In 2019 the then President of the United States, made clear his intention to pull America out of NATO. What this accomplished was to provide Russia with a green light in its continued aggression towards Ukraine. His further statements related to not being committed to Article 5 of the NATO agreement if a NATO member does not commit to at least 2% of GDP to military spending, left NATO’s membership with proof of a clear intent as to America’s intentions with respect to its involvement and continued support of Europe’s defence.
It also sent an unequivocal message to Canada, that America would not commit to the defence of Canadian Sovereign territory, either. Canada was put on notice that America, and more specifically, that the now President elect coming to power in less than seven weeks, will move ahead with his agenda to leave NATO. This effectively will force Ukraine to either sign on to an end of hostilities agreement with Russia, that leaves Ukraine without 20% of its sovereign territory, or in the event of refusal to accept those conditions, have its support cut-off entirely by America’s chosen President, appeasing the dictator and kleptocrat, Vladimir Putin.
Canadians are committed, both to meeting its own military requirements for maintaining sovereignty and to the support of Ukraine as well as NATO. If this means spending more than 2%, Canadians are committed to do so. While it will create pain, within Canada’s economy, without the ability to maintain its sovereignty, the country would be at extreme risk.
What is now obvious, is that risk today extends both North and South. There is little doubt, after the President Elects threats both to Mexico and to Canada economically, that America intends on pursuing protectionist policies that in effect negate or place in serious question whether Canada is friend or foe. And just today, he made reference, supposedly as a joke, that Canada could well become the 51st State. The vast majority of Canadians value its liberal democratic values, and due to some of his statements regarding Canadian sovereignty, the American President Elects threatens both even before he is inaugurated.
This may well provide an impetus for Canada to pursue a more independent and arms length relationship with the United States. While Canada and the United States have shared a unique relationship forged by geography, values, common interests, strong personal connections and powerful, multi-layered economic ties. We have shared a deep and longstanding defence and national security partnership, providing both countries with greater security than could be achieved individually. Millions of jobs are supported on both sides of the common border by trade and investment, vital to both countries economic competitiveness and prosperity.
However the President Elect seems to want to use coercion rather than friendship and common interests to extract additional benefits, such as tariffs and or threats. Canada can ill-afford to have a neighbour that wishes to dominate it and control it, either economically or militarily. Therefore a change in the national posture and orientation of Canada towards the United States is both necessary and prudent.
That change of posture will likely need to take into consideration the specific threats that the United States, through its President Elect has implied. His intentions, spoken clearly, unequivocally and often with vehemence, suggests Canada needs to act in its economic and military defence. When trust is lost between two nation states that are separated by a undefended border, it is then time to provide a credible defence and structures that would enlist the citizenry of the country in its defence, similar to what Sweden and Finland have done for the last 80 years.
This includes developing a military industrial complex capable of providing with its allies sufficient capacity and capability in a technology rich environment to provide the necessary weapons, intelligence and surveillance needs of a state-of-the-art military force.
If Canada is to spend twice on defence, what it now procures annually, then it only makes sense to pay Canadians to do so. Canada has both the technological, educational and industrial capacity to rapidly scale up its military industrial complex, particularly when the customer awaiting purchases is your own national government. Like Sweden, Canada needs an autonomous defence capability, enriched by a collaborative relationship with those countries that are its allies, rather than those that threaten, make demands or break agreements that have had beneficial value to both or multiple parties to those agreements for many decades.
It is true that Canada’s military has been allowed to shrink from a force size of approximately 120,000 Regulars (not all that dissimilar in size to that of the United Kingdom today at 144,000) down to a mere 68,000 Regulars force members. Since WWII Canada has been manned completely by volunteers. In 1960, Canada had a population of 17.87 million people, today Canada’s population is 40 million, yet our armed forces have shrunk down to 56.6% of the force structure then. Both political parties in Canada share near equal blame for putting Canadians at the risk of having an inability to defend Canada’s sovereignty.
The current government can be included in receiving a significant share of the blame, having been in power for nine, going on ten years federally. Canadians are fed up with the lack of support for the Canadian military including its minuscule level of funding. Two percent of Canada’s current GDP is $57 Billion dollars. In 2023, Canada allotted 1.38% of its GDP for defence spending, but only spent $26.5 billion of the 30.49 Billion it allocated for military spending. Which means that Canada needs to increase the military budget by 54% in order to meet NATO’s recommended spending limit of 2% of GDP.
While this means painful cuts to many federal programs in addition to increased taxation and/or increasing the national debt by borrowing, it is not a question of whether Canada can defer these expenditures any longer. We cannot. Loss of sovereignty is a ridiculous consideration, as is the risk of foreign intervention to claim Canadian sovereign territory. Is this possible? Absolutely. One need only look at what is happening with Ukraine and probably Taiwan in the near future.
There exists three critical requirements if the Canadian Armed Forces are to protect Canadian interests. They are:
- Attract sufficiently qualified personnel to serve in a Canadian military that will provide state-of-the-art weapon systems for national defence. This includes air, land and sea requirements. This may require conscription, which has not been part of Canada’s military manpower requirements since WWII. It is likely the only way to develop sufficient personnel to meet a military force structure of 120,000 trained personnel.
- Procure the necessary additional weapon systems, equipment, training, logistics, ammunition, munitions, bases, lift capacity, etc., etc. necessary for the military to both interoperate effectively and efficiently with NATO or alone for a protracted period of time on a national war footing.
- Commit to increasing the remuneration and benefits such that those conscripted into the army see a clear path and future to enlisting into the Canadian Military for a lifelong career (20-30 years.)
Part II
Part II will reflect the recommended or requisite weapon systems both defensively and offensively necessary to fill the commitment/capability gap that now exists and to provide military personnel with the best equipment available for their survival and strategic requirements, today, and in the future. Part II will also look at numbers and type of equipment/systems needed for procurement and the urgency with which it is necessary to supply it.
Part II won’t address all systems necessary by the Canadian Armed Forces. That would be an incredibly lengthy article, or series of articles. The intent of the second part of the article is to look at those areas of Canada’s military force structure that are deficient and suggest where resources need to be applied in order to be a fighting force clearly capable of operating on the battlefield, independent of other NATO forces. This force should be capable of all tactical and strategic requirements of a modern fighting force, in both the Air, on Land or at or below the sea.
Ciao…
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