Canada desperately needs national priorities

For a country that constantly likes to tell itself that “the world needs more Canada,” it has been a tough few weeks. When three of the Five Eyes partners struck a new alliance in the Pacific without us — the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact known as AUKUS — questions were immediately raised about Canada’s place in the world.

Then, as if to underscore these anxieties, came the storm on social media after President Joe Biden declared on Sept. 23 that “the United States has no greater friend than Australia.”

Most of this hand-wringing has been overwrought. AUKUS is not the end of the Five Eyes but rather a continuation of a trend — that is, of greater co-operation between countries that have more robust intelligence, defence and foreign policy programs than does Canada.

Indeed, it makes sense that Canada was not invited to this agreement.

To begin, this country has not joined a military alliance in the Asia-Pacific since the Korean War. Even if we wanted to join, our repeated failure to execute major military procurements, let alone to obtain nuclear submarines, suggests that AUKUS members would not want to spend the time and energy to accommodate Canada.

At the same time, any decision to reverse long-standing Canadian policy and acquire nuclear-powered subs would raise issues around proliferation. It would also become a political football in Ottawa.

For these reasons, Canadians should take a deep breath and not fret about AUKUS specifically. Rather, we should take stock of the implications of recent developments in the Asia-Pacific for our foreign, defence and security policies. They are considerable.

To begin, look north. There’s an urgent need to modernize the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD). As concerns about Russian and Chinese reach in the Arctic grow, the United States would like to see Canada invest in surveillance, deterrence, and command and control systems, especially as many current NORAD systems are expected to come to their end of life by 2024. NORAD modernization will require that Ottawa reluctantly revisit the tendentious debate over ballistic missile defence.

A tougher sticking point will be the high cost of modernization — a tab Canadians emerging from a pandemic may not want to contemplate. Nonetheless, with AUKUS, there will be renewed pressure from the Biden administration for Canada to commit to defending our own backyard in the same way the Australians are now seen as having stepped up in theirs.

Another implication of AUKUS for Canada is that it exposes the giant hole where a foreign policy or strategic concept for the Asia-Pacific region should be.

Both the U.S. and U.K. are signalling that the “pivot to Asia” is happening. The European Union recently released an Indo-Pacific co-operation strategy that signals its priorities. Canada has been silent.

Strategy-building can be dismissed as academic. This is a mistake. A clear foreign policy and strategy would help coordinate “whole of government” policies across the increasing range of departments and agencies that engage with the Asia-Pacific region. This includes Global Affairs Canada; the national security agencies; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; and others.

Crucially, a strategy would tell our allies what our priorities are. In the absence of a strategy, co-operation is ad hoc. Ad hoc foreign policy is rarely good foreign policy. But the core implication of AUKUS is that it reflects the building trend whereby Washington looks to its more active strategic partners when formulating plans.

To be clear, Canada has not been forgotten, nor are we likely to be. But Ottawa needs to contribute ideas and embark on a sustained effort to engage our allies and to base this engagement on a defined set of national priorities that reflect Canadian interests.

While the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom may have imperfect foreign and defence policies, they clearly understand the importance of setting goals and developing strategies, which requires hard choices in an era of uncertainty. Canadians need to start asking hard questions as to why we are not doing the same.