Canada: Two Doctrines and One Way Ahead

PM Carney’s emerging foreign-policy doctrine emphasizes flexible coalitions among middle powers. But a closer look at Chrystia Freeland’s earlier vision raises a sharper question: are shared interests enough without shared democratic values?

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The Canadian Prime Minister’s speech [in Davos at the World Economic Forum] articulated and is shaping an emerging consensus that the liberal international order has ended with “a rupture, not a transition”, and that President Trump cannot be dealt with as if he acted within the bounds of normal statecraft. [Then-foreign minister Chrystia] Freeland’s speech came earlier in the gradual unravelling of that order, and before Trump’s return to the White House, but noted the return of aggressive great-power competition, above all with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The crucial difference lies in the emphasis of their respective prescriptions. Carney called for collaboration among “middle powers like Canada” on the basis of “variable geometry” through “different coalitions for different issues”. He noted that “not every partner will share our values” but that “we actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”

Freeland, like Carney, rejected autarchy within national fortresses, but called not for ad hoc coalitions but for cooperation with fellow democracies, urging an effort “to identify shared values” and practice “friend-shoring”, so that “where democracies must be strategically vulnerable, we should be vulnerable to each other.”

The question is whether it is shared middle power status or common values that provide the more reliable basis for cooperation.

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[China] has targeted Canadian sovereignty more aggressively than Trump has yet to do, through interference in our elections and intimidation of the Chinese-Canadian diaspora. The peril against which Carney warned, the “weaponization” of economic ties, is perfectly exemplified in China’s efforts to maximize others’ dependence on it for key emerging technologies while reducing their leverage in return.

Moreover, China’s increasing belligerence towards Taiwan suggests that sometime soon we will see an attack that would be as brutal a departure from international norms as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or, for that matter, a US attack on Greenland or indeed Canada.

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Russia, China, and such regional auxiliaries as North Korea and Iran are not ideologically identical and are unlikely to run serious risks for one another’s interests. Yet they share an antipathy to the passing liberal order and those who uphold it, and have forged a remarkable degree of military interdependence to undermine it. North Korean troops and Chinese and Iranian weapons have been employed against Ukraine, with the benefits of battlefield testing flowing in return.

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Acknowledgement of the emerging polarization of world politics by the liberal democracies would provide a clarity of purpose not found in ad hoc coalitions. A self-aware loose democratic coalition aligned against the illiberal powers would encompass many of the world’s largest markets, linking the EU, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, and others. It would provide a framework for deepening liberal trade and diversifying opportunities for Canada. In defence, where US unreliability poses the gravest threat, economic potential must be converted into hard power.

The SAFE initiative for common EU defence procurement, to which Canada is now affiliated, must lead to production and deployment on an alliance-wide scale. Financial tools against U.S. pressure, such as the EU “bazooka” that forced Trump to retreat on his threats against Greenland, must be broadened. Above all, NATO’s other members must step up aid to Ukraine, including Germany’s long-range Taurus missiles. As Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted in his speech at Davos, vain hopes of bringing Trump along have discouraged European allies from supporting Ukraine as vigorously as they might.

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[A league of democracies] would be states where liberal democracy has deep roots, including Canada, the EU states, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, but encompass others such as Ukraine, Japan, Taiwan, and Israel ... Others could earn membership as they met the criteria: freedom of conscience and expression; freedom to criticize the government (including freedom from Trump-style lawfare); an independent judiciary; separation of party and state; a free and fair electoral process, confirmed by peaceful transfer of power. Members would rely upon one another for security and privilege one another in economic relations.

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While Carney is right that we cannot “wait around for a world we wish to be”, we and likeminded states can use our concerted efforts and resources to increase the chances of such a world. And that implies a judicious leavening of Carney’s doctrine with Freeland’s.