I hope everyone has enjoyed a great summer. There certainly has been plenty of good news to read about on the defence and security network throughout the summer as our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced that Canada and its NATO Allies have agreed to a new Defence Investment Pledge of investing 5% of annual GDP by 2030 to ensure individual and collective security. In addition, he also recently announced a three-year extension of Canada’s commitment to Latvia until 2029.

As part of this 5% pledge, Canada will invest 3.5% of GDP on core military capabilities, expanding on their recent investments. That means further investments in our Canadian Armed Forces, modernizing our Reserve equipment and technology, building up Canada’s defence industries, and diversifying our defence partnerships. The challenge Canada faces now is our Canadian Armed Forces require so much new equipment and our Forces overall have become so small that they are challenged to sustain significant Forces abroad such as Latvia. There are also important discussions about submarines, fighters, drones, long range artillery and we all know all of these important investments will consume a significant portion of the 5%. I hear that there are discussions about mobilizing the force which is so very important as our forces are undermanned.

As Russia continues to attack Ukraine at will, with a renewed focus on the civilian population, we are seeing Europe and NATO members prioritize their efforts on increasing their capabilities of their military forces. Deterrence which was fundamentally important during the Cold War lost its way over the past few decades which has allowed Russia to attack countries in eastern Europe without being opposed or confronted in any significant way by western allies.  Today there is a realization that NATO countries need to rebuild their forces to be able to deter further Russian aggression and also to safeguard national sovereignty. Time is of the essence and unfortunately, I am still not seeing any real sense of urgency.

We kick off our Fall series of speakers with LGen (Retd) Stu Beare on 25 September who will speak to “The Return of Deterrence – it is Back”. His Bio is on our website, and he comes with excellent knowledge and experience on matters of defence and security.

On 17 October, RKUSI will celebrate its centennial with two major events.  Firstly, with the support of our partners, CDA,CDAI, and the Queen’s University Centre for International Defence and Policy(CIDP), RKUSI will host a day long Kingston Defence and Security Forum. The Forum will be followed that evening by our Gala Centennial Dinner at the Fort. I hope all will join us and details can be found on our website.

Thanks to a new webmaster Cassandra de Bartok and Bryan Bailey, Ron Blank and Bruce Ewing our website is user friendly and has excellent information for your consumption. Of note, we have fostered an excellent partnership with RCMI and there is an excellent offer to become a member of their Institute.

I look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks!