OTTAWA, ON (March 20, 2024): In a time of geopolitical upheaval, Canada appears rudderless on the world stage. As questions linger over Canada’s strategic direction, there are mounting concerns over whether Canada’s leadership has the vision required to face immediate security threats.
In a new paper, A grand strategy for Canada?, Professor Patrick James attempts to answer basic questions on the nature of grand strategy, how it emerges, and what it means for Canada.
“A brief review of Canadian history will reveal the principal contextual elements of a Canadian grand strategy,” writes James.
Canada falls short of a fully developed grand strategy, but James contends that we have something resembling a work in progress:
“The strategic triangle, middle power activity, and defence against help are sustained features of Canadian foreign policy,” notes James.
“However… these three elements are not sufficient to constitute, in themselves, a plan to allocate means toward ends in a comprehensive way.”
Ultimately, Canada remains unprepared for traditional security-related threats, with threats to the Arctic at the top of the list. Recognizing the need to meet the Sino-Russian threat to Arctic sovereignty may be the only viable way to motivate political support for military spending.
Still, this will not be easy if the government of the day continues to focus on global and long-term issues like climate change over more immediate and proximate security concerns.
To learn more, read the full report here:
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Patrick James is the Dana and David Dornsife Dean’s Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the University of Southern California (Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park).
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