Canadian Foreign Policy
| Author | Jean-François Rioux,Robin Hay |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209905400105 |
| Subject Matter | Essay |
JEAN-FRANOIS
RIOUX
&
ROBIN
HAY
Canadian
foreign
policy
From
internationalism
to
isolationism?
CANADIAN
FOREIGN
POLICY
HAS
BEEN
TRANSFORMED
since
the
end
of
the cold
war.
Foreign
aid
and
defence
budgets
have
been
cut
to
the
bone,
leaving
Canada
with
limited
means
to
project
an
international
profile.
To
be
sure,
Canada
is
still
a
frontline
member
of
the
United
Nations,
capable
of
initiatives
in global
affairs,
such
as
Foreign
Minis-
ter
Lloyd Axworthy's
successful
campaign
for
a
treaty
banning
land-
mines
and
similar
efforts
concerning child
soldiers, small
arms,
and
the
agreement
in
the
summer
of
1998
on
an
international
criminal
court.'
Nonetheless,
the
level
of
Canada's activities
and
the
quality
of
its
con-
tributions
in
the
international
sphere
have
diminished
under
the
Lib-
eral
government
of
Jean
Chrdtien,
despite
Axworthy's activist
and
well-
meaning
efforts.
The
1995
foreign
policy
white
paper
notwithstand-
ing,
Canadian
foreign
policy
has
become
much
more
selective and
conditional and
less
internationalist than
it
was
ten
years
ago.
Canada
is,
de
facto,
practising
'selective
internationalism,'
an ap-
proach
to
foreign
policy
that.has
been
encouraged
by
several
influen-
Robin
Hay
and
Jean-Franfois
Rioux
are
partners
in
GlobalAffairs
Research
Partners,
aforeign
affairs
consultingfirm
based
in
Ottawa.
They
are
also officers
of
the
Canadian
National
Comn-
mittee
of
the
International
Institute
for
Strategic Studies.
i
Some
observers
view
these
initiatives
as
evidence
that
Canada
is
pursuing
an
ad
hoc
foreign
policy,
concentrating
on
issues
that
have
a
good appearance
but
do
lit-
tle
to
advance
global
peace
and
security.
See
Mike
Trickey,
'Canada's
fall
from
grace
on
world
scene,'
Ottawa
Citizen,
8
July
1998,
A4.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
Jean-Fran;ois
Rioux
&
Robin
Hay
tial
commentators
who
insist
that
since
the
end
of
the
cold war
the
pro-
motion
of
Canadian
interests
no longer
requires
broad
international
commitments
and
initiatives.
Prosperity
and
security
can be
ensured
without
devoting
inordinate
resources to
foreign
affairs,
or
so
the
rea-
soning
goes.
The argument
usually
begins
with
the
assumption
that
the
fiscal
situation
in
Canada
is
the
major
impediment
to
broad
engagement
in
foreign
affairs.
Canada,
'typically,'
only
follows
the
direction
of
the
United
States,
which
is
beginning
to
question
its
own
international
commitments.
In
sum,
domestic
circumstances
and
ide-
ologies
combine
with international
constraints
to
reduce
the
appeal
of
internationalism.
Internationalism
is
not
dead
in
Canada,
but
there
are
strong
pres-
sures
to
dilute
it
and
to
shift
to
a
more
selective
approach
to
interna-
tional
commitments.
The
selection
criteria,
moreover,
are
almost
entirely
economic,
designed
to
promote
immediate
self-interest.
Will
this
lead to
the
kind
of
neo-isolationist
foreign
policy
that
to
some
extent
characterized
Canada's
approach
to
world
affairs
in
the
years
between the two
World
Wars?
ISOLATIONISM
IN
PERSPECTIVE
Isolationism
is
perhaps
most
closely
identified
with
the
history
of
for-
eign
policy
in
the
United
States,
though
it
is
also
strongly
associated
with
Britain's
preference
in
the
turbulent
19th
century
for
'splendid
isolation.'
Isolationism, to
be sure,
spans nearly
the entire
history
of
the
United
States:
in
1796,
in
his
farewell
address
to
Congress,
George
Washington
warned
against
entanglement
in
European
affairs.
The
Monroe
Doctrine
of
1823
reaffirmed
that
tendency,
which
was
only
briefly
interrupted
when
the
United
States
entered
the First
World
War,
a
flirtation
with internationalism
firmly
repudiated
by
Congress
when
it
blocked
Woodrow
Wilson's
attempts
to
involve
the
United
States
in
the
League
of
Nations.
Isolationism
was
not
definitively aban-
doned until
the
Japanese
attacked
Pearl
Harbor
in
1941.
Even
so,
with
its
roots firmly
planted
in
notions
of
Manifest
Destiny,
conservative
fears
of
a
too-powerful
government, and
continuing
objections
to
involvement
overseas,
American
isolationism
is
never
far
from
the
sur-
face.
The Canadian
experience
of
isolationism
is
less
stark.
From
1867
until
the
end
of
the
First
World
War, Canada's
foreign
policy
was
car-
ried
out
in
the
context
of
membership
in
a
closely
knit
British
Empire.
58
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1998-9
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