Lester B. Pearson, Canada’s 14th Prime Minister, Nobel Peace Prize winner and liberal icon, is probably turning in his grave this week.
For a number of reasons.
You probably know him as the revered, even celebrated, architect of peacekeeping, that beloved instrument of Canadian political and foreign policy, which in today’s global context seems quaint and simple.
What you may not know about him is perhaps more important, especially in light of the geopolitical machinations and online and editorial whining and gnashing of teeth associated with Canada’s refusal to be bound by a specific defense spending commitment of NATO
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.
Indeed, he was, according to historians, responsible for Article 2 of the historic agreement that forged a group of uneasy—and then increasingly uneasy—wartime allies into the instrument of geopolitical power which is today
Canada’s 14th Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, left, and former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson talk to reporters at Camp David on April 3, 1965. (The Associated Press)
“The Canadian Article”
The clause places the burden on members to “contribute to the development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, achieving a better understanding of the principles on which these institutions are based” and “encourage cooperation economic between any or all” of the allies.
What the allies who wanted NATO to be an exclusively military club, like the “Canadian article”, took a while to be accepted.
At the time, alliance leaders preferred to count tanks and ships rather than debate and deal with the root causes of the war, namely politics and economics.
“Ultimately, Pearson and his colleagues laid the foundation for NATO’s development in the non-military realm and, more broadly, in the development of political consultation among members,” he said. a research piece in the NATO Declassified Online Archive.
There is irony in the idea that Canada’s foreign minister, as the title was then, is responsible for laying the groundwork for the policy that largely consumes any mention of the alliance in this country today.
Without a doubt, NATO has gone through many evolutions in its almost 80 years of existence.
But the combination of military, political and economic expectations has been a constant source of pain for successive Canadian governments, all the more so when you consider how the definition of “reliable ally” is viewed through the prism of economic bottom line .
A Canadian soldier wears the NATO Battle Group patch as he listens to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s speech at the Adazi military base on July 10, 2023, in Adazi, Latvia. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Breach the 2% bar.
The idea that nations must spend two 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 contortions. Witness recently, as CBC News reported, the effort by Canadian officials to expand the definition of what counts under the metric.
Politically, it upset 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 the NATO target.
Pearson, whose view that Canada had a useful and constructive role to play as a middle power on the international stage, a sense forged in the cauldron of two world wars, would probably be horrified by the headlines and toxic fallout of the Liberal government’s Twitter account. refusal to commit to the two percent figure.
Newly released NATO figures put Canada’s contribution at 1.38 percent of GDP.
“There’s a lot of different math that can be applied in different ways,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at the end of the NATO summit, where Canadian officials insisted after the issue of metrics didn’t come up with them ally
“We are now behind only the US and Germany in terms of new real dollars invested in defense since 2014, according to NATO calculations, so we have invested significantly and will continue to invest even more in defence.”
He insisted that the reality is that Canada continues to grow, it continues to invest more and Canadians are “there to contribute to the world in meaningful ways and will continue to do so as we continue to move forward in increasing defense spending.”
Members of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry conduct training maneuvers at CFB Shilo in Manitoba on September 26, 2015. (Mcpl Louis Brunet/Canadian Army Public Affairs)
Spending has not kept pace
Interestingly, David Perry, vice-president of the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs, said the Liberal government would be closer to the NATO benchmark if it spent money it has already set out in its 2017 defense policy.
“The anticipation in ‘Strong, Secure and Engaged’ was that we would spend five to six billion, I think in rough figures, more than we’ve spent now on new equipment, including warships, drones and fighters,” he said Perry. whose organization hosts conferences that are sometimes sponsored by defense contractors.
“The economy grew substantially and our defense spending has increased, but it has not kept pace with the country’s economic growth.”
Steve Saideman, one of the country’s leading experts on NATO at Carleton University in Ottawa, has long complained that two percent is a “BS metric” and noted that the latest figures put Greece ahead of the United States in economic investment terms. .
“I defy you to find a Greek flag in any individual NATO case representing forces in the Baltics,” he said. “It’s just not there, is it? It’s consistent with them not showing up in Afghanistan.”
Saideman said some of the countries making the closed-door complaint, such as Germany, boast larger militaries, but questioned “how many of their ships can really sail, how many of their planes can really fly, and how many of their tanks can fly. they actually drive, given that they have a readiness problem that probably makes our arrangement look pretty good.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to Canadian troops stationed at the Adazi military base on July 10, 2023, in Adazi, Latvia. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Still, allied officials who spoke on the background to CBC News after this week’s summit said there would be no immediate or direct consequences for failing to meet the newly agreed target of spending “at least the two per percent of GDP”.
However, in the absence of a firm commitment, “Canada will find itself marginalized, not invited to meetings and discussions, and its voice will be less and less heard,” said an official with knowledge of the file, who could not be identified by the diplomatic sensitivity.
Skeptical allies
Pearson would probably be horrified.
What seems implicit in Trudeau’s remarks is that his government is willing to spend more, but is waiting on 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 only to see little delivered.
“There’s a real problem with our spending, but it’s not about two percent,” Saideman said. “It’s about: We’re making promises, and it’s not clear that we’re providing the cash for the promises.”
When U.S. President Joe Biden visited Ottawa last spring, the goal was to get the Liberal government on a specific timeline for spending the $38 billion that has been set aside to modernize America’s Aerospace Defense Command of the North (NORAD) for two decades.
Canada took a year to spell out how it would organize the NATO brigade it leads in Latvia, something alliance officials in Brussels had grown increasingly anxious about.
“There’s a challenge that Canada likes to have an outsized view of itself as having all these great values and being a very beloved country in the world, but that doesn’t buy much if you don’t show up. if you don’t show up with things, with a plan, with a purpose,” Saideman said
“And I think one of the challenges in Ottawa is that people in government are mostly focused on trying to keep things the way they are, they don’t think too much down the road.”
