On September 15, 2022, the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy convened the second roundtable of its ‘Canada’s Interests in a Shifting Order‘ project. The topic of this session focused on Canada’s long-term foreign policy imperatives in Europe. Participants included former and current Canadian ambassadors, in addition to roughly a dozen scholars and experts on Canadian foreign policy and Euro-Atlantic security. The session was held under the Chatham House rule.
This project, launched in June 2022, brings together Canadian foreign policy scholars, analysts and stakeholders for a series of informal discussions. These private roundtable sessions aim to identify Canada’s national interests on the world stage in the context of a shifting international order, culminating in the publication of a final report in Autumn 2023. The project’s guiding logic is not to point to threats which must be balanced against, but rather to hold a first-principles discussion on the nature and scope of the country’s national interests, which can then serve as a basis for determining policy goals and developing the capabilities necessary to achieve them.
For the past six months, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has been front-and-centre in Canadian foreign policy circles. Given the war’s consequences — the collapse of Europe’s security order and the apparent end of the post-Cold War liberal interregnum — this is unsurprising. But looking past the current conflict, as the world’s geopolitical centre of gravity continues to shift toward Asia, will Europe increasingly become a theatre of secondary importance to Canada?
The second roundtable of IPD’s ‘Canada’s Interests in a Shifting Order‘ project sought to tackle this question. Some participants noted that this Europe-Asia dichotomy was an artificial one, as the fallout of the Ukraine war is increasingly global. Such a perspective asserts that Canadian foreign policy should therefore focus on identifying and repairing the various global fault lines which threaten the future of multilateralism.
Still, with finite resources and limited attention spans, one can still surmise that trade-offs do exist between the European and Asian vectors of Canadian foreign policy. Canada already casts a smaller international shadow than it did a few short decades ago. Can Ottawa truly respond to a frontal assault on the ‘rules-based international order’ and adequately support its allies in the face of a likely prolonged ‘new cold war’ in Europe, while also developing a coherent and sufficiently committed approach to shaping regional order in the vast ‘Indo-Pacific’ theatre?
The answer to this question will go a long way in determining what sort of power Canada wants to be — and indeed can be — in the 21st century. If the answer is ‘no’, might this call for a more targeted strategic posture which prioritizes one region over another? Or rather does it suggest that Canada might be better served by pursuing a more ‘a-geopolitical’ foreign policy, placing patchwork efforts to repair and improve global governance ahead of attempts to shape regional security frameworks in Europe or Asia? Both options feature opportunities and drawbacks — and either choice will come with strategic implications for Canada, including with respect to its position in the emerging international order.
Roundtable attendees were drawn from both the ‘realist’ camp and the liberal internationalist tradition. Interventions from the latter group focused, to a large extent, on the theme of defending democracy and the ‘rules-based international order’. On its face, this is unsurprising: Unlike superpowers, which are more prone to pursuing unilateral action in defence of their perceived interests, so-called ‘middle powers’ and smaller states supposedly depend on a rules-based system for their security. European countries are therefore seen as key partners in the struggle to buttress the foundations of multilateralism, even more so given the unique nature of a transatlantic alliance whose contours cannot be easily replicated in the Asian theatre.
Yet the question of how events in Europe affect Canada’s national security — strictly defined — is not identical to the challenge of how to bolster democracy and multilateralism. That many Canadian experts view Canada-Europe relations through the latter prism reveals the extent to which Canadian foreign policy is shaped by considerations pertaining to national identity. Whereas realists are more likely to argue that hard interests such as trade and border security should be prioritized ahead of ‘softer’ aspirations such as human security or a feminist foreign policy, for liberals values are interests.
A compromise position may be that values can be marshalled in support of national interests. But if Canada, as a country with limited resources, therefore retains an interest in rules-based cooperation, could not a (superfluous and inaccurate) framing of the emerging international order along democratic vs. authoritarian lines damage the prospects for international cooperation? In other words, are we entering a period of history in which our interests and our values are increasingly at odds?
One might retort that the West has now shifted from its immediate post-Cold War efforts to export democracy to a more limited approach centred on the defence of existing democracies. But a binary and ideological framing of great power relations will inevitably be viewed by Moscow and Beijing as a threat to their regime security, resulting in the persistence of behaviour that eats away at established international norms.
In fact, realist voices in the discussion expressed scepticism over whether the war in Ukraine actually presents an existential threat to the ‘rules-based international order’, given that international treaties continue to proliferate and violations of international law remain more the exception than the norm. Moreover, violations of international law committed in other parts of the world are rarely framed as existential threats to the ‘rules-based order’, suggesting that Canada’s response to European security issues has cultural rather than interests-based foundations.
If indeed it were merely the culturally neutral ‘rules-based order’ that were at stake, then one might expect to see Canada’s foreign policy focus shift substantially towards Asia along with global power. Yet we appear to observe the opposite: NATO retains a seemingly disproportionate place in Canada’s mental map and international engagement, irrespective of the shift in global power. And while it may be in Canada’s interest to reassure its existing allies, where does this interest rank in relation to other national interests?
Irrespective of these disagreements, however, there were two principal points of convergence among roundtable participants.
The first concerns the interconnectedness of Canada’s foreign policy vectors. Geographically, Canada possesses four such vectors, governing relations with the US (to the south), Europe (to the east), Asia (to the west) and in the Arctic (to the north). For some participants, recognizing Russia as a declining power and China as a rising one implies that Canada should shift its attention away from Europe and toward Asia. For others, political transformations in the US, which raise questions over whether Washington remains a reliable partner, suggest a need for Canada to find new friends — whether in Europe or in Asia.
For others still, Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession provides an opportunity for Ottawa to establish a new ‘northern security working group’ within NATO, thereby reinvigorating Canada’s role within the transatlantic alliance. By contrast, other participants warned against taking a rash decision to change the fundamentals of Canada’s Arctic strategy — which has traditionally sought to insulate the circumpolar region from extra-regional disputes — without fully considering the range of potential implications.
In short, there was an identified need to integrate Canada’s varied foreign policy vectors into a coherent strategic whole — to learn how to do more than one thing at a time. This points to the second area of agreement among participants, which highlighted the need for more long-term thinking in Canadian foreign policy. However, given the radical shifts that one can now expect in US foreign policy every four years, developing a Canadian foreign policy posture that goes beyond reacting to events as they unfold will be a significant task. This topic will be further broached in one of the project’s forthcoming roundtables on Canada-US relations.
The Western powers have failed to effectively manage the increasing threat of proliferation in the Middle East. While the international community is concerned with Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia has moved forward with developing its own nuclear program, and independent studies show that Israel has longed possessed dozens of nuclear warheads. The former is a member of the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), while the latter has refused to sign the international agreement.
On Middle East policy, the Biden campaign had staunchly criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal and it has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier since assuming office in January 2021. However, serious obstacles remain for responsible actors in expanding non-proliferation efforts toward a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
This panel will discuss how Western powers and multilateral institutions, such as the IAEA, can play a more effective role in managing non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Peggy Mason: Canada’s former Ambassador to the UN for Disarmament
– Mark Fitzpatrick: Associate Fellow & Former Executive Director, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
– Ali Vaez: Iran Project Director, International Crisis Group
– Negar Mortazavi: Journalist and Political Analyst, Host of Iran Podcast
– David Albright: Founder and President of the Institute for Science and International Security
Closing (5:45 PM – 6:00 PM ET)
What is the current economic landscape in the Middle East? While global foreign direct investment is expected to fall drastically in the post-COVID era, the World Bank reported a 5% contraction in the economic output of the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries in 2020 due to the pandemic. While oil prices are expected to rebound with normalization in demand, political instability, regional and geopolitical tensions, domestic corruption, and a volatile regulatory and legal environment all threaten economic recovery in the Middle East. What is the prospect for economic growth and development in the region post-pandemic, and how could MENA nations promote sustainable growth and regional trade moving forward?
At the same time, Middle Eastern diaspora communities have become financially successful and can help promote trade between North America and the region. In this respect, the diaspora can become vital intermediaries for advancing U.S. and Canada’s business interests abroad. Promoting business diplomacy can both benefit the MENA region and be an effective and positive way to advance engagement and achieve foreign policy goals of the North Atlantic.
This panel will investigate the trade and investment opportunities in the Middle East, discuss how facilitating economic engagement with the region can benefit Canadian and American national interests, and explore relevant policy prescriptions.
Panelists:
– Hon. Sergio Marchi: Canada’s Former Minister of International Trade
– Scott Jolliffe: Chairperson, Canada Arab Business Council
– Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: Founder and Publisher of Bourse & Bazaar
– Nizar Ghanem: Director of Research and Co-founder at Triangle
– Nicki Siamaki: Researcher at Control Risks
The Middle East continues to grapple with violence and instability, particularly in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Fueled by government incompetence and foreign interventions, terrorist insurgencies have imposed severe humanitarian and economic costs on the region. Meanwhile, regional actors have engaged in an unprecedented pursuit of arms accumulation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have imported billions of both Western and Russian-made weapons and funded militant groups across the region, intending to contain their regional adversaries, particularly Iran. Tehran has also provided sophisticated weaponry to various militia groups across the region to strengthen its geopolitical position against Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel.
On the other hand, with international terrorist networks and intense regional rivalry in the Middle East, it is impractical to discuss peace and security without addressing terrorism and the arms race in the region. This panel will primarily discuss the implications of the ongoing arms race in the region and the role of Western powers and multilateral organizations in facilitating trust-building security arrangements among regional stakeholders to limit the proliferation of arms across the Middle East.
Panelists:
Luciano Zaccara: Assistant Professor, Qatar University
Dania Thafer: Executive Director, Gulf International Forum
Kayhan Barzegar: Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the Science and Research Branch of Azad University
Barbara Slavin: Director of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council
Sanam Shantyaei: Senior Journalist at France24 & host of Middle East Matters
The emerging regional order in West Asia will have wide-ranging implications for global security. The Biden administration has begun re-engaging Iran on the nuclear dossier, an initiative staunchly opposed by Israel, while also taking a harder line on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen. Meanwhile, key regional actors, including Qatar, Iraq, and Oman, have engaged in backchannel efforts to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia to the negotiating table. From a broader geopolitical perspective, with the need to secure its energy imports, China is also expected to increase its footprint in the region and influence the mentioned challenges.
In this evolving landscape, Western powers will be compelled to redefine their strategic priorities and adjust their policies with the new realities in the region. In this panel, we will discuss how the West, including the United States and its allies, can utilize multilateral diplomacy with its adversaries to prevent military escalation in the region. Most importantly, the panel will discuss if a multilateral security dialogue in the Persian Gulf region, proposed by some regional actors, can help reduce tensions among regional foes and produce sustainable peace and development for the region.
Panelists:
– Abdullah Baabood: Academic Researcher and Former Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, Qatar University
– Trita Parsi: Executive Vice-President, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
– Ebtesam Al-Ketbi: President, Emirates Policy Centre
– Jon Allen: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Israel
– Elizabeth Hagedorn: Washington correspondent for Al-Monitor
Military interventions, political and economic instabilities, and civil unrest in the Middle East have led to a global refugee crisis with an increasing wave of refugees and asylum seekers to Europe and Canada. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has, in myriad ways, exacerbated and contributed to the ongoing security threats and destabilization of the region.
While these challenges pose serious risks to Canadian security, Ottawa will also have the opportunity to limit such risks and prevent a spillover effect vis-à-vis effective humanitarian initiatives in the region. In this panel, we will primarily investigate Canada’s Middle East Strategy’s degree of success in providing humanitarian aid to the region. Secondly, the panel will discuss what programs and initiatives Canada can introduce to further build on the renewed strategy. and more specifically, how Canada can utilize its policy instruments to more effectively deal with the increasing influx of refugees from the Middle East.
Panelists:
Erica Di Ruggiero: Director of Centre for Global Health, University of Toronto
Reyhana Patel: Head of Communications & Government Relations, Islamic Relief Canada
Amir Barmaki: Former Head of UN OCHA in Iran
Catherine Gribbin: Senior Legal Advisor for International and Humanitarian Law, Canadian Red Cross
In 2016, Canada launched an ambitious five-year “Middle East Engagement Strategy” (2016-2021), committing to investing CA$3.5 billion over five years to help establish the necessary conditions for security and stability, alleviate human suffering and enable stabilization programs in the region. In the latest development, during the meeting of the Global Coalition against ISIS, Minister of Foreign Affairs Marc Garneau announced more than $43.6 million in Peace and Stabilization Operations Program funding for 11 projects in Syria and Iraq.
With Canada’s Middle East Engagement Strategy expiring this year, it is time to examine and evaluate this massive investment in the Middle East region in the past five years. More importantly, the panel will discuss a principled and strategic roadmap for the future of Canada’s short-term and long-term engagement in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Ferry de Kerckhove: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Egypt
– Dennis Horak: Canada’s Former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
– Chris Kilford: Former Canadian Defence Attaché in Turkey, member of the national board of the Canadian International Council (CIC)
– David Dewitt: University Professor Emeritus, York University
While the United States continues to pull back from certain regional conflicts, reflected by the Biden administration’s decision to halt American backing for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen and the expected withdrawal from Afghanistan, US troops continue to be stationed across the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China have significantly maintained and even expanded their regional activities. On one hand, the Kremlin has maintained its military presence in Syria, and on the other hand, China has signed an unprecedented 25-year strategic agreement with Iran.
As the global power structure continues to shift, it is essential to analyze the future of the US regional presence under the Biden administration, explore the emerging global rivalry with Russia and China, and at last, investigate the implications of such competition for peace and security in the Middle East.
Panelists:
– Dmitri Trenin: Director of Carnegie Moscow Center
– Joost R. Hiltermann: Director of MENA Programme, International Crisis Group
– Roxane Farmanfarmaian: Affiliated Lecturer in International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa, University of Cambridge
– Andrew A. Michta: Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at Marshall Center
– Kelley Vlahos: Senior Advisor, Quincy Institute
The security architecture of the Middle East has undergone rapid transformations in an exceptionally short period. Notable developments include the United States gradual withdrawal from the region, rapprochement between Israel and some GCC states through the Abraham Accords and the rise of Chinese and Russian regional engagement.
With these new trends in the Middle East, it is timely to investigate the security implications of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy. In this respect, we will discuss the Biden team’s new approach vis-à-vis Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The panel will also discuss the role of other major powers, including China and Russia in shaping this new security environment in the region, and how the Biden administration will respond to these powers’ increasing regional presence.
Panelists:
– Sanam Vakil: Deputy Director of MENA Programme at Chatham House
– Denise Natali: Acting Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies & Director of the Center for Strategic Research, National Defense University
– Hassan Ahmadian: Professor of the Middle East and North Africa Studies, University of Tehran
– Abdulaziz Sagar: Chairman, Gulf Research Center
– Andrew Parasiliti: President, Al-Monitor
