Campus Total Defence

This blog doubles as an invitation to a very cool event in Ottawa on March 23^rd. See the end of blog for details.

If there is anything Canada should take from President Trump’s deeply disturbing rants about Greenland over the past couple of weeks, it is that our country is very definitely a target. The fascist government in power in the United States genuinely believes both that might makes right and that the entire hemisphere is rightfully theirs. The threat to national sovereignty is real, and imminent. A full-scale actual invasion is unlikely, because that takes work and Trump is nothing if not extremely lazy. But, as Philippe Lagassé has pointed out, scenarios where American troops start arriving to “help” Canada aren’t very far-fetched and we desperately need to work out how to “defend against help”.

This is obviously a huge question. From this blog’s perspective, the question is: how can universities and colleges help? To date, this blog has focused on research, because that’s where the government’s primary interest seems to have been. But defence doesn’t happen without people. And so today I want to talk about something which is only starting to rise on the government’s consciousness: how do we train to defend the country, and what role do our post-secondary institutions have to play?

Well, first of all, the military is obviously going to have to grow in size. That means a larger Royal Military College for one thing, and – possibly – a greater role for universities across the country to provide education for both enlisted personnel and officers (both in the Regular Forces and in the presumably much-expanded military reserves). A re-introduction of the Canadian Officer Training Corps on Canadian campuses, as mooted by Jack Granatstein in this piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, is an obvious choice as well. 

This would all be to the good. But when it comes to national security, military preparedness is only part of the equation. The bigger issue, obviously, is whether a country has the ability to mount a whole-of-society defence, or so-called Total Defence, where military defence and civil defence combine seamlessly, as is practiced in many Nordic countries. Total Defence, above all, requires civil defence skills, which run from emergency preparedness, transport and emergency logistics to cyber and AI security, environmental and climate security, and psychological defence/information influence. These aren’t necessarily military skills, but they are extremely useful in any kind of crisis. Having more people in more places that have these kinds of skills makes us a safer country.

Now, of course, Canada isn’t ready for a full-on version of Total Defence (it’s usually accompanied by a system of conscription/national service, and however elbows-up Canada may be these days, I have a feeling that step isn’t imminent). It isn’t even really thinking too ambitiously yet about civil defence and how to organize it (Public Safety Canada did a public consultation on this in 2024, but it was framed in some pretty tentative/small ball terms). However, it seems to me that however we end up organizing it, there is still a crying need for more people with more key skills in more places around the country. 

And that’s an opportunity for our colleges and universities to make a real contribution to Canadian sovereignty.

Just after the invasion of Ukraine, a group of universities in Sweden – which is one of those countries that has adopted a “Total Defence” posture (they call it “totalförsvaret” – along with the Swedish Defence University, which is sort of a supercharged version of our Royal Military College) began developed something they call “Campus Total Defence”.  I will simply quote from the website of one of the program’s founding institutional sponsors, Örebro University:

Campus Total Defence brings together academia, public authorities, industry, and civil society to create a robust platform for education, research, and innovation. It collectively contributes the knowledge and expertise needed to meet current and future national security challenges.

By offering tailored courses, developing new research, and creating conditions for innovation, universities across the country collaborate in areas that will benefit defence capabilities, such as protective security, crisis management, AI, healthcare, food supply, and robust energy systems. The goal is to create a range of courses that will provide skills enhancement and training for personnel in various branches of the defence sector nationwide.

(As you can see, the language here includes research, but that has been a more recent development. To start off with, this was definitely a skills exercise).

Anyways, even if Canada has not quite got there yet politically, the demand for these kinds of skills is going to up. A few of these areas might end up being the subject of bachelor’s or master’s programs, but my guess would be that a lot of these would – as in Sweden – simply be practical single courses delivering specific skills (this actually seems to me like a great use case for stackable, portable micro-credentials, if you ask me), and the potential for institutions to joint program development and delivery seems pretty high.

This isn’t an initiative for which institutions need to wait for government funding. They can just go ahead and do it. While Sweden’s Campus Total Defence is now being subsidized by the government as a strategic workforce and security investment, it began as a campus-based, bottom-up initiative. Because it was the right thing to do and the country needed it.

Canada can and should do that too. 

To that end, we’d like to invite everyone to join us at Carleton University on March 23^rd for a day-long roundtable focused on how post-secondary institutions contribute to whole-of-society defence. We are very excited to be partnering with Carleton University for this event. We’ll have folks over from Europe to explain Campus Total Defence, some experts from Canada to talk through how the concept might work, and some excellent moderated group discussions to generate ideas on moving the concept forward. If you’re from a university or a college, already offering courses in areas related to civil defence, or interested in being part of driving this work forward, please join us. Everyone is welcome. Ticket and event info is available here.

As with our National Defence Research Roundtable in December, this is a chance for the higher education sector to show how we can contribute during this time of rupture. We hope to see you there.