Canada and the United States: Civil Military Relations.

AuthorJones, David T.
PositionReport

Note from the Editor: A long time student of America's relationship with its northern neighbor looks at the bilateral military relationship as it has evolved over two centuries. Despite some long standing problems within the Canadian defense establishment and in the interaction between the two allies, he remains optimistic as to the future of Canadian Forces and military to military relations with the United States. --Ed.

Fortunate Canada.

A country defended on three sides by fish and with a benign neighbor on the fourth.

Or at least a neighbor that regards itself as benign, regardless as what some Canadians may believe.

Canadians say that the world needs more Canada. To be sure, the globe can certainly absorb a substantial number of additional states that are wealthy, technologically advanced, and unthreatening--saying "please" and "thank you" in foreign affairs.

Nevertheless, there are those Canadians--although their ranks may finally be thinning in numbers--who believe that the United States is poised to throw combat units northward and surge across the border to seize Canada's metropolitan areas and primary natural resources. For them, the stationing of the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, New York, was the tip of the spear rather than an illustration of how then-NY Senator Patrick Moynihan was finally able to rip some base construction funding pork from the southern coalition that overbuilt U.S. bases in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and the like. But when between 80 to 90 percent of Canadians live within 100-200 miles of the border, such would not be a military feat beyond an "Arctic Storm" campaign plan. And, indeed, there have been military planning exercises deep in the past postulating cross border military action--planning done from both directions.

If one is seeking 21st century rationales for U.S. military annexation, as well as Albertan oil and natural gas to fuel our economy, Canadian nationalists might now add a fear that we were seeking their precious bodily fluids--or at least their water--to slake the thirst of the ever-more-parched U.S. southwest.

But such is the stuff of paranoids. And most Canadians dismiss such hypotheses, arguing that if we were able to accept an overtime defeat of our Olympic hockey team without bombing Vancouver, perhaps we will remain content to deal with our bilateral difficulties through negotiation.

A Short Canadian-U. S. History

Canada--following its 1759 absorption into the British Empire after the defeat of the French by General Wolf on the plains of Quebec City--has passed a remarkably unthreatened 250 years. Some of those Canadian nationalists like to recall U.S. cross-border assaults during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. But while, indeed, U.S. military forces moved north of the border, they were not attacking "Canada." Rather they were attacking England, but it was easier to march to Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto than to London.

The result of the War of 1812 has been a border, which can be labeled the "world's longest undefended cliche" as that statement seems to be the first factoid discovered by a speechwriter required to provide an illustration of the tranquil nature of our relationship. Upon hearing it delivered, the audience inwardly sighs and hopes that the speaker has something more pertinent to say later in the speech. And while the reality of "undefended" may persist (and remains noteworthy), the reality of the post 9/11 world means that the border may be "undefended" but it is not insecure so far as crossing it is concerned.

And so far as bearing grudges is concerned, the U.S. has been remarkably nonjudgmental about the British forces that burned Washington in 1814-although some incorrectly believe they were units based in Canada. And we have even less historical memory of the Confederate raiders based in Canada who attacked American towns in Vermont during the Civil War--perhaps balanced by later Fenian raids into Canada. You have to be a somewhat tedious academic to grind through this material searching for material to exploit in the 21st century.

There are a number of historians who argue that Canada became independent in 1867 less through insistent Canadian desire for independence than from British appreciation that a USA, cranky over losses from commerce raiders such...

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