“This is a fundamental reset of Canadian hard power”.
Canada’s traditional role in NATO has been to stop Europe simply being a protectorate of a hitherto internationalist US. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney believes that because of the mercurial nature of the Trump administration Canada must now “demonstrate presence” and be far assertive both for its own security and defence and the well-being of the transatlantic relationship. Carney is thus reinforcing Ottawa’s traditional Pearsonesque soft power role with a 10-year Defence Investment Plan that will give Canada more influence and defence effect in all three oceans that surround Canada (Atlantic Arctic, and Pacific), the defence of Continental North America, and Europe.
For many years, Canadian defence expenditure was circa 1% GDP reinforced by Ottawa’s political conceit that Canada spent so well on defence that 1% GDP invested was really 2% GDP effect. Canada now spends 1.5% GDP on defence and plans to reach 2% by 2032 and meet the commitment made at the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague to spend 3.5% of GDP on core defence by 2035. Public support is strong with some 68% of the population in support. How deep that support is when Canadians are faced with cost of living and other pressures remains to be seen.
“The Carney Defence” is a hedging strategy designed to buy Ottawa influence in NORAD and NATO but also diversify Canada’s defence relations by forging close links with non-US members of the Alliance and others, such as Australia and Japan. “It is a very ambitious goal” due to “scale and costs” and the balancing of the ends, ways and means with Canada’s fundamentals given multiple “strategic frontiers. Whatever increase Canada makes to its defence budget, size of population, limits to its defence, technological and industrial base and the sheer vastness of the “Canadian space” means Ottawa can only ever aspire to be a medium power. However mercurial Canada’s “noisy neighbour to the south” becomes Ottawa will always be dependent on Washington for its direction of strategic travel.
The strategy also reveals force majeure a degree of creativity and imagination in Canadian defence thinking and could show the way forward for other Allied powers grappling with the dilemma of balancing welfare and defence costs. Carney is a banker open to new ways to fund defence, most notably Canada’s leadership with Luxembourg of the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank. DSRB will lower the cost-barriers to entry into defence modernisation for its members with cheap loans from the commercial sector. The cost will be spread across the life-cycle of re-capitalisation, industrial and technological upscaling, acquisition and fielding, deployment and re-equipping, and retirement.
There are also manifold other challenges Carney must overcome. The strategy is very closely identified with Carney. The strategy also pre-supposes that much of the defence procurement will be “Made in Canada”, which is ambitious given the small size of the Canadian technological and industrial base. Canada has also joined the EU’s SAFE programme, the first non-EU member to do so, but what influence Ottawa will generate remains moot.
NATO is also a paradox for Canada. NATO remains central to Canada’s defence strategy to which the critical role Canadian forces are playing in Allied deterrence in Latvia attests. And yet, Ottawa can never assume Europeans would come to the aid of Canada in an emergency, reinforcing the reliance of Ottawa on NORAD and the US. Whilst NATO’s Regional Plans do not as yet include the defence of Canada Ottawa is fully signed up and committed. It is precisely the reality of Canadian defence dependency on the US which President Trump is exploiting.
The defence of Canada is and always will be part of a US-led integrated defence effort for North America. As such the Carney Defence and its embrace of hard power is as much political as defence-strategic. It is to remind Canadians of the role Canada has traditionally played in the defence of freedom and to reinforce a distinct history and identity that is very different to the US. It is also a recognition that given the pressures on a changing US and its body politic American support is likely to come at a higher price, Trump or no Trump.
Carney has decided that the status quo ante of defence minimalism is over and that soft power without hard power is no power, especially for a country that champions the rules-based order. It is a shame some of Canada’s European allies have yet to come to the same conclusion.
Julian Lindley-French