Canada: A Nuisance Neighbour (And sometimes a malicious one, too)

Cambridge, MA – Canada is a security threat to the United States. It is a shocking fact, because Americans are used to thinking that Canadians are our friends, and that Canada is the source of nothing more dangerous than some of our winter weather and most of our hockey players. It is not that Canada possesses great military power; we know that Canada barely bothers these days to maintain an army. On the contrary, it is precisely because Canada is so weak, militarily and culturally, that it acts to harm America's security interests.

In the 1960s, Canada began to drastically reduce its military, which until then had always been at Britain's side, if not America's. Canada's NATO contribution, never large, faded to insignificant long before the Berlin Wall came down in November, 1989. It withdrew its soldiers and airmen from Europe entirely at the end of the Cold War.

In the 1990s, while continuing to cut its armed forces, Canada briefly sought an international reputation in peacekeeping, but greatly tempered this initiative after disastrous experiences in Somalia, where its troops misbehaved, and in Rwanda, where its leadership was ignored. Today, the Canadian military numbers about 60,000 and Canada spends only about 1% of GDP on "defence."

The value of British ties faded with the decline in Britain's power and the rise of separatist sentiment in Quebec. The threat of being absorbed not by a conquering but by a thriving America was also real after the Second World War. Canada had to find an identity as something other than Britain's North American outpost. It has been building that identity ever since. In 1982, it brought home its Constitution from Britain and with it a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a Canadian version of the American Bill of Rights.

But a constitution does not a country make, and Canada still has to worry about the big identity thief to the south. A Canadian idol has become a Canadian who succeeded in America. Many professional and industrial associations have blended between the nations, with the really big prizes almost always located in the south. Although very few Americans know or care who the prime minister of Canada is, most Canadians not only know the names of several American politicians, but have strong preferences among them. It is no wonder that Canada reveres its problem-laden health care system, because Canada is very close to being America with but one distinction — universal health care.

Canada's search for additional national distinction has led it to adopt an anti-American foreign policy. The Vietnam War coincided with attempts to solidify a non-British identity in Canada. Canadian abstention from the war made the harbouring of American draft avoiders possible, as did the division over the war in the United States. Canadian politicians learned that opposing American foreign policy was popular at home and carried little risk to Canada of American retaliation.

When Canada helped some Americans to get out of Tehran during the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, it bought a decade of American goodwill. The token dispatch of two warships and a squadron of fighter aircraft was enough to give it full credit during the first Gulf War in 1991. But being an American foreign policy opponent has more advantages than being an American partner.

Without costs, many around the world shake a fist at America. The American public barely notices and holds few grudges. But opposing America can seem like standing up to Goliath at home. It can give the appearance of independence to nations that are hopelessly dependent.

Low grade anti-Americanism on Canada's part is surely tolerable. It is probably the glue that holds Canada together, and Americans should want Canada to stick together. Otherwise, the U.S. might be paying for the Maritime provinces and trying to figure out what to do with Quebec.

Moreover, anti-Americanism may well be the international norm these days given the disparities in power that exist and our own unilateralist tendencies.

If it makes most Canadians, or perhaps just most Canadian officials, feel good about themselves for Canada to cultivate an image of the kinder, gentler, more nuanced North American country, then so what? Canada's refusal to support America's invasion of Iraq may be in this mode. Calls by Canada for the United States to give more time for inspections to work or to take no action without United Nations approval, may have been annoying to senior U.S. administration officials, but were understandable Canadian positions.

Canada was not going to contribute anyway, and we were going to go ahead whether or not Canada agreed. No one much cared what Canada said or did.

The more reprehensible Canadian behavior has been that which has potential for harmfully constraining our military actions and putting our soldiers permanently at risk. One example is the Ottawa Treaty Banning Landmines, which the Canadian Foreign Minister at the time, Lloyd Axworthy, orchestrated in 1997. The Treaty, whose formulation involved unusually extensive participation by non-governmental organizations including various humanitarian relief and anti-war groups, bans the manufacture, possession, transfer, and use of anti-personnel devices that explode on contact or in proximity with a person so as to incapacitate, injure or kill.

Banned also are so-called anti-handling devices often used with anti-vehicle mines. The argument was that the dangers of mines persist long after wars, with these weapons lying in wait most often in unmarked or forgotten locations to kill and maim the innocent who pass by or try to work the land.

The United States has refused to sign the treaty in part because it maintains marked and fenced mine fields along the inter-Korean border to hinder possible North Korean attacks, but also because it has developed and equipped its forces with replacement mines that are scattered rather than emplaced, and that are set with timers to self-destruct after a battle, thus posing no risk to returning civilians. These devices were not exempt in formulating the ban because, as one organizer put it, "we didn't want to give the United States any advantage." At Canada's urging, most of our allies, including nearly all of our NATO partners, have signed the Treaty, which means essentially that we can not ever deploy mines if we seek coalition partners because it is unlawful for signatory nations to join in warfare with landmine users.

Because American forces do nearly all of the fighting these days done by Western militaries, it will be American soldiers who will be most often unprotected by defensive minefields. American soldiers, of course, will still face the dangers of landmines. The treaty has little effect on fighting in the poorer regions of the world, because few local participants pay attention to the ban and because unsophisticated mines are cheap to make and easy to plant.

Another example of Canada working against American security interests and potentially placing American soldiers in jeopardy is Canada's promotion of the International Criminal Court. A Canadian diplomat presided over the negotiations that produced the treaty creating the court, which Canada championed as the rightful legacy of the Nuremberg trials and the forum where the perpetrators of evils like that which occurred in Rwanda and Bosnia will be brought to justice. President Bush renounced the accepting signature that President Clinton gave the International Criminal Court treaty in his last days in office but never forwarded to the Senate, saying that the treaty would give license to politically driven prosecutors to indict Americans serving in overseas stability and peacekeeping operations.

With America taking the initiative to bring order to so many different parts of the world, it needed to protect its soldiers from the easy retaliation that an International Criminal Court trial would offer those who sympathize with our enemies. Canada has strongly opposed U.S. attempts to gain an extended exemption for U.S. forces from the court's jurisdiction. It seems likely that one day soon an American soldier will be heading to the Hague for judgment, with all the political consequences that will involve.

Canada's role in drafting these treaties is not the result of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien's obvious and, at times, crudely expressed dislike for President George W. Bush and his administration. The treaties were initiated well before President Bush took office, when Chretien's good friend Bill Clinton was the president. Because they intentionally undermine America's military equities, the treaties seem to represent a deeper and more dangerous decision by Canada's foreign policy establishment to lead the international effort to hobble the American military. Canada appears not to be just searching for a virtuous image or opportunistically expressing a mild brand of anti-Americanism. It seems to be on a Lilliputian quest to bind our power.

When a threat comes from a friend, and a weak one at that, it is largely ignored. American military-to-military relations with Canada are extensive, with Canada receiving a lot more than it gives in return. Hundreds of Canadian officers and enlisted personnel are embedded in American units, given training at American military facilities and exposed to American military staff planning procedures. Canadian ships often sail as part of U.S. battle groups. Canadian air force squadrons make exchange flights to U.S. bases. The deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defence Command is a Canadian general, but so, too, is the deputy commander of the U.S. Army's III Corps. Ironically, even though Canada opposes our role in Iraq, III Corps recently deployed to Iraq with the Canadian general still serving as the deputy commander and issuing orders to American forces.

Canadian defence firms are included in the U.S. defence industrial base and therefore get privileged access to U.S. defence procurement dollars. But when Canada buys defence equipment from U.S. defence firms, it demands offsets, which is equivalent to double dipping. Thus do Billions of dollars in U.S. weapon purchases follow toward Canada. Two-thirds of the Stryker vehicles, the U.S. Army's new combat troop carrier, are made in Canada. So, too, is a significant portion of our ammunition.

Canada's freeriding is both impossible to stop and ultimately limited. We are going to protect the continent with or without Canada's help. We are going to fight wars whether or not Canadian forces accompany our own. Given the likely effect of another terrorist attack on the nearly indistinguishable Canadian and U.S. economies, Canada can have no problem in working co-operatively with U.S. authorities to prevent infiltration by al-Qaeda members.

Canada does not have to spend much on its military, and it knows it, but Canada also is not suicidal. From a physical security/military assistance perspective, we have what we need from Canada and always will.

But Americans should be concerned about — and not tolerate — Canada seeking a leading role in the global coalition to thwart American power needed to protect U.S. citizens and interests. Canada has given up on warfare; it can afford to, though the U.S. cannot.

When Canada calls for a ban on the instruments of warfare or wants to put in criminal jeopardy those who fight, it knowingly handicaps American action.

There is nothing friendly or neighbourly about placing deployed U.S. forces at additional risk. There has to be a line where Canadian foreign policy cannot cross. Canada's anti-Americanism, so necessary for its independence, should not find an international stage. Subsidizing cultural events to reinforce a weak national identity is one thing; constraining American military advantage is another.

The recent decision by Prime Minister Paul Martin not to have Canada participate in the U.S. missile ballistic defence program shows how insensitive the Canadian government has become to U.S. politics. The Left in America has all but given up fighting ballistic missile defence, which is a sacred component of the Republican Party creed. Security fears, real or ginned up, govern American presidential politics post-9/11, as do Republicans. Lulled by the Clinton Administration's apparent unwillingness to assert America's military equities against Canadian diplomatic adventures, Canadian politicians think they have only to contend with their own domestic pressures when thinking about defence. Confrontation surely lies ahead unless Canada recognizes both its growing dependency on its neighbour to the south and the renewed intensity of America's security concerns.

It is time to give Canada some attention and a bit of a warning. Canada is easy to squeeze. The military trade preferences should end. The tag-along trips and the combat observation opportunities should stop. The Canadian military surely carries little weight in Canadian politics and these are small steps, but signals should be sent saying that there can be even greater costs ahead for Canada if it continues its international meddling at our expense and forgets its geography. The Canadian economy is highly vulnerable. Just as we know where Arctic blasts come from, Canada should know where its own economic prosperity originates.

It is a shocking fact, because Americans are used to thinking that Canadians are our friends

Up until about 9/12. What Canada and the rest of the world doesn't understand is it's England this week and quite possibly them next week. These terrorists aren't going to only target US allies but any soft target. Canada, by it's own inaction, is definitely one of the easiest targets in the Western world.

The CBC (our publicly funded liberal MSM) is hugely to blame for the shift. A few weeks back the Fraser Institute released the finding of a study pointedly showing how anti-American their reporting is. My tax dollars are siphoned off to this effort.

This aside, we need more conservative support from the US in our elections. Seems like your libs get firmly behind our libs and we're screwed. The last prime minister who was firmly behind the US was Mulroney in the Reagan years and the MSM buried him.

A plea for a little help next time around - and recall it's a minority government so with any luck that will come sooner than later.

Anti-Americanism is the unstated essence of the modern Canadian identity.

Unstated? Hardly.

The g*dd*mned Liberal Party has been beating the anti-American drum since Walter Gordon more than 40 years ago.

The sonofab*tch Trudeau did his best to kill actual Canadian values and replace them with a 'progressive' ideology.

A substantial minority of Canadians have never been seduced by Liberal lies, so there is still a kernel of hope that Trudeau's scheme will ultimately be defeated.

A small desperate hope perhaps, but that is the nature of kernels.

"Anti-Americanism is the unstated essence of the modern ~~Canadian~~ Torontonian/Ottawa identity.

And you're correct, the CBC, the liberal media-billion dollar tax payer funded-left winged-Al-Jazerra of Canada network. The Anti American attitude isn't an across Canada issue, it is a regional one, spurred on by the likes of Carolyn Parish, Liberal, and the corrupt Liberal party.

As far as the border is concerned, it's weak on both sides, Canadians aren't responsible for who enters the USA, it's the USA's duty to protect it's borders, and who enters the country, And Canadians are responsible about who enters thiers. In Canada, they are "missing" 36,000 illegals who were supposed to have been deported. If you ask me, Canadians are at risk themselves having that many running around their coutry doing who knows what. When terrorism strikes Canada, and it will, they will hve no one to blame but themselves.

Here, we have no one to blame but ourselves for illegals entering the country. It's our duty to patrol our borders and keep illegals out. We have millions of illegals here and now, that we don't know who or where they are, or what they are doing. Rather than point fingers over who is in other countries, we should concern ourselves about who is in ours, and do something about it, rather than leave the gates wide open. I could give a rats arse about what's in Canada. That's their problem.

This is a terrible article. The author makes a basic premise about Canada being "hostile" to the U.S., then proceeds to support his argument by listing a bunch of international treaties Canada is promoting/supporting -- treaties that will have absolutely NO IMPACT on the United States unless we ourselves sign on to these agreements.

The author also overlooks some basic historical facts about Canada. Canada as we know it wasn't even really a "nation" until the 1960s (the maple leaf insignia on their flag wasn't adopted until 1964). Before that, it functioned in many ways as if it were still a British colony. In fact, to this day the Canadian government still functions in some ways as a part of the old British empire -- the Queen of England is the ceremonial head of state, and a Governor General is still appointed to serve as her representative in Ottawa.

Canada's diminished military capability is less a function of its aversion to military matters than its structure as a "confederation" of provinces rather than a "nation" along the lines of the United States. Ironically, Canada today probably functions in a manner that adheres more closely than the U.S. to the ideals envisioned by the Founding Fathers of the United States back in the 1790s. Most of the power is vested in the provincial governments, and the Federal government in Ottawa -- despite its corruption and excessive taxation -- is largely incapable of governing the nation as a whole.

The leftist, Anti American mood in Ontario is very simular, if not ideentical to the leftist anti- Americanism in NY and the left coast. In fact they follow the exact same agenda. Lets not forget that leftist media here in the USA also owns much of leftist media in Canada as well.

In Canada, the leftist Liberals get about 32% of the popular vote, yet retain power in Ottawa because of a monopoly of seats concentrated in 2 provences, Ontario and Qubec, with Quebec voting largely for a separtist party, which somehow is allowed to sit in parlement, even though they do not represent any other part of canada besides Q-bec.
The majority of Canadians are actually conservative, and much more friendly towards the USA. they just can't get into power unless they gain seats in Ontario. Elections in Canada are over before the western provences go to the polls.
The liberals have a dictatorship like grip on Canada, which won't change until either western Canada separates, or somehow conservatives manage to get a foothold in Ontario.

"Canada's NATO contribution, never large... "

Forgive me for nit-picking, but at the foundation of NATO and for several years thereafter, Canada had the second-largest tactical air force in W. Europe after the US. They also had a big part in keeping the sea lanes of communication between No. Am. and Europe clear by ASW and convoy escort in the event the balloon went up. A significant contributor by any lights.

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