The State of US-Canadian Relations, June 2026

 Lots of stuff happening the past week or two:

• Canada decides to buy a Swedish plane (no, not that one), rather than the American one. Rumors have abounded of Canada cutting its F35 buy and getting 60 Gripens instead.
• Canada finishes the contract on the HIMARS launchers
• I attended a conference on Canada diversifying its defence procurement, with former military folks mostly wanting to get "the best capability" which is code for American stuff. 
• Trump repeats the 51st state crap which gets reposted by his ambassador to Canada, the wildly unpopular Pete Hoekstra.  
• Much noise about the opening of negotiations over revising NAFTA 2.0 aka CUSMA aka USMCA (why does Mexico never go first?).
• Efforts to organize a panel for the next International Studies Association meeting fail as I can't get Canadian scholars to commit to a conference in the US.
• ISA-Canada, which is a subunit of the ISA, had its business meeting at the Canadian Political Science Association meeting, and much of the conversation was on whether to have any activites at the next meeting in the US.  A reminder--these folks like to travel and engage other scholars and yet they won't go to the US.  Kind of like not playing Sun City. 

  I am sure more has happened, but this gives you an idea of where things are at.  Best summarized thusly:

 Re defence, it would seem to be contradictory to buy American stuff at this time given the threats from the US.  The Carney folks are in a difficult spot.  Someone in the audience of the diversify conference that Elbridge Colby cited Carney's Davos speech and asked whether Canadian resistance is causing American coercion.  And I wanted task about time travel since Davos is after all the 51st state stuff.  As I keep saying, if someone is going to punch you in the face whether you accede to their demands or not, you might as well do what you want, not what they want.  Which is what the AWACS/HIMARS decisions illsutrate--when Canada can get good but perhaps not the best stuff elsewhere, it will--the Swedish/Canadian AWACS plane.  When it can't build it at home or partner with a non-American actor, then, yes, it will buy it--HIMARS.  A colleague pointed out the very instructive language in the announcement that had never appeared before, I believe:

This is Carney playing to the Canadian audience explaining why we are buying American in this case.  Pretty sure previous Canadian governments didn't have to do this.  And it won't be the last time, as much in the contracting pipeline is American.

Re the F35/Gripen conversation, damned if I know what is going to happen.  I firmly believe the F35 is the best choice as a mixed fleet of planes (or subs) would be incredibly expensive.  While it might be cool now to hop to 3.5 or 4% of GDP spent on defense, in the long run, future governments will not be as enthused, and the public will not be as supportive (the nationalism will fade some after Trump leaves the scene).  So, the military will have to pay quite a bit to keep one set of planes or subs in the air and at sea, and won't be able to afford the costs of two sets of spare parts, two sets of training systems, and two sets of everything.  So, perhaps don't mess this up now?  Sure, it won't go over well with the Canadian public.

Re the Ambassador: declaring any ambassador persona non grata is a huge deal, almost akin to starting a war.  Doing that to an American ambassador would shake everything up in a big, big way.  Carney has been a mixture of caution and risk-taking in his handling of the US relationship.  He won't do this.  But he could summon the ambassador and demarche him for getting too involved in Canadian domestic politics--the Alberta separatist stuff and the like. It wouldn't change American behavior, but it would play well in Canada and draw a line or two.

The conference stuff is a signifier, as less engaged, less knowledgeable Canadians will have stronger opinions and a greater willingness to thumb their noses at the US.  We have already seen how much it has affected tourism and trade, and that will leave a mark for quite a while.

Which gets us to the trade agreement.  Trump, Hoekstra, Colby, and the rest want to impose their will on everyone including Canada.  Carney won't submit but he will bend, but the fundamental problem in all of this is that Trump won't take yes for an answer.  He got a revision of NAFTA last time.  Yet he asks for more.  What will satisfy him?  What compromise, what concession will end the coercion, the torment?  The answer is: nothing. There is no satisfying him.  You can distract, you defer, you can buy time.  But he will come back again and again demanding more and more.  

So, the answer again is: do what is in Canada's best interest, which sometimes means cooperation but not always.  I will disagree with Carney on much stuff (gutting environmental regulation, firing lots of govt people, etc), but he has been mostly right on the mix of cooperation and resistance.  No need to punch Trump in the face with PNG-ing Hoekstra, but definitely a need to buy defence stuff from elsewhere.  I do trust Carney not to sell us out.  And that might seem minimal, but given how so many relatively powerful actors (Harvard, rich law firms, etc) have given in, holding the line on some things but not everything would be better than most.

Finally, one last note on civil-military relations: the RCAF probably wanted the American plane, so that is a loss for them and evidence of some civilian control of the armed forces.  But the CAF is getting a lot of money and equipment very fast, so I hope they get neither cocky nor whiny, and instead plan on getting
enough stuff now that can be sustained during leaner times.  Because there will be leaner times. And, no, this does not change my basic stance about Canadian civil-military relations--there is oversight and control over procurement, perhaps too much, but it ain't the same in most other realms of civ-mil stuff.   More on that down the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manila Briefings: Thinking Through Some Of the Big Implications

 After three days of briefings in Manila with all kinds of sharp people, I found myself thinking about some of the bigger implications.  To be clear, I am not an Indo-Pacific expert, so some of this might be common knowledge, widely accepted wisdom, or incredibly dim, uninformed stuff.  But that is why this is a Semi-Spew--no lit reviews, all half-baked thinking.  You let me know which ideas have merit, please.

1.  Canada could get sucked into a Philippines-PRC conflict.  People worry about a PRC-Taiwan war having global implications and rightly so, but the Philippines has been involved in a steady escalation of tensions.  It could be that despite their best efforts, things get hot.   The PRC already essentially owns the South China Sea aka West Philippines Sea, and they could push harder or ultimately cause some deaths while enforcing "their sovereignty" over this space.  With Canadian naval vessels visiting 4 times a year, it is not far fetched for Canada to be caught in the middle of something.  Canada is not an ally (only the US is), but it is a partner and a significant one.  I am not saying Canada should flee, but I am saying folks need to be thinking about this.

2.  Who is asymmetric now?  China is now the strongest player in the region with the US distracted and with China far more committed.  Plus the US Navy can't even feed itself right now.  Before Pearl Harbor, everyone in the higher levels of the US armed forces knew that if Japan attacked, it would hit the Philippines early and hard and the US would not be able to save them.  The successful first strike at Pearl made that more obvious, but it was always the case.  Now?   If China attacked the Philippines, it would take time for the US to really respond (which it wouldn't under Trump).  So, just as Ukraine was on its own in February of 2022, the Filipinos need to be creative about how to make the Chinese miserable.  Being the most powerful makes one the most extended and ironically quite vulnerable.  

3. Can they count on Canada?  One slide had a bullet on about working with the Canada in the long term with consistent planning and such, and I had to wonder: can Canada be consistent?  Not just a matter of the Conservatives coming to power and focusing elsewhere, but also the Liberals are focused on cutting spending and, yes, the car deal with China may lead Carney's government to try to avoid offending China at the expense of the interests of the Philippines.  I would not bet a lot on Canada's staying power here.  On the other hand, the same force keeping Canada engaged in Ukraine could work here--diaspora politics.  Lots of Filipino-Canadian voters--about one million Filipinos in Canada.

4.  In one briefing, the Filipinos discussed one of the things Canada brings is expertise on HADR logistiics--humanitarian assistance/disaster relief.  This runs directly counter to the priorities of the Canadian Armed Forces.  The CAF find emergency operations to be a distraction, a drain, and would like to get out the business.  The mantra of being a last responder, not a first responder.  Provincial-federal burden sharing problems will not go away, so the CAF is stuck.  So, they might just consider how their experiences doing this home and abroad is actually an important bit of capital that is handy when Canada wants to be seen as relevant.  The military is an instrumental of national power, as they all know, and it turns out a component of their power is their domestic ops/HADR experience.  Maybe value it rather than try to dodge it.

5.  Canada keeps trying to get the big trade score: China, then India, then China.  There are more than 100 million people in the Philippines, hundreds of millions in Indonesia, and so on.  Rather than putting all of Canada's trade eggs into one big unreliable, coercive basket, how about trying to have a portfolio of trading partners here.  Spend less political capital on the impossible big score and focus more on managing improved trade with a bundle of countries, none that can engage in significant coercion against Canada.  Just a thought. 

Canadian Troops, American Orders, Bad Headlines

 So, the Economist's headline is creating some noise in Canada: "Canadian soldiers are subject to Donald Trump's Orders."  The article focuses on the many Canadian military personnel who are seconded to the American military, just as they are seconded to the British, Australian, and other armed forces.  It gets right the key nugget--that while operating as if they are American or British or whatever soldiers, sailors, or aviators, they are still subject to Canadian laws and orders.  The big question is what orders they are receiving.

I co-wrote a whole book about this (ebook is on sale!), seeking to understand why the countries operating as part of a NATO mission behaved differently.  They were all under the same commander (an American--the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe--SACEUR), but they followed different rules.  Why?  Because anytime, ANYTIME, a country transfers an individual or a unit to operate in someone else's chain of command, that individual or unit wears two hats--the national hat and the other hat (American or British or multinational such as NATO or UN).  And which hat matters more?  The national one as the individual or unit is ultimately responsible to the national command authority--that the promotion of that individual, the resources of that unit all depend on their homeland.  Any officer obeying a multilateral or other national command in contradiction to their own nation is putting their career, and, yes, their freedom in jeopardy.  This all makes multilateral war difficult (and fun to research).  

So, the good news is that these individuals working in various military jobs within the US military are subject to Canadian laws and orders--that those will always, sorry, trump the American orders.  The bad news is that I am pretty doubtful that the civilians in the Canadian government are playing much of a role in all of this.  The Minister of Defence absolutely can, as he can give orders to the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Chief can then give orders to those below her.  But will the MinDef do that?  Alas, many Canadian MinDefs see their role mostly as cheerleader or supporter of the CAF, not as overseer.  We had one MinDef tell a parliamentary committee that he could not oversee the CDS as that would politicize things--dude, you had one job.  I don't know much about the current MinDef, David McGuinty and his attitude.

What I do know is that the military doesn't think it is the Department of National Defence's job to do oversight--just the Minister's.  I do know Parliament doesn't think it is their job--their lack of interest in oversight inspired this book. So, the Economist article gets a lot of no comments from government.  Not great.  The responses were kind of like Stephen Harper's during the detainee stuff in Afghanistan--sure, prisoners are being beaten, but none of the ones we handed over were.  Sure, sure.  So, the Canadian media should be asking the PM, the MinDef, the CDS, and pretty much everyone else: what instructions are there to prevent Canadians from participating in operations against the American people?

I am guessing they won't get any answers but, as Nemik said, try. 

Fearing an American Invasion?

 Oh my, what I would give to live in less interesting times.  I am writing this as Trump rants at Davos, in the aftermath of a truly remarkable speech by Prime Minister Carney (which I will write about later).  I was asked yesterday by a contact on Linkedin to write about the G&M story about the Canadian Armed Forces [CAF] running models regarding a US invasion... and well, yowza.  Today, the same paper had an editorial on that topic.

Yes, US-Canadian relations are in the worst place in living memory.  No, the US is not invading.  FFS.  Sure, the Canadian military modeled this a bit.  Why?  Because that is what militaries do--they plan and they model.  If the US invaded, the CAF would not be able to stop them.  But the US is not up to occupying Canada indefinitely.  Our country is big and it is often quite cold.  An American occupation would not require occupying the entire country--just the major cities and the LOCs (lines of communication).  Both of those present tremendous challenges.

First, Canada has 37 or so million people, which would require an occupation force of ... 3.7 million or so.  The traditional ratio for successful counterinsurgency is 10 to 1.  Of course, the Canadians would not be the Taliban or the various players in Iraq--there would be little suicide terrorism.  Still, managing a large population indefinitely is not easy.  

Second, if the Americans wanted to have access to Canadian resources, it would need to protect the LOCs: roads, the rails, the powerlines connecting the two countries.  Which means a lot more personnel out there. There is only so much drones can do (and drones can be brought down).   

There is a third thing that is even more important: getting the military to do this would be hard.  It is oen thing to knock over a South American country and another to attack a very reliable ally with which the US has much in common and much history.  While the US military has obeyed illegal orders, this might be one step too far.  Of course, it takes a somewhat self-aware politician to realize this....

The big threat is not American invasion--that is a dark fantasy.  The big threat is here and real--American coercion.  Trump has used tariffs and has threatened tariffs, making Canadian goods more expensive in the US, hurting Canadian industry and costing people their jobs.  Trump has threatened to pull out of NAFTA 2.0 (also called USMCA and CUSMA).  He will push Canada via economic threats and via real policies that hurt the Canadian economy, hoping that Canada caves.  The Canadians may not be used to this pain, but Trump has activated Canadian nationalism like nothing else.  While he could try to pick at the seams via Albertan and Quebec separatism, that would require more nuance, consistency, and good policy-makers than Trump can summon.  Indeed, the separatists will be seen as allies or abetters of Trumpism, which will make a big dent in their popularity.  

So, let's not fear an American invasion and fantasize about Canadian IEDs covered in moose poop or maple syrup.  Instead, plan for and become resilient in the face of a trade war, recession, and diminished quality of living.  It will suck, but we can get through it.  My bet is more Americans get killed by ICE than Canadians get killed by the American military.  

Wow, these are dark times.  Just let's not imagine them to be darker still. 

 

 

Seven Years of Activities and Research: Presented and Celebrated

Last month, we celebrated seven years of CDSN-ing.  Our seven year grant ends in March,* so we held a Symposium on Monday focusing on our various activities and we filled our annual Year Ahead conference with our research teams presenting the culmination of their reserach projects.

Both days were terrific, and overall, it was a blast, as I learned a lot and I enjoyed how much everyone appreciated all the work we all did over the grant's timeframe.   

Our first day started with a roundtable about partnership, appropriately enough.  We had speakers from across the defence and security community: Caroline Leprince of DND, Cesar Jaramillo formerly of Project Ploughshares, Adam McCauley of CANSOFCOM, and our Visiting Defence Fellow Shawn Guilbault.  We talked about the challenges of bringing together actors with different perspectives, what each needs from and contributes to our partnership, and how we can better bridge the various gaps.

The second session focused on our post-docs--formerly (or still) emerging scholars who spent a year at one of our research centres, receiving mentoring on their research as well as much professional development and networking.  Linna Tam-Seto and Thomas Hughes now co-host our Battle Rhythm podcast, Manu Ramkumar may be doing similar stuff in the future, and Sanjida Amin is our current post-doc.  It was great to hear what they got out of the experience with us, and I am grateful for the insights and energy they brought the CDSN.  

The third session focused on our podcast network.  We started out with just one podcast on someone else's network, and now we have seven programs on the CDSN podcast network.  So, we talked about what each program was trying to achieve and what they learned along the way.  I chatted with Hannah Christensen of the NATO Fieldnotes podcast, Frieda Garcia Castellanos of Bylines and Frontlines from Women in International Security-Canada, and ....  They came to the podcast network in different ways, so it was really interesting to learn what they had picked up and what they wanted to do next.

The fourth session featured the victims of our book workshops--emerging scholars who had their books collaboratively scrubbed by local colleagues and experts the CDSN brought in. Stephanie Martel, Sara Greco, and Thomas Hughes spoke about their experiences with Srdjan Vucetic moderating the panel.   

Our fifth session had our past and present Undergraduate Excellence Scholars discuss their experiences.  Our aim was to include undergrads from historically excluded groups more involved in our network and in the Canadian defence and security community.  Chimdinma Chijioke, Armon Jeffries, Stella-Luna Ha, and Bianca Siem did different things, some were more involved in our stuff, some less so, some have moved on to graduate programs in defence and security, others are now employed in this sector, and some found work elsewhere.  This effort was not part of the original grant, but became a key CDSN activity as we realized we could do more to help foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable network and community.  These folks proved that our modest investment was well worth it.

The last panel of the day focused on what the CDSN Co-Directors learned from seven years of partnership, research, and my nagging for reporting.  Anessa Kimball, JC Boucher, and Stefanie von Hlatky were instrumental in our success partly because none were shy about telling me and the rest of the team what we could do better/differently, and this roundtable illustrated that nicely.

That evening, we had a wonderful reception that helped to celebrate our accomplishments and continue the networking that has been both vital to our efforts and helpful to the individuals who found us along the way.

The second day of CDSN fest was a twist on our yearly Year Ahead conference.  Usually, we ask our partners in the defence and security community about the issues that most concern them in the near future--the year ahead--and then organize panels around those issues.  This year, we did something different--we had our SSHRC-funded research teams present on some of the stuff they learned over seven years of research.

The first panel was our Operations theme--what is the CAF doing in the world and what are we learned about it.  Alex Moens presented the state of the NATO Field School, which has been his passion project for at least a decade.  Andrea Charron discussed the challenges of US-Canadian relations as it affects continental defence, which spoke nicely with Stéphane Roussel's analysis of the efforts to develop greater autonomy from the US.

The next session was our Civil-Military Relations theme organized and moderated by JC Boucher.  Nik Nanos, a key partner, focused on the trends he found in the polling he has done with us.  Alexandra Richards discussed  her research on how the different generations of Canadians vary in how they see defence and security issues.  Caroline Elie from DND's Public Affairs spoke about the challenges of informing Canadians about defence even as it becomes a very high priority and very salient issue. 

The third session was a keynote speaker: LGen Stephen Kelsey, Vice Chief of the Defence Staff.  He did an excellent job of providing a short talk that gave us lots of time and material to spawn a really fascinating Q&A.  

The fourth session was our Security theme roundtable.  It was interesting to see how much of the focus was on NATO as our original intent with this theme was to ponder a variety of conceptions of security.  Srdjan Vucetic addressed what would endure from Trump's NATO skepticism.  Maxime Philaire presented on defence cooperation beyond treaties.  Anessa Kimball considered the credibility of NATO's new 5% standard on military spending.  

Our last session focused on our military personnel theme, which was really the most timely as their work got underway before the abuse of power crisis that dominated the CAF from 2021 onwards.  Irina Goldenberg addressed the reserves, which has gotten more attention as of late.  Stéfanie von Hlatky discussed the efforts to broaden the CAF to be more inclusive.  Linna Tam-Seto discussed the transition of military people to civilian life.  Joakim Berndtsson addressed the total defence idea that is so real in Sweden and, in my words, pretty imaginary in the Canadian case.  

We had one last CDSN 1.0 dinner to mark the occasion with most co-directors, staff, and myself celebrating seven years of researching, connecting, and amplifying.  We recognized each person's
contribution with a CDSN shirt with an affectionate nickname on the back.  Our post-docs, Manu and Thomas, came up with this one for me and it is perfect:

    

 I am so very grateful to everyone involved in the CDSN--the staff, the co-directors, the students, the partners, the participants, and everyone else.  The seven years flew by because everything was so very interesting and fun and engaging.  I learned a great deal about Canadian defence and security, about partnerships, about administering and leading, about reporting, and much, much more.  Thanks again!

 

 

*  As I mentioned last summer, we have applied for a new grant that would extend the CDSN's life another seven years. Given the relevance of the grant's focus, civil-military relations, and our proven ability to deliver (see above), we feel our chances are very good.  We do have a MINDS network grant that will continue our operations until the end of 2026 and maybe beyond that, but that program is under review. So, our best chance of keeping this thing going is with SSHRC.  

When Faux Civ-Mil Conflict Can Become Real: Canadian Edition.

 Twice in the past week, I have been asked by the Canadian media about a seeming split between the civilians at the top of the Canadian government and the military.  Last week, it was about how the military seemed to be moving ahead with Golden Dome and the civilians not committing to it.  This week, it is about the military moving ahead to be ready to receive a heap of F-35s while the civilians are still thinking about it.

To be clear this is mostly a comms problem, but politics is about comms and comms shapes politics.  The basic reality on these two things is that the military is doing what it is supposed to be doing--implementing past decisions.  The CAF is modernizing NORAD--the sensors Canada has to warn the US and Canada about incoming attacks--just as successive governments have promised and funded.  The CAF is preparing for the delivery of the first batch of F-35s, which the government of the day (the previous one) purchased.  In both cases, the preparation/work is for both the present day and the future deployments, and if the government changes its mind, then that future stuff will be wasted effort.  BUT the work has to be done and the military is not doing more than it is supposed to be doing.

 The challenge is the civilians are mostly trying to avoid making major decisions or announcing them about the future of Canada's contribution to American missile defense (called Golden Dome by the brand-focused President) and the future of the F-35 program.  Why avoid such announcements?  To not upset voters who wanted a more Elbow's up policy?  To hold onto some bargaining chips vis-a-vis the US?  Or just crappy comms?  That last one seems to be consistent with Liberal defence policy past and present. 

Alas, the media seeks the military seemingly ahead of the civilians and wants to catch them in a conflict.  This might have the impact of the military being less forthcoming when they are essentially doing their job, and that's bad for everyone.  It might also increase distrust between the civilians and the military, which is also not good.  

There are plenty of real civ-mil crises going around or in the future that we don't need to whip one up.  The bigger US-related one is that the military may be reluctant to follow the civilians' preferences of distancing from the US in other ways (see Phil's great piece).  Plus I do wonder how much oversight the new MinDef is doing.  

The larger point remains--the two big procurement projects of the moment (until the subs happen) are not causing tremendous friction between civilians at the top of government and the military... yet.  If the civs cancelled the F-35, then sure.  But the military is not doing anything inappropriate at this moment on these issues.  Sorry.   

 

 

 

Addressing the Mandatory National Service Question and, yes, the Guy Recommending It

 I have accused LtG (ret). Michel Maionneueve of having me live me live rent-free in his head, as he ended up featuring me (the unnamed Liberal-funded academic who was seeking to cancel him) in the origin story in his memoir.  By responding to his latest piece, this time at Macleans, I have to admit he is living rent-free in my head just a bit.  Before I get to that new piece, just a couple of thoughts of this whole thing.

First, when I find myself not being able to resist responding to a specific individual's online musings, I try to avoid their stuff.  I am trolled easily, so the best way to avoid that is to avoid the bait.  This is why I don't read the blog posts of Walt/Mearsheimer or else this blog would spend way too much time on them. And this is why I don't read MM's regular columns in the National Post.

Second, as we approach the anniversary of MM's emergence as a pundit of some kind thanks to his awful speech at the Vimy Gala (the gala is always near and before Remembrance Day),  I marvel at how he started the speech by saying he was cancelled, that he managed to turn the controversy that I helped to generate (oops) about it into a perch at the National Post.  It also reminds me that there aren't too many people who are Canadian experts on civil-military relations to comment on this stuff, so my value over replacement pundit is still positive.  

Third, tonight's class is on the politicization of the armed forces in democracies around the world, and, well, MM is very much a part of that dynamic/effort--retired GOFOs playing upon their military service to suggest that the military is supporting the partisan stance that the speakers are advocating.  So, writing here is a way to sharpen my thinking before tonight's class. 

On to the show, Maisonneuve is arguing that "Canada Needs a Mandatory National Service."  I am not going to grade this piece like I graded his response to my op-ed about the Conservative Party ought not to platform retired senior military leaders.  But he entirely omits Canada's history of draft riots, so that this essay would not get a decent grade. How would Quebec react to a new draft?  Nothing on this. 

MM starts by talking about meeting his wife in the service, and I have to ask, since no one else has, is whether she was his subordinate at the time.  I have long wondered if is his pique about culture change is driven by the damage done to his identity as a part of a generation of senior officers who preyed upon subordinate women to sate their sexual appetites.  I simply do not know if Maisonneuve is another Jon Vance or not.  And to be clear, I do not mean this as the ad hominen attack it might appear to be (see his op-ed targeting me for some great examples), but as a real question for journalists--is this guy taking controversial stances because he was a perpetrator of the abuse of power that caused so much damage to the CAF?  Ok, sorry for that tangent, but he mentions his wife at the top of the post.   

My biggest gripe with piece is not that he is making a factless argument about something that has been well-researched, but that he starts off by talking about the decline of confidence in public institutions with no self-awareness.  A key dynamic around the world including Canada has been
for right-wing populists to denigrate public institutions.  His Vimy Speech was exactly that--an effort to reduce trust in government, in the media, and in the military.  And so I must post a meme a student created for tonight's class to illustrate the dynamic so very well (I have the the students create memes to push them to think creatively about the readings ... and to compel them to do the readings).  

 

Anyhow, Maisonneuve makes the usual arguments that having a draft including a variety of forms of national service--it would give the kids a sense of purpose, improve their discipline, teach them about Canada and importance of defending it (well, that last one only for those who don't opt for all of the other forms of service that aren't military), and so on.  He cites a bunch of countries that have drafts, but does not cite anything about how those have worked out.  Do the youth in those countries have a higher sense of national purpose? Do they have a better command of civics and identify more with their fellow citizens than democracies sans drafts? Sweden would be a great experiment--they had a male-only draft, got rid of it just before Russia got especially aggressive, and brought it back for men and women fairly recently--did all this stuff about national identity and such swing with these changes. We social scientists love variation as it gives us leverage over the question.  

I frankly do not have time to read the literature on this, but he should have.  However, I have bumped into conscription during my research for both the recent book and the next project.  I was not asking about national unity or how it improves the discipline of Gen Z folks, but rather oversight and such.  Conscription came up in South Korea and Finland.  I wonder what we should take from the South Korean case--that their military was asked to suppress its parliament and resisted--was that due to conscription? If so, a point for Maisonneuve.  In Finland, conscription, despite its vaunted role in national unity, was a sore spot in civil-military relations, as the civilians keep asking the Finnish military for data on what activities cause conscripts the most injuries, and the military has resisted sharing that info.  So, no, I don't really know if conscription is a magical exilir fostering unity, discipline, and such.  But then again, MM presents no evidence.

MM does not address any of the tradeoffs involved (just as he didn't mention Canada's troublesome draft history).  For instance, if you draft, say, 20k people, where are you going to put them?  Who is going to train them?  Doing conscription does not automatically solve personnel shortage problems--it complicates them.  The CAF has had trouble training the soldiers/aviators/sailors it gets in, this is a key source of the recruitment problem because it does not have enough trainers, that it did until very recently incentive people to be trainers, and the regiments tended to send their crappiest people to be trainers or recruiters.  If you dedicate significant personnel to train the temporary members of the CAF, who will train those who are joining to make the military a career?  The newly trained reservists, who had been drafted, can't/won't be the new trainers.  There are probably ways to finesse this and figure out how to do both--train the professionals and train the drafted future reservists--but it is a real problem and should be addressed by anyone advocating conscription.

Another funky implementation problem is that MM includes in his proposal "Those selected would enter training and take courses on civics and Canadian history."   Who would be doing that?  Pointy headed profs who are stuck in ivory towers?  If not them, then who?  And what material do they use?  Given that Maisonneuve has denigrated scholarship in his past writings, I am unclear about where the civics/history would come from.  What would count as the good and necessary history that would be taught?  Would it be the anti-critical, Canada did everything great, we have nothing to apologize for stuff that he mentioned during his Vimy Gala speech?

A pet peeve: he also joins the chorus of threat inflation: "If anyone wanted to come into the North and seize our natural wealth right now, there would be little we could do to stop them, short of a strongly worded diplomatic protest."  Please.  There is no risk of that because it is really, really hard to operate up there.  If the Russians can't get the logistics right for invading a country right next door, how are they going to do it over the Arctic?  I learned this summer at our Institute that this threat inflation, while handy for getting the Canadian public to be willing to spend more on defence, is really scary to the people of the North.  We aren't doing them any favors with this threat inflation. 

Finally, MM is wildly exaggerating the impact of a draft.  He mentions a lottery along the way, but then concludes by saying:  "Once every young Canadian has worn a maple leaf on their shoulder, I think they’ll feel pride for their country [my emphasis]."  This ignores the fact that his proposal actually would only bring in a small percentage of the youth into the military as (a) many would choose other forms of national service that probably wouldn't involve uniforms with flags on the shoulders and (b) the lottery would mean that only a portion of the population would serve at all. It also ignores the fact that more than a few people might hate their experiences as a draftee.  But a flowery ending is probably best for an op-ed, rather than something that is internally consistent.

We are left with only one question: who edits these things at Macleans?  I am not saying that Maisonneuve can't submit stuff to Canada's various publishing outlets.  I am not even saying that Macleans shouldn't publish his stuff even though he has been essentially a far-right actor pushing out mis and disinformation.  I am saying that someone should have edited the piece so that it had more facts, less unsupported generalizations, and greater consistency. 

 

Should We Want The Military To Corner the Politicians?

 One of the enduring questions of civil-military relations is what should the military do when the civilians do not give them the tools they need to meet the objectives the civilians set forth.  So, when I read this piece by Scott Taylor in the Hill Times, I wondered about this---how far should military people go to demand the stuff they think they need:

CAF leadership lacks courage: It's the responsibility of military brass to pound on the desks of their political masters to address shortcomings in the institution. Instead, they sugar coat the situation.

To be fair, it is not Taylor's job to write the title to the piece, but that is the basic gist of the op-ed.  And it reflects a piss poor understanding of civil-military relations.  One of the fun dynamics I have discovered over the past few years is how officers mis-read a classic text: Supreme Command by Eliot Cohen.  In that book, Cohen argues there needs to be a dialogue, an unequal dialogue between the civilian masters and the armed forces--that the latter should speak truth to power and that the former should listen ... and THEN DO WHAT THEY THINK IS BEST.  The case studies in the book include Abraham Lincoln replacing general after general until he gets one that will listen and do what he wants.  It is not a book about the virtues of military folks yelling at civilians until the civilians submit.

Taylor cites favorably a video that Admiral Angus Topshee, the commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, recorded where he raised serious questions about the readiness of the fleet.  He could have cited the many times in General Wayne Eyre's last year or so of being Chief of Defence Staff, where he publicly discussed the problematic state of the armed forces--that they were underfunded.  These are not examples to be emulated, as they put the military not just in politics (all militaries are inherently involved in politics) but in partisan politics.  By cornering the government, they gave ammunition to the opposition and limited the ability for the government to set policy as they saw fit.  These folks definitely should have honest conversations with government officials behind closed doors, but publicly lambasting the government of the day is wrong and bad for civilian control of the military.  Despite public opinion polls to the contrary, the civilians should not merely do what the generals and admirals want.

The funny thing is that Taylor uses as his example/inspiration a case where a senior officer is explaining the readiness challenges to the Parliament's Defence Committee (and, yes, we rank Canada's DC as one of the weakest of the 15 democracies we studied in our book that was officially published yesterday). Taylor wanted General Ritchie to be more hostile, more critical, when the facts that Ritchie discussed spoke for themselves.  He was in a situation where he was essentially compelled to give an honest portrayal of the current situation and did so but in ways that didn't outright condemn the government.  He did what he supposed to do.  

Pounding on desks, yelling at the civilian leadership is not the way militaries ought to behave in democracies as they are subservient.  It is their job to follow orders and get on the job after providing the government with their assessment of the situation.  Their job is not to demand or to determine but to advise and then execute.  That's it.  

The timing is also strange, as the military is getting a lot more money to improve readiness as part of the 2% bonanza.  Also, it is not exactly as if the government and the public were not aware that the military is short of kit.  The public, as surveys have shown, get it, and there is public support for this new defence spending. 

So, yeah, when someone writes something asking for the military to lambaste the government, it is easy for me to say, whoa, there, buddy.  And then post this meme:

 

Five Percent Is a Lie!

 Or perhaps we can call it a polite fiction.  What am I talking about?  Today, the leaders of NATO countries met and agreed to .... very little.  It is probably the shortest communique in history (see 2023 and 2024 for typical end of summit agreements/commitments).  They agreed to new spending targets and not much else.  No Ukraine, no China, no southern front (how to prevent immigrants from going to Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal), no nothing else.  

And this drives me crazy.  Before I get to the Big Lie, let me explain why I hate this 2% and now 3.5% madness. NATO does not exist to nag members to spend more on their defense, NATO exists to provide security for those in the North Atlantic community (broadly defined).  The 32 members are supposed to work on a variety of security issues, to create greater certainty, to deter Russia and other adversaries, and to reassure the allies.  This involves a lot of issues and lot of challenges.  These summits are like academic conferences--we academics need artificial deadlines to write our papers and leaders need these meetings to force them to reach agreement on tricky negotiations.  That all they got was "historic" commitments to spend more money represents a huge lost opportunity.

The other problem is that % of GDP spent on defense tells us ... that a country spent money, it is an input measure, so we don't know if they spent it well, or whether the country will use those funds to develop capabilities that would help the alliance.  Greece always did well in this measure despite spending mostly on troops aiming their rifles at Turkiye.   Not helping the alliance much especially as Greece never showed up when the alliance needed help.  It is a lousy measure, but it is easy to understand.  It might mean a bit more in the next few years for reasons I suggest below.

But this is life in the Trump era where this summit is a huge success because the alliance still exists.  Woot?  So, maybe we should be happy?  Depends on what you want out of an alliance.

Sure, the first clause of the communique refers to the iron clad commitment of Article V--that each country will respond (as each deems necessary, see the Dave and Steve book) to an attack on any one.  Let's not be too reassured by this since Trump is, well, almost as much as a threat to members as Putin is--given the threats he has made towards Greenland and Canada.  Plus Trump raised doubts about what he thinks A5 means on his flight over.  I am sure I have missed some utterance of his over the course of this day that undermines this "ironclad" commitment.  

Moving on to the big news 5%.  Wow!  Except it is not five percent but 3.5% plus 1.5%.  That is, the countries promise to move from the 2% promise to spending 3.5% of their GDP on defense stuff--planes, ships, tanks, other war material, pay for soldiers, sailors, aviators,etc.  What we usually think of as defense spending.  The 1.5% is spending on stuff that is "defense-related" which can mean pretty much anything--it is pretty elastic.  So, Germany can spend money on infrastructure--roads, ports, railroads, etc that benefit their citizens and that also help the transport of British, French, American, etc tanks, artillery, personnel to the front in the east.  For Canada, this might mean spending on northern ports and infrastructure, subsidies for mining rare earth metals, and other stuff that Mark Carney wants to do and they can call it defense stuff.  So, don't freak out at the 5%.  Freak out at the 3.5% instead as that would move Canada from spending $60b per year to $150b per year by 2035.  Yowza.  I doubt that Canada will get there (unless the economy tanks as the metric is defense spending/GDP).  But Canada will move in that direction.

Are countries doing this to placate Trump?  The change in the math to 5%? Yeah.  The 3.5%?  Perhaps not so much. The 2% standard was set after Crimea. The war in Ukraine since 2022 has taught NATO countires that 2% is not nearly enough--we all need drones, anti-drone tech, anti-air and anti-missile defenses, heaps and heaps of ammunition of all kinds, and a lot more.  So, the standard was going to shift and should shift (as much as I hate the idea of setting a % input standard).  Why 3.5% and not 3?  Well, part of it may be that the Baltics, Poland, and some others were already at 3% or beyond so they want the rest of NATO to catch up.  Part of it is appealing to Trump AND part of it is figuring out how to build militaries that can operate if the Americans stay home.  Europe and Canada have to develop the capacity to fight if the US ops out. 

Because no one can count on Trump to show up in a crisis, and no one knows what the next Republican will be like, but the Euros didn't like that unilateral Bush that much either. 

One more thing--the additional spending on defence is .... not going to fund American defense contractors.  That may be what Trump expects, but everyone wants a heap of strategic autonomy from the unreliable Americans.  Carney has talked much about how buying 75% of defense stuff from the US is not right.  Monday, he signed a deal with the EU as part of an effort to buy more European defense stuff.  Will this tilt the sub purchase towards Germany/Norway and away from South Korea?  No idea.  But expect other stuff to be made in Europe and then perhaps assembled or something in Canada.

 I am a bit buzzed right now since I have had half dozen media interactions today--lots of concern, confusion, consternation about the big announcement.  Again, the key is this: it is a massive increase in defense spending--to 3.5% of GDP.  The extra 1.5% is just justification for other spending priorities in most cases.

 Let me know if you have questions or additional info.