Canada and Ireland’s Armed Forces Aren’t Ready to Fight Anyone

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Key Points and Summary: Canada and Ireland both fail to adapt their grand strategies to a multipolar world, undermining their respective security obligations.

-Canada pursues global ambitions yet neglects core Arctic and North Atlantic responsibilities, starved of adequate defense funding and hampered by dysfunctional procurement. Ireland’s overreliance on neutrality leaves it minimally prepared for European security challenges, lacking robust maritime patrols and cyber defenses.

-Both nations could play more influential regional roles—Canada as a vital Arctic power and Ireland as a North Atlantic maritime pivot—but each squanders these advantages.

-Adapting means rethinking outdated visions, prioritizing tangible defense investments, and accepting more significant security responsibilities.

Canada’s Arctic Neglect and Ireland’s Neutrality: A Joint Security Crisis

Since the end of the Cold War, Canada and Ireland have found themselves grappling with a world increasingly characterized by multipolarity, a retreating Pax Americana, and the erosion of the rules-based international order. Both nations, long accustomed to playing outsized roles in global diplomacy relative to their size and power, now face challenges that neither appears willing—or able—to address effectively. Their shared failure to adapt their grand strategies to the demands of this new era not only jeopardizes their sovereignty and national interests but also leaves regional security in the North Atlantic and Europe weakened as a result.

For Canada, the problem begins with its persistent self-delusion as a “middle power” with global reach. This identity, born in the aftermath of World War II and solidified during the golden years of UN peacekeeping, has proven remarkably resistant to change. Despite shifting global realities, Canada continues to spread itself thin in its diplomatic efforts, attempting to punch above its weight on issues ranging from climate change to human rights, while neglecting the hard power needed to secure its own backyard. In the North Atlantic, the Arctic, and the North Pacific, Canada’s contributions to regional security remain marginal at best.

The Trudeau government’s approach to defense spending exemplifies this failure. Despite lofty rhetoric about commitments to NATO, Canada remains one of the alliance’s chronic underperformers. Its defense spending has consistently fallen below the NATO benchmark of 2 percent of GDP, leaving its military underfunded, undermanned, and ill-equipped. The much-discussed plan to acquire 12 new submarines, critical for safeguarding Arctic sovereignty and contributing to North Atlantic security, remains stuck in the mire of Canada’s notoriously dysfunctional procurement system. Meanwhile, Ottawa’s attention is diverted by ill-conceived aspirations to be a global arbiter of virtue, championing causes that, however noble, have little bearing on Canada’s core security interests.

If Canada’s grand strategy suffers from an excess of ambition, Ireland’s is paralyzed by the opposite problem: a debilitating strategic modesty that borders on abdication. Long content to see itself as a neutral, non-aligned nation, Ireland has largely outsourced its security to the goodwill of others. Its neutrality—often more an article of political faith than a carefully calibrated policy—has left the country ill-prepared to navigate the turbulent waters of European security in an era of renewed great power competition.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Ireland’s approach to its defense posture. The country’s military capabilities are minimal, with its defense spending among the lowest in Europe as a percentage of GDP. This chronic underinvestment leaves Ireland unable to adequately patrol its own airspace or maritime zones, much less contribute meaningfully to the security of the European Union. Despite being a member of the EU, Dublin has resisted calls to integrate more fully into European defense initiatives, preferring instead to cling to a neutrality that provides little actual protection in a multipolar world where threats are increasingly hybrid and diffuse.

Both nations also display a troubling lack of urgency in addressing their respective vulnerabilities. Canada, with its vast Arctic territory, faces escalating challenges from a resurgent Russia and an assertive China seeking footholds in the region. Yet Ottawa’s Arctic policy remains more aspirational than operational. Infrastructure development in the North is glacial, and the Canadian Armed Forces lack the resources and capabilities to project meaningful power in the region. To rectify this, Canada must prioritize investments in Arctic infrastructure, such as deep-water ports and icebreakers, and establish a permanent military presence in the North capable of deterring adversaries and protecting its sovereignty. The Arctic’s strategic importance, both for Canada and its NATO allies, is growing rapidly, but Canada seems unwilling to prioritize it over its broader—and ultimately unsustainable—globalist pretensions.

Ireland’s vulnerabilities are less about geography and more about its precarious position within the European security architecture. The country’s digital and physical infrastructure is alarmingly exposed to external threats, as highlighted by a devastating cyberattack on its health service in 2021. Yet Dublin’s response to such incidents has been tepid at best. It continues to underinvest in both cybersecurity and traditional defense capabilities, relying on the implicit assumption that larger EU members, particularly the UK and France, will shield it from harm. To secure the North Atlantic, Ireland must enhance its maritime patrol capabilities and invest in modernizing its naval forces, ensuring it can protect its waters and contribute to broader regional security. This free-rider approach undermines not only Ireland’s security – and the security of Europe and the West more broadly – but its credibility as a serious geopolitical player as well.

The failures of Canada and Ireland to adapt their grand strategies are not merely domestic concerns; they have broader implications for regional security in the North Atlantic and Europe. Canada’s neglect of its Arctic and North Atlantic responsibilities weakens NATO’s collective defense posture, creating gaps that adversaries can exploit. Similarly, Ireland’s unwillingness to shoulder a fair share of the European defense burden hampers efforts to build a more robust and cohesive EU security framework, particularly at a time when the United States is signaling a desire for Europe to take greater responsibility for its own security.

NATO M270 MLRS. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The irony, of course, is that both nations have the resources and the geopolitical positioning to play far more significant roles in their respective regions. Canada’s vast territory, abundant resources, and proximity to the United States position it as a linchpin for North American and Arctic security. Ireland, as a stable democracy on the western edge of Europe, could serve as a critical node for North Atlantic maritime security. Yet both squander these advantages through inertia, nostalgia and a profound lack of will to adapt to the realities of the current geopolitical moment.

Adapting to multipolarity requires hard choices and a willingness to let go of comforting but outdated narratives. For Canada, this means abandoning the illusion of global middle power status and focusing its energies on the North Pacific, Arctic, and North Atlantic regions where its interests and responsibilities are most acute. It means investing in the capabilities needed to meet NATO obligations and secure its Arctic sovereignty, even if this comes at the expense of its globalist ambitions.

For Ireland, adaptation means rethinking its neutrality and embracing a more active role in European security. This doesn’t necessarily mean joining NATO, but it does require a commitment to strengthening its defense capabilities. By modernizing its naval forces and deepening its engagement in regional security efforts, Ireland can better secure its North Atlantic interests and contribute to regional security and stability. Ireland must recognize that in a world of shifting alliances, multi-alignment and contested power, neutrality is not a shield but a vulnerability.

The new era of multipolarity demands not just adaptation but a willingness to lead, however uncomfortable that may be. Canada and Ireland, with their shared histories of punching above their weight on the world stage, have the potential to rise to the occasion. But, in a world in which soft power requires hard power, doing so requires a sober reassessment of their grand strategies and a readiness to make difficult but necessary investments. The alternative is a slow drift into irrelevance, leaving their sovereignty and security increasingly at the mercy of external forces they neither control nor influence.

Sgt. Jonathan Shue, noncommissioned officer-in-charge, machine shop, Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 36, Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force, fires on a secondary target after bayoneting the first here May 15 during the 2011 Australian Army Skill at Arms Meeting. The week-long meeting pit military representatives from partner nations in competition in a series of grueling combat marksmanship events. Represented nations include Canada, France (French Forces New Caledonia), Indonesia, Timor Leste, Brunei, Netherlands, U.S., Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand as well as a contingent of Japanese observers. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Mark W. Stroud/Released)

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham 

Andrew Latham, Ph.D., a tenured professor at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is also a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Ottawa and a non-resident fellow with DefensePriorities, a think tank in Washington, DC.