Putin’s heinous attack on Ukraine could well bring us to the brink of war in Europe

OTTAWA—It took Vladimir Putin’s vicious and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to wake up the world to the fact that he is a Soviet-era, ultra-nationalist and expansionist. This, despite the fact that he has exhibited these behaviours in Chechnya, Crimea, Georgia, and Syria. The implications are far-reaching—the Cold War we all thought had ended has not, and the arc of the post-war period towards a rules-based system of sovereign nations has been upended. For Canada, a middle power which punched above its weight during the first Cold War, now is the time to step up again in several areas. First, we have the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the end of the Second World War on our hands. The West needs to support the Ukrainian people. Canada, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, stood out in welcoming Syrian refugees in 2015-2016, and we should do so again. But the immediate situation in Ukraine is somewhat different because, thus far, it has been largely women and children on the move—not entire families—as men have stayed behind to battle the invaders. Partnering with the EU, Canada should make a major financial commitment to support the millions of Ukrainians who are now scattered throughout Europe, but who want to return home at some point. Hopefully, that time will come soon, with Putin’s armies retreating to Russia in disarray. Eventually, Ukraine will need a massive Marshall Plan to rebuild infrastructure and communities. Canada can play a catalyzing role with our NATO allies to provide the timely commitment and resources by doing so ourselves. Second, alliances and multilateralism are making a rapid comeback. In one fell swoop, Putin made NATO relevant again. Canada needs to match our voice in NATO to our spending on defence. We are a woeful laggard in meeting the NATO defence spending target of two per cent of GDP. This will require tough budgetary trade-offs at home to accommodate new defence spending in our world of high debt levels and rising inflation and interest rates. The new defence spending has to be targeted to where it can make the greatest contribution to deterrence in this new cold war, and this too will require difficult choices among the services for a military that holds to old force structures. The government also must address military leadership issues and dysfunction in military procurement if Canadians are to have confidence that these additional resources are being wisely spent and managed. On the diplomatic front, Canada has always contributed to, and benefitted greatly from, rules-based multilateralism, and we should stand up and play a leadership role in reforming international institutions to be effective in this cold war climate. Third, while a war in Europe may seem far away to most Canadians, Russia is our Arctic neighbour—whether we like it or not. China, which is forming a strategic alliance with Russia, covets Arctic sea routes as a self-declared near-Arctic nation. In short, our neighbourhood just got a lot more dangerous. As such, we need to up our commitment to continental defence in several vital areas. We should both support, and invest in, a major modernization of NORAD’s 1980s-era North Warning System to ensure we can detect and deter next generation missile and drone attacks. We must increase our capacity for Arctic surveillance with satellites, drones, patrol aircraft and icebreakers; it is difficult to claim sovereignty if you don’t know what is going on in your own territory. And, we need to upgrade our cyber warfare capacity to better protect against cyber attacks to our core infrastructure. We can no longer take our territorial, and digital security for granted. Fourth, energy is the bellwether of geopolitical tensions, and the sudden rise in the price of oil has closely tracked the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The world is still very much reliant on fossil fuels. Indeed, Russia has used its oil and gas supplies to Western Europe as a blunt weapon of coercion—and it will for years to come. Canada can help provide energy security to Europe, and further isolate the Russian economy, but to do so, we must build the infrastructure, including pipelines to take Canadian energy—oil, gas, and propane—to tidewater. The challenge for Canada is to do this in an environmentally sustainable way, while doubling down on clean energy at the same time. And, as Canada ponders its role in global energy security, the United States inexplicably panders to Venezuela and Iran to boost global energy supplies. Fifth, economics matters in geopolitics. With the Russian economy smaller than the state of Texas and heavily dependent on natural resource exports, economic sanctions can be a very effective weapon. But the dual impacts of the invasion and the sanctions will be to push up energy and other commodity prices, further disrupt supply chains, hasten de-globalization and, thereby, worsen already significant inflation pressures in Western economies. To keep Western economies robust, central banks and governments will have to be resolute in tackling inflation, and protecting consumer purchasing power at a time of heightened uncertainty. The economic growth and resilience of the NATO countries relative to the U.S.S.R. were key factors in tipping the balance during the first cold war. COVID-19 will prove not to be the biggest test of 2022. Putin’s heinous attack on Ukraine is a broader challenge to the West and could well bring us to the brink of war in Europe. China’s President Xi may use this distraction, and his alliance with Russia, to test us elsewhere, including Taiwan. For Canada, our current foreign and defence policies are no longer fit for purpose. It is a time to show leadership and, unfortunately, prepare for a new cold war—something we have not had to think about for three decades. Kevin Lynch is former vice-chair of BMO and former clerk of the Privy Council. Paul Deegan was deputy executive director of the National Economic Council of the White House and a CN Rail and BMO executive. The Hill Times