Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I don’t recall the Canadian army coming up against the German army since WW2.

If I'm buying wool, only stuff tagged 100% Merino wool goes in my cart.

you’re welcome …

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[Cloud Cover]

Canada's plan to donate refurbished armour to Ukraine is still spinning its wheels​

More than 9 months after the vehicles were transferred, Ottawa and an Ontario firm are still negotiating​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/armatec-canadian-forces-dnd-ukraine-1.7323330

Was reading in another article that one of the sticking points is the refurbed vehicles would be better armed and armoured than the originals, and the cost for that is being absorbed by DND.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Pick a window Trudeau, you're leaving baby! Canadians are done with the Liberals. It's simply time for a change and Canadians want change. Don't let the door hit you on the way out Trudeau! LOL. Oh it's gonna be so good to see Trudeau gone next election.

I'm with you brother, but don't get to excited until its happened. The man is made of Teflon and the Cons love a good self implosion.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I'm with you brother, but don't get to excited until its happened. The man is made of Teflon and the Cons love a good self implosion.

Indeed, remember, please that this is the normal fighting position of the Conservative Party of Canada:

 

[Edward Campbell]

Without comment from me ... two charter members of the progressive left, Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and Douglas Roche a retired senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament, tell us their views, and I daresay a views of a very large minority if not an absolute majority of Canadians, in the Globe and Mail:

----------​

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence​

ERNIE REGEHR AND DOUGLAS ROCHE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to get off the defensive and launch a new initiative for peace – one that boosts diplomacy as the surer route to global security.

Donald Trump, who is on the campaign trail as the Republican nominee for president, has promised to up the ante if he is elected by pressing NATO to reach a new military spending target of 3 per cent of GDP. NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defence policy and planning, Angus Lapsley, was quick to voice his support, calling the 2 per cent target the “floor” and insisting that spending “will have to rise considerably above” it. The U.S.’s annual spending on defence already represents 3.4 per cent of its GDP.

The world is clearly moving to more and more confrontation in international relations. The relentless Ukraine war, the attacks on Israel and the extraordinary toll of human suffering in Gaza, the breakdown of U.S. and Russian arms-control agreements, and China’s growing nuclear arsenal are tilting the world toward chaos and existential threats that have been unseen since the Second World War.

In this new surge of militarism, diplomacy has been pushed aside, at our collective peril. Without robust diplomacy, sharp increases in military spending lead inevitably to mutual escalation and reduced security. The way out of that self-defeating spiral is strategic dialogue, direct engagement with adversaries, and arms control – in other words, diplomacy.

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Ottawa should act on two fronts. First, it must debunk the myth that Canada doesn’t carry its weight in military matters. It is already NATO’s seventh-highest military spender by dollar amount, with our $30.5-billion putting us within the top 20 per cent of Alliance military forces. Canada consistently ranks as 15th- to 17th-highest in military spending in the world, well within the top 10 per cent. Canada is also taking timely and sustainable steps to beef up domain awareness and defences through NORAD in the Arctic, and it leads NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia.

Simply repeating the complaint that Canada fails to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent benchmark is not a security strategy. A GDP-linked spending target amounts to a money-making slogan for the defence industry and a formula for perpetually expanding military budgets.

The $10-billion to $15-billion (and counting) of additional annual military spending that it would take to move fully to 2 per cent of GDP, let alone beyond that, would mean starving the already underfunded health, housing, and other social and climate mitigation programs on which Canadians rely.

Second, Canada has the credentials to help invigorate the international system to better understand the underlying drivers of conflict, to renew efforts to build support for more effective collective security responses, and to take meaningful steps to manage emerging risks. In other words, Canada should move to a holistic approach to conflict and peace. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t do holistic peace.

Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out a comprehensive set of measures for global security in A New Agenda for Peace. He called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, preventative diplomacy to head off wars, more support for the Sustainable Development Goals to address the underlying causes of violence and insecurity, the reinforcement of climate action, and expanded peacebuilding efforts.

Mr. Guterres’s proposed approach is the right one, but he can’t be heard amid today’s clamour for more military spending. For Canada to move beyond the simplistic 2-per-cent formula would require vision and initiative from its political, military, and diplomatic leaders. Instead of playing catch-up in NATO, which is already spending 10 times more than Russia on defence, Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms.

Canada has a history of sparking creative initiatives, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect pledge. We can summon that creativity again, but only if we refuse to be intimidated by myopic demands by NATO and the U.S. for ever more military spending.

----------​

As I said, no comment fro me.

 

[GK .Dundas]

They're not completely wrong we do need to invest more in Global Affairs. But a caveats, we really do have to spend a hell of lot more
on Defence.
And put responsibility for this country's diplomatic matters back in the hands of the foreign policy professionals and Cabinet where it belongs.
As opposed to the PMO and the usual collection of weasels in short pant who view our relationship with the world as just another tool in keep thé big guy and themselves in gainful employment.

 

[Good2Golf]

Maybe if we didn’t spend almost 3x more on a increasingly unproductive federal public service that complains about a 3-day/week in office policy, than we did on defence?

Regher and Roche fail to address the degree to which bureaucratic encumbrance wastes that defence budgeting they crow about as a world standard…

 

[GK .Dundas]

There really isn't much of bureaucracy left these days at Global Affairs at least where it matters. We close and consolidate embassies and consulates.
We're country of cheapskates and no riskers . Our current Government policy consists primarily of issuing virtue signalling press releases and generally pontificating on world affairs because it's cheaper and politically safer then actually doing something.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Not many foreign governments are interested in listening to our current generation of moralizing leaders.

 

[GR66]

Without comment from me ... two charter members of the progressive left, Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and Douglas Roche a retired senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament, tell us their views, and I daresay a views of a very large minority if not an absolute majority of Canadians, in the Globe and Mail:

----------​

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence​

ERNIE REGEHR AND DOUGLAS ROCHE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to get off the defensive and launch a new initiative for peace – one that boosts diplomacy as the surer route to global security.

Donald Trump, who is on the campaign trail as the Republican nominee for president, has promised to up the ante if he is elected by pressing NATO to reach a new military spending target of 3 per cent of GDP. NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defence policy and planning, Angus Lapsley, was quick to voice his support, calling the 2 per cent target the “floor” and insisting that spending “will have to rise considerably above” it. The U.S.’s annual spending on defence already represents 3.4 per cent of its GDP.

The world is clearly moving to more and more confrontation in international relations. The relentless Ukraine war, the attacks on Israel and the extraordinary toll of human suffering in Gaza, the breakdown of U.S. and Russian arms-control agreements, and China’s growing nuclear arsenal are tilting the world toward chaos and existential threats that have been unseen since the Second World War.

In this new surge of militarism, diplomacy has been pushed aside, at our collective peril. Without robust diplomacy, sharp increases in military spending lead inevitably to mutual escalation and reduced security. The way out of that self-defeating spiral is strategic dialogue, direct engagement with adversaries, and arms control – in other words, diplomacy.

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Ottawa should act on two fronts. First, it must debunk the myth that Canada doesn’t carry its weight in military matters. It is already NATO’s seventh-highest military spender by dollar amount, with our $30.5-billion putting us within the top 20 per cent of Alliance military forces. Canada consistently ranks as 15th- to 17th-highest in military spending in the world, well within the top 10 per cent. Canada is also taking timely and sustainable steps to beef up domain awareness and defences through NORAD in the Arctic, and it leads NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia.

Simply repeating the complaint that Canada fails to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent benchmark is not a security strategy. A GDP-linked spending target amounts to a money-making slogan for the defence industry and a formula for perpetually expanding military budgets.

The $10-billion to $15-billion (and counting) of additional annual military spending that it would take to move fully to 2 per cent of GDP, let alone beyond that, would mean starving the already underfunded health, housing, and other social and climate mitigation programs on which Canadians rely.

Second, Canada has the credentials to help invigorate the international system to better understand the underlying drivers of conflict, to renew efforts to build support for more effective collective security responses, and to take meaningful steps to manage emerging risks. In other words, Canada should move to a holistic approach to conflict and peace. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t do holistic peace.

Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out a comprehensive set of measures for global security in A New Agenda for Peace. He called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, preventative diplomacy to head off wars, more support for the Sustainable Development Goals to address the underlying causes of violence and insecurity, the reinforcement of climate action, and expanded peacebuilding efforts.

Mr. Guterres’s proposed approach is the right one, but he can’t be heard amid today’s clamour for more military spending. For Canada to move beyond the simplistic 2-per-cent formula would require vision and initiative from its political, military, and diplomatic leaders. Instead of playing catch-up in NATO, which is already spending 10 times more than Russia on defence, Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms.

Canada has a history of sparking creative initiatives, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect pledge. We can summon that creativity again, but only if we refuse to be intimidated by myopic demands by NATO and the U.S. for ever more military spending.

----------​

As I said, no comment fro me.

Peace in our time...

 

[JLB50]

Without comment from me ... two charter members of the progressive left, Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and Douglas Roche a retired senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament, tell us their views, and I daresay a views of a very large minority if not an absolute majority of Canadians, in the Globe and Mail:

----------​

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence​

ERNIE REGEHR AND DOUGLAS ROCHE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to get off the defensive and launch a new initiative for peace – one that boosts diplomacy as the surer route to global security.

Donald Trump, who is on the campaign trail as the Republican nominee for president, has promised to up the ante if he is elected by pressing NATO to reach a new military spending target of 3 per cent of GDP. NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defence policy and planning, Angus Lapsley, was quick to voice his support, calling the 2 per cent target the “floor” and insisting that spending “will have to rise considerably above” it. The U.S.’s annual spending on defence already represents 3.4 per cent of its GDP.

The world is clearly moving to more and more confrontation in international relations. The relentless Ukraine war, the attacks on Israel and the extraordinary toll of human suffering in Gaza, the breakdown of U.S. and Russian arms-control agreements, and China’s growing nuclear arsenal are tilting the world toward chaos and existential threats that have been unseen since the Second World War.

In this new surge of militarism, diplomacy has been pushed aside, at our collective peril. Without robust diplomacy, sharp increases in military spending lead inevitably to mutual escalation and reduced security. The way out of that self-defeating spiral is strategic dialogue, direct engagement with adversaries, and arms control – in other words, diplomacy.

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Ottawa should act on two fronts. First, it must debunk the myth that Canada doesn’t carry its weight in military matters. It is already NATO’s seventh-highest military spender by dollar amount, with our $30.5-billion putting us within the top 20 per cent of Alliance military forces. Canada consistently ranks as 15th- to 17th-highest in military spending in the world, well within the top 10 per cent. Canada is also taking timely and sustainable steps to beef up domain awareness and defences through NORAD in the Arctic, and it leads NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia.

Simply repeating the complaint that Canada fails to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent benchmark is not a security strategy. A GDP-linked spending target amounts to a money-making slogan for the defence industry and a formula for perpetually expanding military budgets.

The $10-billion to $15-billion (and counting) of additional annual military spending that it would take to move fully to 2 per cent of GDP, let alone beyond that, would mean starving the already underfunded health, housing, and other social and climate mitigation programs on which Canadians rely.

Second, Canada has the credentials to help invigorate the international system to better understand the underlying drivers of conflict, to renew efforts to build support for more effective collective security responses, and to take meaningful steps to manage emerging risks. In other words, Canada should move to a holistic approach to conflict and peace. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t do holistic peace.

Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out a comprehensive set of measures for global security in A New Agenda for Peace. He called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, preventative diplomacy to head off wars, more support for the Sustainable Development Goals to address the underlying causes of violence and insecurity, the reinforcement of climate action, and expanded peacebuilding efforts.

Mr. Guterres’s proposed approach is the right one, but he can’t be heard amid today’s clamour for more military spending. For Canada to move beyond the simplistic 2-per-cent formula would require vision and initiative from its political, military, and diplomatic leaders. Instead of playing catch-up in NATO, which is already spending 10 times more than Russia on defence, Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms.

Canada has a history of sparking creative initiatives, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect pledge. We can summon that creativity again, but only if we refuse to be intimidated by myopic demands by NATO and the U.S. for ever more military spending.

----------​

As I said, no comment fro me.

It’s sad that, in this day and age, there are so many prominent Canadians who still refuse to accept that the world is becoming an increasingly violent place. Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr seem like carryovers from the mid-1930s.

Kind of reminds me of an obviously-troubled boy who used to come in to my father’s retail store and intentionally damage things. When I or anyone else would stop him he would tremble with hatred. The mother would pay for any damage and apologize profusely. She said how she had taken the boy to a psychiatrist who recommended giving in to the little brat and letting him have what he wanted, which is basically what she and her husband did. Even when he would hit or steal from his older brother, the sibling was not allowed to reciprocate. The mother would simply say to the errant boy that his behaviour was not acceptable. And so it went, for a number of years…until…the boy got mad at his dad for some reason and, in a severe rage, got in his car and ran over his dad repeatedly, killing him. I see people like Roche and Regehr as the psychiatrists.

Nations can be a lot like individual people, some good and some bad. And sometimes singing Kumbaya around the campfire only encourages the wolves to pick off the sheep.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The U.S. needs a few good allies. Does it still need Canada?​

More than 80 years after the U.S. pulled Canada under its security umbrella, Washington is losing patience​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-united-states-nato-defence-spending-1.7329925

 

[RangerRay]

The U.S. needs a few good allies. Does it still need Canada?​

More than 80 years after the U.S. pulled Canada under its security umbrella, Washington is losing patience​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-united-states-nato-defence-spending-1.7329925

Even Obama was losing patience with us. When he told us “the world needs more Canada”, he wasn’t talking about maple syrup and “sorry’s”. It was too subtle for us to understand.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Even Obama was losing patience with us. When he told us “the world needs more Canada”, he wasn’t talking about maple syrup and “sorry’s”. It was too subtle for us to understand.

Which is ironic as Obama in some ways was just as narcissistic and useless as JT.

 

[Kirkhill]

Without comment from me ... two charter members of the progressive left, Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and Douglas Roche a retired senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament, tell us their views, and I daresay a views of a very large minority if not an absolute majority of Canadians, in the Globe and Mail:

----------​

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence​

ERNIE REGEHR AND DOUGLAS ROCHE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to get off the defensive and launch a new initiative for peace – one that boosts diplomacy as the surer route to global security.

Donald Trump, who is on the campaign trail as the Republican nominee for president, has promised to up the ante if he is elected by pressing NATO to reach a new military spending target of 3 per cent of GDP. NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defence policy and planning, Angus Lapsley, was quick to voice his support, calling the 2 per cent target the “floor” and insisting that spending “will have to rise considerably above” it. The U.S.’s annual spending on defence already represents 3.4 per cent of its GDP.

The world is clearly moving to more and more confrontation in international relations. The relentless Ukraine war, the attacks on Israel and the extraordinary toll of human suffering in Gaza, the breakdown of U.S. and Russian arms-control agreements, and China’s growing nuclear arsenal are tilting the world toward chaos and existential threats that have been unseen since the Second World War.

In this new surge of militarism, diplomacy has been pushed aside, at our collective peril. Without robust diplomacy, sharp increases in military spending lead inevitably to mutual escalation and reduced security. The way out of that self-defeating spiral is strategic dialogue, direct engagement with adversaries, and arms control – in other words, diplomacy.

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Ottawa should act on two fronts. First, it must debunk the myth that Canada doesn’t carry its weight in military matters. It is already NATO’s seventh-highest military spender by dollar amount, with our $30.5-billion putting us within the top 20 per cent of Alliance military forces. Canada consistently ranks as 15th- to 17th-highest in military spending in the world, well within the top 10 per cent. Canada is also taking timely and sustainable steps to beef up domain awareness and defences through NORAD in the Arctic, and it leads NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia.

Simply repeating the complaint that Canada fails to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent benchmark is not a security strategy. A GDP-linked spending target amounts to a money-making slogan for the defence industry and a formula for perpetually expanding military budgets.

The $10-billion to $15-billion (and counting) of additional annual military spending that it would take to move fully to 2 per cent of GDP, let alone beyond that, would mean starving the already underfunded health, housing, and other social and climate mitigation programs on which Canadians rely.

Second, Canada has the credentials to help invigorate the international system to better understand the underlying drivers of conflict, to renew efforts to build support for more effective collective security responses, and to take meaningful steps to manage emerging risks. In other words, Canada should move to a holistic approach to conflict and peace. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t do holistic peace.

Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out a comprehensive set of measures for global security in A New Agenda for Peace. He called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, preventative diplomacy to head off wars, more support for the Sustainable Development Goals to address the underlying causes of violence and insecurity, the reinforcement of climate action, and expanded peacebuilding efforts.

Mr. Guterres’s proposed approach is the right one, but he can’t be heard amid today’s clamour for more military spending. For Canada to move beyond the simplistic 2-per-cent formula would require vision and initiative from its political, military, and diplomatic leaders. Instead of playing catch-up in NATO, which is already spending 10 times more than Russia on defence, Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms.

Canada has a history of sparking creative initiatives, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect pledge. We can summon that creativity again, but only if we refuse to be intimidated by myopic demands by NATO and the U.S. for ever more military spending.

----------​

As I said, no comment fro me.

What would happen if the NATO metric were to eliminate payroll costs? Both the costs of butts in seats and civilians?

The capital requirement goes some ways towards defining the issue. But perhaps Ops and Maintenance costs, excluding personnel, would be a more interesting metric - POL costs, spare parts, ammunition, other consummables?

Our 1% includes a small number of highly paid individuals, including a lot of civil servants and civilian consultants and pensioners.

Other NATO partners, spending more, includes a large number of low wage individuals, and volunteers, with more of their budget going to capital, consummables, training and Ops and Maintenance.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

Compare Canada, Belgium and Italy against Sweden, Finland and Estonia.

Or better yet, compare Canada against the UK and the US.

It is also worthwhile eliminating the Infrastructure and R&D costs. Infrastructure can be dual purpose, both civil and military and not directly benefit the defence of the realm, as can R&D. R&D can also include failed experiments that contribute nothing directly to either the civil or military worlds.

 

[KevinB]

Which is ironic as Obama in some ways was just as narcissistic and useless as JT.

You can be that way if you have a huge military

 

[KevinB]

What would happen if the NATO metric were to eliminate payroll costs? Both the costs of butts in seats and civilians?

The capital requirement goes some ways towards defining the issue. But perhaps Ops and Maintenance costs, excluding personnel, would be a more interesting metric - POL costs, spare parts, ammunition, other consummables?

Our 1% includes a small number of highly paid individuals, including a lot of civil servants and civilian consultants and pensioners.

Other NATO partners, spending more, includes a large number of low wage individuals, and volunteers, with more of their budget going to capital, consummables, training and Ops and Maintenance.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm

View attachment 88123

Compare Canada, Belgium and Italy against Sweden, Finland and Estonia.

Or better yet, compare Canada against the UK and the US.

It is also worthwhile eliminating the Infrastructure and R&D costs. Infrastructure can be dual purpose, both civil and military and not directly benefit the defence of the realm, as can R&D. R&D can also include failed experiments that contribute nothing directly to either the civil or military worlds.

MTF

Keep in mind NATO has 11 different metrics.

Only the GDP and Capital Acquisition %’ages are OS.

 

[markppcli]

Even Obama was losing patience with us. When he told us “the world needs more Canada”, he wasn’t talking about maple syrup and “sorry’s”. It was too subtle for us to understand.

Which was part of Trudeau’s initial pitch - more international engagement and deployments. Unfortunately the reality meant it would see the CAF in harms way in Mali or the Congo and he baulked at the political cost.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Which was part of Trudeau’s initial pitch - more international engagement and deployments. Unfortunately the reality meant it would see the CAF in harms way in Mali or the Congo and he baulked at the political cost.

As well as the most blatant 'platitudes followed by military commitment dodge', of course...

Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Conille discussed the deployment of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support mission to restore security and stability in Haiti and to provide much-needed relief to the Haitian people. Prime Minister Trudeau reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to working with Haiti, Kenya, and other international partners to support a successful mission. The leaders underlined the need for international partners to step up and provide much-needed support for the mission. Prime Minister Trudeau also highlighted Canada’s longstanding support for Haitian-led solutions to the ongoing crisis the country is facing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Prime Minister of Haiti Garry Conille

Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with the Prime Minister of Haiti, Garry Conille.Prime Minister Trudeau congratulated Prime Minister Conille on his appointment and thanked him for his efforts to quickly install a new transitional government that puts the well-being of the Haitian...

www.pm.gc.ca

 

[lenaitch]

Without comment from me ... two charter members of the progressive left, Ernie Regehr of Project Ploughshares and Douglas Roche a retired senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament, tell us their views, and I daresay a views of a very large minority if not an absolute majority of Canadians, in the Globe and Mail:

----------​

Canada should invest in diplomacy, instead of spending more on defence​

ERNIE REGEHR AND DOUGLAS ROCHE
CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Powerful voices are driving Canada toward meeting NATO’s arbitrary target of spending 2 per cent of GDP for defence, but this singular focus on military expansion is not the path to a secure and peaceful future. Instead, Canada needs to get off the defensive and launch a new initiative for peace – one that boosts diplomacy as the surer route to global security.

Donald Trump, who is on the campaign trail as the Republican nominee for president, has promised to up the ante if he is elected by pressing NATO to reach a new military spending target of 3 per cent of GDP. NATO’s assistant secretary-general for defence policy and planning, Angus Lapsley, was quick to voice his support, calling the 2 per cent target the “floor” and insisting that spending “will have to rise considerably above” it. The U.S.’s annual spending on defence already represents 3.4 per cent of its GDP.

The world is clearly moving to more and more confrontation in international relations. The relentless Ukraine war, the attacks on Israel and the extraordinary toll of human suffering in Gaza, the breakdown of U.S. and Russian arms-control agreements, and China’s growing nuclear arsenal are tilting the world toward chaos and existential threats that have been unseen since the Second World War.

In this new surge of militarism, diplomacy has been pushed aside, at our collective peril. Without robust diplomacy, sharp increases in military spending lead inevitably to mutual escalation and reduced security. The way out of that self-defeating spiral is strategic dialogue, direct engagement with adversaries, and arms control – in other words, diplomacy.

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Ottawa should act on two fronts. First, it must debunk the myth that Canada doesn’t carry its weight in military matters. It is already NATO’s seventh-highest military spender by dollar amount, with our $30.5-billion putting us within the top 20 per cent of Alliance military forces. Canada consistently ranks as 15th- to 17th-highest in military spending in the world, well within the top 10 per cent. Canada is also taking timely and sustainable steps to beef up domain awareness and defences through NORAD in the Arctic, and it leads NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Latvia.

Simply repeating the complaint that Canada fails to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent benchmark is not a security strategy. A GDP-linked spending target amounts to a money-making slogan for the defence industry and a formula for perpetually expanding military budgets.

The $10-billion to $15-billion (and counting) of additional annual military spending that it would take to move fully to 2 per cent of GDP, let alone beyond that, would mean starving the already underfunded health, housing, and other social and climate mitigation programs on which Canadians rely.

Second, Canada has the credentials to help invigorate the international system to better understand the underlying drivers of conflict, to renew efforts to build support for more effective collective security responses, and to take meaningful steps to manage emerging risks. In other words, Canada should move to a holistic approach to conflict and peace. Unfortunately, NATO doesn’t do holistic peace.

Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres laid out a comprehensive set of measures for global security in A New Agenda for Peace. He called for the elimination of nuclear weapons, preventative diplomacy to head off wars, more support for the Sustainable Development Goals to address the underlying causes of violence and insecurity, the reinforcement of climate action, and expanded peacebuilding efforts.

Mr. Guterres’s proposed approach is the right one, but he can’t be heard amid today’s clamour for more military spending. For Canada to move beyond the simplistic 2-per-cent formula would require vision and initiative from its political, military, and diplomatic leaders. Instead of playing catch-up in NATO, which is already spending 10 times more than Russia on defence, Canada should advance security by boosting diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts. That is what the world needs – not more arms.

Canada has a history of sparking creative initiatives, including the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect pledge. We can summon that creativity again, but only if we refuse to be intimidated by myopic demands by NATO and the U.S. for ever more military spending.

​

I agree that we need to renew - and improve - our diplomatic services, but wonder:

Canada needs to stop apologizing for its supposedly meagre military efforts and launch an offensive campaign with like-minded countries to put teeth into peace diplomacy and the United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace.

Who are these like-minded nations?

peacekeeping

Where do the authors think conditions exist for traditional peacekeeping?

peacemaking

Do the authors not understand that peacemaking requires a robust military?