What Canada Needs from NATO

To call for a Canadian foreign policy that emphasizes multilateral diplomacy, reconstruction, and development is to ignore the importance of NATO to our future security.

NATO has launched a review of its long-term raison d’être. By next fall it wants to post a new Alliance Security Concept to explain to its members, and the rest of the world, what NATO is for and why. In its first decades, the Alliance stood for the defence against the Soviet threat, though it never said so explicitly. Then in 1991, the Alliance added the goals of cooperation with former adversaries and spreading stability and democratic development to all of Europe. On September 12, 2001, when the Alliance for the first time invoked its common defence clause to help the Americans, it set the stage for its current global engagement. But it has no concrete strategy to take it forward. Should it add other security tasks to its list of actions, such as humanitarian intervention or keeping energy supply routes safe? Should the transatlantic alliance become a transoceanic league of democracies?

Canadian opinion is split on our continuing efforts to bring security to Afghanistan. Some call for Canada to return to a soft-power foreign policy that puts multilateral diplomacy, reconstruction, and development at the fore. This vision hardly mentions our deep stake in NATO for future security interests.

Rather than throwing in the towel in Afghanistan and redirecting Canadian resources away from hard power, now is the time for Canada to articulate its own interests in the future development of NATO. Canada not only has interests but also a well-earned platform. By our recent sacrifice in lives and treasure in Afghanistan and by rising to the top tier of the fighting allies in NATO, Canada has secured for itself a large stake in how NATO will fare.

The NATO Alliance is as vital to Canadian national interests today as it was in 1949. Canada still relies on forward-based defence. It needs to act against threats to our democratic values, our global trade interests, and the secure flow of people in areas far away from Canada’s shore. The alternative to a functioning NATO for Canada is reliance on a far less capable United Nations or a narrow alliance with the United States, or no capacity to act at all.

What should Canada seek in this crucial round of reform? First of all, Canada must lobby against creating the expectation that NATO will become a type of global policeman. There is not enough solidarity among NATO nations. National interests and military capabilities still differ a great deal. If NATO were to become the main instrument for humanitarian action or the right to protect, it would crumble under the weight of disagreement and infighting. Conflicts over food, water, migration, climate change, and energy security are not NATO’s business unless a member’s vital interest is directly threatened.

Second, without saying as much, the Alliance still has an “old” threat in illiberal Russia. Moscow does not need to be isolated or contained, but rather engaged. But it must be engaged from a position of firm democratic resolve backed by hard power. The European Union does not have this power by itself. NATO is needed to give Eastern European members confidence to pursue an independent foreign policy. Ukraine deserves a fair opportunity to decide in its own time whether it wants to join the European Union and NATO.

Finally, NATO must articulate its solidarity around a long-term threat faced by all of its members to greater or lesser degrees. NATO faces an existential threat against the values of its members, including the rule of law, individual freedom, freedom of religion, and respect for human rights.

The existential threat to all of our liberal societies comes in the form of a fanatical ideology that is willing to use all levels of armed violence to make its points. Groups within this totalitarian religious ideology will seek to secure the resources of states and nations to further their cause, including military resources. Once a violent elite takes hold of the resources held by national governments, the level of threat clearly enters into NATO’s realm.

NATO must deter the violent and armed growth of this ideology and, if necessary, provide a forward-based military defence. Our values, our global trade interests, and the security of the flow of immigrants to Canada all dictate that we should take an active part in reducing this long-term threat.