Troops of Latvia, Canada, Italy and Spain take part in the exercise Resolute Warrior of the NATO Multinational Brigade in the Adazi Military Base in Nov., 2024.GINTS IVUSKANS/Getty Images
For months, Canada’s European allies have been actively preparing for the end of NATO as we know it. They’re wondering if Ottawa is fully on board.
The defence ministers of Germany and Norway were in Ottawa this week to pitch a fleet of 12 submarines to Canada (they’re competing with South Korea) which would, by their own words, strengthen a transatlantic alliance that can continue to operate in the absence of the United States.
The end of NATO could be explicit: Despite months of often humiliating efforts by Canada and its allies to prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from withdrawing from NATO, including expensive pledges to devote the arbitrary and often unnecessary sums he demands on domestic military budgets, most analysts believe there’s still a good chance he could stop supporting it at any moment. Such fits of pique are part of his approach to the world.
But the de facto end of NATO is something many European politicians believe has already happened. In briefings with members of Germany’s parliamentary defence and foreign-affairs committees in recent days, I was repeatedly told that nobody in power believes the U.S. under Mr. Trump would honour Article 5 of the NATO charter, which declares that an attack on any member country should require all members to come to its defence. If, for example, Russia were to invade a Baltic country, no politician I spoke to believed the United States would respond. I understand this is also a consensus view in Paris and London. In Ottawa … well, it’s complicated.
Opinion: Canada must move from defence procurement to defence production
That’s a big reason why the European Union this year began creating, and spending its own money on, a defence network outside of NATO – and got Canada to agree to join. In a rather significant fiscal development, Brussels launched SAFE, or Security Action for Europe, which provides 150-billion euros in loan guarantees to member countries and allies to boost their defence capabilities and sever them from U.S. systems using European technology. It’s part of an 800-billion euro independent defence plan known as ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030.
In June, Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a Security and Defence Partnership with the EU that makes us part of SAFE – along with other non-EU allies including Norway, Britain, Japan and South Korea.
Nicolai von Ondarza, the head of research at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs, has analyzed all the security agreements, and found that while they fall far short of being a replacement for NATO, they are large enough to mark a more-than-symbolic beginning of an alternative.
“I would argue that these security and defence partnerships are not yet designed in a manner that complement or substitute for the NATO security guarantee in terms of operational co-operation, but are more aimed at consultation, working together with partners on the international scene on the defence-industrial field,” he told me. “But that is in itself quite a diversification strategy away from relying singularly on the United States.”
Europeans wonder if Canada is fully on board. At the political level, Ottawa certainly is there, if Mr. Carney is to be taken at his word. In his June defence-policy speech, the Prime Minister declared that “we should no longer send three-quarters of our defence capital spending to America,” and instead diversify into Europe, because “the United States is ... reducing its contributions to our collective security.”
But it is not at all clear that Canada’s military agrees. After Mr. Carney declared that Canada would review its order of F-35 fighter jets and any participation in Mr. Trump’s “golden dome” missile-defence scheme, military officials embarrassed him by revealing that they had already pledged to commit robustly to both; Ottawa was forced to fall in line with this rhetoric.
“It’s a fact that the Canadian military is expecting this to all blow over in a couple years,” says Stephen Saideman, a professor specializing in defence and politics at Carleton University. “The civilians are looking at distancing us from the United States, and the military wants to keep their eyes closed, their ears shut, and hope that everything turns out okay.”
Dr. Saideman is co-author of a new book, with fellow professors Philippe Lagassé and David Auerswald, that analyzes the effectiveness of democratic control of the military in 15 countries. It concludes that Germany and South Korea have among the best oversight and parliamentary-committee systems; Canada is among the worst – meaning the military often charts its own path without elected officials having much knowledge or control.
If we really are serious about Trump-proofing our security umbrella, Canadians don’t just need to join forces with allies overseas – first and foremost, we need to create a lot more unity and co-ordination at home.