Researcher expects Canadian leaders to take defence more seriously in light of Trump’s 51st state comments

Interim Director of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, Rob Huebert, discusses NATO defence spending

Rob Huebert, Interim Director of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, discusses NATO defence spending expectations with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: What’s to be made of only the U.S. and Russia meeting? A discussion that excludes Ukraine, as well as European leaders.

Rob Huebert: One of the saddest ironies with that is, Trump’s administration makes this announcement at a Munich Conference. History tells us that the last time we saw a conference like this in Munich, where the great powers were ultimately deciding upon the fate of a smaller power, it ended in disaster for us. Of course, I’m referring to when the British and French met with Hitler and Mussolini to decide the fate of Czechoslovakia, without including the Czechs in any form of that, and that saw a basic destruction of the Czechoslovakian state at that time.

Here we seem to be seeing exactly the same process occurring again. The idea that the Ukrainians would not be front and centre, in terms of these negotiations, after being invaded by the Russians in 2014, should terrify all of us.

MH: Where then does that leave European security, even European unity?

RH: This is the big problem, because just think this through the Putin administration, it’s an aggressor state, but it says the reason it invaded and attacked Ukraine in 2014 - and it stresses not 2022 - Crimea was part of the Ukraine, and Ukrainian soldiers died then, but when they attacked, they gave the argumentation that they did not want to see NATO expansion. In the period since, we’ve had both Finland and Sweden joining NATO. So what is that going to mean?

We also see, in terms of NATO or at least the Americans saying, NATO is now not a prospect for Ukraine, even though it was the Americans, along with us, that were pushing that the most for both the Ukraine and Georgia (to join) back in 2014.

I think that everyone else in NATO has every right to be very concerned about our long-term security under these new developments.

MH: Depending on where these talks go, how much of a role do you see Canada potentially playing in post-war peace efforts?

RH: We won’t play a role at all, given the fact that we have very little to bring to the table. First and foremost, no one’s going to pay very much attention to us just in terms of our inability to come anywhere near to the two per cent that we agree to back to 2014.

Even if we were to be included, what would we do? We’re totally maxed out in terms of our capabilities up in the Balkans and we’re desperately trying to get our shop in order in terms of our Arctic security. So I don’t know what we could contribute, even if our political elites somehow managed to say Canada has to be included.

MH: How would Canada approach this talk coming from the Trump administration of bumping up that two per cent figure to five per cent of GDP?

RH: Russia, in the period where it’s become such an aggressor state, has launched a series of what seems to be successful, aggressive wars, Georgia and now Ukraine, presumably. Their GDP is the same as us, and so they’ve spent six per cent of their GDP becoming the military capability. So it’s feasible.

The problem is that within Canada, the political will just simply hasn’t been there. Now, I presume that we’ve now recognized that we are facing a major threat to at least our economic security, if not our sovereignty, from the Americans.

I suspect that our political elites will probably get a little bit more serious in terms of trying to do this, but again, we have to see what is going to happen with the Americans vis a vis our relationship.

Is Trump just simply trying to rattle us to get the best deal? That’s one line of thinking. Is he really intent on fulfilling the manifest destiny that ultimately said that the United States should control all of North America, and in this case, also Greenland? If that’s the case, then it becomes irrelevant in terms of what we’re doing. And a third possibility, he simply wants to reduce us to a vassal state, so that we remain independent, so that there’s not too many of us that are Democrats voting against him, but that he retains complete control in terms of what we do in foreign and defense policy, very much what the Soviets did to the Finns in what’s called Finlandization.

So which of those is going to happen is still something we’re waiting to see.

MH: Regardless of the amount Canada increases defense spending to honour NATO commitments, how much of an expectation is there our Canadian dollars go to American defense contractors?

RH: We have to be very careful with this. The systems that we’re looking at, the F35s, some of the radar systems, some of the elements that have to go into the new destroyers that we’re getting, we’d be, to a certain degree, sort of cutting our nose to spite our face if we say, well, now we’re going to a lesser degree, because the threats from the Russians and Chinese are not going to decrease.

In fact, the Russians are going to become that much more dangerous, in my viewpoint, and so the American systems are still the best. Now politically, if you turn around and say to a Trump who does not follow our preceding assumption of what is logic within the American-Canadian relationship, and we say, ‘We’re going to go buy our fighters from the Swedes rather than you,’ do you really think that Trump’s going to say, ‘Oh, my goodness, you’re right. I shouldn’t be so mean to Canada. And in fact, I better be better.’

It’s just going to simply infuriate him even more. So making a bad situation that we never should have had to deal with in the first place that much worse in that context. It may give political elites a sense of self importance, sort of like when Trudeau goes down, talks to him and immediately stops off at a conference that is very much against Trump’s ideas to give his valid support. Might’ve made him feel good, but it sure didn’t help Canadian interests. So we have to be very careful because we are facing a very dangerous situation, and what may seem to give us, or give our elites a sense of satisfaction, in fact, could hurt us.

Once again, this is really tricky going forward. The American systems that we’ve chosen are the better systems that exist out there, but we’ve got to figure out a way that this ultimately comes back to say to the Americans, ‘See? You need us. Don’t weaken us,’ I think is the better argument at this point in time. It may not be that satisfying, but I think it serves our interests in the long term.