About me

Hello there, bonjour! I am Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, a French citizen that weirdly took a liking to Canadian defence issues. I am a PhD student at Deakin University, exploring the influence of the personnel management system on military misconduct. I focus on the Somalia killings for this specific study, but I am hoping to expand on the role what the Canadian military calls the “enterprise” on outcomes in operations.

I have been doing research on military culture and bureaucracy, with an emphasis on personnel management since 2017. As you will be able to tell quickly, I have a fascination for how structures influence behaviours. I am the author of The Ones We Let Down, which examine how toxic culture of leadership in the CAF during the 1990s contributed the failures of women’s integration in that era. Technically, I am a military historian – and it is a label I take pride in – but I am also multidisciplinary at heart.

I work at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute’s Ottawa office. We’re a nifty think tank that looks into defence, foreign policy, trade, and energy issues. If you’ve listened to Defence Deconstructed, or been to a CGAI event in Ottawa, well, I am the one behind the curtain helping make those happen. I also help manage Triple Helix, a Department of National Defence-funded collaborative network that looks at emerging technology in defence.

Disclaimer

While my salary and the work my think tank does is paid by defence industry and the Department of National Defence, none of the views expressed here reflect those of these organizations (that I am aware of). No one dictates what I write or is in a position of shaping my views.

Before you ask

The fantastic picture on my home page is by Master Sailor (MS) Marilou Villeneuve-Last, Canadian Armed Forces Photo. You can find it (and many more amazing photographs) on the Canadian Armed Forces’ Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cfcombatcamera/53348451887/

Ok, great. Now, what is this?

As I am working on deepening my knowledge of Canadian defence (with almost a decade in this field, I remain very much, as the kids call it, a noob), I noticed a lack of resources available on how defence in Canada works. And by “works,” I mean how its bureaucracy operates and how it affects the people within it.

With this Substack, I will attempt to unweave the impenetrable knots that make the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces. The goal here is not necessarily to educate you (if it helps, awesome!), but rather to have a place where I can write things down, try to understand how things work, and make the posts available to folks to (1) engage in conversations, (2) crowdsource information. If I get anything wrong, just comment, email me, or DM me on twitter. I will add updates and edits.

I am not looking to profit monetarily from this Substack – I am just trying to understand things, and hopefully it can help other folks who are at the same stage of their careers.

Welcome, bienvenue.

If it looks weird, that’s normal.

Each article/ newsletter/ stackie will be posted based on what I am working on at the time. It will not have much of an internal cohesiveness – I will approach it theme by theme or organization by organization. I will try to make the title as simple as possible in order to simplify your search.

I want to hear from you!

Theme or organization you are wondering about? Something I’m missing? Something I’m wrong about? Just let me know! I am here to learn and write.

And for the bit Substack wants me to keep in:

To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.