Ukrainian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launch system towards Russian troops, June, 2025.Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters
To watch the war between Ukraine and Russia, and the wars between Israel and Hamas/Hezbollah/the Houthis/Iran, is to be reminded of how unprepared Canada is. After decades of neglect, the Canadian Armed Forces are poorly armed, and in some important respects, they are not armed at all.
For example, when the Russian military invaded Ukraine in early 2022, two weapons were key to Ukraine’s ability to resist: anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles.
The Canadian Army used to have several different weapons systems to defend soldiers on the ground against air attack. These were all retired by 2012, and nothing replaced them. Ottawa purchased an advanced air-defence missile battery last year, known as a NASAMS, but only for the purpose of donating it to Ukraine. The Canadian Forces don’t have this kit.
Early in the war, the Ukrainians made widespread use of portable anti-tank missiles, notably the American Javelin and the European AT4, destroying large numbers of Russian armoured vehicles. Canada, in contrast, has only obsolete anti-tank weapons.
Ottawa late last year undertook a crash program to buy portable anti-aircraft missiles – the RBS 70 from Sweden – and anti-tank missiles – the Spike from Israel – for the Canadian contingent in Latvia. The new kit is starting to arrive. But as for Canada’s other ground units, they lack tools to defend against tanks or aircraft. To quote Private Frost in the 1986 movie Aliens, “What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?”
The Ukrainians have many other high-tech weapons that Canada lacks: Modern self-propelled artillery, the French CAESAR and the Swedish Archer, which can “shoot and scoot,” firing a salvo and then driving off before the enemy can respond. American HIMARS long-range rocket artillery. Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Airborne early-warning aircraft.
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When the Houthis started firing missiles at Israel from a couple of thousand kilometres away in 2023, it should have come as another wake-up call. A non-state actor, based in an impoverished country, has capabilities that our armed forces lack, and that our armed forces mostly cannot defend against. In contrast, both Israel and Ukraine have the tech to shoot down most (though not all) of what is being lobbed at them. Some Royal Canadian Navy ships have ability to knock down incoming missiles, but that’s about it.
Canada also isn’t prepared for the asymmetric warfare that has become a feature of the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts. Vast quantities of cheap, mass-produced drones – basically small appliance engines paired with advanced software – have been widely employed by all sides, to remarkable effect. Ukraine and Russia have both used them to disable armoured vehicles, equipment that weighs tonnes and costs millions of dollars.
Ukraine is now a world leader in the design and manufacture of low-cost, high-impact drones. Canada, despite the country’s strengths in software and AI, is far behind.
Israel last week took out Iranian ballistic missiles on the ground with drones smuggled into Iran, while Ukraine earlier this month used a smuggled fleet of tiny drones to destroy irreplaceable Russian strategic bombers on the tarmac. Some of the most expensive and highest-tech military equipment has points of vulnerability to weapons that are cheap, small and easy to hide.
Yet some of those top-of-the-line weapons have also achieved total superiority over enemies lacking their equivalents. The Israeli air force has long been able to fly unopposed over Lebanon and Syria, and all signs are that Israel now enjoys that same freedom of movement above Iran. The technological gap between Israeli aircraft and Iranian air defences appears to be vast.
Russian aircraft, in contrast, do not control the sky over Ukraine, and generally do not even venture across the front line. Some Russian planes have even been shot down inside Russian-controlled territory. That’s because Ukraine has advanced fighter aircraft, and advanced ground-to-air missiles.
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The bottom line is that Canada’s military doesn’t have most of the high-cost, high-tech tools a first-class military needs, nor the new low-cost asymmetric weapons, nor the kit to properly counter either of them. The world is becoming a more dangerous place, and the dangers are better armed than ever. The plan to get defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP arrives late, but better late than never.
Speaking of better late than never, I want to leave you with a look at how close the federal election was. I haven’t seen much (or any) coverage of the razor-thinness of the margin.
After recounts and judicial recounts, the final tally shows that, with nearly 20 million ballots cast, the Liberals fell just 57 votes short of a majority government.
They lost by four votes in Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore, 12 votes in Terra Nova-The Peninsulas and 41 votes in Nunavut. The Liberals were that close to control of the House of Commons. Those three seats would have given them a majority.
But the Liberals also weren’t far from a much more precarious minority. If just six ridings that they barely won over the Bloc Québécois or Conservatives had flipped, the government would now be nine seats shy of a majority – and the Bloc would hold the balance of power.
By my count, flipping those six ridings would have taken just 2,666 votes.