Last week, I argued that Ethical Realism offers a practical framework for public policy because it begins with the world as it exists, rather than the world we might wish existed. It does not discard morality, international law or democratic principle. It recognises that liberty and sovereignty endure only when supported by economic resilience, credible deterrence, reliable partnerships and the capacity to resist coercion.
Few democracies confront that proposition from more different geographic circumstances than India and Canada.
India shares a disputed Himalayan frontier with an increasingly powerful China. It must also consider Beijing’s expanding military and economic presence across South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Canada, by contrast, is protected by three oceans and shares a continent, an industrial economy and a deeply integrated security architecture with the United States.
Both are democracies. Both seek prosperity and greater freedom of action. Both speak of diversification and a more multipolar international system. Yet geography, capability and strategic exposure are leading them towards different policy choices.
A recent public intervention by Elbridge Colby, the senior Pentagon official responsible for defence policy, helps explain why. Colby has consistently argued that strategy must be grounded in the realities of power, geography and national interest. In India, he has spoken of an Asia shaped by sovereign nations able to chart their own course and of a shared interest in preventing any single state from establishing regional domination.
In a widely circulated thread, Colby rejected the idea of a collective “middle powers strategy” as resting upon a faulty understanding of international relations. Middle powers, he argued, do not possess an inherently coherent basis for alignment. Nations act according to their interests, geography, economics and military capabilities—not because diplomats have assigned them a common category.
The argument is deliberately blunt, but it deserves consideration.
Canada, India, Brazil, Japan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia may all be described as middle powers in particular contexts. Yet the label tells us comparatively little about how they will act when their security, prosperity or sovereignty is threatened. Their political systems, capabilities, regional interests and relationships with China differ profoundly.
A diplomatic category is not a strategy.
India illustrates the point. New Delhi will not become a conventional American treaty ally, nor should Washington expect it to. India’s strategic culture is grounded in sovereignty, civilisational confidence and freedom of action. Its relationships with the United States, Russia, Europe and the Global South cannot be reduced to membership in a single bloc.
Yet strategic autonomy should not be confused with strategic indifference.
India has a direct interest in ensuring that China does not become the dominant power in Asia. Chinese predominance along the Himalayan frontier, across South Asian infrastructure and throughout the Indian Ocean would progressively narrow India’s freedom of action. Preventing that outcome does not require India to accept American hegemony. It requires India to preserve a multipolar Asia in which no single power can dictate the terms of regional order.
This is where India’s strategic tradition and Colby’s realism intersect. Washington need not demand agreement on every international question. It needs India to become stronger: militarily, economically, technologically and industrially. Colby’s visit to New Delhi and his public remarks there placed the relationship within precisely this framework, while the Quad continues to expand practical cooperation in areas such as critical minerals, emerging technology and Indo-Pacific resilience.
The implicit message to India is therefore not simply, “Follow America.”
It is: build the capabilities required to preserve the regional balance and your own sovereignty.
Canada receives a different message because it occupies a different strategic position.
For decades, Canadians could treat middle-power diplomacy as a partial substitute for hard strategic choices because the United States carried much of the burden of continental and allied defence. Canada promoted multilateral institutions and coalition-building while benefiting from American military protection, intelligence cooperation, advanced technology and access to the American defence-industrial base.
That arrangement is now becoming more conditional. The current American defence strategy prioritises homeland defence, deterrence of China, greater allied burden-sharing and expansion of the U.S. defence-industrial base. Colby has similarly emphasised usable military capability, resilient logistics, industrial production and strategic discipline over declarations or bureaucratic process. For India, Ethical Realism therefore means building greater independent capacity while cooperating with the United States where interests align.
For Canada, it means recognising the depth of its continental integration and becoming a more credible contributor to the system upon which its security already rests. That requires sustained investment in NORAD, Arctic surveillance, critical infrastructure, secure technology, resilient supply chains and defence-industrial capacity.
Different geography produces different policy prescriptions. The underlying discipline is the same: national strategy must be grounded in actual power, capability and exposure to risk.
Earlier this year, at a Liberal fundraising dinner, I had an opportunity to speak frankly with Minister Tim Hodgson about the Carney government’s contrasting approaches to India and China.
I asked why Ottawa had revived the language of a “strategic partnership” with China—effectively dusting off a Global Affairs doctrine dating back to 2004—while signing a more comprehensive series of agreements and memoranda of understanding with India.
Hodgson replied: “We see India as a bigger opportunity than China, but we must re-engage with Beijing. We could do a better job of communicating the importance of the Canada–India trade agreement.”
I responded, “that’s an understatement.” In view of the Prime Minister’s reference in Beijing to a “new world order,” that sees a belligerent and totalitarian regime as a coveted partner.
For me the discussion revealed more than a communications problem. Canada has accelerated negotiations towards a comprehensive economic partnership with India and committed to expanding bilateral trade. At the same time, Ottawa has renewed economic engagement with Beijing using a strategic partnership framing and cooperation in sectors including electric vehicles, energy and clean technology, and described China as part of its diversification strategy.
Those policies are not inherently irreconcilable. Ethical Realism does not demand economic isolation or the abandonment of diplomacy. It does, however, require clarity about the nature of the regimes with which democracies engage, the dependencies they are creating and the strategic consequences of their economic choices.
India and Canada are not travelling the same strategic road, nor should they. India must accumulate the power necessary to preserve freedom of action across the Indo-Pacific and defend its border with China. Canada as a junior G7 partner must reconcile its global ambitions with the realities of continental geography, American power and its responsibilities within a continental security framework.
Ethical Realism does not prescribe identical foreign policies. It requires nations to anchor policy in geography, interests, capabilities and enduring principles.
Colby’s thread was not simply a defence policy statement. It was a statement of strategic philosophy. If China is the defining geopolitical challenge of the twenty-first century as successive American defence strategies have concluded then alliances and partnerships will increasingly be judged by strategic coherence rather than diplomatic aspiration.
In an era of great-power competition, the credibility of nations will depend upon whether their diplomacy, defence policy, industrial strategy and democratic principles point in the same direction. That is the enduring lesson of Ethical Realism and Canada needs to demonstrate clarity and conviction.
*Dean Baxendale is Columnist, Author and CEO of Optimum Publishing International.
