The Case Against Canadian Nuclear Weapons

Should Canada build its own nuclear weapons? While self-evidently against the country’s own non-proliferation and disarmament commitments, this question has been recurrently raised by Canadian commentators and media personalities in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated rhetorical attacks against Canadian sovereignty. With the United States allegedly going about democratic backsliding and its current leader(s) eying Canada’s vast resources for the ostensible purpose of territorial expansion, the suggestion is that Ottawa should build, operate, and command its own nuclear deterrent. The goal? To prevent Washington, Moscow, or any other hostile capital to meddle in its affairs.

A Canadian nuclear deterrent appears initially attractive for a variety of reasons. It might preserve the country’s autonomy by deterring hostile acts from the United States. It could also protect it from foreign interventions made possible by the potential loss of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Additionally, it may even restore Canada’s status on the world stage and secure its role as a sovereign power—much like it did for France and the United Kingdom after World War II. Finally, it could be a cost-effective way of compensating for the country’s relative military weakness. As some of Canada’s European allies appear to tentatively consider this option, why not Canada too?

These arguments are wrong for practical reasons. Proponents of a Canadian nuclear weapons both underrate the difficulties that their development would encounter and overrate the benefits that they could offer. They also overestimate the chances of new European proliferation. Although there certainly exists a feasible route toward a Canadian bomb, it would be costly, much longer than imagined, unsustainable, impossible to keep secret, insufficient and ill-designed to solve the problems the country faces and damaging to its standing with its allies and the wider international community. In other words: Canada could choose to build nuclear weapons, but at a staggering cost with no guarantee of success. It is this very cost that makes this option inappropriate, even when faced with President Trump’s stated desires for a “fifty-first” state.

The argument in favour of Canadian nuclear weapons rests on two problematic assumptions.

Second, it assumes that Canada would begin the journey toward the bomb not very far from completion. Indeed, Canada is one of the few ‘nuclear latent’ states in the world, those states that could ‘easily’ assemble a nuclear weapon relatively quickly. According to most studies on the subject, that much is true. Canada does have access to uranium as one of its main exporters and has an easy supply of plutonium because of its important civilian nuclear industry. Yet the key word in that sentence is relatively. It is true that when compared to other nations, Canada would have an easier path toward nuclear acquisition than most. But that does not mean it would be capable of building a bomb in a matter of hours, days, weeks, or even months. Going down the plutonium route would still necessitate adapting existing facilities, which would take time and money. Even by optimistic estimates, it could take years to reach that stage—by which point it would, arguably, be already too late because the current U.S. president might not even live long enough to see it. History tells us that a Canadian attempt at nuclear proliferation could invite the very thing that it is trying to forestall—an American intervention. Certainly, the suggestion that Washington would simply stand by and step aside while a state dances with the atom is itself fanciful.

When considering whether Canada should build nuclear weapons, it is important to understand the many costs of proliferation. Throughout this piece, I have so far insisted that building a Canadian nuclear deterrent would be expensive. I mean that both financially and diplomatically.

The direct costs of nuclear proliferation are fairly straightforward and easy to predict. They include research and development (which remain required even after successfully building a bomb), testing, production, control, and communications, as well as the cost of the weapon systems used to deliver them. In the case of France, which has around 290 nuclear warheads, this includes three different delivery mechanisms—land-based airplanes, carrier-based airplanes, and submarines. The Observatory of Armament estimates that France has spent over 357 billion euros between 1945 and 2010 on its nuclear deterrent. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, France spent 5.3 billion euros in 2022 on its nuclear-related activities. In the case of the United Kingdom, its House of Commons reported that the cost for its nuclear deterrent over a ten-years period (2023 to 2033) could be forecasted at 117.8 billion pounds.

What these numbers show is that building and supporting a nuclear arsenal is extremely costly—and not something any country can commit itself to easily. The investments required to build a program in secret and then sustain it over decades is massive. The United States spends more on a yearly basis to maintain its nuclear deterrent than Canada does on its entire military. For Canada to develop an appropriate delivery mechanism capable of targeting the United States—without the help of any of its other allies—would also present a considerable challenge. There is also a personnel cost: handling a nuclear deterrent demands the training and retention of operators capable to steward it securely at a time when the Canadian Armed Forces are in the midst of a recruitment crisis. Furthermore, it requires an independent research and development industry that would have to be maintained through government investments, without the collaboration (and, indeed, with the active opposition) of Canada’s erstwhile closest ally, the United States. In light of Canada’s chronic procurement military challenges, is a nuclear bomb even a possibility?

Still, there are also indirect costs to nuclear proliferation—costs that could prove even more difficult for Canada to bear. From a diplomatic perspective, Canada pursuing a nuclear deterrent would mean reneging on its ratification of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT has the widest membership of any arms control agreement in the world, and only one country has ever withdrawn from it: North Korea. For Canada to abandon its non-proliferation commitments would mean risking diplomatic isolation, and a wide swathe of painful economic sanctions from the entire international community. Nuclear weapons are unpopular with South American, African, and Asian governments. At a time when the hostility from the United States pushes Canada toward economic diversification, to seek the bomb would mean alienating all the potential partners it might need. The hypocrisy of the move, of course, could also deliver a crushing blow to the country’s moral credibility and be the source of long-term damages to its international reputation. While some have highlighted the fact that some German and Polish officials have openly pondered about the nuclear option to justify Canada following suit, I believe that doing so amounts to ‘jumping the gun’. Germany appears more likely to seek the protection of the French nuclear umbrella than constructing its own, and so does Poland. That a few leaders publicly muse about owning bombs without any serious investments or strategic development does not negate decades of non-proliferation norms and signal an end to the stigma that surround the acquisition of an independent nuclear deterrent.

There is a chance that the international response could be more muted than what I predict. The United States’, however, would not. By building a nuclear bomb on its northern border, Canada could invite the very thing this weapon is supposed to prevent: a direct intervention. Indeed, research shows that would-be nuclear proliferators have to go through a ‘danger zone’ right before they reach a working atomic bomb. Since they are running afoul of the international community, but do not yet enjoy the benefits of nuclear deterrence, they are completely exposed. This vulnerability period can be exploited by their rivals or opponents—and certainly would be by the United States. As such, seeking a nuclear deterrent amounts to a game of Russian roulette that could very well blow up in Canada’s face. Simply put, when a country is threatened with annexation by a nuclear-armed power, it is already too late to assemble its own nuclear weapons.

An alternative to overt nuclearization could be what can be called the ‘Israeli’ option—that is, building a nuclear deterrent without testing it or publicly announcing its existence. Such an approach was also similarly employed by Pakistan during the Reagan administration, as the United States then looked the other way in exchange for collaboration and the absence of a blatant proclamation. This strategy could amount to simply enhancing Canada’s latent status, thus keeping the bomb “in the basement”.

Such an approach is also unlikely to yield the expected benefits. First, because the historical cases of secret nuclearization were accomplished with the United States’ tacit approval. The two culprits chose this option precisely because it was endorsed by the successive American administrations. That the United States would tolerate such a development on its northern border, accomplished by the very country it is trying to annex, is dubious. Second, because this approach still necessitates a certain degree of moves toward proliferation, which would inevitably trigger a response from the international community. It is not credible to expect a passive reaction from international institutions when we look at Iran’s own nuclear edging. Likewise, the same challenges regarding costs and investments still apply. Third, since the target of any Canadian deterrence strategy is a nuclear-armed United States (unlike Israel’s targets, which are weaker non-nuclear neighboring states), having a Canadian nuclear open secret could hardly be sufficient. Furthermore, conventional clashes between (overt or hidden) nuclear powers are possible—as shown by India and Pakistan since the 1990s. Whatever the situation, nuclear weapons are not a trump card that would solve all of Canada’s problem—on the contrary.

Nuclear weapons appear to provide a feeling of invulnerability. Yet they are inappropriate for Canada’s current strategic situation. An additional assumption that frames the case of Canadian nuclear weapons is that the greatest threat to its sovereignty is a potential American invasion of its territory. This belief misses the forest for the tree: since the two countries’ economies are so intertwined, Washington does not even have to conquer Canada military—it could probably attempt to achieve the exact same aim through simple (and more devastating) economic coercion.

It is conceivable that an annexation-inclined U.S. President (such as Donald Trump) could attempt to use the trade levers at his disposition to induce Canada to join the United States. According to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that is exactly what is currently happening. By using tariffs and other means, the goal seems to be to weaken the Canadian economy to such an extent that its people will eventually call for annexation. However, it should be mentioned that punishment strategies tend to backfire and galvanize those bearing their brunt in lieu of inducing their compliance. While also painful to private citizens in the United States, the approach has the advantage of being militarily ‘cheap’. Against it, nuclear weapons would have little deterrence benefits. A threatened nuclear strike would not fix the woes of the Canadian lumber and aluminium industries. Even in the case of a full-on conventional invasion, Canada would have to commit to a first-str