Canada's Military Buildup: Is Enough Being Done to Defend Canada, and Perhaps the World, From the Likes of the GOP's Authoritarian Trump Regime, Russia and North Korea?

All references cited in this article are part of the public record. The assertions and conclusions presented, unless otherwise noted, have not been legally contested. Characterizations identified as the author's view are opinion.

Canada now faces pressure from three directions at once. Russia's war in Ukraine continues, and its long-range bombers and missiles can reach North America over the Arctic. North Korea has tested solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles with an estimated range of about 15,000 kilometres, enough to reach anywhere in North America.¹ And the United States, the ally Canada has relied on for its defence since the Second World War, is now led by an administration that has waged a trade war on Canada, talked of making it the 51st state, and treated its alliances as leverage. In my view, that administration is an authoritarian one, and Canada can no longer assume its oldest ally will always be on its side.

Ottawa's answer has been the biggest military buildup in generations. The question is whether it is real, or whether we are fooling ourselves. The honest answer is: Some of each. Here is where each major system actually stands.

The Money

In March 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada had spent more than $63 billion on defence in 2025-26, meeting NATO's target of 2 per cent of GDP for the first time in more than a decade. Canada has also committed to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence, plus 1.5 per cent on defence-related infrastructure, by 2035, and says it will invest half a trillion dollars in defence over the next ten years.² Its first Defence Industrial Strategy, released in February 2026, aims to award 70 per cent of federal defence contracts to Canadian firms within a decade.³

That is real money. But Washington is not impressed. In May 2026, a Pentagon official said Canada "has yet to make the hard decisions and tradeoffs needed to put it on track to become a credible partner in the mutual defence of our continent," and demanded a road map to 3.5 per cent.⁴ The criticism comes from an administration attacking Canada on other fronts, but the underlying point deserves an answer: Commitments for 2035 are not capabilities today.

Seeing What Is Coming: Over-the-Horizon Radar

The most important new system is one most Canadians have never heard of. In June 2026, Canada signed a $2.5 billion agreement with Australia for an Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar, based on Australia's proven Jindalee Operational Radar Network. Instead of looking in a straight line, it bounces radio waves off the upper atmosphere to detect aircraft, cruise missiles and ships thousands of kilometres away, far beyond the curve of the Earth. It is the first phase of a project worth about $6 billion, with initial operating capability expected in December 2029. A second, Polar radar to cover the northernmost approaches is still in early development.⁵ Both are part of a $38.6 billion, 20-year plan to modernize NORAD, with most of its 30 projects due to be fully operational by the early 2030s.⁶

On the budget? Yes. Here yet? No. Canada's aging North Warning System was designed for the bombers of the 1980s, not today's cruise and hypersonic missiles. Until the new radar works, there is a gap.

Drones

Canada signed a $2.49 billion contract in December 2023 for 11 armed MQ-9B SkyGuardian long-range drones. The first deliveries have slipped a year, to 2028.⁷ Ukraine has shown that the future of war also belongs to cheap drones in enormous numbers, and Canada is now racing to catch up. In July 2026, it launched a Defence Drone Initiative to buy Canadian-made surveillance drones, ground robots, underwater systems, counter-drone interceptors and precision strike systems.⁸ The Army's 3rd Canadian Division expects to grow its small drone fleet by more than 1,000 per cent, to over 500, by March 2027.⁹ And in September 2026, Canada and Ukraine signed a long-term partnership to produce drones, counter-drone systems and munitions together.¹⁰

On the budget? Yes, and moving faster than most programs. The catch: Canada was once an early leader in drone technology and let that lead slip.¹¹ It is now rebuilding it.

Air Defence and Counter-Drone

Canada bought the Swedish Saab RBS 70 NG short-range air defence system and $34 million in counter-drone equipment, primarily to protect Canadian troops leading NATO's brigade in Latvia. The RBS 70 reached initial capability in late 2025 and is on track for full capability by November 2027.¹²

On the budget? For troops abroad, yes. For Canada itself? Not in any meaningful way. There is no layered ground-based air defence protecting Canadian cities, bases or critical infrastructure against missiles or drone swarms. That is a gap the budget lists do not yet close.

Missiles: The Biggest Hole

Canada has no capability of its own to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile. In 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin declined to join U.S. ballistic missile defence. Canada still provides missile warning through NORAD, but a 2014 Senate committee warned that "Canada cannot simply assume that all of its territory will be protected by default," because decisions on whether to intercept a missile would be made "by the U.S. alone."¹³

The Trump administration's proposed answer is its "Golden Dome" missile shield, which Trump priced at US$175 billion. He has said Canada could join for US$61 billion, then US$71 billion, while also suggesting it would be free if Canada became the 51st state.¹⁴ The U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimates a system meeting Golden Dome's goals would cost about US$1.2 trillion over 20 years.¹⁵ The Carney government has said discussions with Washington "naturally include strengthening NORAD and related initiatives such as the Golden Dome."¹⁴

On the budget? No. Canada's protection against a ballistic missile depends entirely on the decisions of a U.S. president. In my view, that is the clearest case of fooling ourselves: It is hard to call a country sovereign when its last line of defence belongs to someone else, and harder still when that someone has talked about annexing it.

A Basic Requirement, From Every Direction

In my view, for all that Canada is investing, missile defence is not an optional extra. It is a basic requirement for a country with coastlines on three oceans, and the threats now come from more than one direction.

From the north, missiles and bombers can come over the Arctic. Canada's existing North Warning System cannot detect hypersonic glide vehicles or low-flying cruise missiles, which is why the new radar matters so much.¹⁶

From the east, the Atlantic is relatively secure, with NATO allies across it, but it cannot be left wide open. In June 2024, a Russian Yasen-M guided-missile submarine operated off North America's East Coast carrying land-attack cruise missiles with a range of about 1,000 nautical miles, roughly 1,850 kilometres.¹⁷ The former commander of NORAD told the U.S. Congress that these submarines "are designed to deploy undetected within cruise-missile range of our coastlines to threaten critical infrastructure during an escalating crisis."¹⁸ From off Canada's Atlantic coast, that range would cover most of Eastern Canada's major cities.

From the west, North Korea's newest missiles can reach anywhere on the continent.¹

From the south, honesty is required: No missile shield could, or should, be built to stop the United States. Canada's defence against an authoritarian Washington is independence, not interceptors. But that makes the current arrangement all the more uncomfortable. Today, Canada's protection from missiles coming from the north, east and west depends on decisions made by the very administration that has threatened to annex it.

The tools exist. Canada's new River-class destroyers are being built around the U.S. Aegis combat system with a long-range radar and launch cells designed to hold SM-3 and SM-6 missile-defence interceptors, but the first batch of ships is "fitted for, but not with" them.¹⁹ The capability has been designed in. It has not been bought. Ground-based defences against cruise missiles and drones, for the bases, ports and cities that would be targets, are not yet on the list at all. And Canada could decide, on its own terms and through NORAD, how it participates in continental missile defence, instead of waiting to be offered a seat in Golden Dome at whatever price Trump names. Paying for the interceptors the destroyers were built to carry, and putting cruise missile defence around key sites, would close the most dangerous gap in Canada's buildup. Leaving it open is the one way the rest of the investment could be wasted.

Submarines and Fighter Jets

In July 2026, Canada named Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems as preferred supplier for up to 12 Type 212CD submarines, the same design being built for Germany and Norway, roughly tripling Canada's fleet. The first four are expected in 2034.²⁰ On fighter jets, Canada has locked in the first 16 of 88 planned F-35s, but its review of whether to buy the rest, or a mix including Sweden's Gripen, has dragged on with no deadline.²¹

On the budget? The submarines, yes, a decade out. The fighters, partly, with the biggest decision still unmade.

The People and the Training

Equipment does nothing without trained people to run it, and that is Canada's weakest link. The Auditor General found that between 2022 and 2025, the military planned to recruit more than 19,700 members but brought in about 15,000, even though nearly 192,000 people applied. Only about one in 13 applicants made it to basic training, recruitment often took twice as long as targeted, and the recruit school ran at only 80 per cent capacity for lack of instructors and equipment.²² Recruiting has since improved, reaching a 30-year high of 7,310 new members in the past year, but shortages remain in critical trades such as pilots and technicians.²³

On the budget? Recruitment, yes. Solved? No. A radar, a drone or a submarine without a trained crew is a very expensive ornament.

So, Are We Fooling Ourselves?

Partly. The spending is real, the decisions on radar, drones and submarines are real, and for the first time in a generation, Canada is building rather than cutting. But most of the major systems arrive between 2027 and 2036. Until then, there are gaps in Arctic detection, in air defence at home and in trained people. And on ballistic missiles, Canada has no plan of its own at all.

In my view, the most important defence against an authoritarian United States is not a weapon. No Canadian military could, or should, plan to fight the United States. The real defence is independence: Radar bought from Australia, submarines from Germany, air defence from Sweden, drones built in Canada and with Ukraine, and a defence industry at home that cannot be switched off from Washington. Every one of those decisions makes Canada harder to coerce. It is the same principle this site argued in Attacking Carney for the U.S. Attacking Canada Is Less Than Canadian: Canada drives, and the United States rides in the sidecar.

As for perhaps defending the world: Canada leads NATO's brigade in Latvia on Russia's border and is building drones with Ukraine, the country doing more than any other to show the world how to stop Russia. That is a real contribution. The job now is to make sure that by the time the radar is switched on and the submarines arrive, there are enough trained Canadians to run them, and a plan for the missiles that are already pointed our way.