The Defence Policy Review, or DPR as it is known to all except the Department of National Defence's Twitter account (#CanadaDefence? Really?), finally came out Wednesday, and it was not too shabby. I have quibbles and concerns, but, overall, it does an excellent job of explaining what is going on, what the threats are (sort of), and setting a path forward.  

I tweeted my entire reading of the document, so I will focus here on the bigger issues: What does the DPR do and what does it mean?

It is supposed to chart the course forward. While it exaggerates heaps of new-ness, the basic missions of the Canadian Armed Forces are the same as they ever were: defend Canada and do disaster relief at home, support NORAD, participate in NATO and various other multilateral efforts, and some peacekeeping. 

Oh, and one myth that apparently developed this week to bust: that the new money pledged Wednesday — $62.3 billion over the next 20 years — will be enough to allow the Canadian Armed Forces to operate independently. They can do so in Canada and nowhere else. Canada is too small and has too many limitations to operate alone. So, no, despite the injection of money, the CAF will always need to act alongside other countries once it steps outside of Canada. 

The DPR made clearer what equipment and personnel are needed to do this stuff and also put at the front of defence how to improve the lives of the folks doing the defence work — the personnel side. Which makes sense since 50 percent of the budget and 100 percent of the lives at risk are personnel.

To be clear, Canada does not face a great threat, despite the section that did a nice job of describing a dangerous world. Those dangers mostly lay elsewhere. There are only two immediate threats to Canada — cyber terrorism/crime/war and Donald Trump. The DPR deals with the former with new money and personnel (not re-shifting money from other areas because, well, bureaucratic politics; more on that below). And the Canadian military can't do anything about the latter. 

Still, Canada sees itself as a force for good in the world and an upholder of the international order, most clearly articulated Tuesday by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. So, it needs a modern military that gets asked to do all kinds of stuff. Right now, that stuff includes training in Iraq and Ukraine, deterring Russia in Latvia (the Canadian deployment is this week), various special operations that we don't know much about (no elected officials know except the prime minister and defence minister), taking turns patrolling the air space above Iceland and the Baltics (two NATO missions that are regular commitments), and someday maybe that peacekeeping mission. The money in this will not fund a much more capable military, just one that can keep doing the job it has been doing but with newer stuff and less broken stuff. Which means less risk for those sent into harm's way.

Speaking of money, the big news here is, of course, about the money. This DPR promises a heap of new money for the CAF. Given that complaints about underfunding were a key theme at the roundtables last summer, this is good news and largely unexpected. Why? Because there is no real lobby for more defence money. The Liberals spent last election competing to get NDP voters who don't want this, nor do Liberal voters. Conservatives? Not really, given their performance in power. So, here's where Trump might fit. The document laying out the review, unlike Freeland's speech, could have been written before Trump became president. But the threat of Trump, the U.S. as unreliable, may have helped grease the internal Liberal debates about spending more money. I have no evidence of this — just a guess.