David Last

Associate Professor
Department of Politics and Economics
Royal Military College of Canada
E-mail

Research Statement (65 kB)Lieutenant Colonel David Last, Ph.D. is an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada (B.A.), Carleton University (M.A.), the London School of Economics (Ph.D.), and the US Army Command and General Staff College (MMAS). He commanded Blue Beret Camp in UNFICYP (Cyprus) 1992-93, where he completed research on the handling of incidents and worked with the Intercommunal Conflict Resolution Steering Committee. He conducted research in Croatia with the Peacekeeper Interview Program in 1994, and served as the Military Assistant to the Deputy Force Commander of UNPF from May-December 1995 (in Zagreb). From January-July 1996 he was the Civil Affairs officer for the Serb side the Canadian Multinational Brigade area (in northwest Bosnia).

Lieutenant Colonel Last spent two years developing courses and conducting research at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, and then served as national staff officer for Counter Terrorism and Special Operations before coming to teach at RMC in 1999. His book, Conflict De-escalation in Peacekeeping Operations, is published by the Canadian Peacekeeping Press (1997), and recent articles appear in International Peacekeeping, Canadian Foreign Policy, and Fletcher Forum.

Lieutenant Colonel Last teaches in the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada. His research interests focus on third party intervention in protracted social conflict.

Expertise:

• Canadian armed forces officer specializing in third party intervention in protracted social conflict
• Conflict de-escalation in peacekeeping operations
• Economic peace-building, political economy and security/li>
• Peacekeeping and negotiation
• Post-conflict reconstruction
• Special forces
• Security sector governance
• Transnational policing
• Israel-Palestine