Principles-Based Defence Planning and the Prime Minister’s Balancing Act

Reconciling Canadian autonomy and military cooperation with the United States

How does Canada pursue greater autonomy in defence while continuing to cooperate with an unpredictable, and frankly coercive, United States? As commentators have noted, this is the dilemma Prime Minister Carney is facing as he tries to balance his Canada Strong agenda with the reality that we are anchored in North America economically and militarily.

There have been two dominant models of defence planning since the Cold War: threat-based and capability-based. While still useful, these approaches aren’t well-suited to the Prime Minister’s current challenge. Canada needs a third approach in this instance: principles-based planning.

Threat-based planning focuses on adversary capabilities and intentions. We look at what foes can and might do, and we plan our defences around defeating or deterring them. This doesn’t help us much when balancing autonomy and cooperation with the United States. If anything, it complicates things. Those who are focused on China and Russia as the threats will push for closer cooperation with the United States, whereas those who see America as a potential threat will demand that we work to protect ourselves against them.

What about capability-based planning? It outlines what missions our armed forces are expected to fulfill, then it lays out what capabilities are required to undertake those missions. This approach gets us closer to a solution. Government can direct, for instance, that the CAF must be able to defend Canada independently of the United States. Yet difficulties arise when missions start to overlap and budgetary limits demand that we optimize the capabilities we acquire. The missions to defend Canada and to defend North America alongside the United States have considerable overlap. An optimal performance of these missions would lead you to focus on capabilities that are integrated and interoperable with those of the American armed forces. That’s basically why we set up NORAD and where we’re likely headed with Golden Dome.

Capability-based planning, then, needs an extra layer of guidance to help it know when to optimize and when to accept sub-optimal capability in the name of another consideration.

This is where principles-based planning is useful. Principles-based planning articulates overarching objectives or values that an organization is expected to meet or respect. Instead of replacing threat-based or capability-based, it provides high order guidance that directs them and helps resolve tensions.

Take the principle that Canada must be able to autonomously defend its territorial waters and airspace. That doesn’t preclude cooperating with the United States to defend the continent, but it demands that Canada retain an underlying ability to defend itself should that cooperation break down. Looking more broadly, the government could state that Canada must be able to contribute to the defence of Europe alongside European allies. Here again, this principle doesn’t preclude defending Europe alongside the United States, but it does direct the CAF to foster closer cooperation with European allies in case Washington decides to stay out of a European war (everyone remember 1914-1917 and 1939-1941? Good.)

Adding overarching principles to the defence planning mix, therefore, provides a check on the military logic of maximizing interoperability and integration with the United States. Faced with threats from Russia and China, it makes sense to work in tandem with the United States as the world’s strongest and most technologically advanced military power. Likewise, the CAF gets far more capability per dollar by plugging and playing with the United States military, rather than maintaining autonomous capabilities or partnering with European allies. The United States simply spends far more than we and Europe do, which means that they are a far more attractive partner from a purely military perspective. Principles can temper this logic. They allow the government to say: “We accept your reasoning, but as a matter of principle, we require you to do this as well.”

I’ll conclude with a related point. It’s become common for politicians to say that we need to get the CAF the ‘capabilities that they need’. As one of Canada’s wisest defence academics, Joel J. Sokolsky, once quipped, this line rests on the idea that capability requirements are handed to the CDS from on high, like the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Put differently, this kind of thinking assumes that there’s some platonic ideal of ‘what the CAF needs’. In reality, capability requirements flow from government policy. This policy should be informed by the best possible military advice, but, in the end, it’s up to ministers to decide what they want the CAF to do. Some ministers can find this daunting, particularly when their policy preferences are at odds with what they’re told makes the most sense militarily.

Principles-based planning helps here, too. Rather than tussling over particular defence projects or initiatives, ministers can set out the principles which should inform military advice, including capability requirements. Returning to the Moses quip, it’s up to the Prime Minister to provide his principled commandments to the CDS, so that she can craft her advice to government in light of them.