It has been suggested that "The Defence strategic priorities for several decades have been Canada, North America and then either NATO or the UN depending on the flavor of the government, or both".
These are defence priorities but they do not constitute a defence strategy.
Rethinking Canadian Defence Strategy is inordinately complicated by the fact that US Defense Strategy, Canada's erstwhile ally, is in disarray and its doctrine in serious need of a top to bottom rethink independent of its recent change in government. More specifically President Trump is in the process of trashing US US Foreign Policy and Defense Policy. Some progress has been made in terms of rethinking Canadian Defence Strategy but the elephant in the room is that it now faces potential adversairies on four points of the horizon.
We have had repeated suggestions from the US President that he wants Canada to be the 51st state, to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal. He has seized the Venezualan head of state at gunpoint. He has begun to act in ways very much like Putin and XI. The current US Presidents's committment to NATO and indeed any international organization can be described as lukewarm at best.
Trumpian bellicosity is the order of the day with threats falling most heavily on America's closest alliance parners.
Canada and the U.S. have the longest undefended border in the world so close has been the political, economic and military cooperation based on shared values. But the US has changed. A slow motion populist - authoritarian coop has been rolling out for decades. It became clear in the Trumpian first term that respect for the US Constituion and the values embedded in it had been undermined in a significant portion of the population. The US Justice System has been under threat and the US Supreme Court compromised.
Canadians, like the U.S.citizens that still believe in the US Constitution, are having a very difficult time in reorienting their thinking to the Trumpian challenge and to a world where the "peace dividend" has evaporated seemingly overnight as Russia, China and the US has become increasingly strident and violent either directly, or more insidiously indirectly with the emplyment of Grey Zone tactics. The Russian attack on Ukraine and the rapid change in drone warfare , hybrid war, cyberspace attacks and AI assisted
Psyop and , psypsychological warfare have all served to disorient.
All aspects of military strategy and operations are in flux.
Defence doctrine is being re-written everywhere. Organization needs to be rethought. The world has changed.
Canadian defence doctrine appears to be headed toward the Nordic Defence Doctrine modeled on the Swedish Total Defence Strategy. This strategy is based on the notion that a whole of society approach to combat means that an aggressor will pay such a horrible price in blood and material that they would postpone armed occupation. Switzerland in World War Two is such a model. There is some evidence that this is indeed the model Canada is adopting.
Canada's Department of National Defence (DND) has proposed a significant expansion of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve (CAF) to create a massive, lightly trained "citizen army" of up to 300,000 reservists, alongside increasing the regular Primary Reserve to 100,000, aiming for a total of 400,000 part-time personnel to bolster national resilience for crises, from natural disasters to large-scale conflicts. This ambitious mobilization plan, initiated in 2025, involves integrating civilians with basic skills like drone operation, communications, and driving, requiring minimal annual training, to supplement the full-time force and respond to emergencies, building on international commitments for stronger readiness.
This involves an increase in militia from around 23,000 to 100,000 members, primarily for the Army, with some growth for Air and Navy.
Supplementary Reserve Creation: A new, large force of up to 300,000 civilians (including former military, public servants, and other citizens) with basic training (shooting, driving, comms, drones).
The purpose would be to provide a readily available pool of trained individuals for natural disasters, civil emergencies, and potential combat operations, enhancing national resilience.
Training would be a minimal annual commitment for the new Supplementary Reserve, with a focus on retaining skills for mobilization.
The aim would be to increase national resilience, to make Canada more resilient to various crises, drawing inspiration from countries like Finland that faces imminent threat of Russian occupation.
This initiative also follows on Canada's pledges made at a 2024 NATO summit to improve military readiness.
The Canadian Armed Forces strategy to achieve the fundamental change for the Reserve Force outlined in Canada’s Defence Policy and integrated into Objective Force 2030 and Future Force 2040.
Canada's Department of Defence is working on the significant logistical challenges of equipping and integrating such a large forces in a very short period of time.
Canada’s Defence Policy: Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) articulates an overarching future vision for Defence – Strong at home, Secure in North America and Engaged in the World.
The goal is a new vision of a reserve force at scale enabling full time capability through part-time service
Canadian defence strategy is directed at strengthening European Defence as a bulkward to western liberal democracy. The coalition of the willing is now strengthening its military capabilities in the face of potential US withdrawl from NATO. Canada is examining the creation of a permanent base in Latvia and in building European defense industry and domestic industry through sourcing of defence equipment.
There is no guarantee that the relationship with the U.S. will stabilize when Donald Trump has gone. Deep seated social and political changes in the US have altered the social compact in US society. In many ways the US is the canary in the coal mine for advanced civilization on the planet. Canada has been threatened by the US at various times in its history. The current crisis may pass and but it probably will not, for the US is part of a wider global civilizational crisis.
Canada's greatest longer term threat emerges from China - the scale of its industrial, scientific and technical human resource base - and the absence of democratic legal norms at any time in its long history. The current US generated crisis while immediate and requiring a firm response is only part of the long term probem.
Canada now faces a polycrisis - short, medium and long term threats from known state actors but also from transnational threats from technology in a variety of forms including AI, biotechnology, political strangleholds by sunset industries, abrupt climate change, and global destruction of the natural habitates that maintain our food, air, and water resources.
It is for Canadian defence planners to plan for the defence of Canada in scenerios that involve historical military threats but in this new more complex threat environment.
For those who prefer a quick talking summary of the CDN Defence Pivot in response to Washington's threats this is a snapshot in time - AI generated - but largely accurate.
