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Link to original article on ruxted.ca
A Threatening Future and a Plan for Action
The Ruxted Group takes note of a new report, ”A Threatened Future: Canada’s Future Strategic Environment and its Security Implications”, prepared by three distinguished Canadians: Jack Granatstein, Gordon Smith and Denis Stairs.
We heartily endorse their analysis and conclusions, which parallel our own as we have presented them over the past 18 months or so, and we hope that the Government of Canada, specifically the cabinet and the Privy Council Office consider their work on an urgent basis.
In their section on the Future Strategic Environment the three wise men posit that:
1. The established (in 1945) political order is broken. There is no longer a single leader or even a (internally divided) leadership team. Power is divided amongst several multi-national groups, nation-states and non-state actors, including multinational corporations. The G8 nations, say Granatstein, Smith and Stairs, need to step forward, but if they fail “to do so, then no one will be in charge.”
2. ”The drive for identity and the tendency in many cultures to associate it with religion, when coupled with the reduction of the geographic buffers between previously distant peoples, has led to dissimilar cultures bumping and grinding against one other. A “clash of civilizations” is certainly not inevitable, but it cannot be dismissed as academic fiction … Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida and other jihadists who would like to see the Caliphate restored and westerners driven from Islamic lands have a clear view about who should be in charge: they should. Canadians should not forget that Canada is fifth on the list of countries that bin Laden has said should be targeted; it is the only country on the list that has not yet been successfully attacked.” In other words, those who believe we are safe if we will “just be nice” and appease the “jihadists” are delusional – dangerously so.
3. ” The greatest risk comes from a nuclear weapon, even of the most rudimentary form, coming into the hands of, or being made by, a terrorist group. The use of such a weapon cannot be deterred – there is no target against which retaliation can be threatened. Any attack on the United States would have devastating consequences for Canada, and we should also never assume that Canada itself is immune from such an attack … The prospect of biological or chemical weapons being used by either state or non-state actors also remains clearly visible on the horizon, and scientific advances are likely to increase the risk by making such weapons easier to produce.”
4. ” A substantial amount of the oil that finds its way into the international marketplace comes from unstable or potentially unstable countries. The risk of armed conflict in those areas is real. The United States will not accept a world in which Americans are denied the oil they need to make their economy work. Neither will the Chinese, the Indians, or the Europeans. Conflict over energy in several dimensions is unfortunately all but certain.”
5. The ” prosperous countries of the north, including Canada, will remain the targets of terrorist attacks launched from desperate and unstable countries in the south, and perhaps increasingly so.”
6. Our good friends and neighbours in the USA are being pulled away from their recent positon of “constructive-internationalism.” ”United States exceptionalism is strong, and both political parties use exceptionalist rhetoric to justify their positions on foreign policy. The rise of the Christian right in the United States brings to a substantial portion of the American population (perhaps a third) the conviction that God and United States foreign policy are inseparable. For many, therefore, the United States has a duty to advance its God-given values – sometimes seen as truly universal values and sometimes not as universal, just better – in the world. It is not a big jump from there to unilateralism or isolationism. Even among American liberal internationalists, there is a tendency to think of multilateral institutions as vehicles for advancing what are really unilateral interests. This tendency is not confined to the United States, but the American version of it leads more seamlessly to the notion that the good multilateral institutions are the ones the Americans can dominate, and the bad are the ones in which they have to compromise.”
7. China, Russia, India, the Middle East and Africa all remain areas of potential trouble.
8. ” There will be no lack of threats to Canada and its friends from places not normally on our map. Failing and failed states, post-conflict reconstruction, and counter-insurgency operations will be the norm. The threat will likely be from far away, or may seem far away, and it will be replete with issues that many Canadians will not immediately grasp. They will need to be ready to learn and sometimes, be ready to fight.”
The authors of “A Threatened Future” lay out five levels of threat which they suggest face Canada:
1. Natural disasters. They suggest, and Ruxted agrees, that, in the event of a major natural disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina (an eventuality which many scientists suggest is very likely) “local police forces would be as unable to deal with it ... Canadian Forces Reserves would be as helpless as the Louisiana National Guard and less well-equipped … only the regular [Canadian military] forces ultimately could restore order, care for the injured and sick, and feed and shelter the displaced.”
2. Internal security threats and civil disorder – especially amongst identifiable ethnic or religious groups in major urban centres.
3. ”A third level of threat arises when other states encroach on our territory and our sovereignty … the need to demonstrate our willingness to protect Canada’s territorial integrity is clear … Of more immediate seriousness, Canada’s superpower neighbour sees itself under present and future threat from terrorists and rogue states [and] if there is another major terrorist attack there and if there is any sign of a Canadian dimension to such an attack, the pressures to take extreme measures on the border will be immense …there exists the real possibility that a United States administration may take de facto control of Canadian airspace and sea approaches to guarantee its self-defence. Such a move could not be resisted politically or militarily by Canada, given it has no “defence against help,” and it implies the end of Canadian sovereignty.”
4. ” The fourth type of threat arises when, as in Darfur or Afghanistan, a state or a non-state actor becomes a regional threat, a host to terrorism, or such a danger to its own people” that nations, including Canada, are compelled to take action. ” Canada has made a lot of noise about the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). There is little evidence at this point that we or anyone else meant it when we said in reference to genocide, “Never again!”
5. Finally, "there are major wars, usually, but not only, interstate conflicts. These have seemed unlikely since the end of the Cold War, but this may not be so tomorrow. The strategic analysis in Part II is far from reassuring, and it is possible that Canada might need to fight for its life and for the survival of its people at some point in the coming two or three decades.”
The three wise men lay out some solutions:
1. They agree with the July 2007 Ruxted proposal that Canada’s defence budget should rise to about 2.2% of GDP which will support a standing (full time), well trained, adequately equipped, combat ready military force of 75,000 to 80,000 people. But they caution that Canadian political realities mean that governments (Conservative or Liberal) are likely to be too timid to do what is necessary, to do the right thing. Instead they suggest, ” the defence budget will probably rise slowly from its present level of just above 1 per cent of GDP and then remain in the 1.1 to 1.3 per cent range.” This would be wholly inadequate and it would mean, de facto, the end of Canada as anything like a leading or even a respectable middle power. It would threaten Canada’s ability to maintain its sovereignty over its own territory. It would mean that Canada would, likely, become a colony of a diminished America.
2. Canada needs better planning for catastrophic events. We need to have equipment pre-positioned near the nation’s big cities and earthquake zones. We need substantial government money put into training programmes for first responders such as the police and fire departments. Above all, we need to make the Canadian Forces do what it has never truly wanted to do in the past for fear of being turned into a constabulary: to train and to prepare to assist in such disasters.” The Ruxted Group contends that this should be an important task for reserve force units – for a number of fairly large, well equipped, well trained regional rapid reaction units.
3. ”Canada needs to increase its domestic intelligence efforts to ensure that this [attacks like those in Madrid and London] does not occur … the nation needs to increase its educational efforts to better integrate these Canadians into our society and to ensure that ghettoes of the mind do not take permanent form. We also must be aware that the great majority of our immigrants today come to us from nations with no democratic tradition; they cannot absorb our values by osmosis alone. Canadian leaders must try to ensure that the nation’s interests and values, rather than pressures exerted by the various diasporas in Canada, drive our foreign and defence policies.”
4. ”Canada needs a foreign intelligence agency …” While the report argues for a foreign intelligence agency as part of CSIS, Ruxted remains open to a variety of solutions including separate foreign intelligence agencies in DND and DFAIT.
Finally, the report suggests that: ” The first priority must be to ensure the security of Canadian territory and the Canadian people, something, it must be said, that has not been done over the last forty years. Next, we have responsibilities for the defence of North America and, we expect, increasingly for the Western Hemisphere in the coming years. These close-in concerns should be our highest priority. Far out priorities – Europe, the Pacific, Asia, and Africa – are important because they are the areas from which major threats of war will arise, along with large-scale humanitarian crises that can lead to calls for intervention. Canada needs to be prepared for such events, but they will always require careful consideration of the Canadian Forces’ resources and the national interest … Canada’s voters and the governments they elect will need to make a commitment to the Canadian Forces and to our national security …Canadians want to be proud of their servicemen and women, even if they do not want to pay the bills. This requires well-equipped, well-trained forces that can distinguish themselves in the full spectrum of military operations ranging from blue beret peacekeeping through peace enforcement, and finally, to war. That is the best way to ensure that our sovereignty is respected and our independence reinforced."
The three wise men have made a good, sound, sensible case. The Ruxted Group urges our readers to get behind this report. Send a letter to your local newspaper telling the editor that you support the report and that you want to and are willing to pay the bills (which implies doubling defence spending to 2.2% of GDP in the not too distant future) – preferably by finding economies in current government spending. Send a copy to your MP and tell your MP you want the government to take action to implement the general thrust of the report and you want the opposition parties to support that action. Canadians want to be strong and free; this report shows the way.
A Threatening Future and a Plan for Action
The Ruxted Group takes note of a new report, ”A Threatened Future: Canada’s Future Strategic Environment and its Security Implications”, prepared by three distinguished Canadians: Jack Granatstein, Gordon Smith and Denis Stairs.
We heartily endorse their analysis and conclusions, which parallel our own as we have presented them over the past 18 months or so, and we hope that the Government of Canada, specifically the cabinet and the Privy Council Office consider their work on an urgent basis.
In their section on the Future Strategic Environment the three wise men posit that:
1. The established (in 1945) political order is broken. There is no longer a single leader or even a (internally divided) leadership team. Power is divided amongst several multi-national groups, nation-states and non-state actors, including multinational corporations. The G8 nations, say Granatstein, Smith and Stairs, need to step forward, but if they fail “to do so, then no one will be in charge.”
2. ”The drive for identity and the tendency in many cultures to associate it with religion, when coupled with the reduction of the geographic buffers between previously distant peoples, has led to dissimilar cultures bumping and grinding against one other. A “clash of civilizations” is certainly not inevitable, but it cannot be dismissed as academic fiction … Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida and other jihadists who would like to see the Caliphate restored and westerners driven from Islamic lands have a clear view about who should be in charge: they should. Canadians should not forget that Canada is fifth on the list of countries that bin Laden has said should be targeted; it is the only country on the list that has not yet been successfully attacked.” In other words, those who believe we are safe if we will “just be nice” and appease the “jihadists” are delusional – dangerously so.
3. ” The greatest risk comes from a nuclear weapon, even of the most rudimentary form, coming into the hands of, or being made by, a terrorist group. The use of such a weapon cannot be deterred – there is no target against which retaliation can be threatened. Any attack on the United States would have devastating consequences for Canada, and we should also never assume that Canada itself is immune from such an attack … The prospect of biological or chemical weapons being used by either state or non-state actors also remains clearly visible on the horizon, and scientific advances are likely to increase the risk by making such weapons easier to produce.”
4. ” A substantial amount of the oil that finds its way into the international marketplace comes from unstable or potentially unstable countries. The risk of armed conflict in those areas is real. The United States will not accept a world in which Americans are denied the oil they need to make their economy work. Neither will the Chinese, the Indians, or the Europeans. Conflict over energy in several dimensions is unfortunately all but certain.”
5. The ” prosperous countries of the north, including Canada, will remain the targets of terrorist attacks launched from desperate and unstable countries in the south, and perhaps increasingly so.”
6. Our good friends and neighbours in the USA are being pulled away from their recent positon of “constructive-internationalism.” ”United States exceptionalism is strong, and both political parties use exceptionalist rhetoric to justify their positions on foreign policy. The rise of the Christian right in the United States brings to a substantial portion of the American population (perhaps a third) the conviction that God and United States foreign policy are inseparable. For many, therefore, the United States has a duty to advance its God-given values – sometimes seen as truly universal values and sometimes not as universal, just better – in the world. It is not a big jump from there to unilateralism or isolationism. Even among American liberal internationalists, there is a tendency to think of multilateral institutions as vehicles for advancing what are really unilateral interests. This tendency is not confined to the United States, but the American version of it leads more seamlessly to the notion that the good multilateral institutions are the ones the Americans can dominate, and the bad are the ones in which they have to compromise.”
7. China, Russia, India, the Middle East and Africa all remain areas of potential trouble.
8. ” There will be no lack of threats to Canada and its friends from places not normally on our map. Failing and failed states, post-conflict reconstruction, and counter-insurgency operations will be the norm. The threat will likely be from far away, or may seem far away, and it will be replete with issues that many Canadians will not immediately grasp. They will need to be ready to learn and sometimes, be ready to fight.”
The authors of “A Threatened Future” lay out five levels of threat which they suggest face Canada:
1. Natural disasters. They suggest, and Ruxted agrees, that, in the event of a major natural disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina (an eventuality which many scientists suggest is very likely) “local police forces would be as unable to deal with it ... Canadian Forces Reserves would be as helpless as the Louisiana National Guard and less well-equipped … only the regular [Canadian military] forces ultimately could restore order, care for the injured and sick, and feed and shelter the displaced.”
2. Internal security threats and civil disorder – especially amongst identifiable ethnic or religious groups in major urban centres.
3. ”A third level of threat arises when other states encroach on our territory and our sovereignty … the need to demonstrate our willingness to protect Canada’s territorial integrity is clear … Of more immediate seriousness, Canada’s superpower neighbour sees itself under present and future threat from terrorists and rogue states [and] if there is another major terrorist attack there and if there is any sign of a Canadian dimension to such an attack, the pressures to take extreme measures on the border will be immense …there exists the real possibility that a United States administration may take de facto control of Canadian airspace and sea approaches to guarantee its self-defence. Such a move could not be resisted politically or militarily by Canada, given it has no “defence against help,” and it implies the end of Canadian sovereignty.”
4. ” The fourth type of threat arises when, as in Darfur or Afghanistan, a state or a non-state actor becomes a regional threat, a host to terrorism, or such a danger to its own people” that nations, including Canada, are compelled to take action. ” Canada has made a lot of noise about the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). There is little evidence at this point that we or anyone else meant it when we said in reference to genocide, “Never again!”
5. Finally, "there are major wars, usually, but not only, interstate conflicts. These have seemed unlikely since the end of the Cold War, but this may not be so tomorrow. The strategic analysis in Part II is far from reassuring, and it is possible that Canada might need to fight for its life and for the survival of its people at some point in the coming two or three decades.”
The three wise men lay out some solutions:
1. They agree with the July 2007 Ruxted proposal that Canada’s defence budget should rise to about 2.2% of GDP which will support a standing (full time), well trained, adequately equipped, combat ready military force of 75,000 to 80,000 people. But they caution that Canadian political realities mean that governments (Conservative or Liberal) are likely to be too timid to do what is necessary, to do the right thing. Instead they suggest, ” the defence budget will probably rise slowly from its present level of just above 1 per cent of GDP and then remain in the 1.1 to 1.3 per cent range.” This would be wholly inadequate and it would mean, de facto, the end of Canada as anything like a leading or even a respectable middle power. It would threaten Canada’s ability to maintain its sovereignty over its own territory. It would mean that Canada would, likely, become a colony of a diminished America.
2. Canada needs better planning for catastrophic events. We need to have equipment pre-positioned near the nation’s big cities and earthquake zones. We need substantial government money put into training programmes for first responders such as the police and fire departments. Above all, we need to make the Canadian Forces do what it has never truly wanted to do in the past for fear of being turned into a constabulary: to train and to prepare to assist in such disasters.” The Ruxted Group contends that this should be an important task for reserve force units – for a number of fairly large, well equipped, well trained regional rapid reaction units.
3. ”Canada needs to increase its domestic intelligence efforts to ensure that this [attacks like those in Madrid and London] does not occur … the nation needs to increase its educational efforts to better integrate these Canadians into our society and to ensure that ghettoes of the mind do not take permanent form. We also must be aware that the great majority of our immigrants today come to us from nations with no democratic tradition; they cannot absorb our values by osmosis alone. Canadian leaders must try to ensure that the nation’s interests and values, rather than pressures exerted by the various diasporas in Canada, drive our foreign and defence policies.”
4. ”Canada needs a foreign intelligence agency …” While the report argues for a foreign intelligence agency as part of CSIS, Ruxted remains open to a variety of solutions including separate foreign intelligence agencies in DND and DFAIT.
Finally, the report suggests that: ” The first priority must be to ensure the security of Canadian territory and the Canadian people, something, it must be said, that has not been done over the last forty years. Next, we have responsibilities for the defence of North America and, we expect, increasingly for the Western Hemisphere in the coming years. These close-in concerns should be our highest priority. Far out priorities – Europe, the Pacific, Asia, and Africa – are important because they are the areas from which major threats of war will arise, along with large-scale humanitarian crises that can lead to calls for intervention. Canada needs to be prepared for such events, but they will always require careful consideration of the Canadian Forces’ resources and the national interest … Canada’s voters and the governments they elect will need to make a commitment to the Canadian Forces and to our national security …Canadians want to be proud of their servicemen and women, even if they do not want to pay the bills. This requires well-equipped, well-trained forces that can distinguish themselves in the full spectrum of military operations ranging from blue beret peacekeeping through peace enforcement, and finally, to war. That is the best way to ensure that our sovereignty is respected and our independence reinforced."
The three wise men have made a good, sound, sensible case. The Ruxted Group urges our readers to get behind this report. Send a letter to your local newspaper telling the editor that you support the report and that you want to and are willing to pay the bills (which implies doubling defence spending to 2.2% of GDP in the not too distant future) – preferably by finding economies in current government spending. Send a copy to your MP and tell your MP you want the government to take action to implement the general thrust of the report and you want the opposition parties to support that action. Canadians want to be strong and free; this report shows the way.
