Authoritarian states are building up their military strength at a rapid pace. The United States may become a much less reliable ally. There’s no longer any excuse for burying our heads in the sand.
Donald Trump, the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States, ran on the most explicitly anti-NATO foreign policy platform of any major party nominee since the end of WW2.
Trump regularly claimed America’s allies were worse than America’s enemies like China and Russia, and even sought to sow doubt about whether China and Russia are enemies at all.
Trump has surrounded himself with people who hold foreign policy views that are – in a deep irony – nearly indistinguishable from what the far-left once believed.
And Americans voted for it.
This has dire implications for Canada.
First, it means we cannot assume the US will remain a reliable ally.
We cannot assume the protective umbrella of NATO will remain in place.
We cannot assume that the US – the world’s greatest military power – will side with us and other democratic nations against hostile foreign powers like China & Russia.
So, how should we respond to this?
The answer is clear:
We must rearm.
As much as it’s nice to spout off platitudes about the ‘rules-based international order,’ we are moving more and more towards a ‘might makes right’ international order. This is disturbing and dangerous, but it is the reality.
And we must respond to this reality.
Raw military strength is what matters now.
Domestic military production.
Military research & development.
Ramping up recruiting targets.
These are no longer luxuries, but must-haves.
And there are things the government can do immediately.
First, the government should announce a freeze on all non-military domestic spending, combined with an immediate doubling of the military budget to hit our NATO targets NOW, rather than the absurd target of 2032 which is so distant as to be meaningless.
The government should bypass the broken procurement system by declaring a ‘pressing emergency‘. For those who would doubt the necessity of this, the potential loss of a stable ally and the need to respond to a massive military buildup by China and Russia should certainly be considered a ‘pressing emergency.’
The government should increase our F-35 order, ramp up domestic military drone production, invest billions in artillery shell manufacturing, ramp up small arms production, launch large-scale nationwide military recruiting campaigns, begin investing in domestic production of long-range missiles, and begin work on a North American missile defence shield (this is an area where we can still collaborate with the US).
This should start immediately. There is no time to waste.
The future ahead is uncertain and unsettling.
We can’t take anything for granted.
Our only choice is whether we head into that uncertain future from a position of weakness or a position of resilience.
And if we choose resilience, we must rearm.
Spencer Fernando
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