Canada helped turn NATO into a political forum. Now it struggles with its own creation

Lester B. Pearson – Canada’s 14th Prime Minister, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and liberal icon – is likely turning in his grave this week.

For a number of reasons.

You probably know him as the revered, even celebrated, architect of peacekeeping, that cherished instrument of Canadian political and foreign policy that seems strange and uncomplicated in today’s global context.

What you may not know about him may be more important, especially in light of the geopolitical machinations and the online and editorial whining and gnashing of teeth associated with Canada’s refusal to commit to a specific NATO defense spending commitment .

You see, when the North Atlantic Treaty was drafted in the late 1940s, Mike (as he was informally known) Pearson was one of the people holding the pen.

In fact, historians say, he was responsible for Article 2 of the landmark agreement that forged an uneasy — and at the time increasingly restless — band of wartime allies into the instrument of geopolitical power it is today.

‘The Canadian Article’

The clause places the burden on members to “contribute to the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded” and to ” economic cooperation among any or all” of the Allies.

What became derisively known to allies who wanted NATO to become an all-military club as “the Canadian article” took some time to gain acceptance.

Alliance leaders at that time preferred to count tanks and ships rather than debate and deal with the root causes of war, namely politics and economics.

“Ultimately, Pearson and his colleagues laid the foundations for NATO’s development in the non-military field and, more broadly, in the development of political discourse among members,” said a research article in NATO’s declassified online archive.

There is an irony in the idea that Canada’s foreign minister, as it was then titled, is responsible for laying the foundations of the politics that today largely consume any mention of the alliance in this country.

There is no doubt that NATO has undergone many evolutions in its almost 80 years of existence.

But the conflation of military, political and economic expectations has been a constant source of pain for successive Canadian governments, increasingly so when you consider how the definition of “trusted ally” is viewed through the prism of the economic bottom line.

The 2% standard was not met

The idea that nations have to spend 2 percent of their economic wealth on their militaries to be considered serious partners consumes a lot of political oxygen and has led to some interesting distortions. As recently reported by CBC News, witness efforts by Canadian officials to broaden the definition of what counts under the metric.

Politically, it irked allies, according to defense officials, particularly in the United States, who have consistently opposed the idea of ​​counting spending on space, cyber and artificial intelligence research as part of reaching NATO’s goal.

Pearson, whose view that Canada had a useful and constructive role to play as a middle power on the international scene—a sentiment forged in the cauldron of two world wars—would probably be shocked by the headlines and the Liberal government’s venomous Twitter outbursts. refusal to commit to the two percent figure.

Newly released figures from NATO peg Canada’s contribution to 1.38 percent of GDP.

“There are a lot of different maths that can be applied in different ways,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the end of the NATO summit, where Canadian officials insisted afterwards that the issue of metrics had not been raised with them by any of their ally.

“We are now behind only the US and Germany in terms of real new dollars invested in defense since 2014, by NATO’s own calculations, so we have invested significantly and will continue to invest even more in defense.”

He insisted that the reality is that Canada continues to grow, continues to invest more, and that Canadians are there “to contribute to the world in a meaningful way and they will continue to do so as we continue to increase defense spending.”

Spending has not kept pace

Interestingly, David Perry, vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the Liberal government would be closer to the NATO benchmark if it spent money it already included in its 2017 defense policy.

“The anticipation in ‘Strong, Secure and Engaged’ was that we would spend, I think, another five to six billion in raw numbers, more than what we’ve spent now on new equipment, including warships, drones and fighters,” said Perry, whose organization hosts conferences that are sometimes sponsored by defense contractors.

“The economy has grown a lot and our defense spending has increased, but it hasn’t kept pace with the country’s economic growth.”

Steve Saideman, one of the country’s leading NATO experts at Carleton University in Ottawa, has long complained that the two percent is “BS metric” and pointed to the fact that Greece is ahead of the United States, according to the latest figures. the field of economic investment. .

“I challenge you to find a Greek flag depicting armed forces in the Baltic states on a NATO placemat,” he said. “It’s just not there, right? It’s consistent with them not showing up in Afghanistan.”

Saideman said some of the countries that complain behind closed doors, such as Germany, boast larger armies, but he wondered “how many of their ships can actually sail, how many of their planes can actually fly, and how many of their tanks can fly “. actually driving, as they have a readiness issue that probably makes our readiness look pretty good.

Still, Allied officials who spoke in the background to CBC News after this week’s summit said there would be no immediate or immediate consequences for failing to meet the newly agreed target of spending “at least two percent of GDP” .

However, without a firm commitment, “Canada will be marginalized, will not be invited to meetings and discussions, and its voice will be heard less and less,” said an official familiar with the case, who cannot be identified due to diplomatic sensitivity. .

Allies skeptical

Pearson would most likely be appalled.

What seems to be implied in Trudeau’s remarks is that his administration is willing to spend more, but is waiting for the results of its defense policy review to say how much more.

However, there is skepticism among allies who have seen a parade of announcements and a flurry of spending promises, but few deliver on them.

“There’s a real problem with our spending, but it’s not about two percent,” said Saideman. “The point is: we make promises and it is not clear whether we deliver the money for the promises.”

When US President Joe Biden visited Ottawa last spring, the goal was to wrestle from the Liberal government a specific timeline for spending the $38 billion earmarked to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) over two decades .

It took Canada a year to clarify how it was going to organize the NATO brigade it leads in Latvia – something that alliance officials in Brussels were increasingly worried about.

“There’s a challenge that Canada likes to have an outrageous vision of itself as having all these great values, and being a really loved country in the world, but that doesn’t buy much if you don’t show up, if you don’t show up with stuff, with a plan, with a purpose,” said Saideman

“And I think one of the challenges in Ottawa is that the people in government are mostly trying to keep things the way they are, they’re not thinking too far ahead.”