Mr. Carney Goes to Brussels – DEFENCE INSIDER
BY VICE-ADMIRAL (RET’D) MARK NORMAN
For those of us who are passionate about Canadian Defence and Security, despite our growing concerns about the dismal state of the CAF and the increasingly disturbing trends in the international security situation, there are some potentially positive indicators of late. In particular, commitments to increase spending, domestic manufacturing, and to pursue alternative partnerships are encouraging signs of a long overdue shift of our national defence behaviour. Despite the many potential challenges and risks, I continue to be encouraged by many of the initiatives being announced or implemented by the new Carney government. With that said however, we must be both ambitious and cautious – a challenging combination for any government.
ReARM EUROPE
The relatively recent announcement of Canada’s intention to participate in the Re-Arm Europe initiative is a case in point. The partnership is a bold step toward making Canada less dependent on our southern ally and more integrated into a broader network of like-minded democracies. It recognizes that economic security and national security are inseparable, especially in a world where supply chains, technology, and resources are increasingly strategic. By investing in our own industrial base and forging stronger ties with Europe, Canada is taking measures to safeguard our sovereignty and potentially create new opportunities for economic growth.
These potential advantages however do not come without risk. In that context therefore our ambition to do more with Europe must be balanced with a healthy dose of caution – not because it’s a bad idea, but simply because in and of itself the new partnership is simply a framework for opportunity not a guarantor of success. Fiscal realities, political resistance, and structural challenges (on both sides of the Atlantic) will likely slow or limit progress toward the ambitious goals set out in the agreement. Only sustained political will, discipline, and effective coordination can overcome these obstacles to realize the partnership’s full potential.
In the simplest terms, I would frame the challenges to the success of this initiative by way of external and internal factors. Externally, divergent national interests and fiscal capacities threaten unity across the disparate interests of our new partners. Potential rifts could undermine collective EU efforts and limit the scope of joint projects that underpin some of the intended advantages of the agreement. Further, the realities of geography cannot be ignored and the challenges of trying to integrate Canadian suppliers into the European supply chain will be difficult to overcome. Internally, we must also be careful to not just simply substitute one unhealthy dependency for another. A key ingredient of our potential success, as the Prime Minister keeps saying, is to build an arguably unprecedented (at least since WW2) level of domestic industrial capacity and resilience. Emerging initiatives associated with the creation of a Defence Procurement Agency and the development of a Defence Industrial Strategy are encouraging early indicators.
DEFENCE INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
We cannot compress time however, and it would be foolhardy to try and fix decades of neglect by making a series of impulsive, or ill-conceived, decisions in the interest of short-term political gains. We must be smart about this. The tension between our desire to spend or “procure” quickly, while also wanting to better include Canadian industry in the ecosystem of that accelerated procurement is real and cannot be assumed away. The less patient we are the more we risk the exclusion of Canadian suppliers, as the large OEMs will argue (fallaciously in many cases) that integrating Canadian content will increase cost and schedule risk. Conversely, if we try and wait for the full implementation of an overly complicated and “policy-rich” industrial strategy we will not achieve the timely delivery of much needed military capability – to say nothing of the impact that would have on our ambitious spending targets. This is a genuine quandary.
In this context, the partnership with Europe offers some potential opportunity but it is not a “silver bullet”. In the short-term (and by that I mean within the next 3-5 years, which is the likely time it would take for any significant change in our industrial strategy to take hold), only the most innovative and open-minded strategies will permit the kinds of partnerships between European and Canadian suppliers that we actually need. The traditional approach of offering existing “off the shelf” capabilities with the attendant foreign supply-chains will likely choke-out potential Canadian partners unless there is explicit and unambiguous direction from government. This means political risk however as the tendency to criticize such a move – typically by those who don’t “get it” – would be seductively easy. Transparency might be the best way to mitigate that risk as Canadians might understand and accept a potentially unorthodox approach if they can see the future value for Canada.
The bottom-line is that we can potentially “have our cake and eat it too”, but not if we naively assume that things will just magically happen because the Prime Minister and Cabinet directs them to. This only happens if WE MAKE IT HAPPEN. We need to either incentivize the desired behaviour or punish the undesirable behaviour; either of those options require political capital and a fully committed public service. Absent those essential ingredients, we risk valuable time we cannot afford to waste.
VAdm (Ret’d) Mark Norman is a former Commander of the RCN and Senior Defence Strategist with Samuel Associates. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect a CDR editorial position.
