BATTLE RHYTHM PODCAST

February 19, 2020

In the 18th episode of Battle Rhythm, Stef and our guest co-host this week, Jean-Christophe Boucher, fellow co-director of the CDSN and lead of the Civil – Military Relations theme, discuss NATO in the Middle East, the Munich Security Conference and Macron’s vision for a European nuclear defense strategy. Our Capstone Preview features Emerging Scholar Victoria Tait [24:30], a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at Carleton University, who presented her paper at the last inter-university Seminar on Armed Forces and Society-Canada. Our Feature Interview this week is with Year Ahead guest, Shawn Skelly [33:35] Co-founder of Out in National Security and Commissioner, National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, 2017-2020. This week’s Peeve is on hiatus as Steve is in Japan this week.

Participant Biographies:

• Stéfanie von Hlatky: Associate Professor of political studies at Queen’s University and the former Director of the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy (CIDP). Her research focuses on NATO, armed forces, military interventions, and defence policy. Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
• Jean-Christophe Boucher: an assistant professor and Program Director, Security of State and Resources at the School of Public Policy at University of Calgary. Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
• Victoria Tait: currently a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at Carleton University in Ottawa, ON. Her research focuses broadly on feminist security studies, and her dissertation examines how Women, Peace and Security policy has been framed and implemented within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). She enjoys working directly with Canadian soldiers to identify challenges in the military’s gender culture(s) while creating space for female-identifying soldiers to shape the academic and political narrative of their experience. Additional areas of research interest include gendered analysis of Canadian policy on veterans, feminist research methods and women in terrorist and insurgency organizations. Victoria’s work on gender and security has appeared in publications by the Canadian Defence Academy, Springer Publishing, Sage Research Methods Cases, and the Royal Canadian Military Institute.
• Shawn Skelly: Co-Founder of Out in National Security and served on active duty in the U.S. Navy for 20 years as a Naval Flight Officer, retiring with the rank of Commander. After a period in industry with ITT Exelis, she joined the Obama Administration in 2013, as the first transgender veteran to be appointed by a President of the United States. She first served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics at the U.S. Department of Defense, and ultimately as the Director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat at the U.S. Department of Transportation. In 2017, President Obama appointed Shawn to serve as a Commissioner on the newly established National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. Shawn was recognized as one of a group of transgender veterans in the 2017 OUT100.

Related Links:

• CDSN-RCDS