Canada to gather with other NATO nations in Warsaw

[Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan speaks during a news conference in Ottawa on April 6, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie]

Canadian officials are expected to reveal further details later this week of the upcoming military mission to Latvia, at a meeting with NATO allies in Warsaw.

The site of the biennial meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not insignificant.

In 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Soviet states signed the Warsaw Pact, a collective defence treaty of the Communist bloc.

NATO has already announced a multinational brigade to be deployed to the region, comprised of four battalions.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has already said that Canada will establish and lead one of those brigades in Latvia.

More details, including how many Canadian Forces personnel will be deployed and for how long should be answered at the meeting that begins Friday.

“That will be the centrepiece of our NATO summit participation,” says Chris Westdal, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“We’ll man it, I’d think, with a few hundred — and welcome the partnership of Norway, perhaps, and some other Europeans too.”

Other battalions led by the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom will be deployed to Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, respectively. Another brigade is under discussion for Romania.

Strengthening the NATO presence in the former Eastern bloc is the primary focus of the two-day meeting, given Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea – two years and counting – and increased involvement in the region, as well as in Syria.

At a pre-summit news conference Monday, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the meeting comes at a “defining time for our security,” with several threats and challenge.

Russia, the Middle East, now Brexit. All have combined to pressure NATO.

The organization last month began Operation Anakonda in Poland, the largest defence exercise in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War.

The 10-day, 31,000-troop exercise was a show of strength in the face of Russia’s actions.

Stoltenberg welcomed the commitment from Canada to the brigade to be deployed in Eastern Europe.

“This is a great contribution to our common security and a clear signal that our nations will defend one another on both sides of the Atlantic,” Stoltenberg says.

He also renewed his appeal for NATO nations to increase defence spending.

“Last year, after a long period of decline, we saw a small increase in overall defence spending by NATO’s European allies and Canada. This year we estimate that it will rise even more,” he says.

The organization hopes for a spending increase by member states, including Canada, to about double the $20 billion the federal government currently earmarks for defence.

Stephen Saideman, the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University and also a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says the requested increase “is simply not going to happen.”

“Canada, I don’t think, is getting a whole lot of pressure based on what it’s spending on military at this moment in time, given that there’s a whole lot of desperate desire for Canada to kick in troops for this mission,” he tells Yahoo Canada News.

“The price for that is NATO can’t really complain too much for at least a little while about the two per cent,” referring to NATO’s request that member nations increase spending to two per cent of GDP.

The new Liberal government had its eyes on the United Nations over the Atlantic defence organization.

“I don’t think this government came into power wanting to prioritize NATO but the world has its own way of doing things and the pressure lately has been on getting something done at Warsaw and what it is is these 500 troops or so,” Saideman says.

The commitment to leading one of the deterrence battalions on the Eastern front has already been condemned as a provocation by the Kremlin.

Westdal says Canada’s role “has more political than military significance.”

Now the federal government must complement that political move with a diplomatic one.

The previous federal government shunned Russia, refusing to participate in multilateral meetings that included Russian officials.

“It seems to me that we must try to complement our military and political gesture with active diplomacy to try to seek better relations with Russia, if only to build a better fence, a ‘mending wall’ between us, but as well to seek accommodation and some shared vision of Eurasian security,” he says.

Whether that is through NATO or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or bilateral discussions, “we need to complement our military gesture with a diplomatic effort.”