Front Burner - ‘Pentagon Leaks’ detail Canada’s military shortcomings

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

According to new reporting on the trove of leaked documents known as the ‘Pentagon Leaks,’ Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau privately told NATO officials that Canada will never meet a two per cent defense-spending target. A secret document, accessed by the Washington Post, also details criticisms leveled at Canada by its NATO allies. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts On this episode, Amanda Coletta, who covers Canada for the Washington Post, discusses what the leaks mean for Canada’s military standing among its peers, and what shortcomings have been identified by those allies. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Alex Panetta, filling in for Jamie Poisson. The revelations from a massive leak of U.S. intelligence documents has spilled across the border into Canada. A new report claims our allies are frustrated by the poor state of Canada's military.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post announced it had seen a secret Pentagon assessment. It includes claims about something the Prime Minister has supposedly said in private. Did he tell NATO officials Canada will never meet its 2% military defense spending target? I've continued to say and will always say that Canada is a reliable partner to NATO. That's not all. The document also included criticism of everything from Canada's military equipment to staffing to a supposed political apathy regarding defense, all while saying our shortfalls are hurting ties with key allies. With me today, Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post, the paper's Canada correspondent and author of last week's report. She's going to walk us through what's in the document, why there's an increased

emphasis on military spending, and the conversation over whether meeting these targets actually Hi, Amanda. Hi, Alex. Amanda, I wound up working on this too last week, and you scooped me. You scooped the whole world on this one. Congratulations. It was quite the story. Thank you. So what's the backstory here?

What are these documents, and how did they see the light of day? What are these documents and how did they see the light of day? So this document is part of a trove of highly sensitive material that was posted to Discord, which is an online messaging platform popular with gamers. It was allegedly posted there by Jack Teixeira, who is a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. He was arrested and charged earlier this month. The low-ranking enlisted airmen and IT specialists charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and willful retention of classified documents. He hasn't entered a plea but the charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. And he had been managing computers and

communication systems for the 102nd Intelligence Wing at BOTUS Air National Guard Base. And he had access to this material through a Defense Department computer network that allowed him to read and print it. Though, as you might imagine, there are rules about whether you can print off classified documents, take photos of them and post them to Discord for, you know, your online friends to see. According to some analysts, this is one of the sort of largest leaks in the US military in at least a decade. And aside from, you know, this particular document, they have revealed everything from gaps in Ukrainian air defenses to how the United States spies on allies to China's readying of a supersonic spy drone unit. So this document in particular is one page. It

bears the seal of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, so it was prepared by folks in the Pentagon. It's marked secret, and it has a couple of other classification markings probably worth mentioning. One of them is no foreign, which means that the material can't be shared with foreign nationals, and the other indicates that the intelligence came from sensitive human sources. So there's no indication that any of this came from signals intelligence, which might include things like phone hacking or communications intercepts, and that might tick off some of the countries mentioned. Yeah, well, it's certainly been shared with foreigners now.

I should say, CBC hasn't independently reviewed or verified the document we're talking about today, but did you and your colleagues find any hints about when this assessment might have been written? Yes. So in terms of when the document might have been created, the way in which it is photographed means that the part of the document where the dates usually are is obscured. It's kind of out of frame. But there are a couple of clues in terms of the timing. We can probably say that it was created in February at the earliest because it refers on more than one occasion to events that took place in February. One of them was the shooting down on February 11th

of an unidentified aerial object over central Yukon by an American F-22 fighter jet. We have no further details about the object at this time other than it appears to be a small cylindrical object and smaller than the one that was downed off the coast of North Carolina. There is no reason to believe that the impact of the object in Canadian territory is of any public concern. So it's a relatively recent assessment. So members of the military alliance promised to spend 2% of their economies on defense, basically. So NATO has this united front of well-stocked militaries to face any threats. Canada spends about 1.3% of its GDP and hasn't been at 2% since the 80s. So according to this leak, what did Trudeau say about whether they'll meet those goals?

So the document says that the prime minister told NATO officials in private that Canada would never meet NATO's defense spending target. It doesn't indicate when these comments were made, in what context they were made. The officials to whom they were supposedly made are unnamed. So if any of them are listening, I'd love to hear from them. The sort of other important context around how these comments appear in the document is that the assessment breaks down Canada's defense shortfalls into four areas, readiness, procurement, personnel, and then what it calls political apathy. And these comments from Trudeau fall under the political apathy bucket. And does it say anything about whether Canada is getting close

to its NATO targets? Does it make a value judgment about that? It notes that Canada hasn't met this target for several decades. And it's worth mentioning that, you know, in those several decades, Canada has had many different prime ministers, prime ministers from different political parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum. And certainly, if you look at Canada's projected defense spending over the next couple of years, even with planned increases, Canada is still going to fall short of the target. So I guess there was never really any indication Canada was going to meet this guideline anytime in the short to medium term. And the Prime Minister

and members of his government have been really good over the past almost eight years at finding novel ways to not provide a direct answer to the question of when Canada is going to meet this 2% target or if it plans to. Governments are challenged with a whole bunch of different priorities that we have to invest in and get the balance right on. I personally am bringing forward aggressive options which would see potentially exceeding the 2% level, hitting the 2% level and then below the 2% level. Canada is the sixth largest defence vendor in NATO. We have had the largest presence in Europe since the end of the Cold War. Canada will continue to step up.

We've been part of every single NATO mission since the very beginnings of NATO. So there was an element, I guess, of, you know, this document is saying the quiet part out loud. At the same time, the Prime Minister has never said, stop asking me this question because, you know, the answer is never. Okay, so that's the first straight, simple headline from this leak. You know, Okay, so that's the first straight simple headline from this leak. You know, we're never hitting 2%. But then there's this long, substantive critique of Canada's defense shortfalls. It says they're straining relationships with friendly countries.

So can you walk me through this? Which countries are unhappy and why are they unhappy? So the document gives five examples. So the document gives five examples. One of them is Germany, which it says is concerned Canada won't be able to both meet its NATO commitments and also aid Ukraine. The second country is Turkey, which the document said is frustrated that the Canadian Armed Forces refused to support the transportation of humanitarian aid after an earthquake in February. You might recall there was a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February that killed more than 50,000 people and injured more than 100,000 others. Canada is looking at how we can help directly and immediately,

but also how we can work with the international community. Canada will be committing the initial $10 million for the initial response. And we're conducting a needs assessment to look at what will be the next steps. NORAD, the document says, feels that the Canadian Armed Forces lacks significant Arctic capabilities and that Canada has made a number of public statements about modernizing NORAD, but those plans haven't materialized. Some members of NATO, according to the document, are concerned that Canada hasn't increased the number of its personnel in Latvia.

Canada leads a NATO battle group in Latvia and has done so for many years. I can further announce an early multi-year renewal of operation reassurance to support NATO in Central and Eastern Europe. The troops here are not only defending Latvia or Eastern Europe, they're defending all NATO allies, including Canada. And then Haiti. Haiti is frustrated, the document says, by Canada's reluctance to lead a multinational security mission to the country. For listeners who aren't familiar, Haiti is reeling from a number of political humanitarian security crises. Fast swaths of its capital are under the control of gangs. And Haiti's deeply unpopular prime minister in October made a sort of extraordinary appeal for foreign countries

to deploy troops to essentially restore order. Outside intervention, as we've done in the past, hasn't worked to create long-term stability for Haiti. So that's a few people disappointed on different continents. Yes. Well, we talked a lot in February about these unidentified objects appearing over North American airspace. You just alluded a couple of times to NORAD and to these balloons. What specifically did this assessment say about Canada's response?

The document mentions the balloon or the unidentified aerial object incident in the context of Canada's military readiness. You might remember in February, the prime minister tweeted that he had ordered the takedown of an unidentified aerial object that had violated Canadian airspace. Aircraft from both Canada and the United States were scrambled under NORAD, and an American F-22 fighter jet took down the object over central Yukon. At the time, Anita Nand, Canada's defense minister, got a few questions about why it was that a U.S. jet had arrived before a Canadian one to take the shot. Why did the U.S. fighter's plane shoot this down as opposed to a Canadian one? Why did the U.S. fighters plane shoot this down as opposed to a Canadian? And she said, you know, the order was whoever gets there first takes the shot.

This is NORAD working the way it's supposed to. Both countries share responsibility for the defense of continental airspace. And, you know, this is the way it works. As opposed to separating it out by country, I think what the important point is, is that these were NORAD capabilities. This was a NORAD... The document, though, says that on February 11th, there was ice buildup on the runway that delayed the response time of Canada's fighter jets

by an hour, quote, necessitating U.S. assistance. And it says this is one example of a readiness issue. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So I understand this document has an entire category about a quote-unquote political apathy,

which included those Trudeau spending comments. So what does the assessment say about Canada's broader attitude towards the military? The political apathy column is interesting because it also includes comments allegedly made by members of the Canadian military. And it says that they perceive that politicians do not care about supporting them and that senior politicians publicly misrepresent defense spending for political gain. And it's not entirely clear whether the leaders had complained to their U.S. counterparts about this or how exactly they, you know, came to this assessment. But it also says that, you know, a lot of these shortfalls are unlikely to change unless there is a significant shift in public opinion that compels the government to, you know, take a different approach than it really has been for several decades. Yeah. So let's talk about political opinions. You know, the policy sometimes is downstream from politics.

You know, the policy sometimes is downstream from politics. And, you know, the politics in this country, you know, wouldn't tell you that it's not like this secret document is out of line with what you hear in our own political debate at home. Right. You hear it from people like former Liberal MP Andrew Leslie, a retired military leader. Readiness is a function of available people, equipment and money. And quite frankly, the Canadian Armed Forces don't have the money or the people right now to do what they have to do. Just last Monday, we saw a pretty scathing open letter about it. I know Andrew Leslie was one of the people who signed that letter, but who else put their names on this document criticizing Canada's military spending?

The letter had some 60 signatories. They included several former Canadian defense ministers, former ambassadors, former military commanders, a former Supreme Court justice, many other officials who worked in the really upper echelons of intelligence and national security in Canada, including former you know, former national security advisors to prime ministers. Okay. So when it comes to what the Canadian military said about itself, the complaints that we were hearing now, how do they differ with the public line? A lot of what is in this assessment and what is in the letter dovetail and echo what Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff has said, particularly around personnel and readiness.

Some of the details may be about how many leopard tanks are operational or, in this case, not operational. The full extent of the personnel shortages that are outlined in this document are new. But, you know, Canada's chief of the defence staff has told lawmakers and parliamentary committees that there are readiness issues that he is aware of. He said, I am concerned about our readiness. I am concerned about our ability to respond at scale and at speed required. And so we're working on... He told Reuters earlier this year that he didn't think Canada had the capacity, really, to lead a mission to Haiti,

given its commitments elsewhere to aiding Ukraine, leading the battle group in Latvia. Last year, he issued a directive basically ordering a halt to all non-essential activities so that folks could really spend their time trying to address these staffing shortages. Other military leaders in Canada have told MPs that, you know, the forces are increasingly being asked to respond to natural disasters and climate related emergencies that are expected to become more common, and that this is putting another strain on resources.

Despite the fact that we're nowhere near the 2% NATO target, Canada is going to be spending more on defense, a lot more actually. I saw an estimate the other day from the Parliamentary Budget Office that military spending here is about to go up 40% in just a few years. So what exactly is the Trudeau government planning on doing these next few years? In 2017, it increased defense spending 70% from around $19 billion that year to what it projects will be close to $33 billion in 2027. As I mentioned, even with those increases, Canada is going to fall short of NATO's 2% target. I think the parliamentary budget officer in a report last year said Canada would have to commit $75 billion over five years if it wanted to reach that target. It has announced, you know, a lot more money to help modernize NORAD. And then, you know, on Ukraine, on a per capita basis, we are contributing more than any other G7 country when it comes to financing

the government of Ukraine. We're there where it matters. Canada has committed more than a billion dollars in military aid. That includes tanks, ammunition, armored vehicles. It sourced a surface-to-air missile system from the United States. That's just the military aid. There's a whole bunch of non-military aid that Canada has also committed. And, you know, it leads the NATO battle group in Latvia, and it has also been training tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in Europe. And the F-35 planes as well. Yes. There's that commitment too. So you spoke to Canada's former ambassador to NATO, Carrie Buck, for this report. Why does she think that Canada doesn't feel any

pressure to spend more in the military? You know, one of the interesting things that she said was that there has long sort of been an expectation in Canada through successive governments that the United States would kind of act as Canada's security blanket. And, you know, to take a step back, I used to work in Europe, and that is something that I heard a lot there as well, that there were a lot of European countries that viewed the United States in that same way. So that is one factor. You know, she also mentioned that officials and private can be frank about what they think, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is always going to translate into, you know, political action. Yeah, I know. We mentioned Andrew Leslie earlier. He says, yeah, he pretty much agrees with the U.S. assessment. Right now, I mean, look at the statistics. We have just over a thousand people deployed with NATO. We used to have multiple

thousands in 2003. We have about 35 to 50 peacekeepers, of which Canada is so proud ever since the whole idea was originated partly by Canadians in 1956. Those numbers are shockingly low. So are we pulling our weight? Are we stepping up to the plate? No, we're not. So how does this picture he paints compare to what the Trudeau liberals have pitched as Canada's role in the world? You know, when Prime Minister Trudeau was elected in 2015, in his victory speech, he singled out Canada's allies in particular, and he said, we're back. And I happened to be in Brussels at the time speaking to some European diplomats who were really elated in the change in government in Canada. So perhaps this document suggests that, you know, some of the promise of the early days hasn't necessarily come to fruition. And it is kind of striking to see the kind of frank language that is used in this document. But, you know, Canada is not the only country that doesn't meet this target. It is, you know, in the sort of bottom five. But I think

it kind of, to some extent, some might say undercuts that early promise. So let's look at this from the other perspective. I mean, there's certainly some Canadians who are happy we're spending less on our military than the United States, you know, per capita. And other countries, some people might even want us to reduce it even more. Let's talk about that for a second and about the broad question. Are there really repercussions if we keep missing these spending targets? That's a good question. And, you know, this 2% number is something that has been long the subject of debate among analysts. Some say that it's not a magic number and that having such a single-minded focus on it isn't really helpful. We heard this a lot, actually, during the Trump administration.

This was sort of one of his obsessions. of the alliance in saying that NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations. You know, one side of the debate says it's not as if every country spends 2% of their gross domestic product on defense, then suddenly NATO is going to be capable of meeting all of the challenges of the 21st century. Some of it depends on how exactly that money is spent. Some NATO members, you know, a huge part of their defense spending is pensions, for instance, for service members. That doesn't really have a direct correlation necessarily to the battlefield. They have sort of noted, you know, this target, allies agreed to it in 2014 at a NATO summit in Wales. It's not binding. And the language in it is that the countries would move towards meeting it. So there is a kind of hedging. some of the diplomats who were involved in that negotiation said that the purpose of this number wasn't to say that if everyone gets there, then we're in good shape. It was a figure that they

came up with because it was seen as credible politically. On the other hand, the war in Ukraine has really put a sort of acute focus on defense in a way that there really hadn't been previously. And NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that more and more allies are starting to see the 2% figure as the floor, not the ceiling. And so if we start to see a bunch of other countries ramping up their defense spending and Canada falls, you know, further and further behind, then the optics become worse. It's a great point. The last time Canada spent 2% was during the Cold War. And who knows whether we're entering a new era like that again.

So these things ebb and flow with the times. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. That's all for today. I'm Alex Panetta. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow.