Since its inception in 1949, Canada has played an integral role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its numerous military and non-military engagements. As a founding member, Canada’s involvement over the past 70 years has varied from troop deployment and training in Europe during much of the Cold War, to activity abroad in places like Afghanistan and Libya. The articles in the NATO and Canada program examine NATO’s operational history and Canada’s role from a multitude of perspectives. The NATO Association of Canada aims to supply Canadians with a greater insight into the inner workings of this long-standing alliance and its Canadian contributions.
Introduction Since its inception in 1949, NATO has grown from 12 to 32 members, a process formally known as enlargement. In accordance with Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, membership is open to all European countries so long as they commit to NATO’s principles and meet the Alliance’s requirement for defence spending, along with Read More…
Canada has long championed the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda on the world stage, promoting gender equality in NATO missions and peace operations. Yet, at home, persistent structural barriers in the Canadian Armed Forces have created a gap between advocacy and action. Canada must address these domestic challenges and prioritize women’s meaningful leadership across all levels of the military to align its domestic practices with its global image.
NORAD began as a Cold War commitment between Canada and the United States to safeguard the skies and protect the North. Today. it has become a stage for Russia’s military expansion, China’s growing ambitions, and emerging threats that outdated systems can no longer reliably detect. The modernization of NORAD goes beyond new radar and missile defence technology, it reflects a broader commitment to protecting sovereignty and ensuring Canadians recognize that the Artic is no longer a remote frontier, it is the front line of our collective security and future.
Canada’s new Security and Defence Partnership (SDP) with the EU is a historic step toward deeper transatlantic defence ties, but its impact will depend on more than just participation. To move from ally to actor, Canada must navigate complex EU governance, negotiate meaningful access, and build long-term institutional presence.
Below is the NATO Association of Canada’s publication on increasing Canada’s defence spending, with contributions from leading experts. Line of Defence: A Policy Agenda for Canada’s Defence Capabilities
This special report provides an objective overview of the newly elected minority Liberal government’s plans regarding defence and discusses proposals from other opposition parties.
While Canada might seem an unlikely target of direct threats from the Russian Federation, its engagement in global affairs and commitments to human rights and democracy inevitably put it at odds with Russia’s vision of the world order, drawing it into conflict with Russia’s revisionist foreign policy. With the Trump Administration pursuing an apparent rapprochement Read More…
Through his rhetoric and actions, United States (US) President Donald Trump has created political space for a reversion of Western-Russian relations to their pre-2014 state, underpinned by the implicit assumption that strained relations since that year have resulted from flawed Western foreign policy. In this article, Simon Waring argues that Russian aggression against Ukraine since 2014 and hostility towards the West is consistent with centuries of Russian foreign policy, and that a thaw in US-Russia relations today cannot change the fundamental antagonism between Russian and the Western world.
Decades of relative peace have led Canadians to believe that defense spending is unnecessary. However, external threats are looming towards our southern border and the Arctic, leaving Canada unprepared and unprotected.
Does NATO really matter to us as Canadians? In this article, Simon Waring explains NATO’s purpose as a stabilizing presence in Europe, and how international wars and crises affect us here at home.