Kowtowing to the Hegemon

The back cover of In Roosevelt’s Bright Shadow: Presidential Addresses about Canada from Taft to Obama in Honour of FDR’s 1938 Speech at Queen’s University displays a picture of Peter Milliken, speaker of the House of Commons, presenting a special prepublication copy of the self same book to President Barack Obama in the splendidly restored Parliamentary Library when he visited Ottawa last year. Obama then received a second copy later that day from member of Parliament Bob Rae.

The book contains the speeches given by American presidents in Canada and Canadian prime ministers in the United States, and the careful editing by journalist-scholar Arthur Milnes gives readers the continuum of the relationship for the last century. Published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in honour of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1938 speech at Queen’s University, it is another addition to the Centre for the Study of Democracy’s Library of Political Leadership. In its 227 pages are contained a century’s essence of Canadian-American relations, seen through the official words of our leaders. Patterns emerge.

From the American side, securing the home-land has always been the dominant and abiding concern. Until the Civil War gave the U.S. a muscular and tested military, Canada, as adjunct of the British Empire, was viewed as a potential threat. Contingency plans for an invasion of Canada were kept on file until early in the 20th century. Roosevelt’s unequivocal “assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination by Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire” set the course for an enduring partnership. It begins with the Ogdensburg Agreement of 1940, which created the binational Permanent Joint Board on Defence, and then the 1941 Hyde Park Agreement, which coordinated economic resources. In the years after the war, most of the special joint economic agencies were, in Truman’s words, “quietly disbanded with a minimum of disturbance”—an early example of the relationship’s practical functionalism.

But the Soviet threat, especially after its acquisition of the atomic bomb, obliged closer security cooperation. Canada became the potential new front line. For mutually advantageous reasons we created a binational “umbrella” in NORAD. Technological developments resulted, from the Bomarc missile and the DEW Line to the decision to accept the cruise missile. Later, to the surprise of both the Americans and many senior Canadian officials, we decided not to participate in ballistic missile defence. Taking part in collective security through NATO as well as the United Nations fit more comfortably with Canadian sensibilities and our preference for multilateralism.

A second theme in the presidential speeches is the ongoing encouragement for Canada to become more involved in the Americas, first as an observer in the Organization of American States and later as a full member. Americans have always had a natural concern about their “backyard” even before the 1823 Monroe doctrine asserted that further colonization of the western hemisphere was off limits. Notwithstanding our long-standing trade and commercial relationship in the Caribbean or the missionary presence in Haiti, Canadian governments, until Brian Mulroney’s, were surprisingly slow to appreciate the importance of presence and engagement in the region, especially Mexico, in terms of the American relationship.

A third subject is the American delight in the big project, especially the big engineering project. Thus the continuing references to the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Alaska Highway, the Trans-Canada pipe-line or the Columbia River project. As the celebrated Chicago architect Daniel Burnham put it a century ago, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Therein lies a lesson for Canadian diplomacy. Condoleezza Rice complained of the Canadian tendency to bring up the “condominium issues”—a hassle at a port of entry or a dispute around wheat or potatoes—rather than to lead with the big picture perspective on security and economics.

The Canadian speeches reveal a different pattern of interest. Trade and economic issues around access to the American market clearly dominate. It will come as a surprise to many Canadians that since the negotiation of the Auto Pact in 1965 when Lyndon Johnson was president, we do better at avoiding protectionism when a Republican is president. It was Richard Nixon who granted us an exemption from the 1971 surcharge. Ronald Reagan’s dream of a free trade agreement stretching across the Americas began with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1988. George H.W. Bush granted us an exemption from steel action in 1992 and George W. Bush went to the mat with GOP senators Saxby Chambliss and Trent Lott over the most recent lumber accord. Notably, though, Bill Clinton did ratify the NAFTA, with the labour and environmental safeguards, and we secured Open Skies during his administration. The reciprocity agreement on procurement just negotiated with the Obama administration is a return to the approach begun under Roosevelt with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements of 1936 and 1939.

A second theme from the Canadian prime ministers is encouragement for the Americans to partner in stewardship of our shared land and air and the effort to clean up the Great Lakes, to eliminate acid rain and to address the North. Our current approach to climate change, where we have apparently decided to both hang back and then move in tandem with the United States, is a surprising departure from previous policy. Experience suggests we do best when we take the initiative and offer bold solutions and play on the international table as well as bilaterally.

A third, and important, concern is our quest for binational and bilateral institutions—beginning with the now century-old International Joint Commission—to provide an agreed set of rules for procedure. These provide both assurance and confidence, especially for business, commerce and investment, as they level the playing field to a large extent.

There are many gems contained in In Roosevelt’s Bright Shadow including Ronald Reagan’s defence of the seal hunt and George H.W. Bush on the thrill of fishing for Arctic char. But two are required reading. Bill Clinton’s defence of federalism and the six questions he poses as a test of federalism at the Forum of Federations conference at Mont Tremblant in October 1999 has continuing currency. So does the lesson on the American constitution delivered by the junior senator from Massachusetts at the Université de Montréal in December 1953. Canadian policy makers frustrated by the machinations of the American system would do well to read this speech, especially this passage:

The author? John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy would later enunciate what is still the pithiest statement on the Canadian-American relationship to a joint session of Parliament in May 1961, shortly after he assumed the presidency: “Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Keeping that relationship on an even keel is an ongoing challenge, especially for Canada. The burden of primacy means that the United States is preoccupied by crisis abroad and when it comes to the neighbourhood, the problems come from the south—the long-running quarrel with Castro, the frustrations with Chavez and the concern over the fate of Calderón and his existential civil war with the drug cartels. Canada is not really a problem, and out of sight usually means out of mind. Thus the Canadian challenge of dealing with the hegemon.

It is to this challenge that Patrick Lennox addresses his attention in At Home and Abroad: The Canada-U.S. Relationship and Canada’s Place in the World. Lennox posits what he calls “structural specialization theory”: “an international relations (IR) theory with the potential to aid in explaining a specified array of hierarchical inter-state relations and the performance of subordinate states in the international system.” Lennox also hopes that it can serve as a framework for understanding “Canada-US high political relations and Canada’s specialized place in the world but also the analogous hierarchical inter-state relations and the patterns of behaviour followed by other subordinate states in the international system.”

As is illustrated by the above passages, the study suffers from the often impenetrable language of poli-sci speak. Lennox is a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University, and has recently entered government service. This will give him first-hand experience on the role of personalities and practical politics. In the meantime, the academic jargon in his book makes it sometimes difficult to understand Lennox’s conclusions. It also undermines its relevance to policy makers.

This is a shame because Lennox’s principal arguments merit discussion. The author is arguing that because of the changes in the international system with only “one great power bestriding the planet,” international relations theory needs to recognize and devote more study to the relationships of big powers with small states and to the role of small states in the system. This is an important point. America’s effort to maintain primacy, Lennox later observes, “seems doomed to failure if it is not combined with a strategy for managing the specialized capacities of its subordinate allies.”

This was increasingly appreciated by George W. Bush’s administration, especially during its second term, and, as Lennox notes, explicitly recognized in A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, the U.S. maritime strategy released in 2007. The Obama administration has consistently stated that going it alone is not its preferred route. Both the president and his foreign policy team are clocking up air miles and spending considerable effort and time reaching out to both allies and adversaries.

Lennox also maintains that there is a “discrepancy between the rhetoric that has traditionally described the ‘special relationship’ and its practice.” He argues that the terms usually applied to Canada’s international behaviour—helpful fixer, peace-keeper, honest broker—which leave an impression of a model citizen above the Machiavellian fray, is overstated. Rather, says Lennox, what we do abroad is driven, to a large extent, by systemic factors. Domestically these include our linguistic duality and federal structure. Internationally, the most important are the asymmetries in population and power—economic and military—vis-à-vis our relationship with the United States.

Lennox uses a study of six episodes to develop his thesis: the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, nuclear weapons policy since the Second World War, missile defence since Canada agreed to test cruise missiles in 1983, the war on terror and continental security since 9/11.

In the case of Vietnam, for example, Lennox observes that, “systemic factors were at work throughout, impelling Canada-US relations in Vietnam on their paradoxical course and compelling Canada to take on an array of specialized roles in the conflict” that ultimately served neither Canadian nor American interests and led to frictions and misunderstandings.

Similarly, in the case of the Cuban missile crisis, Lennox concludes that the crisis, “which could have been expected to demonstrate to both Ottawa and Washington the need for closer cooperation and policy coordination in defense of North America,” instead pushed and pulled our two states in opposite directions. Why? Lennox says it is because of the contradictions inherent in continental hierarchy—factors that would eventually plague and ultimately prevent Canadian participation in the establishment and maintenance of a ballistic missile shield.

In the case of post-9/11 security, Lennox writes, a made-in-Canada response “was never a possibility” because “Canada was compelled by its subordinate position in North America to mimic the US transformation into a security state.” “Compel” is too strong—all countries have tightened security at airports and ports of entry. Moreover, even with our considerable investment in border security and devotion to increasing cooperation in intelligence and policing, we have still not been able to assuage American concerns sufficiently for them to ease the blockage at our borders for commercial traffic as well as the flow of people.

Lennox concludes that “superordinate and subordinate states” need to understand their respective goals and approaches. Subordinate states, he writes, operate best when the rules of the road are clear and understood and there are penalties for breaking them. They play best when they determine their niche and fulfil specialized roles within the system. Ideally, says Lennox, America’s subordinates would be in constant communication with Washington so as to avoid misunderstandings. However, the pressures of “international anarchy” make this difficult and create domestic problems around kowtowing to the hegemon. This is the eternal test for Canada in managing the American relationship: avoiding the perception of being a follower but keeping close and connected enough to be relevant.

Lennox’s approach to looking at Canada-U.S. relations is interesting. He raises useful questions. The dependence on the jargon of political science, however, means that this is not an easy read. For broader appeal his editors should have given it a scrub with Strunk and White.

There are recently published books that are both easier to digest and give the reader a broader overview of both our foreign policy and the Canada-U.S. relationship. Michael Hart’s From Pride to Influence: Towards a New Canadian Foreign Policy is a lively critique of current Canadian foreign policy with an emphasis on Canada-U.S. relations. Robert Bothwell’s Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 has a nuanced appreciation of the often competing factors in foreign policy, including personalities and practical politics.

How to manage the relationship with the United States has perplexed and frustrated every Canadian government since Confederation. As successive prime ministers have observed, the American relationship and national unity are their abiding preoccupations. The best minds in the country and in governments are constantly attending to the unity question. While there is considerable specialized attention given to Asia, especially China and India, and to the Middle East and Europe, including Russia, we devote surprisingly little concentrated study at our universities to the United States. Milnes’s In Roosevelt’s Bright Shadow and Lennox’s At Home and Abroad (notwithstanding its warts) help fill this gap.

In recent years, governments have had to hollow out their policy analysis capacity to focus on program delivery and what is deemed core to government activity. This trend will only continue as we move into another period of fiscal austerity. These are complex and complicated times. The need is even greater, therefore, for policy-relevant studies and analysis of the American challenge. Our publicly funded universities can and should make more practical policy contributions to our national questions.