We’re a NATO deadbeat
NATO is the world’s most important military alliance, a noble one- for- all and all- for one pact among 28 countries of the free world that has kept Russia and other bad actors at bay in the postwar era.
All member countries, rich and poor, committed to contributing their share to maintain NATO’s potency, but most of the 28 are laggards and a handful are deadbeats, contributing a pittance to their international responsibilities. Canada is one of those deadbeats, a particular embarrassment given that Canada is an affluent country and a founder of NATO.
In 2006, NATO’s members agreed to maintain their military capabilities by spending at least two per cent of their GDP on defence. Only five countries today meet or exceed that threshold—the U.S ., the U.K., Greece, Poland and Estonia — while other wealthy countries such as France and Germany are either close to two per cent or are actively increasing their defence spending to get there.
Canada is near the bottom of the pack, spending just one per cent of our GDP on our own military, despite our wealth, despite having a sizable military export industry, and despite having a proud history of military accomplishments. Unlike others, we have made no moves to date to close the gap, despite pressure from the U.S .— which spends more than the other 27 members combined — and NATO itself. Instead we boast that while we may fall down in quantity we make up for it in quality. Canada is one of “the strongest actors in NATO” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted in Germany last week, saying that we “regularly step up — delivering troops, participating in missions, being there to do the heavy lifting in the alliance.”
Contrary to Trudeau’s claims, Canada’s military is depleted and at its breaking point. Canada’s navy is dilapidated and its air force operates with aged aircraft unable to meet either NATO or North American Aerospace Defense Command commitments. “Every time we run operations now we’re strained and we’re stretched and we’re scraping from other places,” Rick Hillier, the former chief of defence staff, explained last year in frustration at past defence budget cuts. “The funding issue makes everything fragile. You can’t hire enough people; you can’t get the equipment.”
Hillier was pleading for the Trudeau government’s defence review, which was then underway with a mandate to streamline the military, to recommend the increased funds needed to run a competent military. That review, which is expected to soon be finalized, should be halted and mandated instead to beef up the military. Canada should honour its two per cent commitment and also accept responsibility to look after our own defence needs, rather than counting on the U. S. to defend our skies and seas, as if we’re a dependency of some sort.
Canada’s military has numerous needs that cry out for funding. To meet the NATO involvements Canada is now considering — these include deployments in Iraq, Ukraine, Africa and the Baltic, some to discourage moves by Russia, some to achieve NATO’s heightened anti- terrorism focus — Canada needs more men and women in uniform and decent pay for its personnel, as well as modern equipment.
Our annual $ 20- billion military budget needs to rise rapidly, doubling in the years ahead to adequately prepare for whatever the future might deliver, as well as to demonstrate that we’ve matured enough to fully pull our weight, earn international respect, and avoid, as Hillier fears, being “marginalized.”
Without a robust military our views count for little with friend and foe alike, no matter how much we might want to pat ourselves on the back for being influential. The virtue in melding diplomacy with military might, to avoid negotiating from a position of weakness, can be seen by looking at the EU’s feckless response to Russian advances in Ukraine and before that in Georgia. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace put it, “the EU no longer commands military authority. And as long as the EU is unwilling to project such authority, it will remain weak in relation to Russian leaders who are prepared to spill blood on the altar of territorial control, buffer zones, and power balances.”
Fortunately f or Europeans and Canadians who want to their nations’ views to count, the Trump administration will be forcing NATO’s laggards to do what they and we should have all been doing unprompted. This month, U. S. Secretary of Defence James Mattis i ssued an ultimatum t o NATO members, t elling them to live up to their word or see the U. S. withdraw its support, a warning emphatically repeated afterward by Vice President Mike Pence at the Munich security conference.
President Barack Obama tried to get us to man up on NATO, so did president George W. Bush. They failed because they were perceived as too weak to press their point. President Trump does not suffer from the same perception.
Watch all of NATO’s laggards — Canada not excepted — fall into line for our own benefit and for the benefit of world peace.
(CANADA SPENDS) JUST 1% OF OUR GDP ON OUR OWN MILITARY. — LAWRENCE SOLOMON