Canada Needs a Deterrence Doctrine
Greater North America Means Greater Risk
“All warfare is based on deception.”
Deception sits at the center of Sun Tzu. Probably the single most important tenet in The Art of War. Hitler and Putin are both textbook cases of what happens when deception works in your favor — and what happens once the mask falls off.
Hitler took Czechoslovakia under a lie. Then he staged another lie to invade Poland. After that, he stopped thinking he needed one and ended up in the bunker. Putin played the deception game well in Crimea, then again in Syria. But in Ukraine he now stands brutally exposed, and he is losing.
You can almost turn Sun Tzu’s line into a doctrine of its own: if you cannot deceive, do not bother getting into war. And that is why, when U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered this gem earlier this month, I did not recoil. I smiled.
According to Hegseth, Trump had drawn a new strategic map stretching from Greenland to the Gulf of America to the Panama Canal and its surrounding countries. At the March 5 Americas Counter Cartel Conference in Doral, Florida, he gave the concept a name: Greater North America.
Then came the line that made the real meaning impossible to miss: “Because every sovereign nation and territory north of the Equator, from Greenland to Ecuador and from Alaska to Guyana, is not part of the "Global South." It is our immediate security perimeter in this great neighborhood that we all live in.” That was not a loose remark. It was a map, a doctrine, and a sequence of intent laid out in public.
Trump moved on Venezuela first. Then he turned toward Greenland. That did not work. Now he is at war with Iran. Cuba has already appeared in the frame. Look at the sequence: Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba. The easier ones first, one by one. This is what exposure looks like. They are no longer hiding the perimeter they want to draw or the order in which they think they can test it.
And that is good news. Their own words and their own actions have stripped away the cover. Once intent is exposed, others can prepare, mobilize, and make sure these ambitions go no further than the planning phase.
Oh yes, there is plenty we can do. If Iran can force Washington into a costly scramble, then a prepared coalition can do far more than merely make it scramble.
Canada’s biggest advantage is PM Carney’s approval rating. Recent March polling has put it around 68%. That number slows down the MAGA-aligned right wing in Canada, allows Carney to push through difficult change, and more importantly gives him a clean three-year runway to build Canada’s defence.
Canada will need its own doctrine to deter adversaries. But there are certain key elements it can pick up from India’s deterrence posture against China and Pakistan. It also needs to pick up a few things from Ukraine’s positioning against Russia.
