Rachel Potter

Rachel Potter is a Junior Research Fellow at the NATO Association of Canada within the NATO and Canada Program and an undergraduate student pursuing a trilingual European law degree in French, English, and German. Her research experience includes a legal internship in Turkey, where she examined the country’s engagement with the European Court of Human Rights and capital punishment. She also works with Amnesty International, assisting asylum seekers and refugees in preparation for interviews with the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons. Her interests center on diplomacy, human rights, and international law, with a particular focus on European legal frameworks.

NATO and Canada

Pay to Play: What the PJBD Suspension Reveals About U.S. Alliance Reliability and Canada’s Strained Defence Integration with Washington

Rachel Potter analyzes the Trump administration’s suspension of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, arguing that it marks a qualitative shift in U.S. alliance behaviour in which shared defence institutions are weaponized as instruments of coercion, revealing a strategic logic that goes beyond burden sharing disputes and instead reflects an effort to reshape the institutional architecture of continental defence on American terms.

NATO and Canada

What Canada’s Bid to Host the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank Signals About Allied Rearmament and National Ambition

Rachel Potter examines Canada’s bid to host the proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank and its implications for allied defence investment. She explores how the institution would mobilise capital markets to finance defence procurement and industrial expansion for NATO members and partner states, and how hosting the bank could position Canada at the centre of an emerging system of allied defence finance while strengthening its strategic role within the NATO security ecosystem.

4. Programs NATO and Canada

When Allies Become Threats: What U.S. Pressure on Greenland Reveals about NATO’s Fragility and Canada’s Arctic Vulnerability

Rachel Potter analyzes the geopolitical fallout of U.S. pressure on Greenland, arguing that it reveals a deeper fragility within NATO and raises a critical question for Canada: can alliance guarantees still be trusted when power begins to override restraint?