For decades, Canada lived a charmed existence. We’d assumed the U.S. would always be there, that NATO would last forever, that Russia was a manageable threat and that China’s interest in the Arctic was largely benign. We believed that the long peace in Europe would just continue. So we let our military languish.

That fantasy came crashing down when Donald Trump returned to the White House. Suddenly, the country we had always relied on made clear it might not return the favour. At the same time, China and Russia have drawn closer, with Beijing bankrolling Russian energy projects in the Arctic and indirectly helping fund its military build-up. China has now declared itself a “near-Arctic state.” The region, once considered remote and secure, is now a strategic frontline. Our borders are not as distant as they used to be.

Canada spent the last decade inching up our defence budget from a grossly inadequate one per cent of our GDP to a still-dismal 1.37 per cent, landing dead last in the G7. Ottawa, particularly in the last decade, has always had guileless faith in international institutions and a rule-based international order, centred principally on the U.N. Our attention has remained fixed on international summits, diplomatic charm and humanitarian foreign aid. We sought a UN Security Council for many years—the Trudeau government spent at least $10 million on its campaign—but inevitably lost. The idea that soft power alone would suffice took root and stayed........

© Macleans