1. Home

Dr. Kevin D. Stringer

Kevin D. Stringer

Kevin D. Stringer

Lecturer

University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

About

Dr. Kevin D. Stringer, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), is a Lecturer at the University of Northwestern Switzerland and a Visiting Associate Professor at the Military Academy of Lithuania. With 30 years of commissioned military service, he was a Eurasian foreign area officer and strategist assigned to the U.S. special operations community. Career highlights include assignments as Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate (J5), Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) and Director, Plans and Strategy (J5) for a combined joint special operations task force in the Middle East. In 2021, he served as a military faculty member at the U.S. Army War College. He earned a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Zurich, a Master of Arts in International Relations from Boston University, a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a B.Sc. degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Dr. Stringer has published in Naval War College Review, Joint Force Quarterly, Military Review, Parameters, Special Operations Journal, and the Canadian Military Journal.

Research Interests

  • Irregular Warfare
  • Special Operations
  • Multinational Operations

Recent Publications

  • “SOF Roles in the Arctic: Joint Enabler, Whole-of-Society Integrator, Reverse Security Force Assistance Provider,” in The Northern Flank: Arctic Implications for SOF, edited by Bernd Horn, et al (Winnipeg: CANSOFCOM Education & Research Centre), March 2025.
  • “A Gray Zone Option for Integrated Deterrence: Special Operations Forces,” PRISM: The Journal of Complex Operations 10, No. 4, 2024.
  • “Counter Threat Finance for Strategic Competition.” The RUSI Journal 168, no. 7, 2024.
  • "Urban Resistance to Occupation: An Underestimated Element of Land Warfare," Parameters 53, no. 3, 2023.
  • “Special Operations Forces Institution-Building: From Strategic Approach to Security Force Assistance,” Joint Force Quarterly: JFQ no. 110, 2023.

Online

Communicating Strategically: The Need for the Canadian Armed Forces to Adapt to Today’s Information Environment

Date

Wednesday May 17, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Location

Queen’s University, Robert Sutherland Hall Rm. 202 | Online via Zoom

Col Ryan Jurkowski

Communicating Strategically: the Need for the Canadian Armed Forces to Adapt to Today’s Information Environment

 

In a highly contested and competitive information environment that has national security implications, the Canadian Armed Forces must adapt how it communicates or risk irrelevance to itself, its nation, and to its Allies. 

 

Ryan Jurkowski

Bio:

Colonel Ryan Jurkowski joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a Sapper in 1993 with 3 Field Engineer Squadron prior to receiving his commission and joining the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa. Colonel Jurkowski then proudly served with the Van Doos from 1997-1999 prior to changing his Regimental Affiliation to the PPCLI in 1999.

Regimental service included participation in various domestic operations with tours to Bosnia from1999-2001 as the Anti-Armour Platoon Commander, Afghanistan in 2006 and 2009-2010 in Combat Teams, in Kuwait from 2014-2015 as the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve DCJ5,and most recently in Iraq and Kuwait as the with Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve as the Director of Strategic Communications from 2021-2022.

Staff positions were with the Joint Staff under the then-DCDS Group as the Africa Operations Desk Officer from 2002-2005, Executive Assistant to Commander 3rd Cdn Div from 2007-2008, Executive Assistant to the Assistant Chief of Staff J5 in NATO’s Joint Force Command Brunssum from 2011-2013, Chief of Canadian Army Capability Integration at the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre from2013-2014, Assistant Chief of Staff at the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre from 2014-2015,the J3 at the 1st Cdn Div from 2017-2018, the Director of Programmes at the Canadian Forces College from 2018-2020, and the Canadian Defence Academy Chief of Staff from 2020-2021. Colonel Jurkowski had the privilege to command the 5th Cdn Div Training Centre from 2015-2017.

Colonel Jurkowski is currently a Visiting Defence Fellow at Queen's University.In addition to national and international commendations, Colonel Jurkowski has been awarded the US Joint Service Commendation Medal, a Mention-in-Dispatch, and the Meritorious Service Medal. Colonel Jurkowski has a Masters in Defence Studies.

Colonel Jurkowski is married and the couple have a son and a daughter.

Research areas of interest:

  • Professional Military Education
  • Strategic Communications
  • Contemporary Operations

 

Andrew B. Godefroy CD PhD

Andrew Godefroy

Andrew Godefroy

Strategic Analyst and Historian | Adjunct Associate Professor (History), RMCC

About

Dr. Andrew B. Godefroy is currently an (Adjunct) Associate Professor of History at the Royal Military College of Canada, and a consultant on defence research and development. Raised in Montreal, he earned a BA from Concordia University, and an MA and PhD in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. Additionally, he is a graduate of the Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering, the Canadian Forces School of Aerospace Studies, the Canadian Army Command and Staff College, and the Joint Command and Staff Program at Canadian Forces College Toronto. While with the Canadian Armed Forces he held a range of unit, operational, staff, and command appointments both at home and abroad.

Educated and trained as a military engineer officer from 1990-1997, he went on to serve as a Canada-US space policy officer at NDHQ from 1998-2000, and subsequently until 2004 as a joint space support operations officer with the CF Joint Operations Group. From 2004-2015 he served with the Canadian Army Land Warfare Centre as a subject matter expert in strategic forecasting and capability development. From 2015 to 2017 he served with the Canadian Army Lessons Learned Centre, before moving onto the Canadian Army Command and Staff College in 2018 where he served as Head of Professional Military Education until his retirement from uniform at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 2024.

Academically, he is a Distinguished Alumni of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and a past Fellow of the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies. From 2009-2010 he was the Canadian Visiting Research Fellow in the Leverhulme Program on the Changing Character of Warfare at the University of Oxford, UK. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Army Journal from 2005-2015 and remains a member of its editorial board; he is also currently a member of the editorial board of Canadian Military History. A former historian for the Canadian Space Agency, he now serves on the Board of Directors of the Kingston Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and is also a member of the British Astronomical Association.

Research Interests

  • Strategic Visioning, Forecasting, Scenario Planning, and Futuring Methodologies
  • Wargaming and Conflict Simulations, Serious Games, and their Design
  • Aerospace and Military History

Recent Publications

  • 'The RCAF at the Dawn of the Space Age, 1958-1968’, in Randall Wakelam, (ed). On the Wings of War and Peace: The RCAF during the Early Cold War. (University of Toronto Press, 2023); 
  • ‘The Short Life of Akjuit Aerospace and SpacePort Canada’, Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, 24:1 (2017), 29-40.
  • The Canadian Space Program: From Black Brant to the International Space Station. New York: Springer Books, 2017.
  • In Peace Prepared: Innovation and Adaptation in Canada’s Cold War Army. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2014.
  • ‘Strategic Influence Reconsidered: Defence Research and Combat Development in Canada’s Early Cold War Army’, Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 15:3 (2014), 138-155.

Online

A Chat with the VDFs - Defending the Truth: The Military's Role in Combatting Misinformation

Date

Wednesday April 12, 2023
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm

Location

Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 334 - Queen's University

In our last VDF mentorship meeting of the academic year, Col. Jurkowski will discuss how the CAF deals with misinformation and disinformation.

*A light meal will be provided

 

Register Here

 

VDF Mentorship program

 

Arctic Security In a Time of Geopolitical Insecurities with LTC Wendy Tokach

Date

Wednesday April 26, 2023
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Location

Queen’s University, Robert Sutherland Hall Rm. 202 | Online via Zoom
LTC Wendy Tokach

 

Arctic Security in a Time of Geopolitical Insecurities.

 

Arctic issues have recently risen in priority as the utility of the Arctic expanded globally. As the global perspective on the Arctic is redefined, and Arctic issues are brought to the forefront of global security; the impact of rapid changes in the Arctic region is felt far beyond Arctic nations. Global cooperation is needed to respond to the current challenges regarding governance, conservation, and exploration of the Arctic, and a need for all allied and NATO partners to expand communication and consolidate capabilities to ensure unity of effort.  

 

notes:

  • a light lunch will be served for those who attend in person.
  • Registration is required.  

Register Here

Wendy Tokach

Bio:

LTC Wendy Tokach was born and raised in Mandan, North Dakota. She originally enlisted in the North Dakota Army National Guard as a Photojournalist in Public Affairs and deployed to Bosnia in 1997 to support Operation Joint Endeavor, and upon redeployment she transferred to the Hawaii Army National Guard before she received her commission in 2002 as a Military Police Officer through the ROTC program at the University of Hawaii. She is a graduate of the Military Police Officer Basic and Captains’ Career Courses, Airborne School, Special Reaction Team Training, Basic Instructor and Foundation Instructor Facilitator Courses, and the Military History Instructor Course. She served as an Instructor for the Military Police Basic Officer Leadership Course at the U.S. Army Military Police School and as a Professor of Military Science and Military History Instructor at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. She served as a Platoon Leader in the 720th Military Police Battalion at Fort Hood, TX where she deployed twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her staff assignments include Battalion S3 Operations Officer for the 43rd AG Battalion (Reception) at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, and as the Battalion Executive Officer to the 93rd Military Police Battalion at Fort Bliss, TX. Additionally, LTC Tokach also had the unique opportunity to serve as the G3/5/7 Operations, Plans and Training Officer from 2015-2017 for the Canadian Army Military Police Group in Ottawa, Ontario as part of the Military Personnel Exchange Program.

Her command assignments include: Commander of 67th Military Police Company providing guard force to the Joint Regional Correctional Facility on JBLM, and Commander of HHC, 508th Military Police Battalion where she deployed to Iraq for the third time supporting the Theater Interment Facility. She also served as the Facility Commander of the U.S. Army Correctional Activity-Korea on Camp Humphreys providing military correctional support to the entire Korean peninsula. Most recently she served as the Battalion Commander of the 787th Military Police Battalion (OSUT), Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

LTC Tokach holds a Bachelors of Arts in Humanities-History from the University of Hawaii West Oahu and a Master of Business and Organizational Security Management from Webster University. Her awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the NCO Professional Development Ribbon, the Parachutist Badge, the Basic Instructor Badge, she is also a member of the Military Police Regimental Order of the Marechaussee in Bronze.

She currently resides at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and in her free time LTC Tokach enjoys snow sports, cycling and competing in endurance running and Ironman triathlons.

 

Subscribe to