Working at Cross Purposes: How National Security Strategies Undermine North American Regional Security

Abstract

North American Regional Security: A Trilateral Framework? By Richard J. Kilroy Jr, Abelardo Rodriguez Sumano, Todd S. Hataley. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2012. 255 pp., $58.50 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-58826-854-9). The authors of North American Regional Security: A Trilateral Framework? analyze the current state of security in North America, bringing together two major theoretical frameworks in their innovative study: Buzan and Weaver's regional security complex theory (RSCT), and a constructivist approach based on what the authors term the “three I's—Institutions, Identity and Interests” (p. 10). These concepts serve to determine the unit of analysis (North America, defined as Canada, the United States, and Mexico) and to answer the study's central question, is there a trilateral security framework in North America? To answer this question, the authors revisit the historical “construction of security” in the three North American countries. They conclude that each country arrived at an internal or domestic logic in regard to its national security that is, and has been, difficult to reconcile with those of their two neighbors. The American culture of security is global in scope; Canada primarily takes a defensive posture; and Mexico's culture of security is acutely aware of …