Biden Risks Casting Canada Aside with His Global Security Efforts

With Joe Biden’s election as the next president now officially confirmed by the American Electoral College, Le Devoir is doing an overview of his biggest promises and of the consequences that they could have for Canada. Last stop today: the U.S. military’s ambitions for global security, which could exclude Canada from the world’s major players.

The upcoming return of an American government that argues for multilateralism and collaboration with its allies is more than welcome in Canada. In turns, Justin Trudeau and his cabinet have rejoiced. But Joe Biden’s willingness to cooperate with his peers to counter China and Russia also runs the risk of turning into a request that his allies enhance their military aid and spending — something that the Canadian government will probably not be able to offer its American neighbor.

As a member of the North Atlantic Trade Organization, Canada is used to the United States asking it to increase its defense spending. Tensions rose under Donald Trump’s presidency, as he publicly reprimanded his allies for not pulling their weight and threatened to leave the Atlantic alliance.

“There will be some continuity and some changes under the new government, insofar as NATO is concerned,” explains Douglas Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO’s North Atlantic Council and now a researcher at Harvard University.*

“The first major change will be that Biden will quickly and completely recommit to NATO, as he considers it the most important security alliance for the United States,” Lute continued. “But there will be a difference in his way of emphasizing once again the importance of the allies’ common commitment [to spend 2% of their GDP on defense]. From now on, this request will take place in private, diplomatically and respectfully. This will be a marked difference from Trump’s approach. And it will, quite frankly, stand a better chance of working.”*

The vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Ottawa, David Perry, also expects that Joe Biden will continue to ask Ottawa to increase its defense spending. But he notes that, under the Trump administration, despite the president’s rockier relationship with NATO, member countries’ defense spending also went up. Canada’s went from 1% of its GDP in 2014 — when member countries committed to increasing their defense spending — to 1.45%, which is expected for 2020. Ten member countries have now hit the 2% of GDP threshold (including the United States), up from 3% six years ago.

“Donald Trump might have expressed abruptly and impolitely Americans’ longtime wish for their allies to take on greater responsibility, but the nature of the message stayed the same,” Perry noted. “The increase in defense spending these last few years will maybe give us some reprieve. But Americans’ desire to see less of a gap between their defense spending and that of their allies has not gone away.”*

Joe Biden’s campaign platform in fact lets us know that the incoming president is “calling on all NATO nations to recommit to their responsibilities as members of a democratic alliance.”

Cast Aside for Lack of Investment?

Moreover, experts emphasize that Canada, like its allies, will need to continue to reexamine its defense budget in order to be able to respond to new threats to security, which will be more sophisticated from now on.

NATO was created as a counterweight to Russia (which was part of the USSR at the time), but we must admit that it has not always been successful in doing so these past few years, notes the director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute in Washington, Chris Sands. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 is proof of it, as are the cyber attacks that recently targeted the U.S. State Department and American businesses.

“It is in these new sectors that we need to invest. We need to do more to counter these non-traditional threats,” confirms Lute.*

Now, Canada already was not spending 2% of its GDP on defense even before the pandemic ravaged its economy. Sands predicts that it is unlikely that the Canadian government will be able to invest any more to help the United States counter these evolving threats. “That will eventually have consequences,” he says.*

In his opinion, the Americans will hesitate to include Canada in their international initiatives — especially in the Pacific in order to counter China — knowing that they cannot count on sufficient military aid from the Canadians. “It is difficult for a mid-sized power to be a world power. Some countries succeed at it. But I think that Canada is reaching the limit of what it can do.”*

Presence in Iraq

Biden will also inherit Trump’s decision to reduce America’s military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The outgoing president ordered that the army only keep 2,500 troops in each country (as opposed to the 3,000 that are currently in Iraq and the 4,500 in Afghanistan) and that that needs to be done by Jan. 15, five days before the incoming president’s inauguration.

Experts thus find it unlikely that Biden will reverse this decision. He could nonetheless slow the withdrawal of these troops, who might not have finished repatriating a part of their operations that they will no longer be able to carry out in reduced numbers. When Canada ended its mission in Afghanistan in 2014, it took a year to finish everything up, Perry reminds us.

This partial withdrawal of Americans risks endangering the presence of other allies on the ground, since the Americans offer essential support in the form of logistics and intelligence.

Lute believes that Biden could rightly extend the presence of logistical aid for partner countries.

But Perry predicts that, beyond the military challenge of remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan without the Americans, there will be a political challenge for the Canadian government. “It will become more difficult for politicians to justify [the decision] to keep Canadian troops in the country if the United States pulls out completely.”*

It is unlikely, in any case, that Canada will be asked to bring in more troops, according to Sands. “If you are the leader of Iraq or Afghanistan, you want real military aid, not just symbolic aid. And Canada is simply unable to do much in this domain.”* Sands figures that pressure on the United States, the Brits and the French will grow.

The Canadian army only has about 10 soldiers left in Afghanistan, but 850 still in Iraq.

*Editor’s Note: These quotations, accurately translated, could not be verified.