Unaware, Thus Unreactive to the Sobering New Reality

"More than anything, we need to shed the blinders of the past and see the world and our place in it as it is."
"[With the United States no longer the world's singular superpower], we need to stand on our own with values and ideas more than we have in the past. And to do this, we must bring to bear patience and consistency along with the resources to match."
"This issue [radicalized violence, cyber threats], is especially visible in Canada."
"We are surrounded by three oceans and the U.S., so we don't really feel threatened when, in a totally globalized world, that is unrealistic."
"The key here is to be as open as we possibly can to provide as much information as we can, and be careful. But I don't think the national interest would be served by our sticking our heads in the sand and not recognizing there's a problem."
Richard Fadden, former Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Canada needs to wake up to the threat posed by its geopolitical rivals and look for new allies as the United States withdraws from the world stage, says ex-CSIS director Richard Fadden. (Maxim Shipenkov/Pool Photo via AP)

No nation is an island just as no man is, yet our protected geographical location separated from Europe by the Atlantic ocean, from Asia by the Pacific, and from Russia by the great (unfreezing) Arctic, with the United States on our southern border certain to come to Canada's aid to prevent its own borders from being breached by malignant agents, Canada has always felt fairly secure. Now, however, Russia has proprietary goals on parts of the Arctic that Canada has always considered its historical own. And China, with  its 'observer status', is just as interested as Russia in the mineral and energy deposits awaiting exploitation on the floor of the Arctic.

Mr. Fadden expressed his concerns and his warning to Canadian authorities and the nation's security agencies during a speech to the Conference of Defence Associations Institute. This is by no means the first nor would it likely be the last time this man -- who had also served as national security adviser to two prime ministers -- will issue a similar warning of global threats and upheaval, made far more relevant with the current situation of suspicion and disappointment among Western allies and uncertainty within the NATO membership.

Canada, Mr. Fadden urged, requires introspection over the global threat and Canada's place in the world order of mutual defence and national responsibility. A critical action would be to recognize adversaries and in so doing, formalizing clear limits on what the government will accept from the actions of presumably collegial and security-linked Western allies. Recognizing as well that, at least under the current American president, reliance on the U.S. to step in for Canada's defence is becoming more remote as time passes.

The U.S. may or may not resume its traditional leadership goal post-2020 election results. In the meanwhile, Canada should, he avers, alert itself to any threats from external sources harbouring aspirations that will not be in Canada's best interests by pressing for unity between its Western allies. President Emnmanuel Macron of France last week aired his own sentiments on this very issue relating to the seeming failure of the NATO alliance, claiming it to be suffering from "brain death", an apt enough description of its seeming abandonment by the U.S. from its traditional leadership role.

In particular, warned Mr. Fadden, the rise of Russia and China as more aggressive regimes embroiled in changing the world order to better suit their future plans and aspirations poses a threat of instability. The morose failure of the Western alliance with the withdrawal of the United States as leader and security assurance for its erstwhile allies has left a deep depression throughout Europe as leaders remain on tenterhooks, never quite certain what the future will bring.

But ongoing radicalized violence, cyberthreats, nuclear proliferation and stealth advantage to the disadvantage of the West is steadily encroaching on the allied partnership assurances now resembling a confused and hapless group hardly knowing where next to turn to ensure stability and reaction to actors on the world stage for whom the West's awkward stumbling and uncertain views into the future both entertains and reassures their common enemies.  

The four meta-issues are:

• THE RISE OF REVISIONIST STATES
• A DYSFUNCTIONAL WEST
• THE GROWTH OF RADICALIZATION TO VIOLENCE
• CYBER IN ALL ITS MANIFESTATIONS

Richard B. Fadden, served as Director of CSIS, Deputy Minister of National Defence

"It is to state the obvious to say that the world is undergoing fundamental change. China is and will be more of a world power that was the Soviet Union, the United States is no longer the G-1 power it was when the USSR fell, many Western  countries are pre-occupied with their internal issues rather working together to deal with the issues I mentioned earlier. And, some NATO countries, of course, are falling to the blandishments of China. Perhaps one of the greatest issues faced by the West is the lack of a common “threat assessment” and in democracies this cannot just mean governments but must include some measure of public acceptance. This issue is especially visible in Canada – we are surrounded by three oceans and the US so we don’t really feel threatened when, in a totally globalized world that is unrealistic."
Richard B.Fadden