The Organizing Committee of the 2012 University of Manitoba Political Studies Students’ Conference (PSSC) is pleased to announce its 28th forum on politics, defence, and security.

This year’s conference includes six panels and 19 eminent speakers, with Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard (Canadian Forces, Commander of Operation Unified Protector), as the keynote speaker.

As we believe that western military efforts over the past two decades have formed a definable interventionist cycle if not a distinct, single paradigm, the 28th Political Studies Student Conference (PSSC) will seek to examine and usefully recapitulate the conceptual fundamentals and policy implications of western military involvement since the First Gulf War (1991).
Accordingly, the panel discussions will aim to address specifically the following:

• the political, cultural, and doctrinal matrix of post-Cold War military interventions;
• the tension between the axiological and the utilitarian in the West’s crisis management approach;
• individual roles of present interventionist frameworks (the UN, NATO, the EU, coalitions of the willing, unilateral endeavors) as seen through the prism of their ambiguous relationship of complementarity and collision;
• choices and tactics in individual operations with particular stress on the recent Libyan campaign;
• implications of the firmly established expeditionary mode for the perceptions, role, as well as the transformation of Canadian Forces; and
• particular experiences within the Canadian defence community and lessons learned.   

Rising issues and external factors beyond sheer domestic impact of contemporary war and strategy, will be explored. In that context, there will also be panel talks seeking to shed some light on the current role and future direction of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy.

Given the scope of the forthcoming debate, the Organizing Committee invites all interested students, faculty, public servants, and professionals to participate and attend insightful presentations.

Come and start thinking big!