Johannes Thimm The United States & Multilateral Treaties: A Policy Puzzle Boulder, Colorado

Published date01 March 2017
Date01 March 2017
DOI10.1177/0020702017694158
Subject MatterBook Reviews
It can be argued that by the time he died in 1941, Skelton had helped achieve
that autonomy for Canada in global politics, as the Canadian government entered
the Second World War with an independent and separate declaration of war
against Germany on 10 September 1939, and with Canadians exhibiting a high
degree of national unity. It is thus particularly ironic that Skelton himself did not
believe that he had succeeded in his quest. On the contrary: he viewed the Canadian
declaration of war as a failure on his part, since Canadians were, in his view, doing
nothing more than marching in lockstep with Britain into another world war, as
they had in 1914.
But the fact is that Canadians made that decision autonomously, even if Skelton
did not agree with the decision. That autonomous calculation was best captured by
Stephen Leacock, writing in the Atlantic Monthly in the summer of 1939, trying to
explain to American readers Canadian thinking about the impending war in
Europe. Leacock wrote: ‘‘If you were to ask any Canadian, ‘Do you have to go
to war if England does?’ he’d answer at once, ‘Oh, no.’ If you then asked, ‘Would
you go to war if England does?’ he’d answer ‘Oh, yes.’ And if you asked ‘Why?’ he
would say, ref‌lectively, ‘Well, you see, we’d have to.’’’
This Leacock quote is not mentioned in Hillmer’s biography—perhaps not
surprising given Skelton’s highly negative view of Leacock: he once dismissed
one of Leacock’s books as ‘‘incredible pif‌f‌le’’ (192). But the Leacock formulation
captures nicely how O.D. Skelton’s ‘‘Canadian ambition’’ was in fact achieved.
Johannes Thimm
The United States & Multilateral Treaties: A Policy Puzzle
Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2016; 287pp. $113 (cloth)
ISBN: 978–1–62637–552–9
Reviewed by: Laszlo Sarkany, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario,
lsarkan@uwo.ca
Presidential elections such as the recent contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump are not the only reason why US domestic politics matter. US domestic pol-
itics matter signif‌icantly for US foreign policymaking as well. In 2016, Secretary of
State John Kerry noted that one of the reasons why the US has not intervened
militarily in Syria is because the US Senate would not give its consent.
1
Yet, of course, just as foreign policymaking in the US and elsewhere is not
deemed very important for electoral politics, the key processes and actors are
largely disregarded, or are only extended superf‌icial importance. The outcome of
US foreign policy seems to matter the most. Markedly more attention is paid, for
example, to the fact that the US has not intervened militarily in Syria, or that it has
1. Elise Labott and Ryan Browne, ‘‘John Kerry in leaked audio: ‘I lost the argument’ with ... ’’
cnnPolitics, 4 October 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/01/politics/kerry-audio-recording-syria/
(accessed 24 October 2016).
Book Reviews 149

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