BARBER: Another great Trudeau achievement, Canada's military irrelevance

This country is in the uncomfortable position of being no longer trusted by its traditional allies. It is deeply disturbing and illustrated by events in East Asia.In 2021, Australia, the UK and the US formed the AUKUS Trilateral Security Partnership. The partnership is a military agreement expanding both hardware, electronic technologies and sharing innovation and information.The UK, US and Japan have also agreed to joint exercises starting in 2025, to develop the abilities of the three to work together in military operations. This follows previous maritime exercises with Japan and the UK in years past and the Royal Navy permanently deploying two warships to the region. (The UK and Australia have port agreements with Japan.)Significantly, the US keeps 50,000 troops in Japan. Meanwhile, Japan has now joined with the UK and Italy to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet.Japan’s constitution does not permit the country to have an offensive force. Because of this, historically, Japan has spent between 1% to 1.4% GDP (2024) on its military budget. However, Japan has pledged to increase its expenditures to 2% of GDP by 2028, which is the NATO standard. Japan has also publicly stated it will defend Taiwan. This is based on the fact that the Japanese Yonaguni island, the last of the Ryukyu Island chain, is only 108k (67m) from the coast of Taiwan. The Japanese population is about 124 million.South Korea, with a population of 52 million has generally maintained its military expenditure at 2.6% for the last five years. It has also significantly pushed to both upgrade and expand its military industrial capabilities. The country has plans to become one of the top military suppliers in the world. They are off to a great start. They made a $1 billion deal with Australia in 2021 and increased international sales by $10 billion from 2022 to 2023. South Korea is also committed to further develop its blue water naval capacity beyond the two classes of destroyers, frigates and submarines it already has. Further, they have entered into an agreement to significantly upgrade and modernize the 2011 Understanding on Defence Cooperation with Australia. South Korea has 28,500 US troops stationed there.Taiwan has increased its military expenditures from 1.8% (2019) to 2.4% GDP (2023) and this is for a population of only 23.5 million. Perhaps of more importance internationally, the US has recently announced that it has opened two permanent training bases manned by US special forces on Taiwan’s outer islands. One is on a heavily fortified island (by the Taiwanese military) that is in view of Chinese mainland shores. A third US base is now located in northern mainland Taiwan. The US has also recently joined the Philippine military in occupying Philippine-US bases across the island nation. Two of these directly face Taiwan while another is closer to the Spratly Islands off the west coast. The Philippines have increased their military expenditures from 1% GDP (2018) to 1.2% (2022). The Philippines is a developing nation with a GDP of only $991 billion (2022). The above is easily available information from a variety of sources. What needs to be pointed out is that there is something missing from the information above. In these alliances and operational arrangements, Canada is nowhere to be seen — even though it is a Pacific nation and a member of the Five Eyes intelligence operation in which Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and the US share sensitive information.Ottawa announced on April 8 it will increase defence spending and aims to “get closer” to the NATO pledge of 2% of GDP. Prime Minister Trudeau stated that the government was motivated to increase expenditures because of Russia and China. He seemed to forget the considerable pressure from the US over years to increase spending to meet Canada’s NATO obligations. As it stands, Ottawa is claiming it will reach 1.7% of GDP by 2030 with a population of 41 million and a GDP of almost $2 trillion. That is, in six years Canada will still not meet the NATO pledge of 2% of GDP. But this is a “target” and in “political speak,” targets are very movable.Canada and the East Asian nations have the same motivations for supplying their militaries. When we compare expenditures of the Canadian government on its military and the expenditures of East Asian nations considering population size and GDP, Canada is embarrassing itself. South Korea with a population only slightly more than Canada’s can manage 2.6% of GDP and even the Philippines is steadily increasing its expenditures with a GDP significantly less than Canada’s GDP. Japan and Taiwan have demonstrated the seriousness of their commitment to meeting or exceeding the NATO standard.The Trudeau government is not serious. They “target 1.7% of GDP,” nod, nod, wink, wink. The sad truth is Canada cannot defend itself nor manage international cooperation with allies and friends to maintain world peace and the international order. It is a far fall for a nation that so distinguished itself in two World Wars.Dr. A.W. Barber is the former Director of Asian Studies at the University of Calgary. He is internationally active and has wide-ranging interests.