John Ivison: Canadian troops are steeling to fight Russia. Will Ottawa back them?

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This selective retrenchment makes the U.S. response to any Russian incursion in the Baltics unpredictable. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war, has even refused to confirm America’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5, the joint defence provision that calls on member states to “take such action as is deemed necessary” to defend an ally.

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That does not necessarily mean a military response, but for Canada, with troops in the frontline of any action, the option not to fight would appear to be off the table.

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Europe is preparing to fill the void left by the Americans, but the momentum at which it needs to ramp up is no match for the speed at which the U.S. is planning to draw down.

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The fear is that Putin will think that a finite window of opportunity exists that is worth the risk of a military gamble in Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia.

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In the exercise, the Russians used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in its exclave of Kalingrad, which is sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland.

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It ended with Moscow cutting off the Baltic states within 24 hours, as Germany hesitated to respond and the U.S. stayed out of the fray.

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Having isolated the Baltic states, the Russians used tactical nuclear weapons to force NATO to recognize their gains as a fait accompli.

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The conclusion of the retired Ukrainian general who played the Russian commander was that NATO’s biggest weakness is not lack of troops but hesitation.

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The exercise was criticized for failing to take account of how the Baltic states themselves would react, not to mention the NATO forces based on their territories. Germany has just announced it is sending a brigade of 5,000 troops to Lithuania, the first time German forces have been based outside Germany on a long-term basis since the Second World War.

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But it is clear that as Canadian and European politicians absorb the lesson that American military support may be delayed, limited or withheld altogether, they need to steel themselves and their citizens.

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Canada’s troops are ready to fight: their first major exercise in Latvia in 2024 was the aptly named Resolute Warrior.

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Parliament and the Canadian public have to come to terms with the fact that the unthinkable is no longer unthinkable and we are closer to a major conflict than we have been for many decades.

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This is not a situation analogous to 1914, where a miscalculation plunged Europe into the First World War; it is more like 1939, where the absence of deterrence precipitated the Second.

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Our political decision-makers need to be as resolute and decisive as the soldiers deployed in their name on Latvia’s eastern border.

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National Post

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