Canada’s adaptation to evolving NORAD and NATO roles

On Nov. 9, in a call to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. president-elect Joe Biden reaffirmed the close bonds between Canada and the U.S., citing the North American partnership and deepening collaboration to address regional and global challenges—including strengthening NATO. Indeed, not only do NATO and NORAD remain viable and workable alliances today, they are imperative; and Canada’s role has been and should continue to be engaged, but Canada needs to strengthen and adapt its defence to the realities of emerging threats and security challenges to effectively meet its alliance commitments. Canadians should remain confident in the sustained historical record of the efficacy of our alliances as collective bodies intended to preserve and promote peace and stability through defence and deterrence. They comprise a North Atlantic community reflecting the universal norms and values of liberty, democracy, rule of law, human rights, and freedoms. Canada was one of the eight founding members of NATO in 1949 and remains a valued binational partner in NORAD. Born out of the post-Second World War and early Cold War strategic context, NATO and NORAD provide the foundation for defence co-operation and security that we continue to enjoy today. These institutions adapted and demonstrated their enduring relevance as the global security environment shifted from bipolar, to unipolar, to multipolar with the rise of peer competitors. Today’s threats are more complex; adversaries are varied and operate in non-traditional ways and domains. The world today is experiencing unprecedented challenges—a global pandemic with severe economic effects, a divided America following an isolationist president, the ending of stability-enhancing arms control regimes, and strategic competition with adversaries that deploy aggression below the threshold of conflict. International relations returned to great power competitions, characterized by a resurgent Russia and a revisionist China seeking to project power globally and regionally manipulating or outright ignoring international norms and legal regimes. Despite this renewed focus for defence and security institutions, the risk posed by rogue nations, such as North Korea and potentially Iran, wielding nuclear weapons threatens regional allies and, possibly, the North American homeland. The threat of international terrorism has not disappeared, and the threat of religious extremism has been augmented by the rise of far-right groups. The international security environment is less predictable and more volatile than we could have anticipated. The U.S. continues to lead our alliances as one of the world’s strongest economies and the most powerful military. Canada remains a key player in both alliances, providing geographical advantage for NORAD and niche capabilities for NATO. NATO and NORAD evolved and adapted to changes in the global threat environment from the Cold War to the present. From its creation in 1949, NATO began as a consensus-based collective defence body focused on deterring military aggression in the Euro-Atlantic region, with an emphasis on Article 5 of the Treaty that an attack against one or more of its members is considered an attack against all members. After the Cold War, NATO evolved and its core tasks expanded to include co-operative security and crisis management, and broadened its scope for intervention from regional to global. Canada played a significant role in these NATO missions, from the Balkans in the 1990s, it expanded its contribution to NATO-ISAF in Afghanistan from Kabul to Kandahar province, it led the 2011 air campaign NATO intervention in Libya, and now leads a battlegroup as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in Latvia. NORAD was established in 1958 as a Canada-U.S. binational continental air defence command, in which Canada provided an early warning and defence role as part of deterrence. NORAD evolved through renewals that expanded its mission, most notably in 1981 to include aerospace warning, and in 2006, it added a maritime warning role. In response to peer strategic competitors’ innovation in offensive weapons to strike the continent (no defences exist against hypersonic vehicles, advanced cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems), North American defence is undergoing modernization, primarily through NORAD and USNORTHCOM, with new deterrence and integrated defence concepts, which has implications for Canada as a close U.S. defence partner and Arctic nation. As an important NATO and NORAD partner, Canada must revise its Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy. Since the Wales summit in 2014, when NATO members reaffirmed their commitment to two per cent of GDP spending on defence, Canada has continued to fall short of its commitment. Canada needs to be serious about its contribution, revise its problematic procurement processes (characterized by delays and cancellations on the whims of political leadership), and increase defence spending and investing in capabilities needed now and into the future. For its own national security interests, and as a continental defence partner, Canada must be serious about upgrades to North American defence, including the Arctic (particularly replacing the aging North Warning System of early-warning radars), potentially requiring a revisit to missile defence participation. Reaching 1.4 per cent of GDP on defence spending by 2024 may no longer be viable for the complex and diverse defence challenges in multiple domains we must be prepared for today. Canada needs to join its U.S. partner in revising its defence and deterrence posture with serious investment in all domains to remain a credible defence partner. Our alliances are more important than ever in today’s unpredictable and volatile international security environment. As peer competitors and other adversaries continue to violate international norms and rules, alliances like NATO and NORAD provide a means to promote and, if necessary, enforce the boundaries of acceptable conduct in international and regional spaces. Canada has a vested national interest in supporting NATO and NORAD to promote shared values and defend the rules-based international order. Nancy Teeple is an adjunct professor and research associate at the Royal Military College of Canada, a postdoctoral fellow at the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network, and the Fulbright Canada Visiting Chair in Peace and War Studies at Norwich University. The Hill Times