Pluralism, Caution and Canadian-American Relations

Have you noticed that those leaders who are the least cautious (say, Jason Kenney) are the ones who actually never have to deal with international relations? It is easy, in other words, be extremist when you never have to live with the implications of your own suggestions. Kenney's demand for trade sanctions against the US is a case in point. By any stretch, suggesting trade sanctions -- in effect, suggesting that Canada begin a trade war with the US -- on the first day of a new administration is an extreme suggestion. Kenney can suggest an extreme response because he does not have to implement that response or live with it. He doesn't have to worry about fallout or the effects of, say, supply chain disruption during a pandemic. He can hand that ball off the federal government while urging them to do his bidding. 

There is something about extreme responses that grab public attention. The media love them. "The Premier of Alberta is urging ...X" what do you say Mr. Prime Minister? It the kind of controversial sound bite on which modern journalism thrives because they believe it somehow attracts viewers or listeners. It also fits well with a certain type of conservatism that sees "tough" responses as the way to get what one wants in international relations.   The difference between success and failure in IR, the point seems to be, is the PM's toughness and determination. 

Is it? Is, in this case, starting a trade war with the US on the first day of a new administration a good approach to Canadian American relations? Does it allow help Canada advance its agenda? I will argue "no." Canada's position in international affairs is determined by a range of criteria (its geography, economics, alliances, etc.) but the toughness or determination of the PM or the willingness to resort to extreme measures as a first step, "go to" move is not one of them. In fact, I'll argue that the discourse which presents extreme options as a first step is more for domestic political consumption than a reasoned assessment of an effective foreign policy. 

Canadian Foreign Policy

There are a number of considerations to bear in mind and an assumption I am making as part of this discussion. The assumption is this: the aim of foreign policy is to accomplish things. This can, should, and does include a range of things. Economic issues often grab the headlines but there are other objectives that range from education to scientific to environmental policy to the arts and athletics, the military, and much more. It includes things like border transport, cross-border production and media. The assumption I am making is that a key aim of Canadian foreign policy is to advance Canada's agenda.  (To be clear about my own perspective: I hope this is not the only goal. I hope that considerations of international fairness, equity in health and welfare, shared global concerns like ecological change, among others also weigh into the development of Canadian foreign policy.)

What are these goals? We can get back to them later, but one of them, at least, will be economic. Let's use this as an example because it is the issue Kenney is, in large measure, raising and the way he has chosen to frame the controversy over Keystone XL. In terms of economics, Canada's objectives are to maintain access to the American market for its (Canada's) products, expand that market, maintain border transit and cross-border production, share productivity improvements, protect Canadian intellectual property, ensure that a market for Canadian cultural products exists, maintain border security, and likely a range of other things. Said differently, our aim is to improve the Canadian economy. Taking actions that negatively affect the Canadian economy would be something to avoid. 

The other key thing to note about Canadian foreign policy -- a thing that affects it -- is that Canada is what used to be called a "middle power." People still use this term. To be honest, I'd need to look up the precise definition so let's just use it as a general place holder right now. What I mean is that Canada is a fully sovereign state (it has internationally recognized legal autonomy over its own affairs and relations with other countries) but it is not a great power. It is not one of the leading international powers in the globe. Nor, however, is Canada insignificant. Canada has -- or, can have -- characteristics that make its voice important on the international stage. A full list would take too long but Canada has advanced scientific capacity, a well trained and effective military, a high standard of living, a basically sound economy, a willingness to play a positive role in refugee re-settlement, few international enemies, a reputation for playing a positive and thoughtful role on the world stage, among other things. All of these things have, in my view, suffered in recent years and this suffering has occurred under a range of different PMs. I also don't want to look at Canada with rose coloured glasses and so I am not saying Canada (domestically and internationally) is not without serious problems. 

Because Canada is a middle power, a certain amount of caution is always in order in international relations. That is what it means to be a middle power and this is something that the key diplomats of Canadian history understood. Canadian foreign policy works most effectively when it involves discussion, the international rule of law, diplomacy, pluralism, and multilateralism precisely because Canada does not have the international scope and power to stomp its feet and get its way. Very few countries, in fact, do. China, for instance, spends its time using economic leverage as opposed to raw power and it would be considered a "great power." Likewise, for all that the previous US administration talked the talk of power, that talk did not accomplish a great deal. In fact, one could argue that US international authority has not been this weak since the interwar era. Before we jump to the conclusion that extreme measure are the way to go, we need to look at their success rate. Is there any reason to believe that they will be successful? If there is not, then implementing them is something that really does need a second thought. 

Extreme Measures and Foreign Policy

The point I am trying to make is not that extreme (or, more extreme) measures might not be needed. It is that it should not be the "go to" move and that its success rate might be far less than one imagines. It gambles a lot and it makes that gamble on an unequal playing field. In terms of Canadian/American relations, Canada plays on an unequal field. US power -- economically, culturally, scientifically, etc. -- is simply greater than Canada's and by a wide margin. Again, I am not saying that Canada is insignificant. But I am saying that the US is a great power with a broad and deep economic capacity that Canada lacks.  Economically, the US is Canada's most important market by far. It is not even close. Canada's trade with the US is greater than Canada's trade with the rest of the world combined, twice over.  Canada is an important US trading partner but no longer the most important and the importance of the Canadian market to the US economy is in the low single digits. What this means is that if Canada tries to go toe-to-toe with the US, we have a serious uphill battle. To use a military metaphor, we will run out of bullets before the US does and long before. The US might like to have the Canadian market. I am sure it does. It doesn't need it. Canada's need of the US market and US trade is ... well ... a need. 

I mention this to ask a different question: does Jason Kenney think the US is in the business of letting other countries take either (a) free shots at it without retaliation or (b) in the business of indicating to the world that it will quickly back down if confronted with middle power trade sanctions. If you were running the US (regardless of which party you might represent), would you be interested in establishing either precedent? Even if we leave aside the problematic contention that Canada's trade sanctions against the US would be powerful enough to force a reversal of policy, would the US be interested in letting the world know that it will ditch its policies and principles that easily? And, if not, what will be the response? 

We might get -- and have, in the past, gotten -- to the place where trade sanctions are needed but, to the best of my knowledge, Canada has imposed sanctions in the US only in a set number of circumstances:

• Canadian sanctions have been proportional. That is, they have not tried to escalate trade disputes but indicate to the US government that we will not be pushed around. That is, they were not intended to "win" the dispute but to establish the idea that discussion is the way to resolve the dispute. 
• They have been in response to US sanctions on Canada. The sanctions Canada imposed on the US under the Trump administration were not a first strike. They were a response to what Canada contended were illegal American sanctions. 
• They were not intended to affect American domestic policy but to address Canada/US trade issues. 
• They were part of an overall strategy designed to advance Canada's trade agenda with the US.

To be clear, what Kenney is suggesting is the exact opposite. He is suggesting that Canada undertake trade sanctions against the US without any idea of proportionality. How can you calculated supposedly lost future revenue from Keystone XL? Who would even make this calculation? How would it be assessed by independent dispute settlement mechanisms? I don't think any of these points were considered. Moreover, the sanctions Kenney suggests applying would be a first strike. There is no comparable sanction against Canada. They would be aimed at influencing American domestic policy. And, they would be taken without regard to the other foreign policy tools Canada will use to try to address Keystone XL. Before anyone too easily says "I still think we need to try to do something" (a point I will address below) imagine that the situation were reversed? Imagine, for instance, that the US used sanctions to try to get Canadians to change a matter of Canadian domestic policy. How would Canadians feel about that? 

Canada will try to reverse the US decision on Keystone XL. I will leave it up to others to determine what they think about that. We will use a range of policy tools that include direct communications with the US leadership, lobbying, finding allies in the US to carry the argument forward. Canadian interaction with the US is not limited to trade sanctions.  These are all strategies Canada has used before. They don't tend to bring instant results but over time they have, I would argue, succeeded in creating generally win-win situations. Before jumping to an extreme measure, I'd argue that we should at least try strategies that have been proven successful in the past. If we wanted, then, to introduce sanctions as some part of that strategy, I'd suggest that we find out whether or not those sanctions would be legal under Canada's current trade agreement with the US and I'd urge people to consider the precedent we are establishing. After all, what is good for the goose .... And, while I don't expect the Biden administration to try to use sanctions to coerce changes in Canadian domestic policy, are we really so confident that a less friendly government might not jump on the opening we would have given them in the future? After all, that is what we would be saying: sanctions are a legitimate way for other. countries to force Canada to change its domestic policy. 

What About Alberta

There is, I am arguing, good reason to be cautious in Canada's response to the Biden administration's decision with regard to Keystone XL. I am trying to argue that those views hold regardless of one's political perspective if one is interested in having a foreign policy that advances Canada's interests. Kenney's argument is that regional equity in Canada demands that Canada act because it would have if US decisions affected Ontario or Quebec or Atlantic Canada.  I don't know the issue to which Kenney was referring with regard to Atlantic Canada and so I'll leave off consideration of that. The issues to which he referred with regard to Ontario and Quebec were completely different. There, the federal government acted proportionally as part of an overall strategy against US (and others) decisions with regard to trade, the legality of which (on the US side) was questionable.  To repeat: the federal government did not use sanctions as a first strike weapon to alter a decision made by a US administration on a matter that falls within the sphere of American domestic policy. 

However, the fact that the situation is different does not mean that the federal government should ignore Alberta. It should not. Not ignoring Alberta, however, does not mean transforming trade policy into a shill for big oil. It means finding ways to help Alberta transition away from the carbon economy. We will continue drill for oil. That is going to happen, but the idea that the economy of Alberta should be based on oil to the detriment of other options is far from clear to me. Oil is affected by a broad range of other factors. The US took the decision with regard to Keystone XL not just for environmental reasons. Environmental considerations are, in my view, a legitimate consideration for state policy. But, in this case, a range of other factors (including alternative energy supplies) weighed into the consideration. What this means is that even if the Keystone decision were reversed, the days of massive carbon energy exports to the US are ending. The federal government cannot and morally should not abandon Alberta. The best way to do this however -- to *not* abandon Alberta -- does not lie in sanctions in what will be a losing effort to force the US to buy Canadian oil against its wishes. 

Thinking After Trump: Canada and US Foreign Policy

 On August 15th, the UN Security Council voted against a US motion to extend the international arms embargo against Iran. The US government then accounts it would use provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2015) as a way to “snapback” those sanctions for, what it views, as Iranian non-compliance with the original agreement. The problem, of course, as JCPOA members quickly told the US, it had already withdrawn form the agreement in 2018 and was now a non-member since it had, in effect, already rejected the provisions of the agreement two years ago. There are a series of serious issues that go along with this current situation that relate to the extension of US power, the shape of the world environment, and exactly how this situation should be assessed as part of US foreign policy. Virtually no members of the UN Security Council, for instance, supported the US move to re-impose sanctions and European powers were quick to tell the US it had not standing with the JCPOA. 

The question I want to address in this blog is different: what does this tell us about the issues facing Canada on the world stage and Canada’s relationship with the US. After the most recent US aluminum tariffs, I listed to a number of commentators say something like “what Canada needs to do now is simply wait until the coming US election which see the replacement of the current administration with a more reasonable one.” I know the issue is more complicated than that but, at first, I tended to agree.  What I am thinking about now is that there might be a way to Canada to build a new foreign policy relationship with the US in a post-Trump era. I don’t necessarily think this will be easy but I also think that there may be a range of Americans who are interested in the subject even if will undoubtedly be controversial in the US. 

At the heard of the Trump election strategy was the slogan “Make America Great Again.” These words carry with them an at least implicit foreign policy because they assert an international pre-eminence. The Trump administration’s foreign policy has sought this greatness even if its approach been far from consistent. Despite the fact that Trump has drawn on Republicans to direct it, his administration has disavowed many of the key aspects of his own party’s approach to world affairs. One should not have a lot of nostalgia here. The War on Terror, neo-liberalism, rejection of international environmental standards, among other things, were all hallmarks of Republican foreign policy. 

Historically, pre-Trump Republican foreign policy has not been popular either internationally or within Canada. But, key foreign policy thinkers associated largely, if not completely, with conservative politics have tended to argue that Canada needed to follow the lines laid down by the US. These people tended to self-style themselves as “realists.”  They tended to advocated hard power, close military and diplomatic connections to the US, and support for US foreign policy goals. They tended to reject what they saw as “moralism” in foreign policy, arguing that the only standard against which foreign policy should be measured was interests of state. This close connection to the US, they tended to argue, was good for Canada for three reasons. (#1) The US was the pre-eminent power in the world. By having a good relationship with the US, Canada gained power on the world stage, as it were, by riding on US coattails. (#2) Canada needed the US on its side because of the degree to which the Canadian economy was dependent on the US. The US could, should it have wanted, cripple our economy. (#3) The US was right most of the time anyway. Its opponents were terrorists and military dictators or authoritarian communist countries. 

Against this way of thinking about the world – Canada as a subservient ally of the US – was a different way of thinking about the world that is associated, in some measure, with the peacekeeping ideal. This way of thinking is most closely associated with liberal intellectuals and, to a significant extent, with the Liberal party, but that requires some nuance. The basics of this way of looking at the world were that Canada should have its own international identity and that there was nothing wrong with being on the side of the angels; that is: there was nothing wrong with morality. Indeed, it was good for Canada’s international reputation and good for Canadians who were well liked (at least compared to Americans) on the world stage. Canada found its foreign policy identity through constructive international engagement and multilateralism that allowed it to work together with other countries to accomplish positive ends and hedge in the power game. In other words, Canada’s aims were a stable, peaceful, and constructive international environment that limited the ability of “might makes right” politics by setting up international institutions that operated according to the rule of international law and some measure of global democracy (with votes vested in the nation-state).

I have no special clarity with regard to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. It seems to me that when its history is written, studies will see it as based in a series of factors that include:

• An effort to further free the US from multilateral and international commitments to extend its ability to use its own might makes right policy approach. That is: to have more of a free hand with regard to international affairs and not be bound by alliances, agreements, and the like. 
• A belief in the power of personal relations with world leaders to address issues (say, by establishing a direct personal relationship with the Putin and Kim-Il Jong) as a way to address problems
• A focus on economic deal-making, employing retaliatory threats, particularly with allies, in an effort to gain an edge. Allies and partners (say, Canada) were, in particular, viewed with suspicion.  The goal of US economic relations with Canada was not to further common goals. Instead, it looked more like neo-liberal mercantilism. The goal is to get something from, as an example, Canada. 

We don’t need to go over these points and I recognize that there are other considerations that need to be included to have a fuller discussion. What it does, however, is highlight the degree to which even Canadian conservatives will have a hard time buying into their formerly near unconditional support for the US international agenda. There are two key reasons for this. 

#1) Conservatives used to argue that bad relations with the US were a problem and they tended to fault Liberal-minded PMs (PET, Jean Chretien) for it. Their overt anti-Americanism, for instance, conservative thinkers and politicians argued, poisoned the relationship with the US and endangered both the Canadian economy and Canada’s international standing with it. It is now impossible to make this argument. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a government that has been more sensitive (the odd mistake to one side) and more concerned with not offending the US government than Justin Trudeau’s. Even at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, Trudeau refrained from any public criticism of the United States and its government. During intense trade negotiations when US figures publicly hammered Canada, Canadian political leaders and trade negotiators were, more or less, silent. Yet, this silence has bought noting and cannot by anything because the current US government is not looking to get any support from Canada for anything. Canada’s support is, in fact, irrelevant to it.  What it wants from Canada is not agreement but, as it were, increased regulation of the Canadian economy. IOW, the result of being nice to the US is not economic gain but economic decline via production limitations. 

#2) It is impossible to pretend that the US has the global power and influence it had a number of years ago. Indeed, even a number of years ago that power was waning. US power and influence are not things of the past. I’ve read studies that talk about historical shifts in international affairs as if they were some sort of cycle. They are not. But, the US no longer commands the world stage the way it did during the Cold War or the New World Order eras. Economically, US domination is challenged not by a single country (although China gets a lot of press) but by an expanded international regionalization of power. Countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, Indian, Russia don’t wait for US permission for anything. They might be world leaders or they might aspire to this but they are in the process of carving out their own regionalized and international spheres of influence. The US finds itself as one of a series of global regional powers and that is the reality with which it has to grapple. 

I don’t expect that grappling to be easy. I don’t expect a lot of Americans will want to embrace it. And, I suspect that lot of Americans are looking simply to see themselves as “great again,” regardless of what that happens to mean. For Canada, however, it means that one end of a long-standing debate in Canadian foreign policy is over. There are good reasons to have a good relationship with the US and I will spell these out later, and the US economic connection is still important for Canada. But, whatever happens next for conservative approach to the US and Canadian foreign policy, it cannot be a return to the subservient ally approach of past days. What is equally important, I will indicate in my next blog, that the liberal alternative might also be inoperative. If history has moved past Canadian realism and its design to be close to the US, it might also have moved past its liberal alternative as well. 

And ... you already forgot about it: Canada and Saudi Arabia

In the world of international diplomacy and foreign policy, there are certain unwritten rules. One of them is that mild criticism is to be expected and is to be either ignored or politely refuted if it is meaningless in practical terms, as was Canada's criticism of Saudi Arabia. For those who missed it, and I can actually see why you would, a number of weeks ago the Government of Canada issued a tweet critical of Saudi Arabia's human rights record. It was the mildest form of international criticism that one could have -- sort of like a cap and trade is the mildest form of environment protection policy one can have other than not protecting the environment or encouraging pollution, but that is another story to which I will circle around again. It is not intended as a point of international dispute, nor to disrupt relations, nor even to elicit a response. It may, as I suggested in my previous post, even be intended for domestic consumption. To be clear: Canada was going to do nothing with regard to Saudi Arabia. What upset the Saudis -- what triggered their effort to construct a one-country hard power-based boycott of Canada -- was a tweet suggesting that human rights were good.

What I want to do in this blog is further explore the fallout from this tweet in order to think about what it tells us about contemporary public life. I'll conclude by thinking a bit about how Canada should respond to this. But, and this is the key point I want to emphasize, it is fair enough to ask: what bad happened? Despite some prognostications of really bad stuff happening ... well, nothing did. The Canadian economy did not collapse; Canada's relations with the rest of the world were not harmed; the supposed mass withdraw of Saudi medical students and residents that would cripple the health care system did not come to pass and the journalists who reported these things as if they were true have now moved on to other matters.

This is important and ties into a series of other developments related to Canadian public life. The first and most obvious is the power of social media. But, to be clear, I think this is, in fact, the least important element of this story. Social media allows this story to happen in "real time" ... well, sort of .... but what happened here sped up developments that were occurring anyway. To be clear again, I think social media does have an effect on public life. I recommend Angela Nagle's book _Kill All Normies_ for a good study. But, in this case, the issue was not social media per se, but a government that was not interested in "taking" what it saw as criticism and which it construed as "meddling" in its internal affairs.  Social media makes statements -- like the one made by the Government of Canada --easy and, potentially, gratuitous, and that is a problem. But if we were to prioritize issues, the issue here is an unwillingness to accept criticism.

What is important in this regard -- and what is telling -- is the shockingly limited and mild character of the criticism. The Canadian government, in fact, issued the mildest possible tweet that carried with it no practical consequences.  That is a problem for the supporters of human rights, but it is not a problem for the Saudi government. I'd guess that the Canadian government was shocked by the Saudi response. This is a sign of how much times have changed. In the past, one might have expected the Saudi's to ignore the criticism or to register some sort of diplomatic response.

What this shows us, I previously argued, is the degree to which Saudi Arabia lacks serious soft power mechanisms of foreign policy and so must "go for the jugular," as it were, of hard power right away. But, what it also illustrates is the degree to which governments are unwilling to bridge any criticism and reject even the mildest form of progressive politics.  The Trump detainment of children in the US is an example. The that the proper response to gun violence is more guns is another. In Canada, the Ford government's rejection of cap and trade (the mildest most capitalistic form of environmental protection) is another example.

What this illustrates is not simply limited capacity to take other actions but an unwillingness to meet even the mildest of progressive concerns about human rights, families, safety in schools, or the environment.

I know my language is loaded, but in the US polls demonstrate among Republicans a marked decline in empathy. In other words, people are having a harder time putting themselves in others shoes and thinking through public life from that perspective. In the past, even opponents of environmental protection would have recognized that something needed to be done. They would have low-balled it. What is going on now is something different. In effect, the government of Saudi Arabia is saying not only do we reject the idea of gender of equality but we will do everything we can to shut down anyone who  thinks they can promote it. What Ford is saying with the end of cap and trade is not simply "I'm skeptical about global warming" but "I feel that the off chance that cap and trade might end up costing the average Ontarian a few bucks is too much."  What is Ford's plan to deal with environmental change? Well ... he has none because he has just ditched the mildest possible form of environmental protection.

What has gone on here, then, is another sign of the changes in politics and changes in public life. In the US, the opponents of immigration and no longer willing to say "yes, children should be protected" but now see children as an enemy. In Canada, the opponents of environmental protection see even the simplest and least intrusive mechanisms of trying to protect the earth as too costly. The opponents of gender equality in Saudi Arabia, see even soft, mild, and meaningless criticism as a step worthy of as much vindictive as one could possibly mount.

What should we do about this? Well, it changes politics and there is a broader issue that needs to be addressed in that regard. I have no intention of crapping on progressive politics. Instead, I will argue that I think progressive politics needs to re-evaluate its approach to public life. How that is done is another story.

Right now, I don't think Canada should back down before Saudi Arabia or Doug Ford. There are good signs still out there. Ford's campaign against the carbon tax went nowhere (although I am worried about the time it is taking the Liberals to get the ball rolling on this). He will lose whatever constitutional challenge he thinks he can mount (although I suspect that he knows that and whatever challenges are coming are intended to delay implementation as long as possible, hoping for more provincial political winds to change). But, backing down is not the solution. He has had to resort to extreme means to reduce the size of Toronto City Council.

Let's look at Saudi Arabia. The issue is not Canada versus Saudi Arabia. In fact, if we accept that logic and buy into that discourse, we are buying into the discourse that Saudi Arabia wants us to buy into.  Many Saudis support expanding human rights. Their government is among the least democratic on the face of the earth (which is why many people argued against military truck and trade with them). Frankly, I could care less what an undemocratic militarized government thinks of my government. It makes no difference to me and to anyone who thinks seriously about this issue. But, I think, as well, that we can and should refuse the discourse they want us to accept because it makes it look like everything in Saudi Arabia is just peachy but for those nasty meddling Canadians and if you think that is the case ... well ... I happen to own a bridge to PEI that I'll sell you cheap.

Instead what is at issue is two things:

1. Is Canada good to its word? If the Canadian government -- any government -- backs down before hard power threats (in effect, what the Saudi government is saying is "we will do all we can to hurt you") ... they will be backing down on ... well ... just about everything else. And, the things that Canada supposedly stands for will be lost.  Don't read what I am not writing. I am not arguing that Canada is perfect, that Canada's human rights record is good, that there is not a great deal that Canada needs to do.  What I am asking is this: what is the price of our morals? Or, personalize it, what is the price or your morals, values, and ethics?

The truth of the matter is that there is little Saudi Arabia can do to hurt Canada. It can sell off some government bonds but someone else will buy them. It can cut flights but ... so what? That won't stop transit. It can send the ambassador home but that is purely political theatre without any meaningful effect. And it can recall some students but those are Saudi students anyway. Messing up the education and careers of Saudi students is kind of silly and sort of like shooting one's self in the foot but, hey, if they want to do it ... go ahead.

The issue is nationally, what is our morality worth to us? If we back down, when there is nothing significant on the line, we say ... gee, even the smallest price is something that we are not willing to pay. We become, in other words, the progressive version of Doug Ford.  I'd like to believe that, as a people, we stand for something more than a few extra pennies in our pocket at the end of the fiscal year.

2. The second issue is whether or not we accept the shifting parameters of political discourse. Mild and meaningless criticism is not meddling in another country's internal affairs. If it were, Donald Trump -- whose criticism of Canada is far from mild and might not be meaningless -- would be the world's biggest meddler. Speaking only for myself, I am concerned about a political environment where even the mildest form of progressive politics -- politics intended to improve people's lives, to get them out of jail, say -- is viewed as a bridge too far.

Canada may not be able to go to traditional allies and partners in this new world of more extreme discourse and response but, in my view, that should not stop Canada from trying to be a positive force in the world. That is hypocritical. I know. Canada has much too look after and one's morality is not license to mess around in other countries.  Explaining how the two can be melded is another blog that I'll write sometime. But, I suspect that Canada will find that there are partners with which we can work to promote positive change.  It might not be the US or Saudi Arabia, but it might include some nifty countries and might provide a change to create some non-traditional relations. Working with those partners is Canada's next step in foreign policy.

Finally, the point I made at the start of this blog, one needs to avoid over-reacting. If some of the critics of the current government were to be believed, Canada should have retreated right then and there and/or never offered even the mildest of support for human rights. Yet, a few weeks later, the storm has blow over, other issues have become more pressing, and disaster has not occurred. I have no doubt opposition politicians will, later, try to "make hay" on this event: the government screwed up relations with .... But, if nothing significant has happened, how actually could that case be made? In this day and age of social media, evidence does not seem to really need to be in supply. All one seems to need to do make a vague assertion that can strike a memory.  It is up to those of us who support human rights to correct this vague assertion and memory.

Saudi Foreign Policy and Canada

It is easy to speculate about others actions when you don't know much about a country. This is the Canadian dilemma with regard to Saudi Arabia. While I suspect most Canadians could find the country on a map and are aware that it is a major oil producer with a state religion ... that is likely about it. For one reason or another, Saudi Arabia has made Canada the brunt of its vindictive and it is pulling out all the stops ... or, at least all the stops it can. It is sending the Canadian ambassador home, selling off Canadian state investment it owns (and perhaps private investments as well), stopping flights back and forth to Canada, and recalling a whole bunch of its students (perhaps up to 16 000) studying at Canadian universities.

By Canadian standards this is big stuff. Canadian knowledge of foreign policy often begins and ends with whatever has been on the news of late and the United States. And, these are often the same thing. Canadians are aware of things going on in other parts of the world, to be sure, and they often have deep -- and conflicting -- views on those subjects (say, Israel and Palestine, nuclear disarmament and North Korea, Russian intervention in other parts of the world, etc.) But ... Saudi Arabia ... in a spat with Canada and ... over a tweet .... seriously ... a tweet ...  that was, well, more or less the mildest form of criticism that the Canadian government could possibly have offered. You can find an assessment here.

What is going on -- that is, what should we learn from this -- and what should Canada do about it? This is a two part question, but a potentially important one for the development of Canadian foreign policy. So far, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has stuck to its guns but what is also clear is that this government does not know a great deal about foreign policy and is having a very difficult time navigating international waters. In large measure, I want to argue, this is because the world is different and IR theories that developed and were designed for past times -- even the recent past -- won't work. Canada needs, in other words, a foreign policy -- even a foreign policy of criticism -- that is conscious of its historical moment. So far, at least from what I can tell, neither the current government nor its critics have really demonstrated that. Instead, they are recycling the debates of the Harper era and that will not get Canada where it wants to go.

What is going on is several things. First, there are things specific to Saudi Arabia. It has established a particularly aggressive foreign policy of late: supporting rebels in Syria, attempting to internationally isolate Qatar, and conducting a destructive civil war in Yemen. It is embroiled in a three way fight for influence in its region of the world (with Iran and Turkey) and beyond. At home, it has cracked down on peaceful dissent, which includes (among others) women's rights activists. What are the wider implications of this?

Several inter-related factors are important to consider: the world of the Middle East, in which Saudi Arabia was a repressive but internationally peaceful and predictable client state of the US has now passed. Saudi Arabia will not step on US toes, because of US power, but otherwise it will follow what it perceives to be in its own interests and it will use hard power mechanisms to accomplish its aims. This has occurred, again, for a couple of reasons:

(A) Saudi Arabia lacks soft power options. It shouldn't. Its oil-based bankroll should allow it to develop a fuller range of foreign policy options, including effective diplomacy. For whatever reason, the Saudi government has chosen not to take that course but to instead focus on hard power options. Or, in the case of Canada, as hard a power as they can muster. The neglect of soft power foreign policy options, in other words, has left Saudi Arabia with few alternatives to a bellicose -- and potentially irrational --  foreign policy that seems intended to force other states into its line.

Canada is a good example. While the Canadian government would likely continue mild criticism of Saudi Arabia (as it does with a range of other states), that criticism is meaningless and, in the case of the current government, more or less intended for domestic consumption. In other words, these kind of tweets appeal to soft-centre-left Canadians who support human rights, were horrified by their almost complete irrelevance to the Harper government, and want to see their government saying the "right things." In point of fact, this is the kind of international human rights engagement against which supporters of human rights in Canada have been quick to argue. Talk that really does little.

And, make no bones about it, Canada was not actually going to do anything serious about the Saudi human rights record. It didn't want to because the current government does not really know what it is is doing on the world stage and the Conservative opposition is more interested in potential military sales than anything else.

What this means, of course, is that the Saudi effort to create a one-state embargo of Canada was meaningless. In fact, I'd guess that a lot more Canadians are aware of Saudi Arabia's human rights record today than they were a week ago. I'd guess a lot more people are scratching their head about the Saudi government and wondering about the political rationality of its policies now than a week ago. Not only has Saudi Arabia drawn more international attention to its own bad record, but it can't cause Canada to back down.

Why? Because whether we like it or not, the discourse of human rights is a selling issue with Liberals and long has been. Trudeau's father was, of course, a huge supporter of rights (think Charter) but so are people like Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland and so are the people who vote Liberal or whom the Liberals want to vote Liberal. The Liberals have no monopoly on human rights, of, but the issue seems to resonate with significant sections of the Canadian population and those are the sections where the Liberals are looking for votes. Put in different terms, if Canada misjudged Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has misjudged Canada.

In terms of realpolitik, Saudi Arabia is playing a losing game here too and this is a key point. Saudi economic interchange with Canada is simply not great enough to have any effect. Imagine, for instance, that the highest estimate of Saudi students in Canada is true and 16 000 university students disappear. This is a tiny number. According to Universities Canada there are 1.7 million students in Canadian universities. The CBC this morning made much of the 700 or 800 Saudi medical students in Canada, but ... are we  to believe that there are no students, say in Canada, who might like those spots in medical school?  Sending an ambassador home is a big diplomatic move (that is why most countries never do it) but it is largely meaningless in terms of policy. Cancelling flights inconveniences people who fly but it does not stop transit between Canada and Saudi Arabia. It just inconveniences ordinary people looking to make the flight, perhaps university students who now have to look for a new school that will accept their credits less than a month before school starts (less than a few weeks before the US fall semester begins).

(B) This is not, however, just an instance of Saudi Arabia looking to exert its authority on the world stage. It illustrates a transition in world power away from the US/USSR binary of the Cold War era or the single super-power of the post-Cold War age and toward a more multi-centered international power system in which different countries compete internationally with each other and with "the west" for international influence and authority. In this regard, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran, among others, are all engaged in the same international politics. The issue, in other words, is only Canada a little bit. It is really about other things and this is what the current Canadian government might have misjudged.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Canada should be silent in the face of international human rights abuses and I don't think that Canadians should back down in front of aggressive hard power politics ... when they are in the right. I'll get to this in my next post.

What we are seeing, however, is what a multi-polar world looks like. The increased US evacuation of international politics under Trump is facilitating this development. While the previous US government, for instance, would almost certainly have "sided with Canada" (at least in terms of public statements), the current one has not and likely will not. Their approach is this: "this is none of our business and we wish both sides well. We hope they solve their problems." Likewise the EU -- preoccupied with its own issues -- took basically the same stance.

What does this mean? Well, it means that Canadians should not look to the US or the EU for support for our actions on the international stage. I watched CBC this AM and there was mild surprise that others -- our traditional allies -- have not sided up with us. But, the fact that our media at least were looking for this illustrates how much they have misjudged the world.

Not only is easy and ready support for an "international consensus" on human rights at hand, but it is not clear that there is an international consensus on human rights.

Again, don't get me wrong. I think the ordinary person -- the ordinary Canadian, American, Briton, German, South African, etc. -- is completely in favour of human rights. But, exactly how much political capital their governments are prepared to spend on it is not clear. We know from polling in the US that there is a decline in empathy, particularly among Republican supporters. Put in other words, things that we all could have previously assumed ... might not be easy to assume.  The new right in Europe, for instance, seems simply to not care about the lives of refugees. And, we have all see the problems with child-parent reunification in the US. Lots of people care, to be sure, and show that care every day. But, lots of others ... don't and this is giving, I think, their governments pause.

The influence of the decline of empathy on domestic politics, then, has the interesting and important effect of emboldening human-rights violating regimes. They were violating human rights before, that is clear, but they did so in different ways. Now, criticism of the violation of human rights is construed as "meddling" in another state's internal affairs. And, the declining international power of the US and indifference of European states facilitates that process.

For Canada, this means -- and Canadians should note this -- there is cavalry riding the rescue.  Canada needs to be deliberate in its actions and secure in its ability to stand on its own feet. (Again, more on this in the next post.)

The wider picture is this: this is what the post-New World Order -- the post-global age --  looks like.  It is not necessarily pretty. Rather than regionalized economic power blocks figuring out how to collaborate with each other under the umbrella of the WTO, what we have is militarized quests of influence based in little else than hard power. It is not pretty at all. But, perhaps even because of this, now is the time to rethink Canadian foreign policy. We should not abandon a commitment to human rights but we need to figure out exactly how to meet that aim in changing circumstances.

The Election: Things to Watch For

What are we to make of the election campaign more than half way through? It depends on how you look at it. This leader said that; this party candidate said stupid thing X. Harper looked “cool under pressure.” Duceppe won the French-language debate. This is the normal type of reporting and there is a place for it. Election campaigns are important and do make a difference. I’d like to believe, however, that there is more to the campaign then a hockey playoff play by play. I’d like to believe that elections, parties, issues, etc., can tell us more about the character and nature of Canada and where it might be going. Let’s approach the election campaign in that way.  I will confess, however, that I have no crystal ball. Instead of suggesting that the election means, then, let me suggest some things to watch for.

First, youth vote. At the start of this semester, the vast majority of students in my intro class claimed at least to not vote nor did they express much interest in voting. At the end of the course, the vast majority claimed they were going to vote. The difference was not me. Formal education, we know, makes a difference in intention to vote. I hope, however, that something else might be underway, a political re-engagement among Canadians who have been alienated from the political process. One thing to look at closely, then, in this election is whether or not we see at least some of that re-engagement.

Second, the Quebec vote. The polls at the mid-point suggested an increased fragmentation of the vote in Quebec with the BQ dropping as low as 32.X percent. Again, this should not surprise us after what has happened to the  PQ in Quebec and what seems like an increasingly clear search, on the part of Quebecers, for other viable political alternatives. My bet is that a lot of that vote will return to the BQ. By yesterday the BQ was back up in the high 30s in projected pop vote and the distribution of seats means that even if they dropped to the low 30s, it might not seriously hurt their total seat count. I’ll save armchair quarter-backing for another day. It will be interesting, however, to see if the vote in Quebec fragments.

Third, how much will the Tories and Liberals be helped by the “first past the post” system. The details here would take a long time to explain but the Canadian political system has, for a long time, translated minorities of vote into majorities of seats in the House of Commons. Chretien never won a majority of the popular vote. Canadians don’t seem to like our current system but they also don’t seem to like potential alternatives to it. The NDP historically has been the big losers. I’ll comment on this in another post. The degree to which this trend continues will be interesting to note.

Fourth, what has happened to the Green Party? My gut tells me that a lot of their vote is migrating back to the Liberal Party. The Greens, from what I can tell, never took a lot of vote from the NDP. They seemed to be siphoning off middle class voters who normally would have voted Liberal. As time goes by some of that vote seems to be slowly moving back to the Liberals. Will this trend continue in the election?

There might be other things that are important to note, as well, such as the degree to which political reporting in major media outlets effectively assessing the implications of this election or even reflects the public mood. Perhaps you have some thoughts or this or some other matter?

Canada, the US, and Missile Defense

One sore spot between Canada and the US is Canada's reluctance to get involved in the Bush government's North American missile shield programme, which its critics contend involves the "weaponization" of space. How should a Canadian government approach this issue? Traditionally, the left has both resisted and opposed military programmes such as this on a variety of grounds: they amount to an arms race, they won't work and are hence a waste of money, and they will undercut Canadian sovereignty by vesting military control of Canadian territory in the US and with American generals. To date, this argument has held sway and I have no doubt that it reflects general Canadian views (with the normal range of different opinions) on this matter. My evidence is that the Conservatives -- despite their support for a joint missile defense programme with the US while in opposition -- have not wanted to touch this issue while in power. My bet is that they know all opposition parties would vote against it, hence bringing down their government (or, even if not, illustrating its inability to carry forward a major defense initiative thus zapping its international credibility) and they have no desire to fight an election on this issue, gambling that it would cost them votes. But, is the left right? In our consideration of this issue, is there reason to reconsider left-wing opposition to the US missile defense programme? Could there be a left-wing version of it?

There are a number of arguments in favour of supporting this US initiative, some of which are patently silly while others are militaristic. These we can dismiss easily. I'd suggest that, however, that even if our hypothetical left-wing Canadian government decided against joining the US programme, there is still reason for them to reconsider this issue and think through it again.

What are the arguments in favour of joining a US-led missile shield? There is the economic argument: we need to maintain a positive relationship with the US to keep our border open. This is one of the silly argument that has already been disproven by the passage of time. Canada's refusal to join this programme has not closed the border (or, even slowed down traffic across it). Those who would make this argument, then, are making a counter-factual argument that has already been disproven by history. There is "we need to have a more powerful military even if it comes in joint venture with the US so we are taken seriously argument." I dismiss this argument too because it begs questions: taken seriously by whom? And what does "taken seriously" mean anyway? Suppose, for example, that we are currently not "taken seriously" by someone, how has that hurt Canada? Has it limited our ability to help refugees? Has it lowered our standard of living? Has it distorted our children's education? In other words, the "taken seriously" argument seems powerful until you start to push it. Then you discover that it is the IR equivalent of two kids talking trash on the playground. It reduces international reputation to a "might makes right" approach. If this happens to be your measure of "taken seriously", well, you and I are just on different pages. I doubt you will concede my point (that things like ethics, quality of life, humanitarianism, science, religion, etc., are what count) and I'll never concede your's (that these things are not important compared to the size of the stick you carry). I don't want to live in your Canada and I doubt you want to live in mine so we will have to agree to disagree and go our separate ways (luckily, of course, we both get to put our cases before the public and leave the matter to democracy to decide).

Once we get past this non-starter, in my view, arguments, there are other points that merit more consideration. For example, cooperation with the US helps the state fulfill its obligation to protect citizens. One doesn't have to be a big stick playground trash talker to subscribe to this view. I believe that the state has an obligation to protect its citizens. If it does not do that, it loses legitimacy and citizens have a right to reconstitute the government or re-order the state. (I might even offer a very broad assessment of what the word "protect" means to include things like medical care and equality of opportunity but that can be a subject for another day). A missile defense shield, it could be argued, helps the state fulfill this obligation. In addition, one could argue that it continues a tradition of Canadian/American military cooperation. Such cooperation has not hampered Canadian sovereignty (one could argue, although the record is perhaps more mixed than most people realize) and represents an extension of NORAD. With the US moving down this road, we can't maintain NORAD the way it has been in the past. Thus, we have two realistic choices: pick up this tradition and move forward or abandon it and go it alone on North American air defense. Given these chioces, this argument, might continue, we should continue cooperation. It does not threaten sovereignty, it is in keeping with our traditions, and the current status quo is not an option. What about these arguments, do they make sense?

I don't think so. First, the missile defense shield protects Canada against ... what? The answer is bad guys (rouge states or non-state actors) with ballistic missiles. We've already been through the WMD debate with regard to Iraq and it proved false. We should bear this closely in mind before we start assuming other WMD lie in other unnamed terrorists hands. The burden of proof in this regard, I think, lies squarely with those suggesting that Canada embrace the US initiative. I'll be quite clear: I don't think vague and ominous warnings are enough. Credible evidence about real threats needs to be put on the table and no one, to the best of my knowledge, has put this evidence on the table.

What about 9/11? I don't mean any disrespect to those who died, lost loved ones, or the governments that grappled with the realities of the 9/11 attacks. A ballistic missile defense shield would not have stopped those attacks because: (1) they did not use missiles and (2) they were launched from within the US. In other words, if a missile defense shield is intended to have stopped 9/11, it would not have done so. By analogy, it would be like trying to pull out a nail with a saw or cut down a tree with a screw driver. If it worked, it would have been a fluke because those tools are designed to do other things. 9/11 is manifest evidence of terror, it is not evidence of a missile threat and to treat it like that is to miss what the real threat was.

My point is this: the burden of making the case lies not with those who oppose the missile defense shield. The arguments against are already strong (as noted above). In reconsidering it, the burden of proof lies with those who suggest altering course. To date, those people have failed this test. Note: I am not saying that I disagree with them. I think any government needs to hear the evidence. I'm saying they have simply failed to make their case. This is their problem, not the problem of someone who is trying to weigh the evidence. The best thing proponents of Canadian involvement could do is make their case by providing real evidence. Without that, it is difficult to take their arguments seriously.

At this point, in the absence of evidence, the question about Canadian sovereignty is beside the point. Why? Well, it is not that sovereignty is beside the point but that consideration of the sovereignty issue is the next step in the argument. If there was a real threat (and not just some statistically improbable remote possiblity) then Canadian still might opt out of the missile defense shield. They might opt out because of their commitments against the weaponization of space. They might opt out because they view the treat to national sovereignty posed by cooperation as greater than the threat of attack. Unless there is a real threat of attack, however, there is not need to move forward is a discussion because I will assume that the irrationality of so doing is glaringly evidence. Consider an analogy: it would be an irrational waste of taxpayers' money to build a road that no one would use on the remote possibility that someone sometime might use it. In the same way, without a threat, it is a waste of taxpayers' money to build a defense system that will never be used.

(Note: someone might ask "what about deterance?" Good question. A deterance is actually being used. That use is just not in fighting. In other words, it has a use. I personally don't agree with the way in which the deterent argument has been used in defense of nuclear weapons but I would not argue that those weapons had no use. They did. That use was just not blowing things up. This is different than there not being a threat. If there is no threat, what is actually being deterred?)

End of case? Perhaps. There are two further really important points associated with this issue.

Point 1) The fact that there is no threat now does not mean that there might not be one in the future. The future is difficult to see and one should avoid seeing the worst in it. Again, the WMD Iraq is an immanent threat farce should be evidence enough of this. Still, a prudent government -- any government -- would consider future possibilities.

Point 2) Rejection of cooperation on missile defense with the US should not mean doing nothing. NORAD as we know it might be changing: it should. We live in a different world today then we did during the Cold War. If NORAD stayed the same despite these important changes, I'd worry about it. The fact that NORAD will change is not, by itself, reason enough to go down the missile shield route. But it is also not reason for complacency. In my view there are real threats to security out there. And, the Canadian government should move to address these. Plausible threats include: rouge shipping in the Canadian north, environmental destruction, the need for energy security, weapons smuggling, failed and failing states, the AIDS epidemic. Here are specific real or plausible threats that can be addressed. Addressing them requires military infrastructure. It requires other things, too: heavy lift capacity, surface and sub-surface improvements -- including new ships -- for the navy and coast guard, radar systems, and expanded rapid emergency response, medical research, foreign aid, etc. IOW, rejecting missile defense need not -- and should not - -be a rejection of a security agenda. Canada and the US still have a great deal on which they can and should work together. Working together creates win-win-win situations (Canada-US-other countries), allows us to pool resources and technology, and allows us to address common problems.

Let me sum up: the left has good arguments against cooperation with the US on missile defense but it should reconsider this issue. The silly or incorrect arguments in favour of cooperation can be dismissed (because they can be demonstrated to be empirically inaccurate) and the burden of proof for those suggesting a new military trajectory for Canada lies with those suggesting the new course. If they cannot provide evidence for their case, that is not my fault. It simply means their case lacks evidence. Without compelling evidence for a threat there is no pressing need to consider the other issue: national sovereignty (although I suspect the threat to sovereignty of cooperation is not any greater than it has been in the past). Rejecting cooperation does not mean rejecting security (or poo-pooing the concerns an American government may have in this regard). Canadians should invest in a security agenda, including military spending but we should also identify those security threats we need to address (so we spend our money wisely). I'd suggest these include northern sovereignty, the need for improved rapid deployment, and heavy lift. I'd also suggest that there is a need for new armour and un-manned drones but I have not really investigated that. There are non-military spending priorities for a security agenda as well. We should cooperate with the US on these other matters.

Someone might say "well, if we don't participate in the missile shield the US will not work with us on these other issues." That would be too bad. Somethings we should do without the US. We should develop our own heavy lift capacity, for example, and this can then be coordinated later, if need be, with American capacity. The US, however, should work with us on them not to be nice to us but because we have a common interest in addressing them. Rouge northern shipping, for instance, is a threat to the US as well as Canada. It is in their interest to work with us on this and to find ways of addressing this issue. I can't imagine a US government refusing to address a threat to the US just to spite Canada! That would be irrational and I don't think the US government is irrational.