Domestic Capabilities and Canadian Foreign Policy
| Author | Annette Baker Fox,William T.R. Fox |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070208403900102 |
| Subject Matter | Domestic Sources of Canada's Foreign Policy |
ANNETTE
BAKER
FOX
&
WILLIAM
T.R.
FOX
Domestic
capabilities
and
Canadian
foreign
policy
The
largest and meanest
dogs,
we
are told,
get the
biggest
and
meatiest
bones.
Canada,
as
a
middle-sized
dog, ought
accord-
ingly
to
end
up
with
a
middle-sized
share
of
the
bones.
Foreign
policy
ought
then
to
be
a
matter
of
making sure
that
Canada
does
get
its
fair
share.
Canada
would
be
near
the
top
of
almost anyone's
list
of
middle
powers.
That
Canada
is
one
of
the
Big
Seven
whose
leaders meet
biennially
to
discuss
economic
problems
indicates
wide
recognition
of
Canada's
'upper
middle
power' status.
Whether
Canada
is
to
be
listed
as
above
or
below,
say,
Italy
or
India
or
East
Germany
is
not
very
important.
It
is
enough
to
say
about
its
general
power position
that
it
is
in
the
top
dozen.
This
fact
is
central
but
by
itself
tells
little
about
Canadian
will
and
capacity
in
particular
cases.
It
does
not
tell
us
what
kinds
of
out-
comes
result
from
what
kinds
of
foreign
policy
decisions
to
achieve
what
kinds
of
ends
under
what
kinds
of
conditions.
A
few
other
commonsense
statements
can
be
made
in
an
overall
estimate
of
Canadian
capabilities.
As
part
of
a
resource-
rich
North
American
continent
well
separated
from
Old
World
centres
of
power,
its
location
is
favourable
for
sustained
defence
against
every
overseas
threat
except
the
Soviet
nuclear
threat
from over the
Arctic.
The
geographical
and
social
prox-
imity
of
Canadians
to
Americans
gives
Canadians
special
ANNETTE
BAKER
FOX
is
Senior
Lecturer
in
Political
Science
at
Columbia
University
and
former
Director
of
the
Canadian
Studies
Program.
WILLIAM
T.R.
FOX
is
Bryce
Professor Emeritus
of
the
History
of
International
Rela-
tions
at
Columbia
University
and
former
Director
of
its
Institute
of
War
and
Peace
Studies.
24
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
opportunities
for
influence
in
the
United
States
as it
does
Americans
in
Canada.
Thus,
having the
United
States
as
a
superpower
neighbour
both
adds
to
and
subtracts
from
the
range
of
Canadian
choice
in
foreign
and
defence
policies.
A
special
difficulty
for
Canada
is
that
the
tapestry
of
Canadians'
interests
is
of
such
complex
design
that
it
may
be
harder
for
Canadians
to
identify
what
is
in
the
whole
nation's
interest
than
it
then
is
to
mobilize
the
means
to
protect
or
promote
that inter-
est.
Statements
such
as
the foregoing
are
like
the
characteriza-
tion
of
Canada
as
'upper
middle'
in
the
world power
hierarchy.
They
may
be
(if
true)
very
significant,
but
taken
by
themselves
they,
too,
are
seldom
meaningful
except
as
they
help
to
explain
why
certain
Canadian interests are not
threatened
from abroad
and
thus
occasion no
foreign
policy
activity
or
why
some
other
potential
interests
are
so
far
beyond Canada's
reach
as
not
to
be
'interests'
at
all.
One
way
to
separate
out
'domestic
capabilities'
from
the
totality
of
Canadian
human
and
material
resources
is
to
ask
which
of
Canada's
theoretically
available
assets
can
in
fact
be
allocated
to
support
the
nation's
various
foreign
policy
objec-
tives.
A
large
fraction
of
Canada's human
and
material
resources
is
still
unavailable
to
support
foreign
policy
ends
because
it
is
needed
just
to
keep
the
country
going
and
cannot
properly
be
regarded
as
part
of
the
pool
of
foreign
policy
assets.
Thus,
in
World War
ii
Canada,
like
the United
States,
had
to
keep
most
of
its
automobiles
on
the
road
if
only to
get
the
country's
work
force
to
their
jobs
in
war
industries.
Some
resources, however,
may
be
so
plentiful
that
the
'surplus'
-
some
of
Canada's
untapped
water
reserves
for
example
-is
meaningless
in
any
calculus
of
politically
significant
capabili-
ties.
To
make
matters
more
complicated,
assets
in
the
foreign
policy
pool
are not
equally
available
for
high-
and
for
low-
priority
objectives,
for
truly
'national'
and
for
special-interest-
group
objectives,
for
threatened
and
for
unthreatened
objec-
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