Canada hit NATO’s 2 percent target — but hold the applause for now

Late last month, standing on the deck of a Royal Canadian Navy warship in Halifax, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced something his predecessors had promised for a decade but never delivered. Canada has finally reached NATO’s 2 percent GDP defense spending target — the highest level of investment relative to the size of the nation’s economy since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After years of internal and U.S. pressure — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) calling Canada “shameful,” a bipartisan group of 23 senators warning that Ottawa was failing its alliance obligations, leaked Pentagon documents suggesting Canada had privately given up on the goal entirely — the achievement is real. Carney was right to mark it. 

But Washington should be careful about what it reads into that number.

The $63 billion figure Ottawa is citing is a whole-of-government total. It folds in Veterans Affairs benefits, Canadian Coast Guard operations and other expenditures with limited relevance to military capability. NATO guidelines permit some flexibility in how members count their contributions, and Canada isn’t technically cheating. But there is a meaningful difference between what a country counts and what it can put in the field when it matters. 

The procurement problems are harder........

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