The Cost of Dependence |
The most striking feature of Prime Minister Carney’s May 27 announcement that Canada was negotiating to acquire the Swedish firm Saab’s GlobalEye airborne early warning and control aircraft platform is that it appeared to end consideration of a competing surveillance aircraft produced by the US manufacturer Boeing. But the announcement is illustrative of a broader emerging trend in the defence policies of not only Canada but other NATO allies.
Procurement Is Never Just Procurement
As Clausewitz famously observed, war is the continuation of politics by other means, and decisions to prepare for war and procure the necessary weaponry are also political. To be sure, defence procurement decisions should rest primarily on considerations of military utility. But these decisions are also inevitably political. They flow from broader policy and strategy. They shape a state’s dependence upon, and ability to resist pressure from, allies, the degree of influence it can exercise within alliances, and its freedom to pursue independent policies and strategies. In addition, large-scale weapons purchases can loom large in overall trade relations between states.
A few weeks ago, a retired foreign service officer told me over lunch that he thought Carney was delaying a decision on the purchase of US F-35s as leverage in the upcoming CUSMA renegotiations (conceivable, though President Trump’s ingratitude for concessions and record of violating deals to which he has agreed suggest such a strategy wouldn’t be productive). In his January speech at Davos, Carney warned against the weaponization of interdependence. The Trump administration’s willingness to weaponize allied dependence on the United States is the context in which US allies are adjusting their defence postures.
NATO’s other members have long assumed they would provide niche capabilities to a US-dominated coalition in any war. They lack the capacity to deploy and coordinate large forces for protracted conflict, depend upon the United States for core capabilities such as heavy airlift, long-range striking power, and Intelligence,........