31 December, 2025
As 2025 comes to a close, we’ve been reflecting on a strong and productive year for RAUSI. It's been made possible by the commitment of our Board, the generosity of our speakers and contributors, and your thoughtful engagement throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who helped make this work possible.
In 2025, RAUSI:
- Delivered eight Rocky Mountain Conference on Security and Defence (RMCSD) sessions, including three Fireside Chats
- Brought together 11 senior and flag officers, serving and retired, representing air, land, naval, and intelligence communities
- Engaged speakers from Canada, the United States, and three European NATO allies
- Featured contributions from military leaders, senior civilian advisors, authors, and emerging scholars
- Sustained public discussion through long-form editorials and Let’s Get Real, encouraging timely engagement on current events
- Launched The Briefing Room, introducing a new platform for student and emerging voices
Taken together, these efforts reflect RAUSI’s ongoing role as a space for informed, respectful discussion on defence and national security—bringing experience, analysis, and emerging perspectives into the same conversation.
As you read on, we invite you to take a moment to reflect on what we explored this year and to recognize the collective effort behind it.
Asking Questions that Matter
In 2025, RAUSI focused less on reacting to headlines and more on examining the forces shaping them.
Through RMCSD and The Briefing Room, we explored questions such as:
- How worldviews and belief systems shape conflict and identity
- Whether Canada’s defence and security institutions are strategically prepared
- How complacency takes hold in stable democracies
- How subtle, non-kinetic threats affect sovereignty and prosperity
- How allies translate national interests into coherent strategy
From Worldview Warfare and Russia’s Holy War to Canada’s Missing Playbookand Allies at the Frontline, the emphasis remained on strategy rather than rhetoric.
Several of these conversations are available to watch for those who wish to explore them in full (rausi.ca/rmcsd).
Sharing Informed and Respected Voices
RAUSI’s programming in 2025 drew strength from the calibre and range of voices willing to engage publicly and candidly.
This included voices such as LGen J.O. Michel Maisonneuve (Ret’d), former National Security and Intelligence Advisor Vincent Rigby, and allied leaders such as Major General (Ret’d) Theo ten Haaf (The Netherlands), alongside emerging scholars and analysts contributing fresh perspectives.
This year’s speakers included:
- Senior and flag officers, serving and retired, from air, land, naval, and intelligence communities
- Former Chiefs, Commanders, and senior operational leaders
- Serving Canadian officers
- Senior civilian advisors at the highest levels of government
- Allied voices from Europe and the United States
- Canadian authors, analysts, and emerging scholars
In Rockets and Resolve, Canadian participants shared firsthand reflections following travel to Israel, offering grounded insight into how security challenges are experienced on the ground.
In Allies at the Frontline, senior European leaders spoke from lived proximity to the war in Ukraine—bringing perspectives shaped by geography, alliance commitments, and the realities of living alongside an active conflict.
Building the Framework
Across its 2025 programming, RAUSI consistently returned to foundational issues:
- The absence—or fragility—of national security strategy
- Civil–military understanding in democratic societies
- Leadership and institutional culture
- Allied approaches to deterrence and defence planning
- The long-term risks of strategic drift
The launch of The Briefing Room reinforced this focus by bringing emerging voices into the same serious conversation, underscoring that strategic thinking is not limited by rank or tenure.
Rather than chasing issues, RAUSI concentrated on strengthening the base for deeper, more focused work ahead.
Extending the Conversation
RAUSI’s work in 2025 extended well beyond formal presentations.
Throughout the year, we published:
- Eight long-form editorials
- Approximately 40 Let’s Get Real posts responding to current events (on LinkedIn, then expanding to Facebook)
Through Let’s Get Real, RAUSI invited timely discussion, encouraged informed debate, and created space for audience engagement on issues shaping Canada’s security environment.
These posts were designed to spark conversation rather than offer final conclusions, and many of the most meaningful exchanges emerged directly from reader comments and shared discussion.
Looking Ahead
The conversations we convened in 2025 were never intended as endpoints.
They helped lay the foundation for a sharper focus in 2026—one centred more explicitly on Canada’s vital national security interests, including the role of Canada's defence industrial base in sustaining capability, readiness, and allied interoperability.
In the year ahead, RAUSI will continue to explore:
- How Canada defines and defends its national interests
- Where allied priorities align—or diverge
- What long-term resilience requires across government, industry, and society
- How strategy connects policy, capability, industrial capacity, and political will
This focus will guide RAUSI’s programming and publications as we move into the next year.
Continuing the Conversations in 2026
None of this work happens in isolation.
RAUSI’s strength comes from the people who choose to participate—our speakers who share their experience and insight, our contributors who help frame complex issues, our members who support the work, and our audience who engage thoughtfully with the ideas being explored.
Thank you to everyone who took part in RAUSI’s activities in 2025, whether by presenting, contributing, attending, watching, reading, or sharing in the discussion.
We look forward to continuing this work together in 2026.
Maj LJ Howard, CD, PhD, LL.M (Ret'd)
President, RAUSI