Canada and a
post-American NATO

Recent days have confirmed that the United States is no longer a reliable NATO ally. President Donald Trump is discussing with Vladimir Putin a settlement of the Ukraine war, unilaterally conceding much of what is at issue (Ukrainian exclusion from NATO and recognition of Russian territorial gains), and excluding Ukraine and NATO’s European members, and Canada, from the talks. His Secretary of Defense has also confirmed Europe’s defence is of declining importance to the US, and Trump has cast doubt on his willingness to honour NATO’s Article 5, under which an attack on one member is an attack on all.

In addition, Trump also provoked an acrimonious public exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office and paused US military aid to Ukraine, without consulting NATO allies, in order to force Zelensky to accept an unfavourable and unstable peace. We can expect a reduced US troop presence in Europe, perhaps total withdrawal, and without US troops as a “tripwire”, the US nuclear guarantee central to NATO loses credibility. The European allies are rushing to adjust, with a recent meeting of major powers in Paris, and the incoming German chancellor is calling for an independent European defence capability and casting doubt on whether NATO in its current form will last. Canada must adjust too. Since its crucial role in creating NATO, the alliance has remained Canada’s leading venue for multilateral action and has allowed us to join with the European allies to offset American power rather than be crushed in a bilateral embrace.

The challenges confronting Canada and Europe are similar in some ways, different in others. The US postwar attitude towards European cooperation has always been ambivalent. Washington has sought a Europe that is sufficiently strong and to bear more of the burdens of the common defence, but not able to resist US leadership. Europeans, on the other hand, have inhibited their defence cooperation efforts for fear that a “European pillar” capable of independent action would provoke a reduced US commitment to their security. That eventuality is already here, so it is not merely permissible, it is imperative that the Europeans act. This may give Trump a pretext for formal withdrawal from NATO, though he may remain solely to be obstructive, but either way the US is no longer an ally.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a European army and Britain and France are discussing a 30,000 strong “Reassurance Force” to defend Ukraine’s major cities and infrastructure after a disadvantageous peace is imposed by Trump and Putin. At the very least, this will augment Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. European forces must also be deployed in greater numbers to guard the entirety of NATO’s frontier with Russia, which has been extended with the accession of Sweden and Finland in particular. Furthermore, the existing Canadian-led NATO brigade group in Latvia should be augmented. While limited, these forces will at least serve as a tripwire, warning Putin that he cannot prey upon small neighbours without triggering conflict with Europe’s NATO members.

No doubt, the necessary long-term buildup will be difficult. And without the US nuclear umbrella, the only alternative to proliferation in Europe is the coordination and expansion of the existing British and French nuclear deterrents within a broader European architecture. Not only are European conventional capabilities too small to meet present conditions, but they are also configured for limited roles in limited wars, in an American-led coalition. The Europeans also lack the capacity to deploy and coordinate large formations for extended conflict, and for certain core capabilities, such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); strategic airlift; long-range precision striking power; and air and missile defences, they are heavily dependent on the US, deficiencies which must be made good.

Where does Canada fit in? In European discussions of NATO’s future, Canada is sometimes an afterthought, but this is in neither our interest nor the Europeans. Canada is involved in both the provision of North Atlantic security through NATO and continental defence through our unique binational command with the US, NORAD. These are often treated as largely separate, though Canadian governments have occasionally defended themselves from charges of parsimony in NATO by pointing to continental defence as a contribution to NATO. But the underlying geography has changed, and with it the strategic landscape. Climate change and melting Arctic ice not only render minerals and energy resources more accessible but open northern waters to military competition.

Changes to Russian naval doctrine since 2015 have emphasized the projection of power into North Atlantic waters and the capacity to threaten European targets from the sea. In recent years, Russia has also drastically increased its military footprint in the Arctic, rehabilitating Soviet-era installations and building new ones. The buildup of air and naval striking power on the Kola Peninsula includes nuclear-armed submarines carrying long-range precision cruise missiles with target coverage of Northern and Central Europe as well as much of the Arctic and Atlantic, and these will gradually be reinforced by hypersonic missiles and long-range drones. The northward extension of NATO’s frontier with Russia makes the Nordic and Baltic countries central to Western defences. NATO has already acknowledged this with recent exercises in the strategic waterways around Iceland.

In 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper brusquely rejected any NATO role in defending the Arctic as unduly provocative to Russia, though his promises to boost Canada’s own military presence went unfulfilled and seem to have been designed mainly for domestic consumption. But others, including current Defence Minister Bill Blair, have acknowledged the growing overlap among the European Arctic, North American Arctic, and North Atlantic theatres, with opportunities for collaboration with Northern European allies in particular arising from NATO becoming more of an Arctic alliance.

Canada has been as delinquent in recent years in meeting its NORAD obligations as in fulfilling its pledges to NATO, though the Justin Trudeau government did commit to an extensive NORAD modernization program. This includes drones and fighters for long-range surveillance, reconnaissance, and early warning; sensors and over-the-horizon radar, capable of detecting hypersonic and improved cruise missiles which NORAD’s current obsolescent defences will be unable to detect; a new generation of satellites for space-based surveillance; and ground-based air defence. Blair has also spoken of the need for integrated missile and air defences across NATO’s entire northern flank. NORAD’s commander recently said he would welcome Canada acquiring the capability to intercept missiles, which would undo the 2005 decision by the Paul Martin government to decline participation in Ballistic Missile Defence with the US. Under that decision, increasingly dubious in retrospect, Canada participates in detection of inbound missiles but not their interception, leaving us in the anomalous position of leaving the room when decisions to intercept are made.

The capabilities that would strengthen Canada’s continental defences would also make it a far more valuable ally to NATO’s European members. Canada’s ISR capabilities can certainly contribute to NATO efforts to secure North Atlantic waters. The latest RADARSAT Constellation satellites launched in 2019 provide Canada with near real-time data for Northern and maritime surveillance over areas of over 2,000 miles with daily access to 90% of the Earth’s surface and enable timely tracking of potentially hostile vessels. Defence Research and Development Canada has also started experiments with low-orbit satellites that can provide space-based ISR. Long-endurance drones that have been tested since 2018 under the National Aerial Surveillance Program further augment Canadian surveillance capabilities.

Playing a meaningful role in our own, and Europe’s, maritime defence requires acceleration of current shipbuilding programs for armed icebreakers and replacing the outdated Victoria-class submarines. The Trudeau government recently committed to finding a replacement but has ruled out nuclear-powered vessels. A recent German-Norwegian offer to Canada to take part in a diesel-powered submarine project would bring us a submarine capability sooner than other options. But while diesel-powered submarines effectively patrol coastal and littoral waters, nuclear-powered ones have longer range, are capable of longer under-the-ice operations, and can track enemy submarines across long distances as well as support surface and amphibious operations. Canada should accept the German-Norwegian offer in order to ensure early delivery and cement cooperation, but pursue a follow-on nuclear-powered option, perhaps employing the Canadian Slowpoke-2 reactor, which can be adapted for submarines.

For decades, Canada has pursued deep defence integration and interoperability with the US, largely because it was cheap and easy. And in many cases, particularly within NORAD, there will be no practical alternative. But where possible we must engage in joint development and production with our European allies, to ramp up long-term production capabilities. To be sure, this will often cost more than collaborating on or purchasing US systems, though this doesn’t reflect inherent US technological superiority, just that the longer US production runs reduce unit costs.

But we will have to spend more on defence in any event, and in so doing pay higher taxes or go deeper into debt and accept reduced transfer payments and social services. Moreover, we will have to find ways to spend faster. In key areas, Canadian capabilities are not scheduled to come onstream before the threats they are designed to meet. Our dysfunctional procurement process must be radically reformed with an eye to defence needs alone. Our military already suffers significant personnel shortages, and we will have to both increase recruiting and provide the necessary training, neither of which will happen overnight. The mid-century Department of Defence Production successfully oversaw rapid rearmament after the outbreak of the Korean War, and it should be taken out of mothballs. But as important as the adjustment of expectations and procedures will be the change in attitude. The years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were not the coming of the millennium but an interregnum. That fleeting moment of peacetime has fled and Canada, like its European allies, has no choice but to adapt to the new uncongenial realities, without the ally on whom we all thought we could rely.