This piece appeared in The Hill Times on April 23, 2018 Way back when I was an analyst at CSE I recall a conversation with an workmate about who was more important to the organisation (we were both young and full of piss and vinegar). He worked on the ‘Soviet problem’: I was assigned along […]
Author: Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. Phil is a 32-year veteran of CSE and CSIS and the author of six books on terrorism.
Like most people I had a fascination with dinosaurs when I was a kid. I had plastic dinosaurs and books on these grand behemoths. I loved movies about them, even if they were really bad 1960s sci-fi ones that were as inaccurate as possible. In my 20s I began to read more recent books on […]
As a former intelligence analyst with more than three decades in national security and someone who has chosen to go public with my knowledge, perspective and experience I have attracted a lot of attention. Some of it is praiseworthy (“Thanks for your service”), some appreciative (“I like what you wrote”) and some not so good […]
We humans are a curious species (in both senses of the word ‘curious’). The foremost question on our minds is always Why? Why is the sky blue? Why do the seasons change? Why can’t a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup? Why? Why? WHY? Our insatiable need to know extends to tragic events, such as […]
It is a little past 7 PM on Monday, April 23 as I pen this op-ed in Ottawa. A little more than 5 hours ago a rented van appeared to jump a curb and run down pedestrians near the corner of Finch and Yonge streets in North Toronto. A man is in custody following an […]
This piece appeared in the April 23 edition of The Hill Times In a very funny Monty Python skit John Cleese plays a drill sergeant who is trying to teach a bunch of skinny recruits to defend themselves against foes wielding fresh fruit (oranges, apples, grapefruit, pomegranates….) with typical hilarious results. Cleese gets the underwear-clad […]
I have a confession to make. I am a huge New York Times fan. I have read it religiously for decades and even in my retirement I buy a copy that a downtown Ottawa news seller sets aside for me on a daily basis (thanks Comerford Cigar Store!). No one source is exhaustive or 100% […]
OK, OK, I know I really should lay off the Monty Python analogies. I imagine you are getting sick of them. But can anyone REALLY get tired of the greatest comic group in history? Come on, admit it, you love them as much as I do. Staying with this obsession of mine, then, I want […]
There is an old saying that goes “If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bus (or a bike, apparently. in the original Spanish)”. This very silly sentence means that there are things that are unlikely to happen and therefore are not worth mentioning. This phrase was the very first thing that came to my […]
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The white face of violent extremism
As readers of my blog and books will well know I consider myself, and am considered by some, an expert (I prefer specialist) in terrorism. More specifically Islamist extremism as that scourge was the topic of my four books thus far as well as my career at CSIS. Indeed, I have studied many aspects of […]