The Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP) is much more than a sovereign capability decision. Underneath the platform choice, three tests are running in parallel: one that grades Canada’s middle-power instincts, another that grades the bidders’ reading of Canadian priorities, and a last one that grades whether the resulting industrial partnerships are a one-off transaction or a set of durable industry alliances. Each test has a different examiner, but all three matter.
The Middle-Power Moment Test
The first test that makes the CPSP selection intriguing right now is that it is unfolding between two middle powers — Canada and either Germany or South Korea — amid geopolitical uncertainty. In many ways, the decisions behind the decision will show how Canada wants to present itself to the world, potentially setting a new tone for power projection. Middle powers do not have the luxury of acting alone. Their leverage comes from the depth of their working relationships with other states, the standards and practices they share, and the predictability that comes from decades of operating together. Canada’s submarine choice will signal how it intends to deepen bilateral and multilateral relationships into durable, working partnerships built to hold under political pressure.
Canada is clearly committed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partnership and European defence, as seen in its recent decision to join the European Union’s Security Action for Europe program. But the signal Canada is sending extends beyond that, seeing how defence and advanced technology have both become strategic pursuits. Canada has pledged $664.6 million toward the European Space Agency’s three-year budget from 2026 to 2028 for civil space and science projects, a significant increase from the pledged €35.1 million investment (approximately $60 million) made in 2022. These investments deliver jobs at home and signal a deeper Canadian bet on Europe as an enduring partner across civil, commercial and defence sectors. Germany and Norway are not new partners for Canada, and decades of Atlantic and Arctic operations have already built the institutional foundation upon which a new industrial architecture will rest.
South Korea represents a newer relationship for Canada, but one that is accelerating with unusual speed. A Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was announced in 2022, which, in turn, has fostered numerous other ties, such as the Security and Defence Cooperation Partnership (October 2025), the Agreement on the Protection of Military and Defence Classified Information (February 2026), and the Korea AeroSpace Administration-Canadian Space Agency memorandum of understanding covering low-Earth-orbit communications, Earth observation, space science and space exploration (April 2026).
South Korea is a fellow middle power reading the same geopolitical weather as Canada. It is also one of the world’s semiconductor and advanced-manufacturing anchors, which matters more every year as alliances are increasingly built around technology stacks alongside treaties. A partnership between South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Ocean and Babcock Canada, based in Ottawa with headquarters in the United Kingdom, adds another thread — one that bridges the Indo-Pacific with the North Atlantic. These are partners aligned by common interests and needs, not by geography.
Perhaps the most important element about this middle-power test is not which nation Canada is choosing to partner with, but rather how Canada intends to secure its future within a newly fractured geopolitical world.
The Bidder “Read the Room” Test
German maritime systems provider TKMS and the aforementioned Hanwha Ocean are more than just military vendors, and they have clearly studied for the test Canada is presenting to them. Here, Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy, released in February 2026, serves as the instructional material against the backdrop of strategic autonomy and trade rebalancing. Both the German and the South Korean bids reflect a close reading of the “partner” requirement of “build-partner-buy” in Pillar II of the strategy, effectively creating a joint program across multiple nations that addresses intellectual property rights and co-development of technology.
Additionally, both companies recognize the critical importance of CPSP to Canadian sovereignty and extend this acknowledgement to other multisectoral industrial partnerships aligned with Canada’s sovereign capabilities list found in the strategy. For example, the Canadian artificial intelligence (AI) company Cohere is featured in both bids, and Canada’s space and software industries are also prominent. This kind of multisector integration secures Canadian innovation as advanced technology becomes inseparable from sovereign capability.
Both bidders have also worked to win Canadians directly, with Hanwha running ads on billboards, buses and online, while TKMS has taken a quieter approach. Geopolitical uncertainty is impacting Canadians through the economy, threats to sovereignty and a destabilized world environment. Social licence is not optional here, and public campaigning and embedding industrial benefits into Canadian communities is the response to that pressure.
The Industrial Partnership Legacy Test
The third test is how the industrial ecosystem will evolve over the next few decades. What gets graded is the architecture being stitched together around the submarine deal, and whether that structure will hold up over time and potentially serve as a model for other sectors.
What CPSP has opened up extends well past the undersea platform. A submarine procurement of this scale draws Canadian sectors into enduring cross-border partnerships in space, AI, software, advanced manufacturing and more, potentially worth north of $60 billion, dwarfing the expected $24 billion cost of the submarines themselves. Over the coming decades, Canadian firms will work alongside their partner-country counterparts in these critical sectors where alignment will ultimately turn a platform deal into a durable industrial partnership.
Such a durable partnership will depend on two elements: technical alignment and resilience. Technical alignment is built through common standards, software interoperability and joint operations that let Canadian firms and partner-country firms work as one ecosystem. Resilience, on the other hand, runs through secure supply chains, regulatory alignment, common cybersecurity practices and even workforce integration that ensures reliability in the partnership.
This durability is further reinforced by the inescapable gravitational pull of US interoperability. For Canadian industry, any deal made with a South Korean or European partner is most valuable when it is also compatible with US systems. This way, Canada ensures that its domestic tech sector is not just building for one project but is also integrated into the broader NATO, Five Eyes and AUKUS- (Australia, United Kingdom and United States security partnership) aligned supply chains.
Industrial partnerships of this scale last when industry stakeholders continue to create partnership “stitches” after the contract is signed. The CPSP selection — expected in mid-2026 — will secure the first stitch.
Ironically, submarines may be the most visible part of this decision, but they are not the most consequential. What Canada is really choosing is which industrial ecosystem it will grow inside for the next generation — and which partners it will build and reinforce trust with as the world becomes more uncertain. Three tests, one decision, decades of consequence.
