Canada initially waited four months after deciding to join the U.S. plan to purchase Ukraine’s urgently needed National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) before it was its turn to join.
Defence Secretary Bill Blair insists that this delay is not to blame for the slow pace of acquiring high-tech defence capabilities, which are still months away from being delivered.
According to information obtained by CBC News, the federal government’s proposal to buy the system was first discussed at the Halifax International Security Forum in late November 2022 by former Defence Minister Anita Anand and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.
This comes at a time when Russia has been conducting brutal ballistic missile attacks aimed at devastating Ukraine’s power grid, including a series of attacks targeting civilians and leaving many innocent people dead.
Anand announced the $406 million purchase plan in January 2023, but the Department of National Defence recently told CBC News that the federal government only transferred funds to the US to pay for the system and start the process in March 2023, at the end of the fiscal year.
“I don’t think that had any impact on the delay,” Blair said in a recent interview with CBC News.
“It took more than just a conversation and an agreement between the secretary of state and the minister. It took a contract. And because we were buying through the United States, it also took congressional approval. So the United States actually has a legal process that allows us to acquire and buy weapons to send to other governments.”
Canada plans to spend $406 million on advanced air defense systems and associated missiles for Ukraine. Defence Minister Anita Anand told Power & Politics that the Canadian government will “work with the United States to deploy these to Ukraine as soon as possible.”
But Washington could not begin negotiating contracts with manufacturers until it had both its own funds and the Canadian money.
The U.S. Congress gave the go-ahead in May 2023.
Blair expects delivery by the end of the year
The Liberal government has faced repeated criticism over its slow progress in gaining capabilities, particularly as the civilian death toll in Ukraine rises.
Blair said the quickest way to buy NASAMS would be through Washington, piggybacking on purchases the U.S. is already making.
Speaking at the Ukrainian Peace Summit in Switzerland in June, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country urgently needed weapons and hoped the air defense systems promised by Canada were already in place.
In an interview with CBC News, Blair said the latest update is that the US order for 10 NASAMS aircraft is due to be delivered by manufacturers Raytheon and Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace by the end of the year.
“Our products will be included in the package and will be delivered to Ukraine as soon as early 2025,” he added.
Blair blamed the stall on the United States and the difficulties it has faced in financing its share of the deal earlier this year. The Republican-controlled Congress delayed funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan for months due to political disagreements with the Biden administration.
There was another problem, according to defense industry publications: one of the manufacturers, US-based Raytheon, had asked the Department of Defense for a waiver from the Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) provisions to expedite the NASAMS delivery process.
U.S. defense officials have been reluctant because they are required by law to prove how long-term contracts would save money, something that would be difficult to prove in the case of the Ukraine donation. According to the publication Defense One, complying with TINA would add an additional six to nine months to the procurement process.
When Ukraine approached the United States about acquiring an air defense system at the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kiev government was initially told it would take up to five years, a response that disappointed Ukrainian officials.
Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes was quoted as saying that the average time it takes to build a new NASAMS is two years.
The first system achieved a 100% interception rate
The United States announced the purchase of two NASAMS for Ukraine in July 2022, and ordered six more two months later.
The first systems, taken from an existing Defense Department order, arrived in Ukraine within 71 days of the contract being signed, according to U.S. government data.
Once in combat, NASAMS had a 100 percent success rate in intercepting Russian drones and cruise missiles, Austin said at a conference in Halifax where a deal was struck with Canada to fund additional systems.
The struggle by Canada, the United States and other countries over the past two years to ensure defenses against missiles and drones has implications beyond the Ukraine war, said Thomas Withington, an analyst who studies air defense systems and electronic warfare at the Britain-based Royal Institute for Integrated Security Studies.
“We have lived in many ways through a golden age in which the air threat to NATO as a whole was largely reduced,” Withington said.
“We have never faced the possibility of a concerted attack on our country with missiles, bombs or any other weapon that could be attacked from the air. That situation is over now, and in many ways we are back in a situation similar to the Cold War, when we faced significant air threats and significant missile threats.”
Canada’s recently updated defence policy commits it to acquiring ground-based air defence systems to protect critical civilian infrastructure. While the military is currently looking to buy air defence systems to protect ground troops overseas, the Ministry of National Defence said in a recent statement to CBC News that such equipment could also be deployed to protect Canadians at home.
Withington said either way, the country could be in for a long wait because, as Ukraine has shown, part of the problem has to do with defense contractors’ ability to absorb large numbers of new orders.
“The major missile manufacturers have production lines that are configured to produce a certain number of missiles in a certain period of time for a certain number of customers,” Withington said.
“These production lines have some flexibility to accommodate new customers, but there is a limited production capacity, which is determined by the number of employees.”
He also said that because air defense is a specialized product, any decision to add a new production line needs to be carefully considered by defense contractors.
Mr Withington said that in the medium term, many Nato nations would want to adopt such systems to protect themselves against attacks such as those seen in Ukraine.
“Certainly, I would argue that we need to increase production levels of ground-based air defence systems,” Withington said.
“If we can demonstrate that, as allies, we are serious about this issue and are prepared to acquire the air defense assets that are needed and even more, I think that will send a message to President Putin that NATO is not something to take lightly.”
Blair did not say when Canada would implement its own system, but said it was one of his top priorities.
