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Canada protestors
Spamouflage blitz muddies already murky waters
Just last weekend, leaders of the Five Eyes intelligence network took to “60 Minutes,” warning that China was stealing technology secrets and suggesting that it was ramping up espionage and hacking efforts overseas.
The alleged spamouflage operation notably comes amid Canada’s inquiry into alleged foreign interference with its domestic affairs, which includes a look at Beijing. Relations between the two countries have been frosty this year thanks to accusations of Chinese meddling in Canada’s elections.
But Canada’s power imbalance with China over its disinformation campaigns is similar to its tense relationship with India following the assassination of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Unilateral retaliation would be purely symbolic and of limited value, and the state of play between China and the US precludes Ottawa from calling on its closest ally for support.
Chinese and US diplomats have been working for months to stabilize relations and set up a summit between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in San Francisco in November — putting Canada’s concerns on ice for the time being.
Five Eyes look to the skies – and beyond
The truth is out there … that Canada participated in an international meeting on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, aka UFOs. It’s not exactly an episode of the “X-Files,” but it’s caught some attention.
Ottawa confirmed last week that it had taken part in the get-together at the Pentagon in May with its Five Eyes allies. Beyond that, everyone is keeping mum on the details of the confab, which was held to encourage coordination and information sharing on unidentified objects.
News of the meeting comes as former intelligence official and UAP task force member David Grusch hit the press to claim the US government had found “non-human” material “of exotic origin” and was keeping “intact and partially intact” alien crafts. The US government denies this, and Grusch’s claims have been dismissed by some as “crazy.”
Still, the government has reported hundreds of UAP encounters, including an unexplained flying orb. In February, a massive Chinese balloon crossed Canadian airspace and caught headlines in both countries; it was shot down by the US over the Atlantic Ocean.
Just because something is a UAP doesn’t mean it’s extraterrestrial. As Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the US Department of Defense says, “The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons, unmanned aerial systems, clutter, natural phenomena, or other readily explainable sources.” The AARO was established in 2022 to detect and track “objects of interest” across land, sea, and air. No surprise, a lot of inexplicable phenomena can be explained as secret or run-of-the-mill military technology. But maybe not all of it.
A recent panel convened by NASA on the subject called for better civilian data on UAPs and the destigmatization of research in the field during a public meeting. It’s set to report its findings this summer. For its part, Canada has launched the “Sky Canada Project” under the aegis of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada to study UAP reports and make recommendations.
“In the context of UAPs being a broad and expansive topic, it’s going to be a continued topic of information sharing between the United States and Canada,” says Clayton Allen, US director at Eurasia Group. But this doesn’t necessarily imply extraterrestrial activity. “People always want to look for the fantastic when the ordinary will suffice,” he says.
Military and intelligence activity from foreign states is a more likely answer to UAP activity than aliens – meaning the phenomena are more likely to be products of Russian or Chinese military technology rather than from another planet. And that’s why we might expect regular, robust information sharing and briefings between the US and Canada – even above and beyond the Five Eyes.
“Five eyes is a sharing agreement without much by way of restrictions,” Allen says, “but the US and Canada have a unique relationship even within Five Eyes because of NORAD, so I’d expect a higher degree of information sharing between the two countries because we manage an air defense relationship for the continent.”
Just kidding, Canada wants in on AUKUS after all
Just over two years ago, Canada’s Liberal government dismissed the country’s absence from AUKUS – the Indo-Pacific security alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “This is a deal for submarines,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “which Canada is not currently or anytime soon in the market for.” He assured voters it would have no impact on Canada’s Five Eyes partnership (the intelligence pact between Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, and Canada), and that was that.
Canada wasn’t being snubbed or sidelined for being a defense-spending laggard … or so we were told. Canada simply didn’t want or need nuclear submarines. Never mind that it was reported at the time that AUKUS also included military technology and information sharing as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy.
On second thought …
Fast-forward to spring 2023. Now, Canada wants in and is saying so publicly, citing – you guessed it – a desire to share information and military technology. Defense Minister Anita Anand hasn’t said whether the country has formally sought AUKUS membership, but if you read between the lines, it’s pretty clear that it wants in. "Canada is highly interested in furthering cooperation on AI, quantum computing, and other advanced technologies … with our closest allies,” Anand said this week.
(Not for nothing, New Zealand is striking a similar pose, recently suggesting it is also open to joining the pact for the non-nuclear bits.)
The truth is, two years ago there was plenty of handwringing about the state and future of defense policy when Canada was shunned from AUKUS. Ottawa was nervous that it was being shut out of key Indo-Pacific strategizing, a Five-Eyes world headed toward two fewer peepers.
“You can imagine, from the Canadian perspective, the idea that we’re slowly moving into a Three-Eyes world, certainly in the Pacific, and that we are there with New Zealand on the outside, is a bit of a shock,” says Canadian defense policy expert Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University. Canada, he notes, does not wish for AUKUS to become a “de facto new alliance structure for the Five-Eyes.”
So what’s changed?
Canada may want to push harder to join AUKUS now that it has a better sense of what’s on offer. After all, Ottawa wasn’t included in the discussions leading up to the formation of AUKUS. “We weren’t privy to the details of what it might look like and what it might involve,” says Lagassé.
Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, agrees that the evolution of the alliance has made it more appealing. Initially, “the AUKUS agreement focused largely on Pillar I related to nuclear submarines, which are of limited interest to Canada,” he says. But when it comes to Pillar II and the development and sharing of advanced technology for both civil and military purposes, “Canada likely doesn’t want to miss out on the potential industrial benefits, especially considering its close integration with the US on the critical minerals supply chains needed to produce those technologies,” he says.
Domestic politics may also be at play here. As it happens, the security partnership – or at least the parts Canada wants in on – “pings exactly where some of this government’s spending priorities are,” says Lagassé. A look through government budgets and announcements shows that those areas include artificial intelligence, critical minerals, and quantum technologies, which are bound up in the AUKUS alliance.
Moreover, geopolitics has changed in the last two years. “Relations between the US and China have also deteriorated since AUKUS launched,” Thompson says. “Ottawa’s apparent change of heart should be understood in that much more competitive and uncertain geopolitical context.”
In short, Canada doesn’t want to be left behind, whether it’s on Indo-Pacific military strategy, information sharing, or technological development. And it definitely wants in on the lucrative contracts and trade that come with developing and selling military equipment that accounts for much of the economic activity in a handful of Canadian regions. These areas – Quebec, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and Ontario – are home to a handful of seats in Parliament that the Liberal government needs to hold on to.
What’s in it for the US – and the others?
You might expect the US to welcome Canada to the party – even if it arrives late and without much to share. But maybe not. The US and Canada engage in significant military and intelligence cooperation as members of NATO and the Five Eyes, and Eurasia Group Senior Analyst Ali Wyne says “Washington would welcome opportunities to deepen [that], especially amid deteriorating relations between Ottawa and Beijing.” But, he adds, “there is no public indication that the United States is actively pushing for Canada’s inclusion in AUKUS.”
That may not come as a surprise to Trudeau. Owing to decades of bipartisan neglect, Thompson says that “Canadian forces are relatively underfunded and underequipped, so Ottawa lacks the overall capacity and capabilities that would make it a more attractive military partner for the US in the Indo-Pacific.” Australia, on the other hand, spends more on defense than Canada “despite only having roughly two-thirds of the population,” he adds.
It’s also not just up to the US. If anyone wants Canada on board, Lagassé thinks the US would probably be the most open to it, whereas Australia and the UK may be more reticent “because it would mean sharing potential economic benefits with a fourth partner.” The two smaller AUKUS partners might ask why Canada should reap the economic benefits if it’s “not spending on the subs” or contributing expensive, difficult-to-produce parts. “It’s not a charity,” Lagassé adds.
Choosing sides for Cold War 2.0
Backdropping AUKUS is an increasingly polarized global order in which the West and China are cast as adversaries, recalling a Cold War posture in which Washington headed the First World, pulling its allies into its orbit, while the Soviet Union led the Second World, collecting its own allied states.
Canada’s absence from AUKUS, says Wyne, “limits the extent to which it can align with key allies and partners in competing with China and shaping the Indo-Pacific’s security architecture.”
Canada tends to hedge its bets, not wanting to fully alienate China, from whom it imported $100 billion in goods and exported $27.9 billion worth in 2022. But there’s little doubt where most of its chips lie: with the United States.Will Pentagon leak put US-Canada relationship on thin ice?
For months, leaked US intelligence documents have been circulating online. The press recently picked up on them, drawing further attention to secrets that the US and its allies would have rather kept private. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says some of the materials may be fabricated, but he didn’t specify which. Authorities, meanwhile, have arrested a suspect.
A pool full of leaks
The leaks contain top-secret American military plans for operations in Ukraine alongside intelligence collected by the US about its allies, including South Korea, Israel, Egypt, and Canada. They include information – and possibly fabrications – that governments trusted Washington to protect. The South Korean data is particularly thorny; it suggests the Koreans were pressured by the US to ship artillery to Ukraine by way of a phony “end user” to circumvent the country’s export controls on selling munitions to states at war. The documents suggest South Korea eventually shipped or planned to ship the artillery.
Canada also was drawn into the controversy. According to unconfirmed reports, a pro-Russia hacktivist group called Zarya infiltrated Canada’s natural gas infrastructure, gaining the ability “to increase valve pressure, disable alarms, and initiate an emergency shutdown of an unspecified gas distribution station.” The claims may or may not be true, but experts say cyber attacks on the sector aren’t unusual and that they are a national vulnerability.
Losing the game of trust
During the Trump years, plenty of ink was spilled over whether Canada could trust the US with its intelligence. Later, there was concern that Canada was too slow to ban China’s Huawei from its telecom infrastructure, which it did in 2022. A year earlier, Canada was excluded from a “Three Eyes” defense partnership between the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS),raising concern about Canada’s national security and defense commitments at home and abroad. More recently, a series of leaks over alleged election interference in Canada by the Chinese raised alarms about the security of the country’s intelligence apparatus.
With the latest US leaks, the shoe seems to be on the other foot. But Canada isn’t saying that – at least not publicly.
The Canadian Public Safety Ministry said what you’d expect: “We do not comment, whether to confirm or deny, on allegedly leaked intelligence.”
But what else was Canada going to say? Jessica Davis, president of Insight Threat Intelligence and the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies, says this leak won’t undermine trust in the US intelligence infrastructure any more than leaks of the past. More to the point, Canada and its allies need the US and will continue to do so. “The rest of the Five Eyes doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver here. We just have to take what the Americans are doing. The Five Eyes are really just consuming a lot of what the Americans give us. We’re very much the junior partners in the relationship.”
Canada is an unlikely US spy target
While the other countries named in the documents, particularly Egypt and South Korea, are irritated with the US spying on their movements, Davis says Canada may not be as perturbed. “It’s not clear that the Americans are actively spying on us,” she says, noting that “the target wasn’t Canada; it was the Russian side of it. So, it’s a different story than some of the other countries, where they are pretty clearly the target of intelligence collection.”
Nonetheless, the fact that US-ally states are being spied on is no surprise. “They have to say something about it, but they also all know that’s the case. Realistically, the US spies on the vast majority of its allies, and we all know this to be true.”
Time to call in some spy-hunter Mounties?
Canada says that it will allow the US to investigate the leaks and is, at least for now, sitting back and allowing the process to unfold. But Davis says there may be more happening behind the scenes. “Canada will probably be following up with the United States to make sure either we have the full picture or they’re sharing anything else they may have access to that could help us prepare our defenses.” But it probably won’t get much spicier than that. Ultimately, she says, “nobody wants to escalate this.”
Embarrassment aside, the Five Eyes alliance will live to spy another day. But continued leaks could ultimately erode trust among alliance members, especially as domestic and international scandals accumulate and take their toll. Whatever is being said publicly about the leaks is just the tip of the iceberg, and America’s allies are now on high alert for what could be lying below the surface.Australia’s tricky China problem
"China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy." This was the message recently conveyed by a Chinese government official on the intensifying row with its Asia-Pacific neighbor, Australia.
China-Australia relations, steadily deteriorating in recent months over a range of political disputes, reached a new low this week when Beijing posted a doctored image on Twitter of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child's throat. Beijing's decision to post the fake image at a hypersensitive time for Australia's military establishment was a deliberate political provocation: beat Canberra while it's down.
Indeed, ongoing bilateral frictions are particularly worrisome for Australia, whose export-reliant economy depends on trade with China more than any country in the world. China buys $120 billion of Australia's annual exports (30 percent), and the relationship accounts for around 1 in 13 Australian jobs.
What's the dispute actually about? Well, just ask China. Last month, the Chinese government publicly released a 14-point list that outlines its grievances with the Australian government. It included gripes as varied as Australia's decision to ban Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G network, "spreading disinformation imported from the US around China's efforts of containing COVID-19," as well as general "antagonistic" reporting on China by the Australian press.
Beijing was particularly peeved by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's call earlier this year for a global investigation into China's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and it hit back with a series of tariffs on Australian goods like wine, beef, barley, and coal that threaten about $20 billion worth of Australian exports.
A particular spat with universal resonance. The bilateral dispute that's increasingly keeping Australian economists and government officials up at night is being closely watched by governments around the world — including in Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand — whose economies are heavily reliant on China, yet like Australia, also pursue a values-based foreign policy.
And there is definitely reason to be cautious. China has increasingly used its growing economic clout as a weapon, punishing states that criticize its bellicose behavior or human-rights violations.
In 2010, for example, after the Norwegian-based Nobel Peace Prize committee honored Liu Xiaobo — a Chinese writer, dissident, and critic of the Chinese Communist Party — China, the world's largest consumer of seafood, blocked salmon imports from Norway, costing the Nordic country hundreds of millions in lost revenue. (Upon lifting the blockade several years later, China said Norway had "deeply reflected upon the reasons bilateral mutual trust was harmed.")
While the Australian government has not backed down in criticizing China on a range of political issues, including Beijing's meddling in Australia's internal government affairs, its spying activities, and its crackdown in Hong Kong, other countries may be less inclined to push Beijing's buttons in ways that could send their own economies spiraling.
Cost-benefit analysis. In recent years, as the Trump administration has prioritized an anti-China geopolitical agenda, US allies like Australia have been forced into an even trickier position as they try to keep economic lines open with Beijing while maintaining security ties with Washington.
China has been particularly perturbed by actions taken by the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing pact made up of the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain. After the group criticized China's recent targeting of Hong Kong's pro-democracy lawmakers, a Chinese spokesperson warned that China might "gouge and blind" the Five Eyes nations in retaliation. The Morrison government has said that it wants to "reset" the Australia-China relationship but that Beijing won't return its calls.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. A debate is currently raging in Australia about the need to diversify trade partners so as to protect the country from economic blackmail from China that could deepen Australia's pandemic-induced recession. "There's a basic rule in finance: don't put all your eggs in one basket," one Australian academic recently said. But others argue that it's too late and China is too big.