Deterrence to Discovery: Rethinking Defence Spending in Canada

Adages such as “survival of the fittest,” “necessity is the mother of invention,” and “without difficulties and conflicts we would still live in caves” underscore the timeless truth that national defence and civil advancement have always been intertwined. Author and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson outlines the age-old entanglement between war and human innovation in his popular book “Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military”. 

When strategically directed, defence spending has a rippling effect beyond militarization and weaponization. Funding injections drive domestic industry, university research, and research facilities on a national scale. As Canada contemplates a new era of strategic spending on national defence, the conversations must extend beyond procurement and deterrence. If properly directed, defence and defence-related spending can catalyze world-class scientific research and infrastructure, strengthening national capacity for long-term innovation. 

History is riddled with examples of fundamental research tools that are born from defence and global tension, even if the investment was not journaled “for national security.” For example, in the early 1990’s the United States government was in the process of building the world’s largest particle accelerator – the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). The SSC was planned to be even larger than today’s Large Hadron Collider at CERN; however, US Congress cancelled the project in 1993 due to funding constraints. Perhaps not coincidentally , funding scrutiny began on the tails of the declaration of the end of the Cold War (1989), the reunification of Germany (1990), and the Soviet Union break (1991) which lead to marked reduction in defence spending in the United States and Canada, known as the peace dividend. While never explicitly started as such, it is commonly interpreted that the cancellation of the SSC was in part due to a waning urgency for the United States to showcase its scientific and technological supremacy. Though the SSC was never completed, it is a glaring example of the interconnectedness of fundamental research and defence necessity.

Here at home, we have seen direct scientific benefits of defence spending from the innovative wonders found at the Chalk River Laboratories, which was motivated by the United Kingdom’s contribution to the Manhattan project. Chalk River Laboratory was the home of the world’s most powerful nuclear reactor of the time (NRX reactor), the first nuclear reactor to refuel during operations (NRU reactor), and the world’s first tandem particle accelerator (Pelletron Tandem accelerator model EN-1). Chalk River Laboratories also saw the world’s first food irradiator, which improved food safety and shelf life. Echoing a familiar pattern, a decrease in spending has signalled the end of many of these fundamental research tools.

These cases highlight the detriments of funding decreases, but there is hope. In the United States, agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Department of Defense have funded facilities that have become engines of civilian innovation. MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, national laboratories such as Los Alamos and Sandia, and the world-renowned scientific user facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are all sponsored and sustained through these channels. DARPA has a history of funding collaborative research with ORNL to leverage the lab’s expertise and infrastructure in high-performance computing and advanced materials with national security implications.

Perhaps most notably, ORNL provides an example of how defence and basic research spending can co-exist. The United States’ Department of Energy (DOE) incorporates seventeen (17) laboratories as part of a pre-eminent federal research system (including Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Sandia) that provide the USA with strategic scientific and technological capabilities. In many instances DOE laboratory funding contributes directly to defence spending, with a particular focus on nuclear weapons stewardship, research and development, and national security. However, the DOE also funds a wide range of other activities at these facilities including research in basic science, energy, health, and environmental stewardship which are not explicitly related to defence. Much of the research conducted at DOE labs, particularly in advanced materials and energy technologies, may have both civilian and military applications. This dual-use  potential conflicts with the  exclusive categorization of the investment either as defence or as non-defence. It is in these “grey areas” that Canada could find opportunity – using defence spending to directly support major user-based research facilities that enable the discoveries of tomorrow.

The United States has proven that defence investment in a centralized network of national labs can forge long-term interdisciplinary partnerships with research universities. Through carefully structured defence innovation programs and granting mechanisms, the Government of Canada can provide civilian access to specialized state-of-the-art research infrastructure and fund basic research  in physics, chemistry, health, and engineering with the understanding that today’s blue-sky research is tomorrow’s defence asset.

Canada is standing at a strategic crossroads. As global threats evolve and geopolitical tensions rise, calls for increased defence spending are growing louder – from both within and beyond  our borders. In shaping our response, we must not overlook one critical truth: strategic defence spending is a powerful catalyst for applied and fundamental research, innovation, and economic growth. By funding major laboratories and infrastructure that are accessible to Canadian researchers, we can ensure that our defence strategy is not only proactive, but visionary. In doing so, Canada has an opportunity to forge a defence framework that is inclusive, intentional, and distinctly Canadian.