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By Robert Fowler and Jim Mitchell

March 20, 2025

President Donald Trump has shown total contempt for our nation, our people and our government. And, let’s face it, very few Americans, and none of our European allies – nor our King – have leapt to our defence.

Trump’s demeaning of our right to exist as a sovereign nation, his designs on our mineral wealth and fresh water, and his championing of alien-free unilingualism and uniculturalism, are unprecedented and unacceptable. Nine out of 10 Canadians have rejected the notion of Canada as America’s 51st state. That response, however, will not alone protect us from Trump’s grandiose schemes. Nor does it mean Trump is wrong about our neglect of our North American defence obligations.

Trump’s threats cannot be ignored in the hope that he might not be serious or will eventually go away in 20 or 44 months. Trump has threatened us with extinction. That didn’t work so well for Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France 86 years ago. Has anyone else ever done that to us? Has Putin? Has Xi Jinping? Has Kim Jong Un? Or Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, or any other leaders of countries we consider possible threats to Canadian interests?

Now that such threats are uttered by our erstwhile friend and neighbour, plunging our heads into the sand and substituting hope for action would be unworthy of Canada. Trump has threatened to ruin our country economically, and/or simply to annex it. In response, we must demonstrate our commitment to defending it.

The endless discussion of the NATO target of 2% of GDP misses the essential point. Canada’s current defence capability is unacceptable not because Donald Trump says it is, nor because it is inadequate even compared to the low bar set by the majority of our NATO allies. Our current defence capabilities have failed Canadians because a long succession of Canadian leaders have taken a free ride on the basis that our good friends and American neighbours would have to defend that vast territory to their north whether they wanted to or not, so we really didn’t have to bother. And we didn’t.

The Trump administration has upended 80 years of Canadian defence policy and the assumptions that have underpinned Canadian strategic thinking since the Second World War. We are suddenly in a completely new world in which Canada – if it is to survive – will have to do things very differently in matters of national defence, as in many other aspects of our national life.

At present, the Canadian Armed Forces operate on the assumption that in hardware, doctrine, and even personnel, we will be intimately integrated with the U.S. armed forces. Much of what our Armed Forces do today is dependent on U.S. equipment, technology, advice, and support. That has to change. Many Canadians, including members of our military, will find it difficult to accept such radically altered realities.

There’s an old Finnish aphorism (and they know about living beside big, aggressive neighbours) which holds that ‘All countries have armed forces – theirs or somebody else’s’. We might bear this in mind as we decide how best and how quickly to remedy our defence deficiencies.

The traditional assumption in Canadian defence policy has been that we must be equipped and prepared to play an expeditionary role in the NATO defence of our European allies, and to a more limited extent, in other parts of the world, as we did in Iraq in 1991 (but not in 2003), in the Balkans from 1991 onward and in Afghanistan. Such assumptions are no longer valid.

We need to think very carefully about our role in NORAD. Our relationship with the U.S. in NORAD is the most intimate of our defence connections with America. NORAD is essentially a joint commitment to protect our collective North. If we don’t play our part in defending it, the Americans will do it their way.

We must now conclude that the biggest, most immediate, threat to our security and sovereignty today is not from Russia or China, North Korea or Iran, but rather from our neighbour, the United States. It behooves us, therefore, to plan and prepare ourselves accordingly. Similarly, with the limited resources at our disposal, we must acknowledge that we will no longer be able to mount a credible expeditionary effort to come to Europe’s defence. And we must also understand that they would not come to ours, if we were attacked by the U.S. In this respect, as in so many others, we are on our own.

America is just too powerful, and Canada is a commitment too far. NATO and its much quoted ‘Three Musketeer clause’ (Article 5) – all for one and one for all – were not designed to weather the impact of its lead member going rogue. If you were in charge of the defence policy of our NATO allies, which would be more important to you – getting along with Canada or getting along with the U.S.?

In geographic terms, the most vulnerable aspect of our national security challenge is the Arctic. The Americans have always insisted that the channels through our Arctic islands are not Canadian but rather ‘international straits.’ Our claims to Arctic sovereignty must be buttressed with evident presence and effective deterrence and protection. This means an increased military presence in the Arctic in the form of bases to support air, land and sea operations.

In this regard, Mr. Carney’s announced investment of $420 million this week to enhance Arctic infrastructure and allow Canadian Forces to have a “greater, sustained year-round presence” in the Arctic is welcome indeed. Similarly, his commitment to build, in partnership with Australia, a $6 billion over-the-horizon northern radar system as part of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) modernization plan, will – as long as it doesn’t take forever – demonstrate to our American NORAD partners a renewed and long overdue engagement in joint continental defence.

Yet the Arctic cannot be the sole focus of our thinking as we prepare to deal with a dramatically different international environment. We have to forge and enhance ties with new partners in both trade and security terms. This will require a sustained, national effort.

Demonstrating serious intent will require new military equipment, much of it, at least initially, off allied shelves, so as to show early progress. Among other things, we must:

1. First and foremost, acquire modern diesel-electric submarines capable of under-ice operations (we can think of no clearer a demonstration of serious intent to protect Canadian sovereignty off all three coasts, while deterring aggressive posturing than the early acquisition of at least 12, conventionally powered, under-ice capable submarines of proven design and capability. Remember, in normal circumstances, only half that fleet is at sea at any given time).
2. Procure modern, long-range, armed drones for surveillance and deterrence in addition to developing a domestic drone research and development program.
3. Acquire new military vehicles suited for operations on ice, snow and tundra.
4. Upgrade our armoured vehicle fleets and artillery systems.
5. Enhance the training, equipping, and effectiveness of our already-exceptional Special Forces.
6. Invest heavily in 21st century satellite surveillance and communications capability.

The matter of the acquisition of modern fighter aircraft with long-range capability and enhanced re-fueling capacity to replace our F-18s is particularly fraught these days.  Our altered relationship with the United States and the fact that the Americans will retain the ability to deny essential upgrades or, indeed, incapacitate such an enormously expensive F-35 fleet, suggests immediate consideration of cancelling that F-35 acquisition and buying from reliable European allies a proven, capable, less expensive fighter, over which we would have absolute control. In this regard, we can only applaud Prime Minister Carney’s decision to look into whether the F-35 contract is currently the best choice for Canada, and to determine whether there are better options.

All of this will cost money – lots of it – but we’ve avoided making those investments in our country’s security for far too long. The key issue immediately before us is not how much we are spending but rather recognition by the government that we find ourselves in a fundamentally new set of hostile circumstances that call for a dramatically different military and defence posture, including careful consideration of our role in NORAD.

We also need to do things – to decide things – differently: smarter, and much faster. Our inept recruitment procedures must be re-vamped, and our military procurement system, which seeks to serve too many objectives and too many masters, is nowhere near up to the tasks here outlined. That system must be immediately restructured in support of the over-arching goal of how best to improve Canada’s defence capacity.

There’s an old Finnish aphorism (and they know about living beside big, aggressive neighbours) which holds that “All countries have armed forces – theirs or somebody else’s”. We might bear this in mind as we decide how best and how quickly to remedy our defence deficiencies.

Trump has demanded that we dramatically up our defence performance. Some of our European allies have already undertaken to significantly increase defence spending while investing heavily in the European defence industrial base. Will a serious, immediate, visible, and sustained effort to rectify our neglect of Canadian defence requirements change the way the American president views us or treats us? That’s impossible to say, but it needs to be done and should have begun long before Trump’s goading, threats, and insults. And it can be done given clear-eyed, focused and committed government leadership.

The fact is, the U.S. is no longer our reliable ally.  We are in a new world and we have to act accordingly.

Robert Fowler is a former foreign and defence policy advisor to three prime ministers, a former deputy minister of national defence and former ambassador to the United Nations. Jim Mitchell is an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University and a former senior official in the Privy Council Office.