Israeli soldiers clean the barrel of a mobile artillery unit after an exercise in the Golan Heights, near Israel's border with Syria February 14, 2013. (REUTERS/Baz Ratner)

OTTAWA - An alarming new report warns that global troubles spots of the world and global economic worries next year "could be even more troublesome" for Canada than 2012.

"While Canada seems to be sitting back and not taking much initiative, the world is definitely becoming more dangerous," Conference of Defence Associations Institute (CDAI) report co-author and former diplomat Ferry de Kerckhove told QMI Agency.

He mentions several threats.

"You still have the problem of Iran, you have North Korea who is still threatening the U.S., you've got cyber security, which is becoming an ominous problem that has been evidenced by what has been discovered recently with the Chinese," de Kerckhove said.

The CDAI report also points to Afghanistan possibly becoming a failed state, al-Qaida on the rise in Africa, and China's aggressiveness in the South China Sea.

What's more, the report warns Canada won't be able to depend on the United States like it used to because of the "divided, cantankerous and almost dysfunctional federal government" in Washington.

The CDAI has made 28 recommendations for the federal government, including a re-think of what risks and missions the Canadian Forces will face and getting on with shrinking the military's "bloated" bureaucracy.

"It's high time that the government look at what the prime minister said ... that you've got to become more lean and mean. You know, more teeth, less tail," de Kerckhove said.

It also suggests NORAD expand to handle maritime threats and possibly ballistic missile defence, while increasing Canadian presence in the Asia-Pacific region.