Thirty-Three Ships Are Not Enough

Canada's navy is shrinking, and it couldn't be happening at a worse time.

The Arctic’s frozen waterways are thawing, pirates are preying on vital sea lanes, rogue states are shipping WMD technology, China is beginning to deploy its navy overseas, and terrorists have proven their capacity to carry out deadly seaborne attacks. Now is no time for the western allies to mothball their navies. But sadly, that appears to be what’s happening.

The U.K. is slashing defence spending by eight per cent. As a result, the country will have to delay needed upgrades to its nuclear-submarine fleet, speed up the decommissioning of an aircraft carrier, and share an aircraft carrier with France.

Likewise, Italy is planning 10-per-cent cuts across the board, resulting in the cancellation of new warships.

Even the U.S. navy is shrinking. The U.S. had 466 ships deployed in 1992 and 316 in 2001; just 285 are in service today. And now, Washington is backing away from a plan to build the fleet back up to 313 by the middle of the next decade. Instead, the Pentagon plans on building it to 301 ships – by 2040.

As for Canada, its navy numbers just 33 ships. That’s a tiny fleet for a maritime nation with a huge coastline, vast trade linkages, and important global commitments – especially in light of the fact that 13 of those ships are out of service for refurbishing, as a recent Globe and Mail report detailed. Moreover, three Canadian destroyers are on track to be retired, and plans to replenish Canada’s suddenly essential fleet of Arctic vessels are being scaled back due to budget constraints, according to the Globe’s analysis.

It’s no wonder that the Canadian navy’s global role, like the Canadian military’s role in general, is ebbing relative to earlier periods in history, and has been since the end of the Cold War.

This isn’t to suggest that Canada’s navy does not contribute in important ways to international security – more on that in a moment – or that Canada is any different from other members of the western alliance system. In fact, Canada’s investment in defence is very much in line with what most of its NATO allies spend on defence. For example, a recent NATO analysis found that only five members of the alliance mustered the will to meet NATO’s set standard of investing two per cent of GDP on defence. While the U.S. invests around four per cent of its GDP – an enormous GDP compared with other members of the alliance – on defence, other countries have fallen well below the two-per-cent target, including Canada (1.3 per cent), Germany (1.3 per cent), Italy (1.3 per cent), and Spain (1.2 per cent).

To be sure, Canada’s defence spending has increased in recent years under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. However, the country still ranks just 126th in the world in defence spending as a share of GDP.

As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.”