October 21, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By Olena Goncharova.
EDMONTON, Canada — As Canadians head to the polls on Oct. 21, the Ukrainian government may be wondering how a potential change in leadership could alter relations with Kyiv's closest overseas ally.
Among the numerous parties represented on ballots across the country, there are six with enough legitimacy and reach to take part in nationally televised debates, and only three — the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties — which will almost certainly garner the overwhelming majority of votes. And the real contest comes down to only two: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party and Andrew Scheer's Conservative Party, which have been exchanging leads or tied for almost the entirety of the parliamentary campaign.
While the candidates are competing on an array of issues ranging from climate change to economic policy, this time foreign policy has played an even more substantial role than usual in how the parties have defined themselves.
The 2019 campaign is different from previous ones due to an increasingly dangerous international environment and uncertainty over U.S.-Canadian relations. But no matter the election outcome, there is unlikely to be any significant change from Canada's current political stance vis-a-vis Ukraine, experts believe.
The ruling Liberals put “democracy, human rights, international law, and environmental protection” at the heart of their foreign policy. In their campaign, they are calling for the establishment of the Canadian Center for Peace, Order, and Good Government, which will lend expertise and assistance to those seeking to build peace and advance justice.
They also call for a continued increase in Canada's international development assistance every year until 2030 and want to ratchet up the Magnitsky sanctions regime on foreign human rights offenders. However, the Liberals do not have any specific points geared towards Ukraine.
The Conservatives' promises are more detailed. They want to cut 25 percent of all foreign aid spending, strengthen ties with Japan, India, and Israel and deepen their commitment to Canada's democratic alliances — NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).
Under the Liberal government, international assistance in 2018 stood at $6.1 billion and accounted for almost 1.8 percent of federal budget spending. And $57 million of that aid went to Ukraine.
In its campaign, the Conservative Party has promised to refocus aid away from middle-income and higher-income countries, a category which would seem to include Ukraine. However, Scheer says a Conservative government would increase military and other aid to Ukraine.
Other Conservative platform positions include supplying the Ukrainian military with lethal defensive weapons, restoring the practice of sharing RADARSAT-2 imagery with the Ukrainian army and providing additional humanitarian assistance to support internally displaced people.
Fen Hampson, an international affairs expert and professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, says both candidates “are and have been strongly pro-Ukraine” and will continue to apply sanctions against Russia and provide economic assistance to Kyiv.
In fact, the biggest risk to Canadian support for Ukraine is likely connected not to which party is victorious, but to the absence of a winning party.
“If we have a minority government as many are now predicting, which is to say neither party wins a majority in parliament and has to work with other parties, this may mean a government that is focused on internal as opposed to international issues,” Hampson said in a written comment to the Kyiv Post. “That could have an impact on the government's ability to do things proactively, including in foreign policy.”
Other experts interviewed by the Kyiv Post share Hampson's take.
Andrew Rasiulis, a former director of military training and co-operation at the Department of National Defence and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, agrees that the two parties have “pretty much the identical position on the issue of Ukraine.”
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky shifted the world's focus toward Ukraine by calling for peace in Donbas and opening negotiations with Russia in the so-called Normandy format peace talks. Canada might have a specific role to play in it, Rasiulis argues, but the new Canadian government will be very cautious in this realm.
“They would not want Canada to be caught outside the game, because if there is a Normandy format summit — possibly in November — Canada has a choice to make,” Rasiulis told the Kyiv Post. “We can either be on the sidelines and won't talk to the Russians unless they leave Donbas and return Crimea. But on the other hand, if there are negotiations, then Canada could play a role in terms of offering a peacekeeping force. That force hasn't been discussed yet but I believe it will come up.”
Rasiulis believes that if Ukraine implements the Steinmeier Formula as a potential way to reinvigorate negotiations with Russia over the war, which has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine, Canada can offer its peacekeeping force to help secure the Russia-Ukraine border during local elections in Donbas and convince Russia that “this force can be objective.”
Read More: What is the ‘Steinmeier Formula' and why are so many Ukrainians against it?
Over the past four years of the Trudeau government, Canada's armed forces have been present in Ukraine as part of Operation Unifier, which runs until 2022. About 200 Canadian troops working in six-month cycles have trained over 13,000 members of Ukrainian security forces to date.
Though Canada is not a major military power, its troops are efficient and well-trained and “have passed on some of their knowledge to those engaged in security issues” and the war in Donbas, argues David R. Marples, a historian and professor at the University of Alberta.
Liberal Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland — who is of Ukrainian ancestry on her mother's side — has also been a consistent and outspoken supporter of Ukraine, and is banned from entering the Russian Federation as a result. “It seems clear, therefore, that Ukrainians will not be worse off if Trudeau and the Liberals are granted a second term in office,” Marples said.
The historian stresses that the Conservative government's policies might be a bit harder to predict.
“Though Scheer is unlikely to make any conciliatory moves toward Russia, the bigger question is whether Ukraine is on his horizon at all, insofar (as) his major focus is on China — he has demanded a much stiffer response to the recent actions of the Chinese government, which have included the arrest of three Canadian businessmen,” Marples said. “On the other hand, he has expressed concern about the lack of unity among NATO allies, with an implicit sideswipe at President Donald J. Trump and his nebulous policies and apparent kinship with dictators.”
Moreover, Scheer is close to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was a fervent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Though the extent of Harper's influence in a future Conservative government is unclear, he has often appeared alongside Scheer at public events,” Marples told the Kyiv Post. “For Harper, the priority was dealing with Russia — which he often equated with Communism — rather than China. Scheer appears more reticent, even distant from such an ideological stance.”
September 22, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
Global authorities dismantle iServer phishing platform, responsible for unlocking 1.2M stolen phones, impacting 483,000 victims.
July 7, 2021 | International, Naval
MBDA a obtenu plusieurs contrats pour « améliorer de manière significative » les capacités de défense aérienne et antimissile des six destroyers de type 45 de la Royal Navy. Dans le cadre de ces travaux, le CAMM (Common Anti-Air Modular Missile) sera associé pour la première fois à un système de commandement et de contrôle (C2) Sea Viper amélioré. Le CAMM « offre une défense antiaérienne rapprochée et locale de premier ordre », et viendra compléter l'Aster 30, renforçant ainsi la capacité de défense antiaérienne de la Royal Navy, précise MBDA.
April 29, 2019 | International, Aerospace
By Stew Magnuson GEELONG, Australia — Very little excites the aerospace industry and the media that covers it more than the announcement of a new jet fighter program. So when the curtain went up in a Boeing tent at Avalon — The Australian Air Show revealing a full-size model of a new robotic jet fighter, the camera flashes popped off as if it were a star on a Hollywood red carpet. “It is a red letter day,” Australian Minister of Defence Christopher Pyne said while standing in front of the Airpower Teaming System, Boeing's name for the loyal wingman jet fighter, an unmanned aircraft intended to fly in formation with the nation's F-35A joint strike fighters and F/A-18E/F Super Hornets. It was also an auspicious day because the unmanned system would be the first indigenously developed aircraft Australia produced since the CAC Boomerang fighter during World War II. The program makes a statement to the world that Australia is no longer content to be merely a buyer of military equipment, but has ambitions to be a developer and exporter as well, said Pyne. “This is all testament to the fact that we are undergoing our largest buildup of our military capability in our peacetime history — $200 billion over the next 10 years.” While Australia is still buying pricey F-35s from the United States, attack-class submarines from France and armored fighting vehicles from a European consortium, it wants a significant portion of that $200 billion to stay in the country and help it create aerospace and defense sector jobs, officials said. The nation last year released the 2018 Defense Industrial Capability Plan spelling out how it would build a “broader and deeper defense industrial base” over the next decade. “The government's goal by 2028 is to achieve an Australian defense industry that has the capability, posture and resilience to help meet Australia's defense needs,” the plan stated. One of its main goals is to turn the nation into an exporter of military goods rather than just an importer. The day before the airshow, U.S. and other foreign contractors gathered in nearby Melbourne to hear from State of Victoria and Defence Ministry officials about the new ways of doing business in Australia. Damien Chifley, executive director of the defense industry branch in the Australian Department of Defence, said the approach now is to partner. The country's defense contractors are predominantly medium to small companies who can't go it alone. They need help bringing their innovative ideas to prime contractors. If a U.S. or other foreign company wants to vie for an Australian contract it must now submit an “industry capability plan,” which spells out exactly how they will work with local firms to bring the project to fruition, Chifley said. “The idea is they go out the main gate with Australian industry,” he said. These plans are not offsets, which is the mechanism used by some nations to make contractors invest a certain amount of dollars in the local economy as a condition of winning a contract. However, these industry capability plans will be weighed by the contracting authority when selecting a winning proposal, he noted. Claire S. Willette, CEO of the Australian Defence Alliance, said in an interview that the nation's effort to bolster its aerospace and defense sector should be seen in light of its losses in manufacturing jobs — particularly the automotive industry — rather than security concerns. Australia wants a “sovereign capability to support itself” in the defense industrial sector, she said. “From a long-term sustainable economic perspective, you need to build something. You need to have a growth area,” said Willette, an American who served in the Pentagon for 20 years before moving to Australia. “Because we did have this burgeoning defense industry and because we have some really niche, high-tech areas of excellence, I think that [the government] saw that this was a natural fit and something they could grow off of,” she said. Australian government officials and locally based U.S. contractors at the airshow were eager to promote the nation as a spot where they can find the talent to develop programs. Boeing, by far, has the largest and longest presence with more than 90 years experience doing business in the country and some 5,000 employees in its defense and commercial sectors. It features two large research facilities — Boeing Research and Technology-Australia and Boeing Phantom Works International in Brisbane — where work on the robotic jet fighter will take place. The company invested $62 million in research and development in Australia in 2018, company officials said. “We're going to prove that we can do big, audacious programs like this here in Australia,” said Darren Edwards, vice president and managing director of Boeing Defence Australia. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin and local officials touted the country's success in winning F-35 sustainment contracts. As a partner nation in the program, Australian contractors can compete globally with other F-35 customers for component maintenance contracts. They received 343 out of a possible 388 such contracts in the latest round, building on the 64 they had received in the first round. Australian contractors have received a total of $1.3 billion in F-35-related contracts so far, said Royal Australian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Leigh Gordon, head of the joint strike fighter division. “That is a really great example of the strength of Australian industry and its competitiveness in the global sphere,” Gordon said. Going hand in hand with Australia's ambitions in the defense realm is its renewed focus on space. In July 2018, it established the Australian Space Agency, which brought together about 11 different agencies spread out within the government at various ministries, said Kim Gina Ellis, senior lecturer on space industry engagement, governance and law at Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria. The government wants a central point to coordinate and bring all the civilian activities together, she said. Again, the long-term goal is job creation, she told National Defense. The government wants to add about 20,000 to the approximately 10,000 space sector jobs already in Australia, she said. Meanwhile, as is the case in the United States, the nation has a growing private sector launch industry with a handful of companies building small rockets and launch facilities for small satellites, she said. Along with telescopes and communications systems that have been positioned on the continent since the beginning of the space age, Australia features a favorable geographic location for inserting spacecraft into polar orbits, Ellis noted. The new agency will “help build the industry and show the rest of the world that we have these amazing capabilities and that we support most of the major space exploration programs,” Ellis said. Jeff Shockey, vice president of global sales and marketing for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in an interview that Australia is growing very close to investing 2 percent of its GDP in defense. “They are doing the right things. There is a lot going on down here in this region and they are at the forefront.” Boeing has ambitions to export the Airpower Teaming System to the other “five-eye” partners: the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Shockey said Boeing is an international company and Australia is an enduring ally and partner. Building a new jet fighter outside the United States should not be seen as “off-shoring” work, he said. “We're a global company and we're doing work throughout the enterprise on this project and others, both domestically and abroad,” he said. “There is a great high-tech talent base here,” he added. And the wide-open spaces will be a perfect proving ground for unmanned aircraft, Shockey and other company executives said. Willette said: “We're never going to have the assembly lines for an F-18, an F-16 or a JSF, but we do have the componentry, the systems and the systems integration and the skilled engineering. Designing and fabrication and machining — and the professional services that back all that up — those are huge strengths for this country.” The government has several new programs to spark innovation that would be recognizable to the U.S. defense industry. It is setting up grand challenges, cooperative research centers, university research networks and small business research grants. It has what would be called in the U.S. “broad agency announcements” with pots of money dedicated over the next 10 years for organizations with ideas in fields such as intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, electronic warfare, cybersecurity, amphibious warfare, maritime and anti-submarine warfare, and air and sealift. The 2018 Defense Industrial Capability Plan was just one building block in a larger plan, said Willette. The Australian government is continuing to produce more policies surrounding manufacturing skills and science, technology engineering and math education. “Having a level of sovereignty, and integrity and resiliency in your supply chain is incredibly important from a national security perspective,” Willette added. The ideas for the new programs are based on long-established U.S. or U.K. acquisition programs, said a government official who was not authorized to speak on the record. The Australian government is keen to partner with U.S. universities and has established the Australia-U.S. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Program to help Australian schools establish themselves with the Pentagon's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative. It will provide Australian colleges with grants of up to 1 million Australian dollars per year if they can team with U.S. counterparts in the MURI program. Willette said: “The message very clearly coming from Australia is: ‘partner with us.'” http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/4/29/australia-makes-moves-to-grow-its-defense-industry