Integration and Security in North America

Abstract

The social and political implications of regional integration processes have been widely studied. In some cases, economic regionalization has been driven by political considerations. In Europe, as is widely known, the integration process was explicitly propelled by grand political motivations. In the words of Jean Monnet, Europe was to create peace.In the early years of NAFTA, the political implications of the integration enterprise were also intensely debated. This was particularly the case in Mexico, where a 70-year-old regime had resisted internal pressures favouring democratization. NAFTA's sway over these developments became clear in 1994 as Mexico's political opening gathered force. Notwithstanding this, integration in North America, whether in Mexico, Ottawa, or Washington, remained primarily predicated upon economic terms and goals. In NAFTA's original mandate, neither politics nor security was expected to be part of the equation.Although by the late 1990s the intensification of licit transborder flows and the rising mobility of people in North America already presented a new security environment, 9/11 provided, tragically, a new and unprecedented sense of urgency. Without a doubt, the attacks transformed radically the context of integration between the US, Canada, and Mexico, placing security at the fore.1The terrorist attacks mobilized the NAFTA partners into a series of decisions and measures that are likely to have important consequences for regional security and security cooperation in North America. The attacks prompted all three partners to agree on a basic framework aimed at reassuring the US while attempting to improve regional security in North America. What became known as the smart border agreements were swiftly negotiated and implemented, between Canada and the US at the end of 2001 and soon after by Mexico and the United States. While in the short term these measures may have helped reassure the US, their overall impact remains uncertain.This article attempts to provide a framework of analysis for the role that security has played and will continue to play in NAFTA. As has become painfully clear, in North America as elsewhere, security has become tied up with the regionalization processes. The article thus draws attention to the role of economic integration as a producer of regional security dynamics. The chapter looks briefly at NAFTA as a producer of both security and insecurity in the region and reflects on those changes that have transformed NAFTA into an avid consumer of security. The capacity of Canada, Mexico, and the US to meet this sudden increase in the demand for regional security may prove central not only to NAFTA's future, but also to the nature of the overall integration enterprise in North America. The trends that we have recently observed in North America open up a series of questions about the conditions under which security may act as an engine for, or a brake upon, integration and about the role that security is likely to play in future regional dynamics.NAFTA AND THE PRODUCTION OF INSECURITY IN NORTH AMERICAWhen it was ratified in 1993, NAFTA established the first integration scheme (other than those based on colonial or ex-colonial links) between a developing country, Mexico, and two developed states, Canada and the US.2 A decade later, its success in terms of trade and investment was of such magnitude that the World Bank actively promoted it as a model for developing states. Trade between Mexico and the US had increased four-fold, trade between Canada and the US had more than doubled, and trade between Canada and Mexico had also increased by 150 percent. Between 1993 and 2005, trade between NAFTA partners increased from US$288 billion to US$772 billion. As important as this absolute increase in trade has been the rise in intra-regional trade in North America. Indeed, in the course of two decades, trade with each other, as a percentage of the three countries' world trade, jumped from one third to over 50 percent and evolved along intra-firm and intra-industry lines. …