At Home and Abroad: The Canada–US Relationship and Canada’s Place in the World, by Patrick Lennox

Abstract

Patrick Lennox At Home and Abroad: The Canada-US Relationship and Canada's Place in the World Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010. 192 pp $32.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-7748-1706-6Canada's sprawling land mass and vast seaboards, wrote Robert Sarty, indefensible by its tiny population without the assistance of strong allies.1 Indeed, Canada stretches almost a quarter of the way around the globe and yet even today boasts a population less than of Tokyo-Yokohama. From the country's earliest times, policymakers have remained acutely aware of this geostrategic quandary. The Fathers of Confederation, for example, knew enough to squeeze out of Britain a pledge to rescue the fledgling dominion if threatened militarily. Mackenzie King was similarly adroit, eliciting a security guarantee from the US in August 1938, after it had become increasingly apparent Britain was no longer up to the task of defending vast tracts of Canadian wilderness. I give to you assurance, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire.2 This confirms Robert Bothwell's observation the overarching task of Canadian foreign policy is to ensure neighbourly relations with our all-important benefactors.3 So sprawling and sparsely populated a nation confronts no alternative. We either cultivate friendly and cooperative ties with powerful patrons or face extinction at more powerful hands.Canadian foreign policy should therefore be a relatively simple affair. Above all else, Ottawa must avoid displeasing our protector, lest it retract its outstretched security umbrella. Careful alignment of Canadian policy with of the United States is the obvious expectation. Yet Patrick Lennox, in his impressive At Home and Abroad, points out Canada's international policies have frequently defied Washington's wishes. More often than not... Canada and the United States find themselves at odds on the international stage (ix). Rather than steady cooperation between the two countries, we see the occasional broadside from a prime minister aimed across the southern border. Lester Pearson's criticism in 1965 of America's Vietnam policy at Temple University stands as the paramount example. Diplomatic efforts to appear as a helpful fixer in the international community-even if it runs contrary to US interests-similarly throw a wrench into relations. Canadian manoeuvrings at the United Nations during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq are evidence of that. Dealings between the two countries are therefore far more tumultuous than one would initially assume.Lennox-quite uniquely in the Canadian foreign policy literature-turns to system structure to explain this pathology. Neither theories at the state level, such as those of political culture or regime type, nor at the individual level, focusing on prime ministers, cabinets, and the like, properly illustrate the oscillation between foreign policies gratify domestic constituencies and those appease our great-power neighbour. What can, Lennox argues, is a theory appreciates the two competing structural conditions confront minor powers. On the one hand, Canada exists within a clear continental hierarchy (5). For example, 94 percent of the North American Aerospace Defence Command's (NORAD) personnel and 84 percent of its funding comes from the United States (7). Such a clear discrepancy in economic and military power encourages subordination and conformity with the hegemon's wishes. On the other hand, Canada is still a state operating within an anarchical international system, and therefore relies on selfhelp to ensure its sovereign autonomy. …