--- title: "Could Canada Become Europe's Arsenal? The Case for a New Trans-Atlantic Defense Pact" description: "The NATO alliance is facing a moment of truth—not because it is on the brink of disaster, but because it is on the precipice of change. Across Europe, governments are working to wake the sleeping giant within their own borders, building up their militaries and bringing dormant defense industries back online as fast as they can manage. At the same time, the United States is rapidly rethinking its role in the alliance, introducing uncertainty, flirting with NATO's traditional adversaries, and forcing European members to step up. Washington might describe that pressure as tough love. Many European leaders, privately, would call it blatant coercion.\n\nOn the current trajectory, Europe is on track to become strong again. But getting there takes time, and time is the one resource the continent does not have. A month from now, Europe might still enjoy Washington's support. A decade from now, it might be a genuine military superpower in its own right. The problem lies in the gap between those two points—the long, exposed stretch during which Europe is dangerously vulnerable, and during which it cannot simply manufacture its way to safety.\n\nBut the old continent has an ace up its sleeve: a single, critical partner that could quite literally rescue it in its hour of need. That partner is Canada. It is far from a military powerhouse, and not even a real player on the geo-strategic stage. Yet Canada possesses the one thing Europe desperately lacks. Canada can build. With the right investments, the right vision, and the right trans-Atlantic partnership, Ottawa could build Europe an arsenal that even Vladimir Putin would not dare to challenge.\n\nPlay their cards right, and Canada and the NATO nations of Europe could grow far stronger together—without the reliance on Washington that so many European leaders have come to regret. It is a risky proposition, and one that would demand a total rethink of trans-Atlantic security. But for Europe and for Canada alike, the rewards could be extraordinary.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Europe has committed to a defense-spending surge—every European NATO nation but Spain has pledged to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035—but its factories cannot produce hardware anywhere near the rate its budgets demand.\n- Canada has vast idle industrial capacity, a workforce hungry for orders, and a stated ambition to more than double its domestic defense sector, making it uniquely positioned to build European designs at scale.\n- The smartest division of labor would have European firms supply the designs, production lines, and training, while Canada manufactures copies at higher rates—focusing on Gripen fighters, the Brazilian C-390 transport, 155mm shells, components, interceptors, and drones.\n- In December 2025, Canada became the first non-European country to join the European Union's 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense fund, building on a June 2025 Security and Defense Partnership.\n- The obstacles are real: global supply chains still route through American components, the investment required runs into the tens or hundreds of billions, political leadership could change, and Washington is unlikely to watch quietly.\n\n## Europe's Strange Addiction\n\nThe twenty-ninth of December, 1940, was among the darkest days of World War II in the European theater. France had fallen, Britain was under indefinite siege, the Axis was growing, and that very night German bombs ignited the Second Great Fire of London. As London burned, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed his own nation—a country not yet at war, but beginning to grasp that it soon could be. In that address, Roosevelt described the United States in a way its citizens had never heard before. America, he said, was the \"Arsenal of Democracy.\" It had the know-how, the industrial might, and the sheer willpower to build weapons at a scale few other nations could dream of. And when America built weapons and shipped them to allies abroad, those weapons were not merely instruments of war. They were instruments of freedom.\n\nNearly a century later, the Arsenal of Democracy still stands. America remains the world's premier military superpower, fielding weapons systems and fighting machines without equal. Its closest allies in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East enjoy deep military and diplomatic relationships, backed by military-industrial support to match. American missile systems, American armored vehicles, and highly advanced American aircraft form the cornerstone of militaries from Britain to South Korea, from Australia to Israel, and from Japan to Germany.\n\nOn its face, that arrangement is a risky one. America designs the equipment, America handles production, and America runs the supply chains—meaning that, in theory, America could take all of it away. Yet allied nations accepted the bargain, because Washington had proven, again and again, that it was a strategic partner that prized stability and consistency above all else. American commitments did not change simply because new presidents from opposing parties cycled through the Oval Office. The United States got to lead the Western world on foreign policy, and it paid for that privilege with the guarantee that its allies would always be included in what came next.\n\nToday, that is no longer the case. NATO's Article 5, and the guarantee of an American defense of Taiwan, are no longer treated as geopolitical absolutes under the current leadership. Today's Washington pulls funding from Ukraine after years of backing the beleaguered nation, then turns to its NATO allies and threatens to invade Greenland or annex Canada. Where Washington once spurned openly autocratic governments, it now cuts mineral-rights deals and accepts lavish gifts for the commander-in-chief. Where it might once have worked with European allies to craft a shared plan for higher defense spending, it now threatens to ignore even its basic obligation to defend NATO members unless they spend exactly as Washington demands.\n\nA casual observer might chalk all of this up to the man in the White House. But allied leaders have come to a harder realization: Donald Trump is both a man and a movement. The man will not lead the United States forever. The movement—or another like it—could upset the balance with America's allies all over again.\n\nFor that reason, American allies around the globe, and especially in Europe, have begun to regard their own military arsenals with a sense of impending doom. After decades of mutual reliance, the United States and Europe hold all sorts of economic and diplomatic leverage over one another. But when it comes to military industry, the relationship is essentially a one-way street. Many of Europe's richest and most powerful nations depend on American hardware, and most rely on a US-led NATO command structure to engage militarily with the wider world. What was once the ultimate convenience—freeing European budgets and factories to focus on peacetime economies—has curdled into the ultimate liability. And the problem is worse than it sounds.\n\nEuropean militaries are in a growth phase right now, even if the continent is more than a little resentful about why. The European nations of NATO, other than Spain, have committed to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035, and European capitals are already spending more than 50 percent more on defense each year than they did in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European leaders would prefer to spend that money on European-made hardware—and, in fairness, Europe has plenty of excellent equipment to choose from. In the air, its fourth-generation fighters are among the best in the world, whether the Eurofighter, the Rafale, or the Gripen. At sea, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, and others can produce top-flight ships. On land, the German Leopard tank series and the French CAESAR howitzer are known to excel. In research and development, European firms rank among the very best, with not one but two sixth-generation fighter programs underway, alongside advanced air defenses and promising work in drone warfare.\n\nBut none of that technology matters if Europe cannot build it fast enough. The continent is slated to spend hundreds of billions of euros each year, every year, for the foreseeable future on weapons—yet its defense industry is nowhere near able to accept contracts and fill orders on that scale. By the end of 2026, France will be pushing out roughly twelve CAESAR howitzers and maybe three Rafale fighters per month. Germany can build or upgrade around ten Leopard tanks per month. Each of Europe's shipbuilding nations can manage only a small handful of warships or submarines per year. To spend at the rate it intends, Europe would need to build many new factories and production lines, recruit and train entire workforces, and reshape regional economies in several countries at once. It does not have that kind of time.\n\nMeanwhile, America watches and waits across the Atlantic, happy to take the orders Europe once gladly placed—except now Europe is acutely aware of the strings attached. Sign on the dotted line with Washington today, and Europe accepts continued American leverage over its militaries for decades. Consider the F-35: the jet is expected to remain in European service through at least the 2050s, serving as the backbone for several major air forces. That means continual American deliveries of spare parts, software upgrades, and maintenance support will be vital to keep those planes flying. Some European nations are already shifting away from the F-35 for exactly that reason, but the problem is bigger than any single machine. Place any order with the United States for the critical hardware Europe needs, and European nations tie themselves to an increasingly unpredictable Washington. Look at how completely the relationship has changed since January 2025, then imagine how it might change across several more decades in a worst-case scenario. Europe has the technology to fix most of its capability gaps on its own. In the end, technology means nothing without the capacity to build. In short, Europe needs a hero—and that is where Canada comes in.\n\n## Elbows Up: Canada's Third Way\n\nStrip Europe's military-industrial problem down to its core and it converges on a single question. What matters more: that Europe develops a robust, indigenous defense-industrial base to produce and maintain its own hardware, or that Europe re-arms now, by any means necessary, to keep America relatively close and deter the Russian threat on its eastern flank? For now, European leaders appear to have made their choice. They will build their own defense industries when the chance arises, but rearmament cannot wait. If the continent cannot have both, it is better to ensure there is still a free and united Europe in a decade or two—one with the luxury of worrying about American arms dependence.\n\nCanada may be the only nation on Earth able to offer Europe a third way out. Alongside the United States, Canada is the second North American member of NATO, and between the alliance, the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, and a range of economic and strategic ties, its relationship with Europe has long been a cozy one. Those ties have grown so close that, as of early 2026, a full 48 percent of Canadians voiced support for joining the European Union—a four-point jump from the prior year. Brussels has gently pointed out that, technically, Canadian accession to the EU is not possible. But the broader signal is unmistakable: Canada and Europe want to be partners, especially as all sides feel spurned by Washington's conduct over the past year.\n\nAnd if Canada can offer its European allies one thing, it is the sheer industrial capacity of its economy. Canada is far from a real military player on the global stage, and while it has respectable defense research and development, most of that is tied into international partnerships. Its civilian manufacturing, however, is another story. Unlike most wealthy Western nations, Canadian industry remains very much alive. The country is home to massive automobile and auto-parts factories; it builds complex machinery, ships, and commercial aircraft. It runs major steel mills handling over ten million tons a year, ranks among the world's larger oil and gas exporters, and is well acclimated to high-tech industry, including electric vehicles, robotics, and AI-integrated manufacturing.\n\nBetter still, Canada genuinely wants to produce more than it currently does. The country is working overtime to build up domestic manufacturing and invest in secure, geopolitically stable supply chains. It sees a return to heavy industry as a way to revitalize large parts of the country, and it views the defense sector specifically as the ideal vehicle. In 2025, the Canadian government expressed its desire to more than double its domestic defense sector, where roughly six hundred firms already operate. That doubling is mostly intended to serve Canada's own armed forces—but the country has the capacity to do far more. Right now, Canadian production capacity simply outstrips the orders coming in, whether from its own military, the domestic or global civilian market, or anywhere else.\n\nCrucially, the fact that Canada does not produce much military technology today does not mean it cannot make the switch. Canadian defense firms are already active across the sector in ways that suggest Ottawa could pivot to high-volume, high-tech weapons production fairly quickly. Its maritime industry is well accustomed to naval shipbuilding and design. It has delivered many thousands of its LAV III armored vehicles, most prominently to the US Army, where a modified derivative is known as the Stryker. Canada produces rifles, ammunition, artillery shells, and consumer-grade drones, and it can build highly specialized aircraft parts, surveillance equipment, sensor technology, and communications gear—the kinds of hardware that would be far harder to start producing from the bottom up. Ottawa works regularly with major American and European defense companies, and in December 2025 it became the first non-European country to join a major EU defense fund called SAFE.\n\nBy now the core of the argument should be clear. Europe needs production lines it has no time to build, and hardware it has no time to produce. Canada has immense industrial capacity, wants to grow its defense-industrial sector, and is already in talks to cooperate with Europe on a more limited basis. Ottawa understands the scale of military-industrial spending coming in Europe—roughly 1.25 trillion euros over the next five years alone. Yet for now, Canada seems mostly focused on collaboration within the bounds of today's industry, with existing companies and partnerships primed to scale up and deepen ties with European governments. Why stop there, when Canada could become Europe's arsenal?\n\nThis is not to suggest Canada could snap its fingers and start producing what Europe needs. That transition would take serious time and serious investment, and both of those challenges deserve a full reckoning. But Canada can build the defense industry Europe needs far faster than Europe can build it itself. Unlike Europe, Canada has production capacity to spare today. It already has much of the physical infrastructure in place. It has a workforce broadly more willing to take part in a rapid defense expansion than most of Europe's, and it has the raw materials and processing capabilities to sustain that industry—for the right price. To their credit, European leaders are talking a better game on defense than they have in generations. But as the continent's defense corporations keep pointing out, those same leaders seem less interested in the hard work of building, or even of getting their countries ready to build at scale. Canada, by contrast, was born ready. If Europe wants Canada to build European hardware, all it has to do is cut a very large check and give the green light.\n\n## Fantastic Beasts and How to Build Them\n\nThe proposition laid out so far is admittedly abstract. Simply observing that Canada can build more hardware than Europe, at a moment when Canada wants to build and Europe wants to acquire, is not yet a defense-industrial plan. So it is worth getting into the details. What would Canada need to build, how could its industry be put to best use, and what would Europe actually be willing to buy?\n\nIn broad strokes, Canada's strengths would be wasted if Ottawa simply tried to design and build its own kit from scratch. Both sides would be served far better by partnership: European firms supply the designs, help stand up the production lines, and help train the workforce, so that Canada can produce copies of those designs at higher rates than Europe could match on its own. Nor does Canada need to chase the highest-tech equipment or take full responsibility for any system Europe is already manufacturing. Shutting down European production lines would be a poor decision for the continent right now, and Canada's ability to build quickly evaporates if its labor force must spend months or years adapting to unfamiliar work. Instead, Canada can make the greatest impact by pursuing three tasks at once. First, it can open new production lines for important European designs that are not being built fast enough. Second, it can focus on the designs that take less time to produce at scale—either because they overlap with what Canada already makes, or because they are less complex. Third, it can lean heavily into mass-produced components, spare parts, and munitions, where Canadian industry is more flexible and European governments have already proven too slow.\n\n### Naval: Drones, Not Destroyers\n\nStart on the high seas, where shipbuilding is as much of a challenge for European nations as for any country not named China, South Korea, or Japan. Canada does have somewhat greater capacity to build naval vessels than most of Europe's wealthier seafaring nations, but that does not make it great at building ships, nor does it make the logistics easy. Canada's main shipyard for combat vessels, in Halifax, will be occupied for the next couple of decades building fifteen River-class destroyers for the Canadian Navy. In the long term, Canada could expand its naval shipbuilding and take on the large surface warships Europe will struggle to construct. But Europe's timeline does not allow for it: Europe can build new shipyards from the ground up, just as Canada could, yet neither can do so quickly.\n\nInstead, Canada can put its capacity to better naval use by filling the need for maritime drone technology. Europe is already moving here—a partnership between Poland, Norway, and Ukraine will soon manufacture Ukrainian sea drones, and Huntington Ingalls Industries in the United Kingdom is set to double its facility in Portchester to build unmanned underwater vehicles. But a massive gap remains between what Europe will need and what it plans to build. Drone-warfare experts worldwide warn that sea drones, on the surface and deep below it, will be especially important in the coming decades—not only as kamikaze attack vectors, but for logistical transport, supply-chain sustainment, and undersea reconnaissance.\n\nThere is an opening here for Canada to get in early on naval drone warfare, and not just to help itself and Europe, but to compete with the United States. American companies like Saronic, Saildrone, and Anduril are racing to break into the naval-warfare space, raising the prospect that this becomes another domain where the US corners the Western defense market. Canadian private industry, though, is uniquely well placed to catch up. Canada has no firms focused solely on naval drones, but its civilian ocean and undersea drone industry is thriving, with many companies already designing and mass-producing aquatic drones at scale. And to the extent Canada can build larger ships, it has the potential to build icebreakers for Europe in substantial numbers—filling a gap that few nations beyond the Scandinavian ones are ready to address alone.\n\n### Air: Building European Jets Faster\n\nIn the air, Canada has a considerably greater ability to build copies of existing European hardware, especially fighters. The three main combat jets Europe currently manufactures—the Eurofighter, the Rafale, and the Gripen—are none of them produced with any real speed. France can turn out three Rafales a month at best; the Eurofighter lines are lucky to hit two; Sweden, with new partners in Brazil, will soon reach a steady three Gripens a month. None of those rates come close to what Europe would need to offset losses in a future major conflict.\n\nThe Eurofighter is probably best left a European project. Its supply and production process is already messy, and Germany—one of the program's most critical members—is also the European nation with the greatest capacity by far to expand its military-industrial base. The Gripen is a different story. Sweden has already shown it will allow Gripens to be built abroad, specifically in Brazil, and Canada happens to be weighing the Gripen for its own fleet right now, as an alternative or complement to American F-35s. Ukraine is expected to need up to 150 of the jets as quickly as possible to deter Russia. That gives Sweden's Saab corporation every reason to partner with Canada, open new lines, and let Canada keep many of the early jets it builds. Saab has already floated the idea, suggesting it could create nearly thirteen thousand new Canadian jobs.\n\nThe Rafale, made by France's Dassault, is also going international. India will soon open its own production lines, and Rafale output is straining under a serious backlog as the jet grows more popular worldwide. In each case, Canada is the ideal candidate for partially offshored production—not only because it would speed construction and delivery, but because it would free up space in Europe for the pivot to next-generation fighters. Both Dassault and Saab are designing next-gen aircraft they may choose to build entirely in-house, and clearing their existing order books sooner would make that transition far easier.\n\nCanada also holds key advantages in non-combat aircraft. The Bombardier corporation produces several ultra-long-range business jets, including a line already incorporated into Sweden's GlobalEye, an airborne early-warning and control aircraft in high demand among air forces worldwide—and another platform Sweden has proposed building in Canada directly. Canada produces aerial surveillance equipment, hosts a national subsidiary of the engine maker Pratt & Whitney, and has production lines for several aircraft types. While it does not currently build designs easily upgraded into the air-to-air refueling tankers or strategic airlifters Europe desperately needs, Canada could open lines for yet another foreign design—this time from Brazil. That would be the C-390, a twin-engine, jet-powered transport that sits between a tactical and a strategic airlifter. It is highly capable, convertible into a refueler, and immensely popular—but Brazil cannot build it nearly as fast as orders arrive. Embraer hopes to reach twelve or more per year by 2030, and like Saab and Dassault, it could benefit greatly from new lines opened elsewhere. Embraer is considering building the C-390 in Portugal, but a Canada interested in producing foreign aircraft could be a far better fit, in both capacity and existing aerospace know-how.\n\n### Ground: Shells, Components, and Interceptors\n\nGround warfare may be where Canada could make the greatest impact of all. Europe has no shortage of high-quality designs—tanks like Germany's Leopard series, mobile artillery like the French CAESAR or the German PzH-2000. Germany is on track to produce 110 PzH-2000s and up to sixty new Leopards a year, with France hitting similar numbers. But the devil is in the details. NATO desperately needs to produce artillery shells at a far higher rate than it currently can. While the US is increasing its own shell output, ammunition is precisely the thing Europe does not want to count on Washington for if there is any doubt about America's commitment. The shell in highest demand is the 155mm NATO standard, and while Canada currently produces only a few thousand rounds per month, it could scale to much higher volumes with relatively little lead time. The real question is investment: Canada already has the technology and expertise to fix Europe's shell shortage, and a large enough check would get the job done.\n\nThe same logic applies to component parts, a vulnerability laid bare by the war between Russia and Ukraine. In high-volume attritional warfare, equipment wears out fast. Artillery barrels must be replaced every few thousand rounds, recoil mechanisms cannot last forever, and firing pins and drive tracks suffer intense wear. Countries that cannot keep up with the constant need for replacements watch their artillery take itself out of the fight. For nations like France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, where lines already exist for tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, and armored vehicles, it is easier to expand existing production than to start from scratch in Canada. But Canada can ease that burden by producing an excess of specific components. It is far simpler to learn to build a tank's cannon barrel than the whole tank, and here Canada could stand up early production lines fairly easily, then scale rapidly. A couple of Canadian companies are already preparing for exactly this work, getting ready to reintroduce large-caliber artillery-barrel production to Canadian soil and opening new shell lines with the investment already available.\n\nWhat Canada could do for artillery and armor, it could do for other land equipment that must be replenished quickly and constantly. Air-defense systems stand out. The SAMP/T and IRIS-T systems are already in production across Europe, and the continent is pursuing its Sky Shield initiative and other airspace-defense efforts—but interceptors are another matter entirely. The SAMP/T faces chronic, critical interceptor shortages, and the IRIS-T picture is little better. Again, it is far easier to open third-country lines for interceptors than to build the whole system. Canada could also handle mass production of unmanned aerial drones, which Ukraine has shown to be among the most important technology in modern land warfare. To grasp how critical drones have become, Western military sources estimate that a full 87 percent of combat casualties in Ukraine today are directly attributable to uncrewed systems. Europe is only beginning to build drone capacity, and it has little ability to support the startup-driven, highly adaptive drone industry Ukraine has created. Canada is uniquely equipped to build relatively basic, highly functional drones at scale, and because it is one nation rather than dozens, it is far better placed to tear down the red tape that has held that kind of production back.\n\n### Partnering With Kyiv\n\nCanada could also partner directly with Ukraine in the near future, adapting Ukrainian weapons designs and learning to produce them at scale. Ukraine has recently begun opening itself to export deals for the first time since the war began, and for now those deals center on European industry. There is good reason for that: Kyiv wants deep connections with European nations and their military-industrial complexes, both to get Europe into fighting shape so Ukraine does not face future conflicts alone, and to make itself indispensable to its European partners. But where partnering with Europe serves Ukraine geopolitically, Canada is the partner that could match Ukraine's needs in terms of raw output. It is good for Ukraine, Canada, and potential European customers alike to let demand guide the process—for European nations to determine which parts of Ukraine's arsenal are most important to adapt, and how quickly. Once those decisions are made, and Europe must weigh building Ukrainian kit as fast as possible against learning to do it in-house, Canada is the best outside partner to boost the speed of production while minimizing lost ground on defense-industrial sovereignty.\n\nAcross all these domains, Canada has already shown its willingness to deepen collaboration, and Europe has shown its enthusiasm for welcoming Canada in. In December 2025, the EU agreed to let Canada join the 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe program, making Canada the first non-European nation ever to take part. Under that arrangement, Canada will be able to jointly finance defense initiatives and bid on procurement deals to supply EU countries. A few months earlier, in June 2025, Canada and the EU agreed to the Security and Defense Partnership, a broader initiative pulling Canada into wide-ranging defense-industrial cooperation. Both sides are clearly interested in being closer friends, and both are focused on trimming the United States out of their defense-industrial supply base wherever possible. Ottawa and Brussels have spent their time eyeing each other across the bar; they have already risen from their seats to talk. Now there is nothing left to do but agree to dance.\n\n## Good for the Goose: Why Both Sides Win\n\nJust because something can happen does not mean it should, and that holds here as anywhere. The fact that Canada can step into the gap for Europe does not guarantee it is the most favorable option for both sides. So it is worth asking why this could be such a win-win.\n\nBegin with Canada, whose economy faces a problem already noted: the country can manufacture at truly massive scale, whether for defense or anything else, but it can build far more than it is being asked to produce. The Canadian industrial capacity that already exists is partly going to waste. An entire portion of the economy with clear potential to thrive and expand is instead withering. As of early 2025, Canada's actual manufacturing sector had shrunk smaller than Ireland's—not for any lack of capability, but because of red tape and diminishing demand. It is the same problem the European defense industry has spent years trying to explain to Europe's leaders: either governments pony up and place real orders for new hardware, or they should stop berating private industry about the need to produce.\n\nFor Canada, Europe's defense-spending boom could be the shot in the arm its manufacturing sector needs. National unemployment sits well above 6 percent, manufacturing has been hit especially hard, and there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of workers with the skills and the will to get active—if only demand existed to reopen factories or build new lines. Enter Europe, and its defense industry in particular: with substantial foreign investment and a bit of startup time, Canada could solve that problem outright.\n\nOnce the ball gets rolling, Canada would benefit in many ways from becoming Europe's big new defense partner. When industry does well, it tends to keep doing well: successful investment draws new investment, job creation fosters more job creation, and local economies surge back to life. A defense boom would also let Canadian industry advance its expertise across many areas at once, combining lessons learned from building foreign kit with fresh economic stimulus and a glut of newly trained personnel to seed new companies and projects. On the international stage, Canada would get to distinguish itself from the United States as a military-industrial competitor, unwinding a defense industry that has followed America's lead as a docile partner for generations. The path would also make Canada quite a bit of money, and it would likely give Canada early pick from the production lines on its own soil as it pursues its own rearmament. Finally, in a world where the US really does renege on its most important security ties, Canada would gain a new source of geopolitical backup. If Canada came under threat, a revitalized and mighty Europe would risk losing its most important partner—so protecting Canada, even from America, would become paramount.\n\nOn the other end, Europe would reap rewards of its own from a comprehensive arrangement. The glaring European problem it would fix has already been named: reliance on American military industry. It is hard to overstate how problematic that dependence is, even as Europe publicly makes nice with Washington when it can. Europe still has a long way to go on rearmament, but it has been a long time since the continent moved this fast, with this much money, on anything. Like anyone in global affairs, European leaders reveal their fears through their actions—and their actions suggest they see continued dependence on Washington as an existential threat that will outlast Donald Trump's exit from politics. Switching to a reliance on Canada, to fill the gaps while European industry lurches into motion, is far from ideal. But it may be the best option Europe has to make the most of the time available and avoid unnecessary risk.\n\nThe arrangement is also better for the European arms industry itself. Some defense leaders might turn up their noses at letting Canada build their prized hardware, but they would be missing the bigger picture. Yes, Canada would gain access to European designs—but Europe would gain the ability to rebuild the militaries of the continent using hardware entirely under its own control. Some American technologies have no European equal, the F-35 chief among them, but in most areas Europe can match America on quality, just not quantity. There is no fixing that without a drastic expansion in the capacity to build European designs, and Canada offers the quickest, most efficient path. Canada would also introduce flexibility into an arms industry that risks being overstressed and working on tight margins even after dramatic expansion. Europe could lean on Canada for high-volume but relatively straightforward component manufacturing that would otherwise consume badly needed factory space, and offshore the production of earlier-generation systems, while Europe concentrates on the cutting-edge research and development it does best.\n\nGeopolitically, it does not go far enough to call Canada a better partner than America right now. Canada is among the best partners any country or bloc could ask for. Set aside the clichés about Canadian politeness: Canada simply lacks the geo-strategic incentives to weaponize its arms relationships the way the US can. It is not a global superpower, nor even a major power on the next tier down. It has its own ambitions, but those rarely involve strong-arming Europe over anything more serious than the workings of global hockey. There is simply no world in which Canada, anytime soon, launches some foreign military expedition and threatens to withhold weapons from France or Britain unless they endorse it.\n\nPractically, Canada may be even better suited than the United States to the role of defense exporter, especially as melting Arctic ice opens new sea lanes between Europe and North America. Canada can get hardware to Europe quickly, safely, and even in harsh conditions, just as the United States could—so Europe has little reason to expect a jump in logistical complications by switching suppliers. And just as the arrangement helps Canada secure European protection, the effect runs both ways, particularly in Arctic affairs. Europe has not fully grown into its role as a major player above the Arctic Circle, but Canada is well on its way. Anything Europe can do to keep Canada on-side helps it get ahead of its Arctic security troubles before they arrive.\n\n## Lingering Obstacles\n\nNo deal is ever perfect, and no geopolitical arrangement comes without downsides. So, having made the case for Canada as Europe's military-industrial savior, there is one task left: to troubleshoot the proposition hard and look for ways around the problems it raises.\n\nOf all the obstacles, one stands above the rest. As much as Europe or Canada want to believe they can become independent of the US defense industry, the process is far more complicated than simply refusing to buy American machines. Any fighting machine—ship, tank, fighter, or anything else—is ultimately an assembly of thousands upon thousands of parts, and not all of those parts come from the country that controls the finished product. Take the F-35: it is an American jet, but it is built through a genuinely global supply chain, with more than a dozen countries contributing components through thousands of supplier companies. The same holds for most European hardware. The Saab Gripen relies on an American engine from General Electric and life-support systems from Honeywell. The Eurofighter integrates similar life support, American satellite-navigation systems, and assorted combat avionics. France's Rafale is the least US-dependent of the three, but it still depends on American firms for electronic components and sensors.\n\nThat does technically mean these designs remain vulnerable to Washington no matter who builds the final product. But a Europe-Canada partnership makes the problem much better. It is a globalized world, and avoiding all reliance on the US may be impossible. The shared goal is to shrink that proportion as far as possible, even if it cannot reach zero. Abstinence is not realistic, but supply-chain cleanliness can always improve. Zoom out, and a partnership of the kind described makes a wide range of European hardware viable when it otherwise would not be—not because the products were bad, but because they could not be built in great enough numbers, fast enough, to meet urgent needs. By helping Europe build its own hardware more often, Canada makes that hardware directly competitive with America's, so Europe can seriously consider stocking its arsenals with its own weapons. And by broadening the range of components both can produce over time, it becomes far easier to prioritize reduced US reliance when the time comes to design new systems. Build a strong, well-rounded defense industry today, bridging Europe and Canada, and the tanks and jets of tomorrow can depend on Washington less than any of their predecessors.\n\nThe next problem is the sheer magnitude of investment required. Canada's manufacturing sector is currently worth the equivalent of about 930 billion US dollars, and transforming it as Europe would need might take high tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions, more. Canada does not have that money on its own, which means it cannot quickly build these capabilities and then offer them to Europe. Europe, by contrast, does have the money, if its leaders can wrap their heads around so radical a proposal. Europe is slated to spend around 1.25 trillion euros on rearmament within the next half-decade, and depending on where its priorities lie, investment in Canada on this scale is possible. The real catch is that Europe would essentially be working with Canada on faith—trusting that once all the money is committed and the merger of Canadian and European defense is complete, Europe will be rewarded with success. Re-tooling a nation's manufacturing base to create a military-industrial complex from the ground up is extraordinarily complicated, especially when that nation is attempting things it has never done before, across an entire economic sector. It might be a winning bet. But it is hard to make even a winning bet when you are wagering your home and your life's savings without a guarantee.\n\nThere are political challenges, too. European and Canadian leaders may be working on borrowed time. The current crop of non-US NATO leadership—Mark Carney in Canada, Emmanuel Macron in France, Friedrich Merz in Germany, Donald Tusk in Poland, and others—is broadly aligned in wanting to strengthen European defense. But while each seems to have won a temporary reprieve from rising right-wing challengers, partly thanks to Donald Trump's effect on global right-wing politics, those challengers have been delayed, not vanquished. Political change in Canada or in any major European nation could sink an initiative like this once it has begun, unless it has proven its value to the electorate, enshrined itself in laws and policies that cannot easily be undone, or, ideally, both. Even if Europe and Canada could agree to a full partnership, they would have to spend considerable effort insulating it from inevitable changes in leadership.\n\nAnd then there is the United States. Whatever else one might say about Donald Trump and his inner circle, you certainly could not say they are inclined to sit idly by while American industry comes under threat—and that is precisely what this would represent: an acute threat to the American military-industrial complex, which is so deeply tied to Washington today that the two might as well be one. The US government, certainly under its current leadership, would likely use every tool at its disposal to keep European arms deals from going elsewhere. Given that Trump was already willing to threaten the annexation of Canada, it is hard to know what he would not be willing to do if Canada appeared to be mounting a challenge to American defense-industrial dominance. The great irony is that, by partnering at scale with Canada, Europe would be doing exactly what Trump claims to want: breaking dependence on Washington, taking defense into its own hands, and ensuring Washington cannot be leaned on by weak and underequipped partners. But the grim reality of Washington's position is that if it demands Europe make those changes, it does not also get to decide how. In world politics, inconvenient realities tend to be discarded. By taking this step with Canada, Europe would invite a confrontation with Washington. There is something to be said for Europe finally finding its spine—but whether the risks of that showdown are worth the reward is far from certain.\n\nFinally, an alignment of this sort would mark a geo-strategic shift for the entire world, even though Canada and Europe are already aligned under NATO. A Europe that has truly found its footing on military matters, while breaking its dependence on Washington, is a global superpower; there are no two ways about it. And even though Canada would not technically be part of that superpower, it would be along for the ride. A superpowered Europe, hand in hand with Canada, would pose a massive threat to Russia, a counterbalance to China, and a potential rival to a post-Trump, neo-MAGA America—all at a time when Arctic competition is heating up and a Europe aligned with Canada would be a critical player in that part of the world. It is impossible to know how it would shift the global balance, especially since the change would take the better part of a decade at minimum, and there is no telling what else might have shifted by then. By taking these steps, Europe and Canada would commit to a bold adventure into uncharted territory, with no guarantee it works out in the end.\n\nThat is precisely why hypotheticals like these are worth playing out—not because they are necessarily going to happen, but because they could, and because understanding how such decisions could change the world helps us better understand the changes already underway. Partner with Canada, invest fully in the creation of a world-class Canadian defense industry, and Europe would have a genuine shot at realizing rearmament at a moment when that goal matters more than at any time since the Second World War. Go another way, and Canada might end up a mere footnote in Europe's story. But go all in on Canada's potential, and Europe's quiet trans-Atlantic partner could prove the key to a whole new world.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What defense-spending commitment have European NATO members made?\n\nThe European nations of NATO, with the exception of Spain, have committed to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035. European capitals are already spending more than 50 percent more on defense each year than they did in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the continent is slated to spend roughly 1.25 trillion euros on rearmament over the next five years.\n\n### Why can't Europe simply build the weapons it needs itself?\n\nEurope has excellent hardware designs but lacks the production capacity to build them at the required rate. By the end of 2026, France will be producing about twelve CAESAR howitzers and perhaps three Rafale fighters per month, Germany around ten Leopard tanks per month, and Europe's shipbuilders only a handful of warships or submarines per year. Building enough new factories, training enough workers, and reshaping regional economies would take far more time than Europe has.\n\n### Which specific weapons systems could Canada build for Europe?\n\nThe most promising candidates include the Saab Gripen fighter, which Saab has proposed building in Canada in a deal that could create nearly thirteen thousand jobs; the Brazilian C-390 transport aircraft; Sweden's GlobalEye early-warning aircraft, based on a Bombardier jet; 155mm NATO-standard artillery shells; replacement components such as cannon and artillery barrels; air-defense interceptors for the SAMP/T and IRIS-T systems; maritime drones; icebreakers; and mass-produced uncrewed aerial drones.\n\n### How have Canada and the EU already moved toward defense cooperation?\n\nIn June 2025, Canada and the EU agreed to a Security and Defense Partnership, a broad initiative for defense-industrial cooperation. In December 2025, Canada became the first non-European nation ever to join the EU's 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, allowing it to jointly finance defense initiatives and bid on procurement deals to supply EU countries.\n\n### What is the biggest obstacle to a fully independent Europe-Canada defense supply chain?\n\nThe largest obstacle is that modern weapons rely on global supply chains, and many components still come from the United States. The Gripen uses a General Electric engine and Honeywell life-support systems; the Eurofighter integrates American satellite navigation and avionics; even the relatively independent Rafale relies on American electronics and sensors. Complete independence is unrealistic, but a Europe-Canada partnership can substantially reduce that dependence over time.\n\n## Sources\n1. \n2. \n3. \n4. \n5. \n6. \n7. \n8. \n9. \n10. \n11. \n12. \n13. \n14. \n15. \n16. \n17. \n18. \n19. \n20. \n21. \n22. \n23. \n24. \n25. \n26. \n27. \n28. \n29. \n30. \n31. \n32. \n33. \n34. \n35. \n36. \n37. \n38. \n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/canada-europe-defense-industrial-partnership-nato-arsenal.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/canada-europe-defense-industrial-partnership-nato-arsenal datePublished: 2026-06-02 dateModified: 2026-06-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/vsXWle-HmsU/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 75fc22b932a5c56f4c3cfb6517625edc56fa19c0ce4b9c3033ec6f760fee1dd7 tokens: 12576 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/canada-europe-defense-industrial-partnership-nato-arsenal.md.summary.md --- The NATO alliance is facing a moment of truth—not because it is on the brink of disaster, but because it is on the precipice of change. Across Europe, governments are working to wake the sleeping giant within their own borders, building up their militaries and bringing dormant defense industries back online as fast as they can manage. At the same time, the United States is rapidly rethinking its role in the alliance, introducing uncertainty, flirting with NATO's traditional adversaries, and forcing European members to step up. Washington might describe that pressure as tough love. Many European leaders, privately, would call it blatant coercion. On the current trajectory, Europe is on track to become strong again. But getting there takes time, and time is the one resource the continent does not have. A month from now, Europe might still enjoy Washington's support. A decade from now, it might be a genuine military superpower in its own right. The problem lies in the gap between those two points—the long, exposed stretch during which Europe is dangerously vulnerable, and during which it cannot simply manufacture its way to safety. But the old continent has an ace up its sleeve: a single, critical partner that could quite literally rescue it in its hour of need. That partner is Canada. It is far from a military powerhouse, and not even a real player on the geo-strategic stage. Yet Canada possesses the one thing Europe desperately lacks. Canada can build. With the right investments, the right vision, and the right trans-Atlantic partnership, Ottawa could build Europe an arsenal that even Vladimir Putin would not dare to challenge. Play their cards right, and Canada and the NATO nations of Europe could grow far stronger together—without the reliance on Washington that so many European leaders have come to regret. It is a risky proposition, and one that would demand a total rethink of trans-Atlantic security. But for Europe and for Canada alike, the rewards could be extraordinary. ## Key Takeaways - Europe has committed to a defense-spending surge—every European NATO nation but Spain has pledged to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035—but its factories cannot produce hardware anywhere near the rate its budgets demand. - Canada has vast idle industrial capacity, a workforce hungry for orders, and a stated ambition to more than double its domestic defense sector, making it uniquely positioned to build European designs at scale. - The smartest division of labor would have European firms supply the designs, production lines, and training, while Canada manufactures copies at higher rates—focusing on Gripen fighters, the Brazilian C-390 transport, 155mm shells, components, interceptors, and drones. - In December 2025, Canada became the first non-European country to join the European Union's 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense fund, building on a June 2025 Security and Defense Partnership. - The obstacles are real: global supply chains still route through American components, the investment required runs into the tens or hundreds of billions, political leadership could change, and Washington is unlikely to watch quietly. ## Europe's Strange Addiction The twenty-ninth of December, 1940, was among the darkest days of World War II in the European theater. France had fallen, Britain was under indefinite siege, the Axis was growing, and that very night German bombs ignited the Second Great Fire of London. As London burned, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed his own nation—a country not yet at war, but beginning to grasp that it soon could be. In that address, Roosevelt described the United States in a way its citizens had never heard before. America, he said, was the "Arsenal of Democracy." It had the know-how, the industrial might, and the sheer willpower to build weapons at a scale few other nations could dream of. And when America built weapons and shipped them to allies abroad, those weapons were not merely instruments of war. They were instruments of freedom. Nearly a century later, the Arsenal of Democracy still stands. America remains the world's premier military superpower, fielding weapons systems and fighting machines without equal. Its closest allies in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East enjoy deep military and diplomatic relationships, backed by military-industrial support to match. American missile systems, American armored vehicles, and highly advanced American aircraft form the cornerstone of militaries from Britain to South Korea, from Australia to Israel, and from Japan to Germany. On its face, that arrangement is a risky one. America designs the equipment, America handles production, and America runs the supply chains—meaning that, in theory, America could take all of it away. Yet allied nations accepted the bargain, because Washington had proven, again and again, that it was a strategic partner that prized stability and consistency above all else. American commitments did not change simply because new presidents from opposing parties cycled through the Oval Office. The United States got to lead the Western world on foreign policy, and it paid for that privilege with the guarantee that its allies would always be included in what came next. Today, that is no longer the case. NATO's Article 5, and the guarantee of an American defense of Taiwan, are no longer treated as geopolitical absolutes under the current leadership. Today's Washington pulls funding from Ukraine after years of backing the beleaguered nation, then turns to its NATO allies and threatens to invade Greenland or annex Canada. Where Washington once spurned openly autocratic governments, it now cuts mineral-rights deals and accepts lavish gifts for the commander-in-chief. Where it might once have worked with European allies to craft a shared plan for higher defense spending, it now threatens to ignore even its basic obligation to defend NATO members unless they spend exactly as Washington demands. A casual observer might chalk all of this up to the man in the White House. But allied leaders have come to a harder realization: Donald Trump is both a man and a movement. The man will not lead the United States forever. The movement—or another like it—could upset the balance with America's allies all over again. For that reason, American allies around the globe, and especially in Europe, have begun to regard their own military arsenals with a sense of impending doom. After decades of mutual reliance, the United States and Europe hold all sorts of economic and diplomatic leverage over one another. But when it comes to military industry, the relationship is essentially a one-way street. Many of Europe's richest and most powerful nations depend on American hardware, and most rely on a US-led NATO command structure to engage militarily with the wider world. What was once the ultimate convenience—freeing European budgets and factories to focus on peacetime economies—has curdled into the ultimate liability. And the problem is worse than it sounds. European militaries are in a growth phase right now, even if the continent is more than a little resentful about why. The European nations of NATO, other than Spain, have committed to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035, and European capitals are already spending more than 50 percent more on defense each year than they did in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European leaders would prefer to spend that money on European-made hardware—and, in fairness, Europe has plenty of excellent equipment to choose from. In the air, its fourth-generation fighters are among the best in the world, whether the Eurofighter, the Rafale, or the Gripen. At sea, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, and others can produce top-flight ships. On land, the German Leopard tank series and the French CAESAR howitzer are known to excel. In research and development, European firms rank among the very best, with not one but two sixth-generation fighter programs underway, alongside advanced air defenses and promising work in drone warfare. But none of that technology matters if Europe cannot build it fast enough. The continent is slated to spend hundreds of billions of euros each year, every year, for the foreseeable future on weapons—yet its defense industry is nowhere near able to accept contracts and fill orders on that scale. By the end of 2026, France will be pushing out roughly twelve CAESAR howitzers and maybe three Rafale fighters per month. Germany can build or upgrade around ten Leopard tanks per month. Each of Europe's shipbuilding nations can manage only a small handful of warships or submarines per year. To spend at the rate it intends, Europe would need to build many new factories and production lines, recruit and train entire workforces, and reshape regional economies in several countries at once. It does not have that kind of time. Meanwhile, America watches and waits across the Atlantic, happy to take the orders Europe once gladly placed—except now Europe is acutely aware of the strings attached. Sign on the dotted line with Washington today, and Europe accepts continued American leverage over its militaries for decades. Consider the F-35: the jet is expected to remain in European service through at least the 2050s, serving as the backbone for several major air forces. That means continual American deliveries of spare parts, software upgrades, and maintenance support will be vital to keep those planes flying. Some European nations are already shifting away from the F-35 for exactly that reason, but the problem is bigger than any single machine. Place any order with the United States for the critical hardware Europe needs, and European nations tie themselves to an increasingly unpredictable Washington. Look at how completely the relationship has changed since January 2025, then imagine how it might change across several more decades in a worst-case scenario. Europe has the technology to fix most of its capability gaps on its own. In the end, technology means nothing without the capacity to build. In short, Europe needs a hero—and that is where Canada comes in. ## Elbows Up: Canada's Third Way Strip Europe's military-industrial problem down to its core and it converges on a single question. What matters more: that Europe develops a robust, indigenous defense-industrial base to produce and maintain its own hardware, or that Europe re-arms now, by any means necessary, to keep America relatively close and deter the Russian threat on its eastern flank? For now, European leaders appear to have made their choice. They will build their own defense industries when the chance arises, but rearmament cannot wait. If the continent cannot have both, it is better to ensure there is still a free and united Europe in a decade or two—one with the luxury of worrying about American arms dependence. Canada may be the only nation on Earth able to offer Europe a third way out. Alongside the United States, Canada is the second North American member of NATO, and between the alliance, the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, and a range of economic and strategic ties, its relationship with Europe has long been a cozy one. Those ties have grown so close that, as of early 2026, a full 48 percent of Canadians voiced support for joining the European Union—a four-point jump from the prior year. Brussels has gently pointed out that, technically, Canadian accession to the EU is not possible. But the broader signal is unmistakable: Canada and Europe want to be partners, especially as all sides feel spurned by Washington's conduct over the past year. And if Canada can offer its European allies one thing, it is the sheer industrial capacity of its economy. Canada is far from a real military player on the global stage, and while it has respectable defense research and development, most of that is tied into international partnerships. Its civilian manufacturing, however, is another story. Unlike most wealthy Western nations, Canadian industry remains very much alive. The country is home to massive automobile and auto-parts factories; it builds complex machinery, ships, and commercial aircraft. It runs major steel mills handling over ten million tons a year, ranks among the world's larger oil and gas exporters, and is well acclimated to high-tech industry, including electric vehicles, robotics, and AI-integrated manufacturing. Better still, Canada genuinely wants to produce more than it currently does. The country is working overtime to build up domestic manufacturing and invest in secure, geopolitically stable supply chains. It sees a return to heavy industry as a way to revitalize large parts of the country, and it views the defense sector specifically as the ideal vehicle. In 2025, the Canadian government expressed its desire to more than double its domestic defense sector, where roughly six hundred firms already operate. That doubling is mostly intended to serve Canada's own armed forces—but the country has the capacity to do far more. Right now, Canadian production capacity simply outstrips the orders coming in, whether from its own military, the domestic or global civilian market, or anywhere else. Crucially, the fact that Canada does not produce much military technology today does not mean it cannot make the switch. Canadian defense firms are already active across the sector in ways that suggest Ottawa could pivot to high-volume, high-tech weapons production fairly quickly. Its maritime industry is well accustomed to naval shipbuilding and design. It has delivered many thousands of its LAV III armored vehicles, most prominently to the US Army, where a modified derivative is known as the Stryker. Canada produces rifles, ammunition, artillery shells, and consumer-grade drones, and it can build highly specialized aircraft parts, surveillance equipment, sensor technology, and communications gear—the kinds of hardware that would be far harder to start producing from the bottom up. Ottawa works regularly with major American and European defense companies, and in December 2025 it became the first non-European country to join a major EU defense fund called SAFE. By now the core of the argument should be clear. Europe needs production lines it has no time to build, and hardware it has no time to produce. Canada has immense industrial capacity, wants to grow its defense-industrial sector, and is already in talks to cooperate with Europe on a more limited basis. Ottawa understands the scale of military-industrial spending coming in Europe—roughly 1.25 trillion euros over the next five years alone. Yet for now, Canada seems mostly focused on collaboration within the bounds of today's industry, with existing companies and partnerships primed to scale up and deepen ties with European governments. Why stop there, when Canada could become Europe's arsenal? This is not to suggest Canada could snap its fingers and start producing what Europe needs. That transition would take serious time and serious investment, and both of those challenges deserve a full reckoning. But Canada can build the defense industry Europe needs far faster than Europe can build it itself. Unlike Europe, Canada has production capacity to spare today. It already has much of the physical infrastructure in place. It has a workforce broadly more willing to take part in a rapid defense expansion than most of Europe's, and it has the raw materials and processing capabilities to sustain that industry—for the right price. To their credit, European leaders are talking a better game on defense than they have in generations. But as the continent's defense corporations keep pointing out, those same leaders seem less interested in the hard work of building, or even of getting their countries ready to build at scale. Canada, by contrast, was born ready. If Europe wants Canada to build European hardware, all it has to do is cut a very large check and give the green light. ## Fantastic Beasts and How to Build Them The proposition laid out so far is admittedly abstract. Simply observing that Canada can build more hardware than Europe, at a moment when Canada wants to build and Europe wants to acquire, is not yet a defense-industrial plan. So it is worth getting into the details. What would Canada need to build, how could its industry be put to best use, and what would Europe actually be willing to buy? In broad strokes, Canada's strengths would be wasted if Ottawa simply tried to design and build its own kit from scratch. Both sides would be served far better by partnership: European firms supply the designs, help stand up the production lines, and help train the workforce, so that Canada can produce copies of those designs at higher rates than Europe could match on its own. Nor does Canada need to chase the highest-tech equipment or take full responsibility for any system Europe is already manufacturing. Shutting down European production lines would be a poor decision for the continent right now, and Canada's ability to build quickly evaporates if its labor force must spend months or years adapting to unfamiliar work. Instead, Canada can make the greatest impact by pursuing three tasks at once. First, it can open new production lines for important European designs that are not being built fast enough. Second, it can focus on the designs that take less time to produce at scale—either because they overlap with what Canada already makes, or because they are less complex. Third, it can lean heavily into mass-produced components, spare parts, and munitions, where Canadian industry is more flexible and European governments have already proven too slow. ### Naval: Drones, Not Destroyers Start on the high seas, where shipbuilding is as much of a challenge for European nations as for any country not named China, South Korea, or Japan. Canada does have somewhat greater capacity to build naval vessels than most of Europe's wealthier seafaring nations, but that does not make it great at building ships, nor does it make the logistics easy. Canada's main shipyard for combat vessels, in Halifax, will be occupied for the next couple of decades building fifteen River-class destroyers for the Canadian Navy. In the long term, Canada could expand its naval shipbuilding and take on the large surface warships Europe will struggle to construct. But Europe's timeline does not allow for it: Europe can build new shipyards from the ground up, just as Canada could, yet neither can do so quickly. Instead, Canada can put its capacity to better naval use by filling the need for maritime drone technology. Europe is already moving here—a partnership between Poland, Norway, and Ukraine will soon manufacture Ukrainian sea drones, and Huntington Ingalls Industries in the United Kingdom is set to double its facility in Portchester to build unmanned underwater vehicles. But a massive gap remains between what Europe will need and what it plans to build. Drone-warfare experts worldwide warn that sea drones, on the surface and deep below it, will be especially important in the coming decades—not only as kamikaze attack vectors, but for logistical transport, supply-chain sustainment, and undersea reconnaissance. There is an opening here for Canada to get in early on naval drone warfare, and not just to help itself and Europe, but to compete with the United States. American companies like Saronic, Saildrone, and Anduril are racing to break into the naval-warfare space, raising the prospect that this becomes another domain where the US corners the Western defense market. Canadian private industry, though, is uniquely well placed to catch up. Canada has no firms focused solely on naval drones, but its civilian ocean and undersea drone industry is thriving, with many companies already designing and mass-producing aquatic drones at scale. And to the extent Canada can build larger ships, it has the potential to build icebreakers for Europe in substantial numbers—filling a gap that few nations beyond the Scandinavian ones are ready to address alone. ### Air: Building European Jets Faster In the air, Canada has a considerably greater ability to build copies of existing European hardware, especially fighters. The three main combat jets Europe currently manufactures—the Eurofighter, the Rafale, and the Gripen—are none of them produced with any real speed. France can turn out three Rafales a month at best; the Eurofighter lines are lucky to hit two; Sweden, with new partners in Brazil, will soon reach a steady three Gripens a month. None of those rates come close to what Europe would need to offset losses in a future major conflict. The Eurofighter is probably best left a European project. Its supply and production process is already messy, and Germany—one of the program's most critical members—is also the European nation with the greatest capacity by far to expand its military-industrial base. The Gripen is a different story. Sweden has already shown it will allow Gripens to be built abroad, specifically in Brazil, and Canada happens to be weighing the Gripen for its own fleet right now, as an alternative or complement to American F-35s. Ukraine is expected to need up to 150 of the jets as quickly as possible to deter Russia. That gives Sweden's Saab corporation every reason to partner with Canada, open new lines, and let Canada keep many of the early jets it builds. Saab has already floated the idea, suggesting it could create nearly thirteen thousand new Canadian jobs. The Rafale, made by France's Dassault, is also going international. India will soon open its own production lines, and Rafale output is straining under a serious backlog as the jet grows more popular worldwide. In each case, Canada is the ideal candidate for partially offshored production—not only because it would speed construction and delivery, but because it would free up space in Europe for the pivot to next-generation fighters. Both Dassault and Saab are designing next-gen aircraft they may choose to build entirely in-house, and clearing their existing order books sooner would make that transition far easier. Canada also holds key advantages in non-combat aircraft. The Bombardier corporation produces several ultra-long-range business jets, including a line already incorporated into Sweden's GlobalEye, an airborne early-warning and control aircraft in high demand among air forces worldwide—and another platform Sweden has proposed building in Canada directly. Canada produces aerial surveillance equipment, hosts a national subsidiary of the engine maker Pratt & Whitney, and has production lines for several aircraft types. While it does not currently build designs easily upgraded into the air-to-air refueling tankers or strategic airlifters Europe desperately needs, Canada could open lines for yet another foreign design—this time from Brazil. That would be the C-390, a twin-engine, jet-powered transport that sits between a tactical and a strategic airlifter. It is highly capable, convertible into a refueler, and immensely popular—but Brazil cannot build it nearly as fast as orders arrive. Embraer hopes to reach twelve or more per year by 2030, and like Saab and Dassault, it could benefit greatly from new lines opened elsewhere. Embraer is considering building the C-390 in Portugal, but a Canada interested in producing foreign aircraft could be a far better fit, in both capacity and existing aerospace know-how. ### Ground: Shells, Components, and Interceptors Ground warfare may be where Canada could make the greatest impact of all. Europe has no shortage of high-quality designs—tanks like Germany's Leopard series, mobile artillery like the French CAESAR or the German PzH-2000. Germany is on track to produce 110 PzH-2000s and up to sixty new Leopards a year, with France hitting similar numbers. But the devil is in the details. NATO desperately needs to produce artillery shells at a far higher rate than it currently can. While the US is increasing its own shell output, ammunition is precisely the thing Europe does not want to count on Washington for if there is any doubt about America's commitment. The shell in highest demand is the 155mm NATO standard, and while Canada currently produces only a few thousand rounds per month, it could scale to much higher volumes with relatively little lead time. The real question is investment: Canada already has the technology and expertise to fix Europe's shell shortage, and a large enough check would get the job done. The same logic applies to component parts, a vulnerability laid bare by the war between Russia and Ukraine. In high-volume attritional warfare, equipment wears out fast. Artillery barrels must be replaced every few thousand rounds, recoil mechanisms cannot last forever, and firing pins and drive tracks suffer intense wear. Countries that cannot keep up with the constant need for replacements watch their artillery take itself out of the fight. For nations like France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, where lines already exist for tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, and armored vehicles, it is easier to expand existing production than to start from scratch in Canada. But Canada can ease that burden by producing an excess of specific components. It is far simpler to learn to build a tank's cannon barrel than the whole tank, and here Canada could stand up early production lines fairly easily, then scale rapidly. A couple of Canadian companies are already preparing for exactly this work, getting ready to reintroduce large-caliber artillery-barrel production to Canadian soil and opening new shell lines with the investment already available. What Canada could do for artillery and armor, it could do for other land equipment that must be replenished quickly and constantly. Air-defense systems stand out. The SAMP/T and IRIS-T systems are already in production across Europe, and the continent is pursuing its Sky Shield initiative and other airspace-defense efforts—but interceptors are another matter entirely. The SAMP/T faces chronic, critical interceptor shortages, and the IRIS-T picture is little better. Again, it is far easier to open third-country lines for interceptors than to build the whole system. Canada could also handle mass production of unmanned aerial drones, which Ukraine has shown to be among the most important technology in modern land warfare. To grasp how critical drones have become, Western military sources estimate that a full 87 percent of combat casualties in Ukraine today are directly attributable to uncrewed systems. Europe is only beginning to build drone capacity, and it has little ability to support the startup-driven, highly adaptive drone industry Ukraine has created. Canada is uniquely equipped to build relatively basic, highly functional drones at scale, and because it is one nation rather than dozens, it is far better placed to tear down the red tape that has held that kind of production back. ### Partnering With Kyiv Canada could also partner directly with Ukraine in the near future, adapting Ukrainian weapons designs and learning to produce them at scale. Ukraine has recently begun opening itself to export deals for the first time since the war began, and for now those deals center on European industry. There is good reason for that: Kyiv wants deep connections with European nations and their military-industrial complexes, both to get Europe into fighting shape so Ukraine does not face future conflicts alone, and to make itself indispensable to its European partners. But where partnering with Europe serves Ukraine geopolitically, Canada is the partner that could match Ukraine's needs in terms of raw output. It is good for Ukraine, Canada, and potential European customers alike to let demand guide the process—for European nations to determine which parts of Ukraine's arsenal are most important to adapt, and how quickly. Once those decisions are made, and Europe must weigh building Ukrainian kit as fast as possible against learning to do it in-house, Canada is the best outside partner to boost the speed of production while minimizing lost ground on defense-industrial sovereignty. Across all these domains, Canada has already shown its willingness to deepen collaboration, and Europe has shown its enthusiasm for welcoming Canada in. In December 2025, the EU agreed to let Canada join the 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe program, making Canada the first non-European nation ever to take part. Under that arrangement, Canada will be able to jointly finance defense initiatives and bid on procurement deals to supply EU countries. A few months earlier, in June 2025, Canada and the EU agreed to the Security and Defense Partnership, a broader initiative pulling Canada into wide-ranging defense-industrial cooperation. Both sides are clearly interested in being closer friends, and both are focused on trimming the United States out of their defense-industrial supply base wherever possible. Ottawa and Brussels have spent their time eyeing each other across the bar; they have already risen from their seats to talk. Now there is nothing left to do but agree to dance. ## Good for the Goose: Why Both Sides Win Just because something can happen does not mean it should, and that holds here as anywhere. The fact that Canada can step into the gap for Europe does not guarantee it is the most favorable option for both sides. So it is worth asking why this could be such a win-win. Begin with Canada, whose economy faces a problem already noted: the country can manufacture at truly massive scale, whether for defense or anything else, but it can build far more than it is being asked to produce. The Canadian industrial capacity that already exists is partly going to waste. An entire portion of the economy with clear potential to thrive and expand is instead withering. As of early 2025, Canada's actual manufacturing sector had shrunk smaller than Ireland's—not for any lack of capability, but because of red tape and diminishing demand. It is the same problem the European defense industry has spent years trying to explain to Europe's leaders: either governments pony up and place real orders for new hardware, or they should stop berating private industry about the need to produce. For Canada, Europe's defense-spending boom could be the shot in the arm its manufacturing sector needs. National unemployment sits well above 6 percent, manufacturing has been hit especially hard, and there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of workers with the skills and the will to get active—if only demand existed to reopen factories or build new lines. Enter Europe, and its defense industry in particular: with substantial foreign investment and a bit of startup time, Canada could solve that problem outright. Once the ball gets rolling, Canada would benefit in many ways from becoming Europe's big new defense partner. When industry does well, it tends to keep doing well: successful investment draws new investment, job creation fosters more job creation, and local economies surge back to life. A defense boom would also let Canadian industry advance its expertise across many areas at once, combining lessons learned from building foreign kit with fresh economic stimulus and a glut of newly trained personnel to seed new companies and projects. On the international stage, Canada would get to distinguish itself from the United States as a military-industrial competitor, unwinding a defense industry that has followed America's lead as a docile partner for generations. The path would also make Canada quite a bit of money, and it would likely give Canada early pick from the production lines on its own soil as it pursues its own rearmament. Finally, in a world where the US really does renege on its most important security ties, Canada would gain a new source of geopolitical backup. If Canada came under threat, a revitalized and mighty Europe would risk losing its most important partner—so protecting Canada, even from America, would become paramount. On the other end, Europe would reap rewards of its own from a comprehensive arrangement. The glaring European problem it would fix has already been named: reliance on American military industry. It is hard to overstate how problematic that dependence is, even as Europe publicly makes nice with Washington when it can. Europe still has a long way to go on rearmament, but it has been a long time since the continent moved this fast, with this much money, on anything. Like anyone in global affairs, European leaders reveal their fears through their actions—and their actions suggest they see continued dependence on Washington as an existential threat that will outlast Donald Trump's exit from politics. Switching to a reliance on Canada, to fill the gaps while European industry lurches into motion, is far from ideal. But it may be the best option Europe has to make the most of the time available and avoid unnecessary risk. The arrangement is also better for the European arms industry itself. Some defense leaders might turn up their noses at letting Canada build their prized hardware, but they would be missing the bigger picture. Yes, Canada would gain access to European designs—but Europe would gain the ability to rebuild the militaries of the continent using hardware entirely under its own control. Some American technologies have no European equal, the F-35 chief among them, but in most areas Europe can match America on quality, just not quantity. There is no fixing that without a drastic expansion in the capacity to build European designs, and Canada offers the quickest, most efficient path. Canada would also introduce flexibility into an arms industry that risks being overstressed and working on tight margins even after dramatic expansion. Europe could lean on Canada for high-volume but relatively straightforward component manufacturing that would otherwise consume badly needed factory space, and offshore the production of earlier-generation systems, while Europe concentrates on the cutting-edge research and development it does best. Geopolitically, it does not go far enough to call Canada a better partner than America right now. Canada is among the best partners any country or bloc could ask for. Set aside the clichés about Canadian politeness: Canada simply lacks the geo-strategic incentives to weaponize its arms relationships the way the US can. It is not a global superpower, nor even a major power on the next tier down. It has its own ambitions, but those rarely involve strong-arming Europe over anything more serious than the workings of global hockey. There is simply no world in which Canada, anytime soon, launches some foreign military expedition and threatens to withhold weapons from France or Britain unless they endorse it. Practically, Canada may be even better suited than the United States to the role of defense exporter, especially as melting Arctic ice opens new sea lanes between Europe and North America. Canada can get hardware to Europe quickly, safely, and even in harsh conditions, just as the United States could—so Europe has little reason to expect a jump in logistical complications by switching suppliers. And just as the arrangement helps Canada secure European protection, the effect runs both ways, particularly in Arctic affairs. Europe has not fully grown into its role as a major player above the Arctic Circle, but Canada is well on its way. Anything Europe can do to keep Canada on-side helps it get ahead of its Arctic security troubles before they arrive. ## Lingering Obstacles No deal is ever perfect, and no geopolitical arrangement comes without downsides. So, having made the case for Canada as Europe's military-industrial savior, there is one task left: to troubleshoot the proposition hard and look for ways around the problems it raises. Of all the obstacles, one stands above the rest. As much as Europe or Canada want to believe they can become independent of the US defense industry, the process is far more complicated than simply refusing to buy American machines. Any fighting machine—ship, tank, fighter, or anything else—is ultimately an assembly of thousands upon thousands of parts, and not all of those parts come from the country that controls the finished product. Take the F-35: it is an American jet, but it is built through a genuinely global supply chain, with more than a dozen countries contributing components through thousands of supplier companies. The same holds for most European hardware. The Saab Gripen relies on an American engine from General Electric and life-support systems from Honeywell. The Eurofighter integrates similar life support, American satellite-navigation systems, and assorted combat avionics. France's Rafale is the least US-dependent of the three, but it still depends on American firms for electronic components and sensors. That does technically mean these designs remain vulnerable to Washington no matter who builds the final product. But a Europe-Canada partnership makes the problem much better. It is a globalized world, and avoiding all reliance on the US may be impossible. The shared goal is to shrink that proportion as far as possible, even if it cannot reach zero. Abstinence is not realistic, but supply-chain cleanliness can always improve. Zoom out, and a partnership of the kind described makes a wide range of European hardware viable when it otherwise would not be—not because the products were bad, but because they could not be built in great enough numbers, fast enough, to meet urgent needs. By helping Europe build its own hardware more often, Canada makes that hardware directly competitive with America's, so Europe can seriously consider stocking its arsenals with its own weapons. And by broadening the range of components both can produce over time, it becomes far easier to prioritize reduced US reliance when the time comes to design new systems. Build a strong, well-rounded defense industry today, bridging Europe and Canada, and the tanks and jets of tomorrow can depend on Washington less than any of their predecessors. The next problem is the sheer magnitude of investment required. Canada's manufacturing sector is currently worth the equivalent of about 930 billion US dollars, and transforming it as Europe would need might take high tens of billions, or even hundreds of billions, more. Canada does not have that money on its own, which means it cannot quickly build these capabilities and then offer them to Europe. Europe, by contrast, does have the money, if its leaders can wrap their heads around so radical a proposal. Europe is slated to spend around 1.25 trillion euros on rearmament within the next half-decade, and depending on where its priorities lie, investment in Canada on this scale is possible. The real catch is that Europe would essentially be working with Canada on faith—trusting that once all the money is committed and the merger of Canadian and European defense is complete, Europe will be rewarded with success. Re-tooling a nation's manufacturing base to create a military-industrial complex from the ground up is extraordinarily complicated, especially when that nation is attempting things it has never done before, across an entire economic sector. It might be a winning bet. But it is hard to make even a winning bet when you are wagering your home and your life's savings without a guarantee. There are political challenges, too. European and Canadian leaders may be working on borrowed time. The current crop of non-US NATO leadership—Mark Carney in Canada, Emmanuel Macron in France, Friedrich Merz in Germany, Donald Tusk in Poland, and others—is broadly aligned in wanting to strengthen European defense. But while each seems to have won a temporary reprieve from rising right-wing challengers, partly thanks to Donald Trump's effect on global right-wing politics, those challengers have been delayed, not vanquished. Political change in Canada or in any major European nation could sink an initiative like this once it has begun, unless it has proven its value to the electorate, enshrined itself in laws and policies that cannot easily be undone, or, ideally, both. Even if Europe and Canada could agree to a full partnership, they would have to spend considerable effort insulating it from inevitable changes in leadership. And then there is the United States. Whatever else one might say about Donald Trump and his inner circle, you certainly could not say they are inclined to sit idly by while American industry comes under threat—and that is precisely what this would represent: an acute threat to the American military-industrial complex, which is so deeply tied to Washington today that the two might as well be one. The US government, certainly under its current leadership, would likely use every tool at its disposal to keep European arms deals from going elsewhere. Given that Trump was already willing to threaten the annexation of Canada, it is hard to know what he would not be willing to do if Canada appeared to be mounting a challenge to American defense-industrial dominance. The great irony is that, by partnering at scale with Canada, Europe would be doing exactly what Trump claims to want: breaking dependence on Washington, taking defense into its own hands, and ensuring Washington cannot be leaned on by weak and underequipped partners. But the grim reality of Washington's position is that if it demands Europe make those changes, it does not also get to decide how. In world politics, inconvenient realities tend to be discarded. By taking this step with Canada, Europe would invite a confrontation with Washington. There is something to be said for Europe finally finding its spine—but whether the risks of that showdown are worth the reward is far from certain. Finally, an alignment of this sort would mark a geo-strategic shift for the entire world, even though Canada and Europe are already aligned under NATO. A Europe that has truly found its footing on military matters, while breaking its dependence on Washington, is a global superpower; there are no two ways about it. And even though Canada would not technically be part of that superpower, it would be along for the ride. A superpowered Europe, hand in hand with Canada, would pose a massive threat to Russia, a counterbalance to China, and a potential rival to a post-Trump, neo-MAGA America—all at a time when Arctic competition is heating up and a Europe aligned with Canada would be a critical player in that part of the world. It is impossible to know how it would shift the global balance, especially since the change would take the better part of a decade at minimum, and there is no telling what else might have shifted by then. By taking these steps, Europe and Canada would commit to a bold adventure into uncharted territory, with no guarantee it works out in the end. That is precisely why hypotheticals like these are worth playing out—not because they are necessarily going to happen, but because they could, and because understanding how such decisions could change the world helps us better understand the changes already underway. Partner with Canada, invest fully in the creation of a world-class Canadian defense industry, and Europe would have a genuine shot at realizing rearmament at a moment when that goal matters more than at any time since the Second World War. Go another way, and Canada might end up a mere footnote in Europe's story. But go all in on Canada's potential, and Europe's quiet trans-Atlantic partner could prove the key to a whole new world. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What defense-spending commitment have European NATO members made? The European nations of NATO, with the exception of Spain, have committed to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035. European capitals are already spending more than 50 percent more on defense each year than they did in 2022, the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the continent is slated to spend roughly 1.25 trillion euros on rearmament over the next five years. ### Why can't Europe simply build the weapons it needs itself? Europe has excellent hardware designs but lacks the production capacity to build them at the required rate. By the end of 2026, France will be producing about twelve CAESAR howitzers and perhaps three Rafale fighters per month, Germany around ten Leopard tanks per month, and Europe's shipbuilders only a handful of warships or submarines per year. Building enough new factories, training enough workers, and reshaping regional economies would take far more time than Europe has. ### Which specific weapons systems could Canada build for Europe? The most promising candidates include the Saab Gripen fighter, which Saab has proposed building in Canada in a deal that could create nearly thirteen thousand jobs; the Brazilian C-390 transport aircraft; Sweden's GlobalEye early-warning aircraft, based on a Bombardier jet; 155mm NATO-standard artillery shells; replacement components such as cannon and artillery barrels; air-defense interceptors for the SAMP/T and IRIS-T systems; maritime drones; icebreakers; and mass-produced uncrewed aerial drones. ### How have Canada and the EU already moved toward defense cooperation? In June 2025, Canada and the EU agreed to a Security and Defense Partnership, a broad initiative for defense-industrial cooperation. In December 2025, Canada became the first non-European nation ever to join the EU's 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, allowing it to jointly finance defense initiatives and bid on procurement deals to supply EU countries. ### What is the biggest obstacle to a fully independent Europe-Canada defense supply chain? The largest obstacle is that modern weapons rely on global supply chains, and many components still come from the United States. The Gripen uses a General Electric engine and Honeywell life-support systems; the Eurofighter integrates American satellite navigation and avionics; even the relatively independent Rafale relies on American electronics and sensors. Complete independence is unrealistic, but a Europe-Canada partnership can substantially reduce that dependence over time. ## Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. <!-- youtube:vsXWle-HmsU -->