Military Keynesianism is bad policy.

According to a June 9, 2025, Reuters article, "Canada promises to boost defense spending, meet NATO target much earlier," Prime Minister Mark Carney said, with reference to increasing Canada's military spending: "Rising great powers are now in strategic competition with America. A new imperialism threatens. Middle powers compete for interests and attention, knowing that if they are not at the table, they will be on the menu."

These words reflect a profound misunderstanding of the geopolitical environment in which Canada finds itself at this time.

The "rising great powers" to which Mr. Carney refers, namely Russia and China, are not "in a strategic competition" with "America" but, with reference to the militarization of geopolitics by the United States, are defending themselves from U.S. aggression, in the absence of which each are perfectly content to engage in mutually beneficial trade with every country on Earth, including the U.S. if the U.S. were culturally, psychologically, and morally capable of mutually beneficial trade.

Mr. Carney's words, in other words, amount to a projection onto targets of U.S. aggression the imperialist framing that has defined Europe's understanding of international relations since the 15th century, and by extension that of Canada and the U.S.

The Russian Federation's key foreign policy initiative, most notably in 2024 when it was its president, is to develop and strengthen BRICS as a vehicle to complete the decolonization of the global south, which began with political decolonization after WWII and is now engaged in its financial and economic decolonization, which by the way is perceived by the U.S. hegemon and its vassals as a strategic threat; hence Mr. Carney's projection of hostile intention and the fantasy of "a new imperialism" onto "rising great powers."

The People's Republic of China is similarly engaged with partners across the global south in building infrastructure for One Belt One Road transport corridors to support mutually beneficial trade and economic development with countries culturally capable of engaging in positive-sum relations. This, too, is interpreted as a threat by the ruling class in the global north, who historically have sought to dominate and plunder, not cooperate with, militarily weaker populations.

The Reuters article quotes Mr. Carney further as saying, "The transformation of our military capabilities can help transform our economy." This is an articulation of military Keynesianism, which fails to distinguish spending to consume from spending to produce.

Spending to consume, namely to buy military hardware and pay military personnel, adds overhead to the cost of doing business and consumes wealth as opposed to creating it.

Spending to produce, namely to subsidize R&D, privilege plant and equipment, build public infrastructure, and train personnel to develop new technologies and manufacture goods, reduces the cost of doing business and creates material wealth.

Military spending does not staff hospitals, clinics, schools, daycare, eldercare, mental health, or addiction treatment facilities. It does not train family doctors, K12 teachers, or skilled industrial workers. And it does not build housing.

Spending to produce social goods reduces the cost of doing business because workers do not have to pay these costs, reducing upward pressure on wages and therefore prices, and it increases the material wealth of the nation.