News   Mar 28, 2024
 992     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 554     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 848     0 

Canada and the World

Yes! I've been banging this drum forever. We have no coordinated national security strategy with foreign and defence policies coming from those. Instead, our defence policies are these weird documents that restate our commitments and provide a pledged shopping list for the arms bazaar. And we look set to repeat that mistake again with pledged rapid review of defence policy now.


Yep. People don't get how bad it is. It's arguably worse today than the 90s. We had younger equipment and more personnel in the 90s. Today we have aging kit, aging personnel (a good chunk of him are burned out from war and deployments) and basically everything is coming to end of life at once. The pledged money doesn't do much.

Not surprised that we weren't even invited to AUKUS. We have nothing to offer. And that deal, initially dismissed by Trudeau as just about nuclear submarines, has grown to cover artificial intelligence, cyber, electronic warfare, underwater sensing and quantum computing. It's not just a weapons deal. It's basically the premiere technology sharing agreement in the world. And our allies decided we aren't worthy.



The crazy part here is that there's not even a suggestion of going to Cold War level defence spending for most countries. 2% is below Cold War levels for most. It's roughly the historical mean for Canada across the Cold War. Heck, getting to the 1.8-1.9% range would get us plenty of capability. At least to the point that we aren't a joke.

More interesting is watching the American reaction to our apathy. Unlike Canadian talk they are actually starting to take the Arctic seriously with major exercises and a slow build up over there. They have been watching Russia militarize the Arctic for the last decade with little to no reaction from Canada. And even the Chinese are trying to get in there.


I'm curious what the reaction in Canada will be, for the now inevitable deployment of an American flat top of some kind to the Arctic over the next decade or so. Will we shriek and do nothing but whine about those Americans? Or shrug and do nothing but whine about those Americans?



The same academia the have been carrying water for the Russians for nearly two decades? The amount of Western academics who have been apologists for Russian expansionism (cough "sphere of influence") has been the most interesting revelation of this whole saga. This piece by John Mearsheimer in the Economist, blaming the West for the invasion of Ukraine comes to mind:




In typical Canadian fashion, our actions don't match our rhetoric and others have noticed.


I am actually appalled by the current state of our military. As you say, if not all of the equipment is aging and needs a modern upgrade.

I am tired of all the retrofits to aging ships and buying second hand submarines. What we need is a major increase in spending like Germany just did to modernize our entire military. If a major conflict were to break out we would be forked because we could not defend ourselves with what we have now.

When a major conflict breaks out, it is too late to start building up your ships, aircraft, subs and ground forces. You need to have a stable and modern fighting force long before it reaches that point as it takes years to build it up.

Right now, if war were to break out I would feel safer sending in the First Canadian Goose Light Infantry Division. Anyone who has seen a pissed off goose knows how effective they can be.,
 
Thought I would create a thread where we can discuss Canada's place in the world. As the Russo-Ukrainian war rages on and upsets a lot of apple carts, it's clear that our foreign and defence policies and outlooks have to evolve. We can discuss what we think our place is, and should be in the world. How we think the CAF (and other agencies of our foreign and defence apparatus) should evolve. Etc.

I want to come back to this opening statement for the thread to put this suggestion forward, that we need to consider all of, how we expect the world will evolve, how we wish the world to evolve; and what opportunities and risks exist for which we can prepare for how the world may evolve.

Uncertainty is a fact of life as it were; which is to say, we, as a nation cannot be equally prepared for every possibility; as such we must evaluate what the greatest probabilities are; and consider our ability to both influence what happens; but also respond to what happens.

*****

Without writing a treatise on the above, here are some of things I think we need to consider/weigh to better understand where to invest our resources.

1) Status quo - evolution; by which I mean assuming there were no great disruptive forces, where is the geo-political power structure headed, what can Canada do to take advantage of this, prepare for this or influence same at the margins.

2) Climate change. There is a high degree of uncertainty as to exactly what may happen and when; but given that a certain amount of warming and ocean-rise seems more likely than not, we have a great deal to consider. We, ourselves are an oceanic nation. Parts of Vancouver/lower-mainland BC, and Halifax are notably low-lying; including Halifax's naval base. Beyond that flooding is probably the most predictable impact world wide, with Bangladesh among the places likely to be worst affected.
A worst-case scenario there has 100M refugees, again, something to be mindful of....

3) Predictable, probable change. California is under serious threat of a water shortage. This isn't really about Climate change; though that may aggravate things. Its about having diverted water from the Colorado River to irrigate a desert; and vastly over-tapping ground-water resources which are running critically low. The U.S. is a rich country and will find solutions ranging from conservation, to desalination; but these will drive the cost of water up substantially, and will likely
drive the more water-intensive agriculture out of the state. Canada needs to consider impacts on our winter/spring food supply, whether that production shifts w/the U.S. or elsewhere etc etc.

4) Outlier events, nations like Hungary, Turkey and others w/strong-man leaders may be prone to volatile change; as are those nations that remain desperately poor when compared with 'The West'. Does this pose a material threat?

5) To the extent we can influence the world, on our own, or in conjunction w/other actors, how do we wish the world to evolve? Do we envision a larger E-U including Turkey and Ukraine? Do we desire a somewhat more equal world, with less extreme poverty? etc etc. If so, what can we do to facilitate our goals.

6) What are the tangible threats to Canada from the above or beyond; and for which ones can we credibly prepare?

I think we need to figure all that stuff out, (not to perfection, but to the point of credible theses) such that we can intelligently prioritize which global actors we wish to try and influence; and what we may need to put in place to do so; and what investments need to be made from a defensive point of view, including, but not limited to military investments, protection of civilian populations, supply chains etc; establishment of practical sovereignty over portions of our territory.

****

There's lots we could all agree on in the short-run to mitigate rust-out in the military, the F-35 purchase perhaps being the most obvious example.........

There's some flood-proofing, and a few other relatively straight-forward disaster-mitigation strategies that can be pursued as well.

Its after that things get more challenging. In a world of finite resources, how many tens or hundreds of billions of dollars do we spend, how many sacrifices do we make, to prepare for a tomorrow beyond the immediate horizon; and what bets do we make given the degree of uncertainty involved?
 
Last edited:
I want to come back to this opening statement for the thread to put this suggestion forward, that we need to consider all of, how we expect the world will evolve, how we wish the world to evolve; and what opportunities and risks exist for which we can prepare for how the world may evolve.

Indeed. Which is why it is disappointing that the government is pushing a quick and dirty defence policy review instead of something like what the British did:

 
According to this Reuters journalist, 'JAUSUKUS' is on the cards. Again.

Take with a grain of salt, but maybe Japan/US looking at future of China in context of slow demise of Russia?


China for all it's bluster is not much better than Russia. They can talk the talk but they are one economic crisis away from a destabilized government. Their global power is based on what they produce and their population which right now is aging and precarious at best.

A good chunk of their population is aging to the point where they will have significant population decline in the future. Also, their economy is based on manufacturing and cheap labor which for the moment is a gamble. If global demand for Chinese imports fail, their economy comes down like a house of cards.

Russia on the other hand has stagnated. It never really developed after the USSR collapsed.
 
China for all it's bluster is not much better than Russia. They can talk the talk but they are one economic crisis away from a destabilized government. Their global power is based on what they produce and their population which right now is aging and precarious at best.

A good chunk of their population is aging to the point where they will have significant population decline in the future. Also, their economy is based on manufacturing and cheap labor which for the moment is a gamble. If global demand for Chinese imports fail, their economy comes down like a house of cards.

Russia on the other hand has stagnated. It never really developed after the USSR collapsed.

I think the question I heard about China is whether they will get rich (out of the 'middle income trap') before they get old. They have no real soft power, but plenty of hard power (threat/bribe) and are doing a good job of alienating its near abroad.

In the wider Grand Strategic sphere - small map, big hand - the business with Russia is a global inflexion point. Russia's influence trajectory is downward and its resource heavy economy will sell to a small number of countries who will, consequently, have greater leverage as a result. Umm, China. The balance of power is swinging towards China in respect to being any counterweight to the West. We in the West should have learned some valuable lessons between Covid and the Ukraine War (presuming the happy, clappy peaceniks turned #ClearTheSkies warmongers don't get us nuked). Security of supply chains, the value of not hollowing out our industrial bases, realisation that the unskilled are valuable and that mutual support and cohesiveness can be a bonus.

And we really ought to think a bit about the internal socio-cultural atomisation taking place in our societies. I really am pessimistic about the trajectory of US society in particular, but we are not far behind ourselves. We seem to have self-McCarthy'd ourselves. No wonder we are so prone to external interference. Better internal social cohesion is a sine qua non of taking advantage of our brave new world. To use an aviation analogy, Donald Trump's election wasn't an engine fire to extinguish, it was a warning light of a fault in the system.

I think the future will be one where international norms of behaviour may not be as clear as they were in the past, consequently more unstable.
 
Mostly agree with your post but I'll challenge this:

They have no real soft power, but plenty of hard power (threat/bribe) and are doing a good job of alienating its near abroad.

Their influence in the developing world is substantial. Not in the least because they show up with cheques where Western governments show up with lectures.

Credit to the British, who work hard to try and hit 0.7% of GDP in aid, because they understand this. Canadian governments (of both stripes) don't seem to have understood this at all.
 
Mostly agree with your post but I'll challenge this:



Their influence in the developing world is substantial. Not in the least because they show up with cheques where Western governments show up with lectures.

Credit to the British, who work hard to try and hit 0.7% of GDP in aid, because they understand this. Canadian governments (of both stripes) don't seem to have understood this at all.
A fair point. I refer to soft power as espoused by Joseph Nye. It is a bit of a nebulous concept that can never be fully nailed down, but does try to articulate the 'attractiveness' of a country to other nations. Importantly, it excludes states achieving policy ends by transactional means: threats (direct or indirect) or bribery (including aid). I think of it less a policy tool than a pre-condition that fascilitates (often indirectly) achievement ends. Interesting and brief resume of soft power effects by the British Council, here. So, Chinese investment to Africa is hard power ($$$), but its reputation for lack of moralising on human rights, having auditing requirements, etc may be construed as soft power.

A country's soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources: "its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority)." (Wikipedia)

In this regard, for example, I wouldn't use the UK aid budget as an example of soft power. Rather, the BBC World Service or having foreign leaders in the fields of business/politics/culture who have studied at UK universities. And in this regards, Canada could be defined as a leading soft power - our ability to attract or persuade.
 
I get what you're saying. And I understand what soft power is. Just saying they have a way of converting hard power in to good will and soft power.

They've used development projects, the Belt and Road Initiative and even the Confucius Institutes to spread cultural influence beyond just building economic ties. They are starting to leverage the large Chinese diaspora too, too build further cultural ties.

Yeah, it's not as great as Coca Cola and McDonald's. But it's not negligible either. And I find it's often first worlders dismissing Chinese influence. We need to be careful with perspective on this.
 
They are starting to leverage the large Chinese diaspora too, too build further cultural ties.
That's Modhi's playbook in a oner! Leverage the diaspora.

All good, particularly with regards to our perception of China being different than others.
 

Back
Top