The Canada–United States defence relationship: a partnership for the twenty-first century

Keywords:

• NATO
• security
• United States

The cessation of Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan in 2011 naturally prompted assessments of the effectiveness of the largest and most costly intervention, in terms of both lives and treasure, by the Canadian armed forces since the Korean War. Many commentators on Canada's contribution to the Afghan War attributed the Martin government's decision to dispatch combat troops to southern Afghanistan in 2005 primarily to the need to placate the United States following its decision two years earlier not to join the American-led coalition to topple the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq – an outlier, as it turned out, in Canada–United States relations. The same pressures are evident in the decisions by the Harper government to join the United States and other coalition partners in making war on the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in 2014. That Canada feels a need to align itself with the foreign and military policy of the United States is a phenomenon that cries out for thorough analysis.

The articles in this special issue focus broadly on the Canada–United States defence relationship, as it impacts both domestic and foreign policy in Canada. The issue was conceived in 2013 and led to a call for papers. On 5 and 6 September 2013, the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, in cooperation with the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, the Peace Operations Policy Program at George Mason University (GMU) and the Center for International Development at Ball State University, hosted a two-day workshop, “Canada–US Defence Relations: A Partnership for the 21st Century,” at GMU's campus in Arlington, Virginia. Over the two days, a distinguished group of Canadian and American scholars, whose proposals had been accepted by the organizers, presented and critiqued one another's papers. The editor also provided comments to the authors, who presented their revised work at a conference hosted by Carleton University in Ottawa on 5 March 2014. The organizers are grateful to the Defence Engagement Program of the Canadian Department of National Defence, which provided financial support for both conferences. Four papers stood out as most deserving of inclusion in the special issue – those by Lackenbauer and Huebert; Salt; Keating and Murray; and Leuprecht. The editors of CFPJ and the special issue agreed to include three additional articles that had been submitted to the journal for publication separately from the workshops – those by Haglund and Lauzon; MacDonald; and Byers and Franks. All of these articles address a different aspect of the Canada–United States defence relationship.

Any examination of this unique relationship must begin with the observation that not only do these two North American neighbors share the longest undefended border in the world but they have also been close allies in repeated military interventions overseas, beginning with the First World War. The past 100 years of alliance, however, followed more than a century of conflict, when Canada was a British colony, that erupted into hostilities between the two neighbors during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the War of 1812 (1812–1815). The United States and Canada, however, have been especially close allies since the latter gained de facto independence in 1931, with the passage by the British Parliament of the Statute of Westminster. Since the end of the Second World War, there have been repeated opportunities for the two nations to fight alongside each other as members of two multilateral organizations, the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Neither UN nor NATO sanctions are necessary, however, to trigger a Canadian commitment to a United States-led military operation, as evidenced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's dispatch of Canadian armed forces to join the war against ISIL in Iraq.

The papers in this special issue are organized, broadly speaking, from the general to the specific. The first group addresses the strategic dimension of the Canada–United States defence relationship, the second focuses on the domestic aspects of the relationship and the final set on the international dimension. As the following articles attest, the defence relationship between the two allies has many dimensions, including cross-border procurement, shared continental defence, joint training exercises, overseas deployments, interoperability under the NATO umbrella and counter-terrorism. The relationship, however, is not symmetrical. With a population and economy 10 times greater than Canada's, the United States spends almost 4 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, while Canada spends only 1.0 per cent (The World Bank, 2013). While the United States, as the world's only superpower, frequently takes the initiative in launching military interventions in foreign lands, Canada, as a middle power, typically is content with following its ally's lead. The accusation naturally follows from the disparity in military spending as a portion of GDP that Canada, like Japan, is a “free rider” on American defence expenditures. The Canadian government likes to respond that its forces often “punch above their weight” in deployments like that of the ground war in Afghanistan and the air war over Libya.

Keating and Murray note that the end of the Cold War in 1991 marked a transition in the use of its armed forces by Canada. For more than two decades, Canadian forces have been involved in almost continuous multinational military operations in which they operate alongside their American counterparts in Europe, Africa and Asia. Failure to join the United States and United Kingdom in the invasion of Iraq stands out as an aberration. The authors identify the factors that have led the American and Canadian governments to commit their armed forces overseas. They include shared beliefs in the value of individual freedom and democracy, and systemic forces in the international order. In a unipolar world, in which there is only one superpower, Canada must earn its place at the international table through military interventions. Keating and Murray, however, point to signs, such as Russian intervention in Georgia and Ukraine and Chinese expansion of its navy and air force, that the international system is moving away from American hegemony toward multipolarity. Such a systemic shift, they argue, is likely to move Canada even closer to the United States as a military ally, and threaten the domestic political consensus that has supported post-Cold War alignment with American military interventions. Canada's need, as a relatively weak state, to “bandwagon” with the United States is likely to lead it to join its giant neighbor in unpopular military adventures, they predict.

Salt focuses on differences in military culture between the two North American allies. While the United States is scientifically optimistic and has wholeheartedly embraced the “revolution in military affairs” that is changing the nature of warfare through adoptions of sophisticated new technologies, Canada's attitude toward military transformation is much more conservative. Salt says that Canada, as a result, is in danger of becoming militarily irrelevant. To avoid this outcome, the author advocates an approach to military transformation that will allow the Canadian armed forces to remain interoperable with their American counterparts while at the same time being acceptable to the Canadian strategic establishment. Two areas of technological innovation where Canada could keep up with the United States, he says, are Special Operations Forces, equipped with night goggles and other highly sophisticated tools and weapons, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs, Salt explains, have many advantages for Canada over highly technologically advanced fighter jets, including cost and versatility (they can be used to conduct surveillance and search and rescue in the Canadian Arctic or to engage in direct warfare on future battlefields). The development of both unarmed and armed UAVs, he concludes, fits Canada's conservative military culture well while equipping the armed forces to provide meaningful support to American-led operations.

Byers and Franks, by contrast, does not share Salt's enthusiasm for the development and deployment of UAVs. Byers argues that there is no need to rush the acquisition of drones with the capability of conducting surveillance of the Arctic over extended periods before having to return to base, since Canada's current aircraft fleet tasked with Arctic and coastal surveillance will be adequate until at least 2020. So far, none of Canada's UAVs has been armed. Deployment of armed UAVs, he cautions, raises serious ethical and diplomatic issues. The use of armed drones by the United States in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to conduct “targeted killings” of insurgents and terrorists has, arguably, caused more harm than good by fueling virulent anti-American sentiment in those countries. Echoing Salt's recommendation that Canada possess a technological edge that will keep its military relevant to the United States, Byers describes the superiority of Canada's surveillance satellite, the Radarsat-2, as evidenced by the United States military's request for its high-resolution photographs. Byers observes that space assets are, in fact, becoming increasingly important to the Canadian armed forces in its quest to achieve technological distinction and maintain interoperability with the United States and its other NATO allies.

Leuprecht draws our attention to a demographic trend that is likely to make Canada an even more important ally of the United States as compared to its European NATO partners. Canada's rate of population growth is allowing it to keep pace with that of the United States, while birth rates are plummeting in most Western European nations. Life expectancies are rising in all NATO member states. Demographic trends affect not only the number of available soldiers to fight wars but also the country's capacity to raise revenue from taxes needed to pay the high costs of defence, and the percent of the budget that can be allocated to expenses not associated with support of the elderly. An increasing share of the European NATO member states’ defence budget, moreover, is going toward payment of pensions to retired military personnel. Defence spending as a percentage of GDP, the dominant measure of fiscal commitment to combat readiness, is an increasingly misleading indicator. Canada and the United States, however, have growing populations, in contrast to the rest of the industrialized world. Canada has the world's highest per capita rate of legal immigration, and immigrants have higher than average birth rates. As a result, both Canada and the United States are in the position of being able to afford greater investment in the development of sophisticated military technology than countries such as France and Germany, which dedicate nearly 60 per cent of their military budget to salaries and pensions. The demographic trends in the United States, however, are even more favorable for continued high levels of defence spending than those of Canada. Between 2010 and 2050, the United States will remain the largest net receiver of foreign migrants and their higher levels of fertility. Canada's population, as a result, is aging more rapidly than that of the United States. The American economy, fueled by these trends, will grow 10 times faster than that in countries like Japan, Spain or Italy, with declining populations. Leuprecht concludes with the irony that although relatively favorable demographic trends will make Canada an increasingly indispensable defence ally for the United States, the Americans are not yet making increased demands on Canada to shoulder a greater burden of the NATO and North American defence budget.

Haglund and Lauzon identify a security threat common to both countries – the presence of “homegrown” Islamic extremists. While the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, drove wedges between the two North American NATO allies, the authors contend that the need to confront domestic terrorists is bringing the two allies together. Many Americans believed erroneously that some of the 9/11 hijackers had crossed into the United States from Canada, and that in the 1990s Canada had become a haven for young men from throughout the Muslim world. Following 9/11, the Chrétien government, although hesitant at first, quickly took a number of measures to reassure America of its reliability as a partner and to allay concerns that it was a security liability. This effort to mollify its powerful neighbor, on which the Canadian economy depends for its health, follows the post-Cold War pattern of proving to the United States that Canada is a reliable ally that can be expected to support American-led overseas military interventions. The overarching imperative for Canada, observes the authors, for both economic and security reasons, is to maintain Washington's trust.

The fatal attacks on two Canadian soldiers in Montreal and Ottawa by two men described by the Canadian government as “terrorists” in October 2014, however, underscored how the two neighbors face the same challenge to homeland security from Islamic extremists. The need to deal with this domestic threat has led to a growing cooperation between the two neighbors. There are Muslim diasporas in both countries. Both American- and Canadian-grown jihadists have joined ISIL in its bid to take and hold territory by brutal force. These disaffected young men (and some women) are recruited largely through the internet by exposure to websites posted by al Qaeda, its affiliates and, most recently, ISIL. The problem of homegrown jihadists is not confined to the United States and Canada. Many European NATO members, in some respects, face an even more serious threat, as attacks by radical Islamic terrorists in the United Kingdom, France and Spain attest. It is estimated that as many as 2000 of the ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria are from the West. The authors point to polls that show that many Canadian Muslims disapprove of American-led military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq in which Canada has participated, and American and Canadian support for Israel.

This common threat of homegrown terrorists to the security of both countries, argue Haglund and Lauzon, has led to a dramatic change in American attitude toward the border. Instead of criticizing Canada for its liberal immigration policies, American officials are now working closely with their northern counterparts to implement a new approach to security known as “Beyond the Border.” Launched by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper in 2011, Beyond the Border “articulates a shared approach to security in which both countries work together to address threats within, at, and away from our borders, while expediting lawful trade and travel” (US Department of Homeland Security).

Lackenbauer and Huebert draw our attention to another aspect of the Canada–United States security relationship that is not what it appears to be. The media frequently suggest that the Arctic represents a major source of conflict between the two close allies. Canada is presented as preoccupied with asserting Arctic sovereignty against American claims. The basis of this supposed tension is that Canada regards the Northwest Passage as internal waters over which it has sovereignty, while the United States sees the archipelago as an international strait through which all countries have a right to transit passage. In practice, however, the authors show that Canada and the United States have long collaborated in the Arctic through bilateral defence and security agreements. Canadian nationalism and America's role as a superpower cannot, they say, obscure this enduring partnership.

The end of the Cold War, and global warming, have changed the security situation in the Arctic, which is becoming more important to international trade. The rise of Russia as a military power under Vladimir Putin has introduced a new threat to the region. Russian aggression against Ukraine, which resulted in the forced annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country, raises the prospect of Russian violations of international law governing the Arctic. The authors examine all the major documents issued by Canada and the United States regarding the Arctic since 2006, and conclude that the American understanding of Arctic security is aligned with that of Canada and does not reflect increasing competition and conflict. Both countries are committed to enhancing existing relationships and developing new capabilities to protect North America from external threats, to protect the region as a trade corridor, to support the indigenous peoples and to secure the Arctic from environmental degradation. The Arctic, in fact, underscores the nature of the Canada–United States defence relationship. In these post-2006 documents, Canada calls the United States its premier partner in the Arctic, and the United States refers to its unique and enduring partnership with Canada and their mutual interests in the region. NATO and the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) are the foundations on which cooperation on security in the Arctic is based. NORAD, stood up in 1957 as a binational security organization to protect North America against the threat of nuclear-armed long-range Soviet bombers, is perhaps the best symbol of the Canada–United States defence relationship. The two neighbors renewed the NORAD agreement in 2006 and even added a maritime warning mission to the organization.

Finally, MacDonald asks if Canada will follow the American “pivot to Asia” announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011. Currently the Royal Canadian Navy has more ships stationed on the Atlantic than the Pacific coast. The navy is heavily engaged in the Arctic, in fighting piracy in the Persian Gulf and in conducting counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean. The strategic importance of the rise of China, however, cannot be ignored, warns MacDonald. The Chinese are embroiled in maritime disputes with Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines in the South China Sea. The United States opposes these Chinese claims and makes the same argument it makes with regard to the Northwest Passage – these are international waters through which all nations have a right of passage. Currently, Canada has primarily economic and diplomatic interests in the Asia-Pacific region, the region to which much of the world's wealth has shifted in the twenty-first century. Canada's need to maintain the trust of the United States as a loyal and relevant ally, however, is generating pressure for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) to join the United States Navy in exercises and actions intended to deter and counteract Chinese aggression. Ships would, however, have to be transferred from Nova Scotia to British Columbia in order for the Canadian navy to make a meaningful contribution to these efforts to deter China. This shift would diminish Canada's commitment to maintaining Arctic security, since access to the Arctic is primarily from the Atlantic side. Chinese rivalry with Japan and South Korea, coupled with China's territorial and maritime claims at the expense of its neighbors, threatens Canada's economic and strategic interests in the region. It is in the interest of both countries to maintain freedom of the seas in the Pacific. The author recommends that the RCN work with the United States in preparing for naval warfare with China. Canada, he urges, should develop a niche in its partnership with the Americans in confronting China, such as anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities. Canada could also help defuse tensions by engaging in joint exercises with the Chinese navy, an activity prohibited to the United States Navy.

This call for a naval turn to East Asia, however, faces some stark realities. Since 2010, MacDonald points out, the RCN has suffered an 11 per cent cut in its budget (during the same period, the Canadian army saw its budget reduced by over 20 per cent). Many of its combat ships are in dry dock or scheduled for overhaul, which can take years to complete, while its older ships, including destroyers and replenishment vessels, will be retired soon. An increase in the navy's presence in the Pacific will require a significant commitment of resources by the Canadian government. The author concludes by stating that, although Canada has interests across the globe, the strategic significance of East Asia in the twenty-first century justifies a meaningful shift in military commitments. If such a redeployment and increased investment in the navy occurs, a new chapter will open in the Canada–United States defence relationship.