Dr. Jeff Collins gives keynote address at annual Naval Warfare Officers’ Symposium
Dr. Jeff Collins, adjunct professor at UPEI, gave the keynote address at the Royal Canadian Navy’s annual Naval Warfare Officers’ Symposium at CFB Halifax on March 2. He spoke about the need to align Canada’s foreign and defence policies, given Russia’s war in Ukraine, the rise of China, and the relative decline of the United States as a pre-eminent world power.
For most of the last 70 years, he said, Canadian foreign and defence policy has existed in a state of “comfortable choices.”
“It did not matter that expenditures and actions in defence policy aligned with our foreign policy rhetoric (e.g., promising to get back into UN peacekeeping operations) because we live in an historically secure part of the world and have alliances with our neighbour, the US.”
Canada could count on the US to come to its aid in the rare event of an attack on North America whether the country invested in the armed forces or not, or whether it crafted a foreign policy that spoke to its role in the world.
“But the era of ‘comfortable choices’ is over. We are now in the world of ‘hard choices’,” he said, “because of the relative decline of the United States as the world’s pre-eminent power; the rise of China; and Russian revanchism like what we are witnessing in Ukraine today. Canada can no longer take US security guarantees or access to the US market for granted. We need to make expensive and hard decisions about what kind of role we want to play in the world.”
Noting that Canada needs to align its defence policy and foreign policy goals, Dr. Collins said that the federal government must deal with three pressing matters: Arctic security and whether to modernize NORAD; matching investments in new equipment, like submarines, to foreign policy goals (e.g., being active in the Indo-Pacific); and undertaking cost-capability trade-offs (i.e., if Canada is not prepared to spend more, what is it willing to forego and at what cost?).
The event ended with an excellent question and answer session from naval officers across Canada and a personal tour of a submarine.
Dr. Collins is cross listed in the Faculty of Arts’ Global Affairs and Island Studies programs, and the Faculty of Business. He teaches international relations and public administration.
