This article was first published by The Hill Times.
The Canadian Armed Forces is now scrambling to equip itself with drones and counter-drone systems, spurred on by the lessons of the Ukraine war and the need to ensure that the NATO multi-national brigade we are leading in Latvia has the capacity to confront the Russians across the border. As in many areas of defence procurement, we have tended to get our kit from the United States. Sometimes that’s because the U.S. produces the very best—as in long-range armed drones—and sometimes out of ingrained, Cold War-era habit. In the past, Canada has also bought from Israel, notably to assist our forces when they were deployed in Afghanistan. The Israeli market is now properly off limits, and reliance on the U.S.—an unreliable ally—must be reconsidered.
Where can Canada turn for vital drone capabilities? We are busy learning lessons from a fast-evolving military environment in Ukraine, especially through our NATO training mission. But Ukraine needs all the drones and counter-drone systems it can build—at least for as long as the war with Russia continues. Iran builds drones and supplies them to Russia, but the deal has gone sour as the Russians have simply copied Iranian designs and are now mass-producing them in Russian factories, situated as far from the front lines as possible. In any case, we won’t be buying from Iran or Russia. Turkey supplied attack drones to Ukraine, which played a major role in the early days of the Ukrainian defence against the Russian blitzkrieg, but Turkey is an even less reliable ally than the U.S.
Any scan of global markets with a reliable defence product and supply chain in mind should take Canada to the Nordics. The Nordic countries are all solid NATO partners and share our northern operating environment. Canadian cabinet ministers have recently travelled to Sweden and Finland to explore new defence deals, including a visit by the Industry Minister Mélanie Joly to the Saab firm. Foreign Minister Anita Anand, meanwhile, travelled to Finland to talk about Arctic security.
The Nordics are trying to ramp up production of drone systems and innovate, while also holding out cautionary lessons about a seemingly red-hot market. A leading Norwegian drone company, Nordic Unmanned, founded in 2014, has just declared bankruptcy, citing cash flow issues. Its leading-edge drones were deployed as far afield as Brazil, and were a key element of maritime surveillance for the European Union’s European Maritime Safety Agency. One of their operational tasks was to keep an eye on the Russian shadow tanker fleet used to circumvent Western sanctions. As startling as this outcome appears, other drone companies in Northern Europe are ramping up.
We must develop our own drone manufacturing sector, just as we look for new partnership opportunities. We can follow the Nordic and U.K. leads here.
The acquisition by the Finnish company, Patria, of a start-up called Nordic Drones Oy is just one example. One of the most interesting developments is the partnership between Volvo and a Swedish defence start-up called Nordic Air Defence (NAD). Volvo produces military trucks. NAD produces counter-drone systems to mount on the trucks, as well as hand-held counter-drone weapons. NAD describes itself as a “true hardware-software defence tech company” on its website. The NAD system uses AI software for autonomous detection and tracking of targets, as well as an infrared system for target monitoring.
Then there is the United Kingdom, which has just announced a massive drone factory, meant to employ some 1,000 workers, in Swindon (one of the key sites for Spitfire manufacture during the Second World War). The Swindon factory will produce the Tekever AR3 “StormShroud” drones used by the Royal Air Force and supplied to Ukraine where they have been deployed to hunt Russian air defence systems. The StormShroud drone carries an electronic warfare package to jam radar, and is ultimately destined to be used alongside fighter aircraft in a combined fleet of manned and unmanned aircraft.
The Nordics and the U.K. offer both markets and lessons for Canadian defence procurement. Their firms produce advanced drone and counter-drones systems that could be incorporated into the Canadian arsenal. They also remind us that the build-up of a military drone capacity requires market capitalization, the ability to scale for start-up companies, and significant government investment and backing to avoid the fate of a company like Nordic Unmanned. All of these lessons should be incorporated into Canada’s forthcoming defence industrial strategy.
As our diplomatic service, Global Affairs Canada, pivots towards a focus on economic diplomacy, it will need new expertise to assist the Canadian government in exploring non-U.S. defence markets, understanding weapons developments, and advocating for Canadian defence and security exports. This is work that has been typically relegated to a small cadre of Canadian defence attaches posted abroad. That practice will no longer suffice.
Canada should not simply be an importer of drones and counter-drone systems manufactured abroad. That will never keep us up to date in a fast-changing world and never fully meet distinctive Canadian needs. We must develop our own drone manufacturing sector, just as we look for new partnership opportunities. We can follow the Nordic and U.K. leads here. There is huge untapped potential in the range of start-up companies in the drone sector in Canada, estimated to number over 200. New defence spending should lure them into product development for military needs. Investors are starting to come forward and some Canadian-based firms, such as Volutas Aerospace, see the drone sector as a prime driver of growth.
The Department of National Defence has been running “sandbox” exercises at its Suffield, Alta., site to test new Canadian prototypes for detecting and countering drones. An upcoming exercise in November, to be held in Ottawa, is dedicated to the detection of micro and mini drones in an urban environment. This is a good start, but a start only, for direct federal investment in drone innovation.
It’s also important to remember that drones and counter-drone systems are unique as a hardware-software amalgam. Anyone can build the hardware, the drone bodies, wings, launchers, batteries (though for Canada they need to be cold-weather proofed). It’s the software, the AI systems, the electronic warfare sensors, the navigational capabilities, the visualization components, that are at the heart of the beast.
Canadian industry could be good at that and there is huge dual-use potential. A drone for military use can easily be configured for civilian use, in such areas as weather and climate change monitoring, observation of forest fires and other extreme weather events, surveillance of land use patterns and agricultural yields, the hunt for signs of critical mineral deposits, public safety missions, border security, and so much more.
Drones are the future for public and military security. We just have to decide whether they are a made-in-Canada future.
