Walter Dorn, PhD Associate Professor
Department of Defence Studies

Office:
Telephone: 613-541-6000
(416) 482-6800 ext 6538
Fax: (416) 482-6802
E-mail: dorn@cfc.dnd.ca
Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College
215 Yonge Blvd.
Toronto, ON
M5M 3H9 Canada
Department of Defence Studies
Royal Military College of Canada
PO Box 17000, Station Forces
Kingston, Ontario CANADA
K7K 7B4
Some of the links below lead to a site belonging to an entity not subject to the Official Languages Act. Information on this site is available in the language of the site.
Research Interests
Arms control, conflict prevention, human security, peace operations, United Nations
Professional information
Walter Dorn is an Associate Professor at the Canadian Forces College and former co-chair of the Department of Security Studies. He is cross-appointed as an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Department of Politics and Economics at RMC, and a faculty member of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre. He is a scientist by training (Ph.D. Chemistry, Univ. of Toronto), whose doctoral research was aimed at chemical sensing for arms control. He assisted with the negotiation, ratification and implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). As CWC programme coordinator at Parliamentarians for Global Action (1992-93), he addressed parliamentary committees in nations on several continents to support the ratification and implementation of the treaty. His interests are now broader, covering both international and human security, especially peacekeeping and the United Nations.
He has extensive experience in field missions. In 1999, he was a district electoral officer with the United Nations Mission in East Timor. He also served with the UN in Ethiopia (UNDP project) and at UN headquarters as a Training Adviser with UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations. He carried out research in conflict areas in Central and South America, Africa and South East Asia.
Since 1983, he has served as the UN Representative of Science for Peace, a Canadian NGO, and addressed the UN General Assembly in 1988 at the Second UN Special Session on Disarmament. In the United States, he was a Senior Research Fellow at Cornell University (Einaudi Centre for International Studies, 1998-2000), a consultant to Yale University (United Nations Studies, 1996), a visiting scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Centre (Sandia National Laboratories, NM, 1999) and adviser to the Federation of American Scientist (Biological Weapons Control expert group, 1990).
At the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, he has taught the course, "Live, Move and Work: Technology and Engineering in Modern Peacekeeping". As well, he lectures in other courses and conducts research there.
At the University of Toronto, he was a Research Fellow with the International Relations Programme as well as the Peace and Conflict Studies Programme, and the Physical Science Don at Trinity College.
In 2001/02 he was the inaugural DFAIT Human Security Fellow (academic). He is now working] on a book tentatively titled "The Emerging Global Watch: UN Monitoring for International Peace and Human Security".
Publications
"WORLD ORDER FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM: Political, Cultural and Spiritual Approaches to Building Peace."
An edited volume published by St. Marin's Press and Macmillan press, available at Amazon.
Book Introduction
Publications available here:
Some of the links below lead to a site belonging to an entity not subject to the Official Languages Act. Information on this site is available in the language of the site.
Some of the following documents are available for downloading or viewing in PDF:
Latest Publications
- Give Peacekeeping a Chance in Afghanistan
- Intelligence-led Peacekeeping: The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
- What the Thunder Said: Reflections of a Canadian Officer in Kandahar (book review)
- Unsung Mediator: U Thant and the Cuban Missile Crisis (PDF version 549Kb)
- Canada’s Honourable Role as a Peacekeeping Nation (PDF version 662Kb)
- Fatally Flawed: The Rise and Demise of the “Three-block War” Concept in Canada (PDF version 115.04Kb)
Arms Control
- Chemical Weapons Convention: An Overview
- Chemical Weapons Convention: The Compliance Provisions
- Chemical Weapons Convention: Testimony to the Foreign Affairs Committee
- Compliance Mechanisms for Disarmament Treaties
- N.Korea/NPT Compliance: Carrots, Sticks and Bombs
- PAXSAT: A Canadian Initiative in Arms Control
- Peacekeeping Satellites: The Case for International Surveillance
- Satellite and Airborne Surveillance For Arms Control: Workshop Report
- Small Arms, Human Security and Development
- UN Should Verify Treaties
- UN Verification: Case for a UN Verification Agency
- Verification Agency in/out of the UN?
Conflict Defense and Security
- Afghanistan and UN Peacekeeping - Testimony to the Foreign Affairs Committee (html)
- Early Warning of Armed Conflict: An Introduction
- Human Security: A Subject Overview
- Indicators and Indices of Conflict and Security (PDF version 544Kb)
- The Future of Warfare
Peace Operations
- Blue Sensors: Technology for UN Peacekeeping
- Canadian Peacekeeping: No Myth But Not What It Once Was (PDF version 604Kb)
- Canada pulls out of peacekeeping
- Canadian Peacekeeping: Proud Tradition, Strong Future?
- Intelligence and Peacekeeping: The UN Operation in the Congo 1960-64
- Intelligence and the Operation in Eastern Zaire 1996
- Intelligence-Gathering in UN Peacekeeping: The Limits
- Militias in East Timor: Personal Encounters
- Preventing the Bloodbath:Could the UN have Predicted & Prevented the Rwanda Genocide?
- Regional Peacekeeping Is Not the Way
- Security Sector Reform in Bosnia (PDF version 389.68Kb)
- Tools of the Trade? Monitoring and Surveillance Technologies for UN Peacekeeping (PDF version 512.5Kb)
- Web links on peacekeeping
- Who is Dying for Peace?
United Nations
- An Ounce of Prevention: UN Early Warning System Needed
- Early Warning by the UN Secretary-General
- Keeping Tabs on a Troubled World: UN Information-Gathering to Preserve Peace
- Keeping Watch for Peace: Fact-Finding by the UN Secretary-General
- The Cuban Missile Crisis Resolved: U Thant
- U Thant: Buddhism in Action (PDF version 233Kb)
- UN Charter and League Covenant Comparison (PDF version 158Kb)
- UN Early Warning: A Review and Recommendations
- UN Headquarters Intelligence: The I&R Unit
- UN Information-Gathering for Peace and Security
- UN in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision
Book Reviews
- Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness, by Thomas Jefferson
- Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, by Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire
- UN Peacekeeping in Africa
- What the Thunder Said: Reflections of a Canadian Officer in Kandahar
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