OTTAWA — Canada will face intense pressure next week to drastically increase its military investments as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meet closer to Russia’s frontline in Lithuania on Tuesday and Wednesday. Overview of the main issues of a tense summit.
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The NATO summit is taking place this year in Lithuania, a very symbolic member of the alliance as it sits between Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. These two Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Estonia, lie between Russia and the Baltic Sea. According to several military strategists, should the war escalate, this region would be the first to be affected. For this reason, NATO is concentrating masses of troops and equipment there.
Invest more and faster
“I expect allies to agree that 2% of GDP must be a minimum for defense,” warned Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General in preparation for the summit.
Alliance members pledged in 2014 to spend 2% of their wealth on defense each year through 2024. But a year after the deadline, seven countries are still a long way from that mark, most notably Canada, which is spending just 1.29% on it this year.
However, Mr Stoltenberg insists: “There is an urgent need to increase spending.”
Justin Massie, associate director of the Network for Strategic Analysis at UQAM, points out that Canada’s underspending is leaving its own military underresourced and struggling to help others:
“The countries that are providing the most aid to Ukraine are those that have historically spent more than 2% because they have supplies and resources, which Canada does not have.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the G7 summit in Japan in May 2023. AFP / UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE
Support Ukraine
Ukraine’s accession will be at the center of the debates. Kiev calls for an accelerated accession plan, but all decisions of the alliance require the unanimity of the 31 members, which we are far from achieving in this case. Canada itself was cautious.
For fear of an escalation with Moscow, the alliance has so far been very vague about the timetable for membership. In any case, involving Ukraine before the end of the conflict is out of the question, as it would immediately plunge NATO into a war against Russia.
A long-term aid plan for Ukraine is also being discussed, which provides for planned joint military acquisitions. This would allow allies to buy not only more and faster, but also cheaper, both for their own army and for Ukraine, Mr Massie points out.
This is what industry is demanding in order to increase production and move to a war economy, as has been called for by several chiefs of staff, including Canadian Wayne Eyre.
Photo archives, AFP
integrate Sweden
Sweden applied to join the alliance at the same time as Finland in May 2022. In doing so, it has broken with its historical policy of military non-alignment because it fears an imminent attack by Russia.
Finland was admitted in April, but Sweden’s membership continues to be blocked by Turkey and Hungary. Ankara accuses Stockholm of serving as a safe haven for Kurdish opposition movements classified as terrorists in Turkey.
Mr Stoltenberg said on Thursday that an agreement was within reach to ensure Sweden’s membership of the alliance by the time the summit begins. A meeting between the Turkish president and his Swedish counterpart the day before the summit is scheduled for Monday in Latvia with the aim of reaching a political agreement.
One of the points that could convince Ankara, according to Massie, is permission to acquire F-35 fighter jets. The United States, which makes the device, has opposed it since Turkey bought a Russian S-400 missile defense system in 2019.
Swedish recruits take part in the deployment of a Patriot missile defense system in Stockholm in May 2023. Anne Caroline Desplanques
The Arctic and the Pacific
With the integration of Finland and the expected integration of Sweden, all Arctic countries except Russia will become members of NATO. According to Ionela Maria Ciolan of the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, this puts the Far North back at the center of Allianz’s strategic thinking.
“NATO should not miss this opportunity to strengthen its presence in the Arctic,” she writes. The use of missile defense systems could be mentioned, knowing full well that Mr Stoltenberg and the Scandinavians insist that the missiles would pass through the Arctic Circle in the event of a Russian attack. Canada would not be able to launch missiles in the north.
Rising tensions with China and the defense of Taiwan will also be on the agenda. The heads of state of Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand will also be present at the summit, although they are not members of the alliance.
The issue is causing tension as “there are major differences between the allies about China,” stresses Mr. Massie. Some Europeans, particularly the French, refuse to see Beijing as an adversary.
A Danish frigate during NATO’s largest exercise in the Arctic in 2022, Cold Response. 30,000 Alliance soldiers participated, but Canada was only able to send ten soldiers. NATO
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