Canada and the World at Risk: Depression, War, and Isolationism for the 21st Century?
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209705200101 |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Author | Douglas Alan Ross |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DOUGLAS
ALAN
ROSS
Canada
and
the
world
at
risk:
depression,
war,
and
isolationism
for
the
21S
century?
Canada's
statistical
profile
in
the
post-Cold
War
era
is
in
some
important
respects
coming
to
resemble
the
summary
depictions
of
life
in
the
dirty
'thirties.
Never
in
the
post-World
War
II
era
have
there
been
so
many
Canadians
out of
work
or
'casualized'
or
'discouraged.'
Almost
five
million
Canadians,
including
nearly
one-fifth
of
Canadian
children,
live
below
the
poverty
line.
At no
time
since World
War
II
has
income
polarization
been
as
severe
between
top
and
bottom
wage
earners.
Never
before
has
the
blinkered,
stunted,
soulless
ideology
of
American
neoconser-
vatism
so
dominated
the Canadian
political
landscape, bringing
with
it
such
extraordinary
levels
of
governmental irresponsibility
and
public
cynicism.
That
the damage
inflicted
upon
American
society
is
equally
if
not
more
grave
is
no cause
for
consolation
or
resignation:
it
merely
adds
to
the
danger
of
North
American
disengagement
from
global
security
management
in
years
to
come. For Canada's
foreign
and
defence
policies,
the
state
of
affairs
is
even worse
than
the
condition
of
the
national
economy.
Not
since
the
1930S
has
Canada's
international
presence
seemed
so wan, so
self-
enfeebled,
so
marginal.
With
the
North
American
Free
Trade
Agreement
(NAFTA)
and
the
Uruguay
Round
of
the
General
Agreement on
Tariffs
and
Trade
(GATT)
under
implementation,
foreign
policy
has
been
reduced
to Team
Canada trade
missions
to
communist
and ethnically
repressive states
(China
and
Indonesia)
and
fervent,
well-intentioned
but
largely
irrelevant
Professor
of
Political
Science,
Simon
Fraser
University,
Burnaby,
British
Columbia.
leternationalJournal
Lt.
WINTER
1
996-7
2
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
speeches on
disarmament
and
peacekeeping
at
a
debt-ridden,
paralyzed,
and
imploding
United
Nations.
Thanks
to
the
triumph of
quasi-pacifist
doctrine
of
the
style
found
in
Canada
2
1,'
the
future
of
the Canadian
armed
forces
is
unusually
bleak.
The
foundations
of
Canada's
international
secu-
rity
policy
have
been
eroded
by
profoundly
unwise
decisions
over
the past
three
years
to
'restructure'
the
military
for
what
politi-
cians
and
policy-makers
in
Ottawa
foolishly
believe
will
be
a
com-
paratively
benign
post-Cold
War
era.
The
following
develop-
ments
in
particular
have
done
grave
damage
to
Canadian
power,
position,
and
influence
over
the
'high'
political
issues
on
the
global
agenda:
i
The
elimination
of
Canada's
armoured
firepower
despite
the
offer
of
hundreds
of
modern
American main
battle
tanks
at
little
more
than
the
cost
of shipment
in
1991-2.
Modern
tanks
are
essential
protection for
Canadian
peacekeepers
who
may
be
sent
into
high-risk
'peacekeeping'
environments
and
if
Canada
is
to
have
the
ability
to
participate
in
'high intensity'
military
actions
for
'peace
enforcement'
missions,
whether
under
the
auspices
of
the
North
Atlantic
Treaty
Organization
(NATO)
or
the United
Nations.
Canadian
public
opinion,
no
less
than
American
or
Western
European
public
opinion,
will
not tolerate
significant
battlefield
casualties..2
Canadian
forces
must
therefore
be
as
fully
protected
in
their
duties abroad
as
possible.
Forgoing
heavy
armour
seriously
compromises
the
long-term
political
sustainabil-
ity
of
sending
Canadian
personnel
on
both
peacekeeping
and
peace-enforcement
actions.
i
The
policies
of
severe
retrenchment of
the
Canadian
military
outlined
in
Canada
2
1:
Canada
and
Cominon
Security
in
the Twenty-First
Century
(Toronto:
Centre
for
International
Studies,
University
of
Toronto,
1994) were
embraced
by
many
leading
members
of
the
Liberal
party.
The
result
of
this
profoundly
imprudent
development, coupled
with
the
public relations disaster
of
the
Somalia
enquiry
and
other
assorted
misdeeds
of Canadian
military
personnel,
has
been
the
destruction
of
the
Canadian
armed
forces
as
a
usable,
militarily
consequential
instrument.
2
On the
practical
consequences
of
the
intolerance
of the
casualties
of
post-industrial societies
see
Edward
Luttwak,
'Toward
post-heroic warfare,'
Foreign Affairs
73
(May/June
1995);
'A
post-heroic
military
policy,'
ibid
74(July/Au~gust
1996);
and
'Where
are
the
great
powers?'
ibid
72
(July/August
1994).
To continue reading
Request your trial