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Canada's New (Conservative) Foreign Policy

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I'm not sure a joint "embassy" is even a practical idea (given an embassy is by definition sovereign territory owned by the nation which operates it), but perhaps redefining it as a joint consulate, a "Commonwealth Diplomatic office" or some similar construct would work.

A practical expression of the Anglosphere idea, especially if the senior members of the Commonwealth come on board.
 
It depends upon how you manage it:

1. If Canada, for example, does nothing in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, which is currently 'attended' by our ambassador to Kazakhstan, then the UK embassy would, possibly, simply appoint an officer to represent our interests, as Italy does for us in Libya, for example, but it might go one step father - our staff in Astana might have a permanent office inside the UK embassy and the Canadian flag might fly outside; or

2. On the other hand, Canada might post one officer, a commissioner of some sort (some sub-ambassadorial rank) to, say, Manama, Bahrain, to work from the British Embassy there, thus giving us a greater presence there.
 
And the Globe and Mail does file a report on the "new agreement to open joint British-Canadian diplomatic missions around the world," which will be signed tomorrow.
 
The "usual suspects," including, of course, perennial Harper government critic Paul Heinbecker, are out in force, according to the Globe and Mail, which tells me that the Canada/UK project may be better than I thought. Generally, in my opinion, whatever Heinbecker is "for" thoughtful Canadians ought to be "against" and vice versa.

I understand the foreign service's distaste for this: they are like featherbedding trade union leaders pleading to keep the firemen on diesel locomotives. This project aims to do (a little) more with less, mainly with less foreign service officers.

There is a coincidence of priorities here: Canada wants to cut budgets, and the DFAIT budget is under attack along with all others, and UK wants to counter the increased influence of a "United Europe" which is, itself, combining embassies to grow its influence in ways that the UK fears will run counter to Britain's vital interests. Britain is still suffering from the effects of a long recession and there is no  money for more diplomats ~ this might be a 'win-win' for two cash strapped governments.

 
The Good Grey Globe's John Ibbitson lays out his views on the required focus of Canadian foreign policy in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/what-the-rise-of-asia-means-for-canadians/article4562851/
What the rise of Asia means for Canadians

JOHN IBBITSON
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Sep. 24 2012

When Canadian, Asian and American leaders and thinkers meet in Ottawa this week to discuss this country’s place in the new Pacific century, many in the room will not like what they hear.

Global leadership is pivoting from the West to the East faster than anyone could have imagined. Canada’s future – and your job – hinge on pivoting with it.

“Canada has been obsessed with the United States and Europe for the past 200 years. Now, frankly it has got to shift its focus to Asia,” Kishore Mahbubani said. The Singaporean academic, who is recognized globally for his writings on the Asian renaissance, is speaking at the conference, organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Such a shift “requires a major psychological reorientation on the part of Canadian minds,” Mr. Mahbubani observed. “But if they don’t wake up, they’ll be left behind.”

The conference takes place in the wake of a proposal, reported in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, from Chinese ambassador Zhang Junsai that Beijing and Ottawa begin work on a free-trade agreement.

In an interview that was as remarkable for its candour as its scope, Mr. Zhang dismissed the suggestion that Canada might have difficulty deepening trade ties with a country in which a nominally communist government shunned democratic freedoms and managed much of its economy through state-owned enterprises.

That government, he said, had taken 300 million people out of poverty and created the world’s second largest economy in only two decades.

“Give us a break. Let us develop,” he urged. “…Our system is ours. It has nothing to do with Canada. And vice versa.”

The Harper government’s reaction to the Chinese overture was muted.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” Foreign Minster John Baird said Sunday, when asked by Global TV’s Tom Clark about whether Canada was ready to talk free trade with China.

Given the different economic systems and record on human rights, “a free-trade agreement with China would be very fundamentally different from that which we have with the United States or the one we’re negotiating now with the European Union,” he said.

For many Canadians, this rapidly evolving new world order is just plain frightening. After all, Canada has had it so easy for so long, with the world’s largest economy next door, bound by a common history, culture and language.

Now businesses and politicians must deal with a plethora of Asian cultures, languages and laws, all of it incomprehensible to many Canadians – at least to many of European descent.

But for Anil Gupta, the University of Maryland professor whose views on globalization are widely quoted, and who is also speaking at the conference, Canadians have no choice but to accommodate themselves to this permanent global restructuring.

“It may slow down or it may accelerate but the trend is clearly irreversible,” he said in an interview.

A decade or so from now, the Asian economy is likely to be larger than Europe and America’s combined, with more than a billion people belonging to the new Asian middle class.

Western governments attempting to cope with these rising Asian powers must focus, he said, on reciprocity: securing equal access into Asian markets as a condition for allowing Asian investment in the West.

Which is exactly what Mr. Zhang is proposing through a Sino-Canadian free-trade accord.

The hardest thing of all to accept may be a world in which the United States and its Western allies are no longer the sole, or even dominant, global power.

But for Mr. Mahbubani, this is simply the world righting itself. China and India were, after all, the largest economies on the planet for centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.

The rise of the West, he observes serenely, “was a historical aberration, and all historical aberrations come to an end.

“This is inevitable. It’s just happening faster than anyone dreamt.”


See, also: Ruxted's About Turn! Time to Revise Canada’s Foreign Policy[/ul], especially this:

...
First: Canada needs to reaffirm our 'charter membership' in the West – a membership we earned and maintained at a huge cost.  We need to help, perhaps to lead our traditional allies to establish a loose, probably informal but effective alignment (not a formal alliance) based, initially, upon: Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States.  India will be a likely member in the first expansion.
...
Second: Canada needs to turn about ... Canada needs to “look South” again – towards our good friend and neighbour and our most important trading partner: the USA.  By turning about Canada will, also, extend its strong right arm to the Pacific: towards major trading partners like China, India, Japan, and South Korea; towards old friends like Fiji, Malaysia, and Singapore, and towards traditional allies like Australia and New Zealand.  Ruxted says 'again' because this proposal is neither radical nor new – Canada cooperated closely with the USA in the not too distant past – within the living memory of Ruxted members, and it created the Colombo Plan (akin to the US Marshal Plan) to help our Commonwealth friends in the Asia/Pacific region.  Canada will be 'welcomed back' by trading partners, old friends and traditional allies alike.
... [and] ...
Third: Canada also needs to affirm, at home and abroad, our status as one of the worlds most favoured nations – a nation which, relative to 90% of the UN's member states, is sophisticated, rich and powerful.  Wealth and power ought to be accompanied by responsibility, including a responsibility to help and protect less fortunate nations.  Canada has talked, a lot, about this; it is time to let actions speak louder than words.  The candidate members of Ruxted's 'coalition of democracies' are, in the main, similarly favoured – the exception, India, is moving very quickly to join the favoured nations' club.  These nations can and should work together to shoulder a full and fair share of the global security burden – as befits rich and powerful nations, and to share the undoubted benefits of democracy with those who are having difficulty with the progression thereto.


Ruxted was right six years ago; Ibbitson is right now, in 2012, especially when he says, "The hardest thing of all to accept may be a world in which the United States and its Western allies are no longer the sole, or even dominant, global power." Emotion (and racism) still play a strong role in politics and, in Canada, politics drives policy, not vice versa.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
It depends upon how you manage it:

1. If Canada, for example, does nothing in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, which is currently 'attended' by our ambassador to Kazakhstan, then the UK embassy would, possibly, simply appoint an officer to represent our interests, as Italy does for us in Libya, for example, but it might go one step father - our staff in Astana might have a permanent office inside the UK embassy and the Canadian flag might fly outside; or

2. On the other hand, Canada might post one officer, a commissioner of some sort (some sub-ambassadorial rank) to, say, Manama, Bahrain, to work from the British Embassy there, thus giving us a greater presence there.


I just heard Foreign Minister John Baird speak in the HoC; he is opting for the highlighted option: we will place "a few" foreign service officers in "a few" British mission where were are, currently, not represented - as we do, right now, in Burma. The British will have the same option - putting a UK official in one of our missions, as they do now, in Haiti.
 
The rise of the west was no more an aberration than the rise of any other part of the globe.  India and China are not assured of ascendancy to the first rank of powers if they fu<k up their respective paths to prosperity.  My guess is that China is on the cusp of its next dissolution into warring factions.
 
ER seems to have a lot of faith in China being able to hold it together, and he makes a valid argument, but they are no longer dealing with an ignorant population....the more the people learn and find out what's out there, the more tenuous the government's hold on them will be....

India, I know very little about, but the caste system has pretty much broken down in almost any other place it was in place.....is India going to be able to keep it up, especially with the level of corruption I keep reading about....

:dunno:
 
I believe an argument could be made that China's greed caused the rise of the west - being tendentious.


Brits discovered tea from China.
China told Britain that the Brits had nothing worth trading for the tea.
The only thing that China wanted from Britain was cash, in particular silver.
Britain ran out of silver before it cured itself of its addiction for tea.

Consequences

Britain stole tea plants from China and taught Indians to grow how to grow the types of tea that they liked.
Britain found something the Chinese would trade for tea:opium.

And thus was born the funding for the liberal west.

And the impoverishment of China.

How is China going to handle its mulligan?  Free trade? Or repeat the policies of the Qing Dynasty?
 
GAP said:
ER seems to have a lot of faith in China being able to hold it together, and he makes a valid argument, but they are no longer dealing with an ignorant population....the more the people learn and find out what's out there, the more tenuous the government's hold on them will be....

India, I know very little about, but the caste system has pretty much broken down in almost any other place it was in place.....is India going to be able to keep it up, especially with the level of corruption I keep reading about....

:dunno:


I don't have any more (but no less) faith in "China being able to hold it together" than I do in America or Britain or Canada being able to "hold it together."

I believe think guess that the Chinese leadership is trying to recreate the Ming Dynasty (plus / minus). The Ming had two great attributes which the Chinese want to recreate:

1. It was Chinese, not foreign, like the preceding Mongol Yuan Dynasty or following Jurchen Qing Dynasty ~ thus it understood Chinese culture and governed in accord with it; and

2. It unleashed the native entrepreneurial nature of the Chinese people.

The current Chinese government is, I also guess, intent on avoiding two of the Ming's major errors:

1. A too rigid, even too Confucian civil service ~ I am told by a friend who is a Party member that the CCP is trying very hard to reform itself, making both the Party (political leadership) and bureaucracy (administrative and policy leadership) into real, functioning meritocracies. I find it interesting that one of the very few areas in Chinese life where corruption is minimal (not non-existent, just at about the same level as, say, in Canada) is the annual university entrance exam system which is, itself, the most important stepping stone towards service in the bureaucratic elite; and

2. A tendency to eschew science and technology ~ partly arising from a too rigid interpretation of Confucianism which celebrates the Chinese gentleman who is a classical scholar but who does not dirty his hands with the world of physical work or the physical sciences.

This is a big, Big, BIG project; it is the equivalent of mashing the Glorious Revolution, American Revolution, 1830s in Britain and the early 20th century in the Anglosphere all into one "project" which can be completed in 50 years rather than 200+. Can the Chinese pull it off? I have no idea? Are they, somehow, so culturally inferior to us that they cannot pull it off? No: Chinese culture is far, far different from ours, but it is not inferior.

The big foreign policy problem, for Canada, is not to "pick winners" (or losers) rather it is cope with constant and accelerating change.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
The "usual suspects," including, of course, perennial Harper government critic Paul Heinbecker, are out in force, according to the Globe and Mail, which tells me that the Canada/UK project may be better than I thought. Generally, in my opinion, whatever Heinbecker is "for" thoughtful Canadians ought to be "against" and vice versa.

I understand the foreign service's distaste for this: they are like featherbedding trade union leaders pleading to keep the firemen on diesel locomotives. This project aims to do (a little) more with less, mainly with less foreign service officers.

There is a coincidence of priorities here: Canada wants to cut budgets, and the DFAIT budget is under attack along with all others, and UK wants to counter the increased influence of a "United Europe" which is, itself, combining embassies to grow its influence in ways that the UK fears will run counter to Britain's vital interests. Britain is still suffering from the effects of a long recession and there is no  money for more diplomats ~ this might be a 'win-win' for two cash strapped governments.
And the NDP's take?  From Statements by Members in the House of Commons:
Mr. Pierre Nantel (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, NDP):  Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are so nostalgic for the empire that they are counterattacking.

    This is not a joke. They want us to undo a century of progress. First, they had an epiphany about the War of 1812 that they decided to share with every single one of us, and now rumour has it that the Prime Minister and his acolytes want to reopen the debate on the Naval Service Act of 1910, which came at a time when Canada was tentatively moving to distance itself from the British empire and develop its own foreign policy.

    We were a strong, well-known nation that had found its place in the world, but under today's Conservatives, our maple leaf will now be tied to the Union Jack's apron strings, too weak to speak for itself. We will now be renting space in the Queen's embassies. How shameful. At least we can console ourselves with some free photocopies.

    Before croquet replaces lacrosse as our national sport and before we start singing God Save the Queen in the House, I would like to see the Conservatives man up and defend our reputation and our interests a little more vigorously, if they do not mind.

On that bit in yellow above (first I've heard of such a "rumour"), from Parks Canada ....
With the growing threat of a powerful German navy, Great Britain wanted to keep their naval supremacy. To have the money to accomplish this, Great Britain asked its colonies for the funds necessary. Great Britain's reasoning was that, in case of a war it would be their navy that would protect all of the colonies. When asked for these funds, Canada had two options; to either give the money to Great Britain or create a navy of their own. Imperialists wanted to send the funds necessary while nationalists didn't want to send anything. As a compromise, Laurier proposed the Naval Service Act in 1910. Canada would now have its own navy, however in times of crisis the navy could be directed by Great Britain. This compromise proved to be unpopular in Canada and eventually led to Laurier's defeat in 1911.

.... and DFAIT:
Although relations with the United States were crucial to Canada, membership in the Empire meant that Canada was not isolated from the mounting crisis in Europe. Paramount to British security was the maintenance of the Royal Navy as the most powerful in the world. By 1909 Germany, though primarily a land power, was threatening that supremacy as both countries raced to construct the newest class of battleship, the dreadnought, which rendered earlier ships obsolete. Laurier now came under pressure to come to the aid of the mother country from the Conservative opposition in Parliament and from the imperialistically minded of his own followers. He rejected the idea of giving an emergency donation to Britain, opting instead for using the small Fisheries Protection Service as a base for developing a Canadian navy.

Laurier's policy came under fire from both sides. Those who felt that the urgency of the situation required an immediate contribution to the British Admiralty derided his "tin-pot navy," while Quebec nationalists opposed aiding Britain's naval position by any means. Laurier's Naval Service Act of 1910, which created a navy that would be completely under Canadian control and not necessarily made available to Britain even in wartime, was denounced by imperialists and Quebec nationalists alike, for diametrically opposing reasons -- the former feared that the navy would not be available to Britain when needed; the latter feared that it would be. After losing a by-election in a supposedly safe Quebec riding, Laurier retreated. But the issue would have a critical impact during the general election in 1911.
 
More on how the joint "embassy" idea feeds into the "Anglosphere" project from the CBC website. Altogether a good idea in my opinion, even if the tone in this articel is neutral or even somewhat negative towards the Anglosphere:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/27/f-vp-stewart-anglo-nations.html

Brian Stewart: The growing cabal of English-speaking nations
Canada-Britain embassy sharing deal is step towards 'Anglosphere'
By Brian Stewart, CBC News Posted: Sep 27, 2012 6:42 PM ET Last Updated: Sep 28, 2012 5:30 AM ET 
analysis

Brian Stewart

About The Author
One of this country's most experienced journalists and foreign correspondents, Brian Stewart is currently a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He also sits on the advisory board of Human Rights Watch Canada. In almost four decades of reporting, he has covered many of the world's conflicts and reported from 10 war zones, from El Salvador to Beirut and Afghanistan.

Foreign ministers downplay shared Canada-UK embassies The week's flap over proposed new Canada-Britain embassy sharing seemed to read both far too much into the agreement, and too little.

It is most unlikely this arrangement will eclipse our own foreign policy in any way, as the opposition warns. But nor is it quite the small housekeeping matter — akin to sharing printers and a supplies cupboard — that the Conservatives seek to portray it as.

What it may well portend, though, is yet another incremental step by this particular Canadian government (and Britain) towards what academics call "the Anglosphere," a concept that has fascinated its advocates across the English-speaking world for the past 20 years or so.

This is the rather grand theory that, in these turbulent times, a new network of like-minded nations is coalescing around certain core members — the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — who share, aside from language, a set of values, a common law heritage and long-existing networks of military and civilian co-operation.

DIPLOMACY Map: Canada's consular co-operation Arrangements with Australia, other countries already in placeIt is a network that, contrary to expectations back in the early days of (post-Cold War) globalization, appears to be growing closer in the wake of the ongoing skepticism over Europe's financial stability and the uncertainty in the Middle East.

Canada, because of Quebec and the internationalist ambitions of former Liberal governments, used to be considered a rather dodgy member of this group back in the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher years.

But with Quebec exerting less political clout these days, it has allowed Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with his love of Anglo symbolism and monarchical nostalgia — restoring portraits of the Queen to government offices and returning the honoured title "Royal" to the Canadian navy — to move quite directly into the Anglosphere orbit, where he is increasingly being lionized.

Sun doesn't set
It is tempting to make light of this Anglo fascination as a romantic bit of geopolitical wistfulness.

But the scope of potential participants is so vast that it has persuaded many, mostly conservative, thinkers that this grouping will remain the world's pre-eminent cultural, economic, military and technological force well into the 21st century.

A Mountie looks on as the prime minister walks with Queen Elizabeth as she makes her way to unveil a portrait of herself by Canadian artist Phil Richards in June 2012. (Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press)Believers, such as the American geographer Joel Kotkin, a strong voice for Anglo optimism, observe that just the core Anglosphere group still accounts for over a quarter of global GDP, an amount that seems to match closely what the British Empire enjoyed at the height of its glory.

Meanwhile, because today's Anglosphere is centred on a common language (English) and customs, rather than ethnic or racial factors, the Anglo nations are still magnets for immigration, which helps keep them vital.

One problem with some of these calculations, of course, is that so many peoples identify with the Anglosphere, and speak English as their official or de facto language, that it can be difficult to determine who all should be part of the core group. Do we add Singapore? Certain Caribbean nations? South Africa? India?

As India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in 2005, "If there is one phenomenon on which the sun cannot set, it is the world of the English-speaking peoples, in which the people of Indian origin are the single largest component."

Military closeness
Still, when it comes to promoting much closer links across this Anglo universe, there is a strong conservative mindset that urges keeping a relatively closed shop, particularly following the economic lessons of the eurozone and the political infirmity in alliances such as NATO.

Those who write about this subject most often would have the core group kept solid, traditional and strongly self-defensive.

Over the years, advocates have included Margaret Thatcher, President George W. Bush, former publisher Conrad Black, several highly prominent historians such as Andrew Roberts and Robert Conquest, and a slew of contemporary conservative politicians (including Canadians and Australians).

"The power of the Anglosphere idea is in its informality … its 'taken-for-grantedness'," observes SrdjanVucetic of the University of Ottawa, who has written extensively on the concept.

"People in conservative and neo-conservative circles have been talking about 'more Anglosphere co-operation' since late 1990s, but this usually goes on behind closed doors and in select workshops, think-tank style," he adds.

At this juncture, no one seems to have come up with ways to formalise the Anglosphere alliance, particularly around things like trade.

But when it comes to military and security matters, the Anglo core is locked in a much closer embrace than many in the public are aware

Special relationships
Some arrangements are long-standing. All five spy services from the core countries co-operate in an intelligence sharing called "the five eyes."

Anglosphere best buds, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher conferring in 1984. (Associated Press)Canada also shares NORAD air defence with the U.S., while our naval, air and land units have trained together for decades and have grown even closer since 9/11.

At this juncture, all three U.S. Army Corps have Canadian deputy commanders, while dozens of Canadians regularly serve as important exchange or liaison officers with top U.S. commands, as do those from other Anglo nations.

Such close unity carries military and diplomatic consequences.

Consider that Canada would likely have joined the U.S., Brits and Australians in invading Iraq in 2003 had Stephen Harper been in office, rather than Jean Chrétien.

More subtly, during the Afghanistan mission our military always made sure the Canadian battle group operated side by side with U.S. and British units rather than far less trusted NATO-European forces.

Today, Anglosphere advocates seem hostile toward President Barack Obama, who appears to be no great fan of Britain, or the so-called special relationship that some of his predecessors liked to encourage.

Still, Obama has moved closer to Australia in the Pacific, to the point of basing U.S. Marines there for the first time since the Second World War — a powerful signal to other Pacific nations like China.

As for Canada, and our frugal sharing of closets, hat racks, printers, reception halls and portraits of the Queen with British (and Australian diplomats), this will undoubtedly seem to many countries as an irrelevant embrace signifying little.

And perhaps it is. But not among Anglosphere dreamers. For them, the headlines created in Canada and Britain brought welcome new attention back to the Anglo world's distinctive alliances. And on this message expect them to be nothing if not persistent.

Since the Anglosphere idea is based more on common language and culture, it is essentially open ended. There is no reason not to welcome India or the nations of the Carribean into the Anglosphere. Similarly, since it is based on common culture and values, it is easy for members to detach themselves as well. A "Formal" anglosphere would suffer the way other large bureaucratic enterprises have over the years, far better an informal set of relationships with the abiltiy to form "Tiger teams" to deal with pressing issues. We seem to be doing it right at the current time.


 
Prime Minister Steven Harper's acceptance speech for "World Statesman" award.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid868989705001?bckey=AQ~~%2CAAAAybGjzqk~%2C6NfTc6c241GVQxOh-GBHNHu5Cuhlf-y9&bctid=1866635685001
 
Sythen said:
Prime Minister Steven Harper's acceptance speech for "World Statesman" award.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid868989705001?bckey=AQ~~%2CAAAAybGjzqk~%2C6NfTc6c241GVQxOh-GBHNHu5Cuhlf-y9&bctid=1866635685001

Great speech by Mr. Prime Minister! I am proud of the GoC
 
More on shared embassies, leading to the whole Anglosphere idea via a small rant about American decline from Conrad Black, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/29/conrad-black-the-british-commonwealth-will-rise-again/
The British Commonwealth will rise again

Conrad Black

Sep 29, 2012

John Baird and his British analogue, William Hague, should be congratulated on their innovative arrangement to share embassy facilities. Some opposition members of Parliament’s first utterances about the plan evinced their fear that Canada would be assumed to be retreating back into colonial subservience to Great Britain — but that’s just evidence of their congenital sense of inferiority. For those preoccupied with the relationship between this country and the United Kingdom, precisely the opposite inference should have been drawn. Canada and Great Britain are historically and ceremonially linked G-7 powers, both among the 10 or 12 most important of the world’s 195 independent states. They are perfectly capable of collaborating on a basis of complete equality.

And this is exactly what has been agreed. In Haiti, the British will insert staff into the Canadian embassy. In Myanmar, when the boycott of parliament ends and democracy arrives, Canada will spare itself the great expense of a new embassy by placing its personnel in the same building that houses the British embassy. The official estimate is that by replicating this system in a number of secondary capitals, Canada could save $80-million; no sane person could do anything but applaud such a move. Diplomats rarely suffer from overwork and much of the cost of foreign representation returns little value to the taxpayers.

As it happens, this pooling of some costs with Britain could prove a foretaste for increasing co-operation between Canada and the U.K. in the future. I have written here before of the advantages to a stronger association between the principal Commonwealth countries, as the world’s alliances and groupings shift in response to several seismic global changes, including the apparent redefinition by the United States of its role and strategic interests. This requires a certain amount of intuition and sleuthing, as Barack Obama keeps repeating that the United States is as involved in the world, as ever. Of course this is palpable rubbish as the United States routinely declares developments all over the world to be “unacceptable” and then accepts them in practice, and reduces its defense outlays while ceasing to make any credible statement of determination to influence events in areas where it was formerly intimately involved. Tactically and politically, it may be better and easier to withdraw noiselessly while denying that that is what is happening, but it makes foreign policy planning for other countries more complicated.

The only discernible objectives of U.S. foreign policy now are to do something about global warming and to see a Palestinian state. There is nothing wrong with an American retrenchment, as long as it is orderly and doesn’t constitute a complete abdication, and there is no present suggestion of that. The country has chronic fiscal and monetary problems and nearly 20% of the workforce is unemployed or under-employed. It is certainly time for the United States to put its own house in order, and not being over-exposed to the vagaries of foreign affairs is a good place to begin.

The United States only departed isolation in 1940 when president Franklin Roosevelt recognized that if Nazi Germany was enabled to consolidate its control of Austria, most of Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and Scandinavia — and assert suzerainty over most of the rest of Europe except the Soviet Union, the British Isles, and Switzerland — it would be a mortal threat and rival to the United States; and that if Japan was not restrained, it could assist in the dissection of Russia and would threaten the entire Pacific and Indian Ocean basins. Roosevelt declared the policies of “all aid short of war” to Britain and Canada, and later the U.S.S.R,, and the oil and metal embargo against Japan, which brought the United States into the war. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill extracted guaranties of the independence of Eastern Europe from Stalin, on all of which Stalin reneged, provoking the Cold War. And Roosevelt invented the United Nations not only for idealistic and universalistic reasons, but to disguise American hegemony in much of the world behind an international organization and to reassure his isolationist countrymen that the world was not so dangerous a place as it had been.

In fact, it was, but all the subsequent U.S. Cold War presidents subscribed to the view that if the United States was not engaged in Western Europe and the Far East, those vital regions could fall into the hands of America’s enemies. With the implosion of the Soviet Union and the capitalist evolution of China, the United States doesn’t have any serious enemies left, only some pockets of terrorist provocation and peevish local mountebanks like Chavez and Castro. No one will disturb a relatively inward-looking America.

Russia, with less than half the population of the old U.S.S.R, and barely a third of the old Warsaw Pact, is in no position to threaten Western Europe, and China is not militarily belligerent. Though assertive and rising, it is already meeting resistance to any overlordship from its neighbours. Co-operating with India; Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and even Myanmar, and Taiwan are unanimous in their determination not to be cowed by China, and with a little diplomatic and military assistance are perfectly capable of ensuring a regional balance. The Russians and Chinese can exchange acerbities over Mongolia.

However the Eurozone may be reconfigured, the principal political fact of Western Europe will be that Germany will be the basis of a hard-currency, economically efficient core of Western Europe. This powerful and cohesive unit will include the Netherlands, Austria and probably the Finns, Czechs, Danes, Swedes, Baltic republics and Poland. France will behave as France does, agitating rather operatically with the Italians, Spanish and others, while Russia drifts, tussled over by competing parties of nativists and Western emulators, the ancient dispute between Peter the Great and Yeltsin on one side, and Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and Putin on the other.

There will be regional powers like Brazil and Turkey, but the only other coherent force that could arise and occupy a role somewhat analogous to a great power of old would be some cohesive bloc of Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, New Zealand, Singapore and perhaps a few other Commonwealth countries. The talented Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, is capable of advancing along these lines, and Stephen Harper and John Baird would do well to explore these possibilities also. Whether the pooling of embassy buildings with the British leads in this direction or not, this question has again revealed the propensity of the official opposition to jerk the knee and shoot from the hip — its stock response to most happenings, great and small.

Note: Thanks to reader Mark Goetz for pointing out that Canada ran 12 consecutive federal government surpluses and not 14 as I wrote last week. I apologize for my error.

National Post


There is a lot of worry, I guess about "wither America?" "wither Europe?" and, consequentially, "what about us, what will we do?" Canada has been a committed multilateralist ever since St Laurent and UNTSO (1948) and the Colombo Plan (the Commonwealth's, especially Canada's answer to the Marshall Plan which was St Laurent's idea, which Canada led in the 1950s but in which (since 1992) we lo longer participate). It is more or less natural that Canadians will always look for organizations through which we can leverage our (limited) power.

The Brits, for their part, are trying to distance themselves a bit from the unfolding economic disaster that is (parts of) Europe. They are frightened by the growing trend, amongst some Europeans, to "buy" German leadership (and, presumably financial support) by allowing Germany to assert greater and greater control over all manner of European policies, like a more and ore common foreign policy. The Brits are even more frightened by what many, including Lord Black, see as a growing disinterest in the world by America; Britain has "engaged" in the world for 70 years as America's junior partner or client.
 
Is it not interesting that Lord Black did not mention the other player in the "great game," the Islamic Crescent? I suspect he recognizes it as not a serious military threat, if nuclear ambitions can be contained, except for certain factions penchants for terrorism or/and petropolitics. It may be that it is apt to turn into a uncabal (if that is a word) of divergent interersts and ambitions, and one that will fracture along its natural fault lines.
 
The Islamic crescent encompasses far too many diverse elements to be considereed a unified "power" in either policitcal, economic, military or even cultural terms. The Anglosphere has the advantages of shared cultures, most of the members are already first world powers with comparable economic, political and military muscle (even Canada can project power globally, unlike many of the putative contenders).

The "Sinosphere" has the unified culture, but is still developing the economic and military muscle to rise to the first rank of powers.

The "Indiasphere" is far less unified internally (but has an overlay of "Aglospheric" institutions) and is also still developing. The "split personality might allow India to join the Anglosphere, which will add to our collective strength and abilities.

The EUzone has the economic potential, but is split at least two ways (and probably in several different ways, ie England, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe.)
 
Wow! Who woulda thunk it? I agree with the Good Grey Globe's Doug Saunders ... strike up the band!

While I understand the need to appeal to a certain, inclined towards the medieval, segment of the Conservative base, the whole idea of an Office of Religious Freedom is so bloody silly that it would be comic if it weren't a major, tragic foreign policy blunder. We, Canada, have no bloody business sticking our noses into the internal affairs of other, sovereign countries ~ unless it is with aid (bribes) or bombs and bullets (real aid) ~ especially not into the affairs of states which don't matter.

Anyway, here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is Saunders (exceptionally rare) bit of good sense:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/religious-freedom-sends-the-wrong-message-to-the-wrong-people/article4591927/
‘Religious freedom’ sends the wrong message to the wrong people

DOUG SAUNDERS
The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Oct. 06 2012

It’s time to speak out against religious freedom.

Or, to be precise, against its promotion and the way it’s used. To those of us who believe freedoms should be absolute and robust, and are ardently opposed to the persecution of people for their beliefs, this might sound like an odd proposition. What could be more benign than another freedom?

But Canada is within days of opening a federal Office of Religious Freedom (within the Department of Foreign Affairs), and it’s becoming apparent that this isn’t a good idea for our country or the world. In fact, it’s very likely to contribute to the very problems we hope it might help solve.

We might as well face it: When groups of people exercise their self-proclaimed religious freedoms, terrible things tend to happen. The phrase “religious freedom” is evoked by Hindu nationalist parties in India to justify killing rampages in Muslim neighbourhoods, by the Buddhist-majority government of Sri Lanka to imprison members of the country’s Hindu minority, by Jewish religious parties in Israel to call for the denial of Israeli Muslims’ full citizenship rights, and by crowds of Salafists and Islamists in Egypt bent on ruining the lives of Coptic Christians.

For the ardent religious believer and the organized, hierarchical religious organization, “religious freedom” often refers to the right to restrict the freedoms of others, or to impose one’s religion on the larger world.

That’s why the most important religious freedom is freedom from religion. This applies not just to those without religion. It’s even more important for believers, who are most often persecuted by other faiths. In those examples of persecution listed above, it’s protection from a religion – not more freedom for believers – that’s needed.

The problem is that “religious freedom” is deliberately vague. Does it refer to the freedom of individuals to hold religious beliefs of their choice, to speak and write openly of those beliefs without penalty, and to partake in religious rituals on private property and at places of worship?

Those are fundamental rights. They’re already protected in constitutional freedoms of speech, thought, conscience, assembly and basic equality. That our Constitution specifies a separate “freedom of religion” is redundant. That we would use a government office to promote religion above other freedoms is dangerous: It implies that they’re less important.

While Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom will certainly be capable of defending people against the forces of religion (and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird mentions this possibility in his speeches), it appears to be hard-wired to do something far less benign. Its advisers and board members appear to be mainly religious believers and leaders of religious congregations.

In notes for a lecture to be given in Ottawa later this month, Northwestern University scholar Elizabeth Hurd writes of the “hegemony of religious freedom”: By making it a priority, we force people to be defined by their religions, not by their personal, political, national, ethnic or democratic interests.

She asks: “Is the world created by religious freedom a world that we want to live in? Is there an alternative? … Projects carried out in its name effectively define what it means to be religious and to be free in the modern world. In short, they shape political realities and religious possibilities on the ground.”

In other words, the Office of Religious Freedom will simply be a reprise of Canada’s old policies of official multiculturalism – with all their flaws and none of their advantages. It will force even narrower cultural definitions, and seek to define people strictly by their religious identities, under the leadership of spiritual authority figures who want it that way.

You’d think that Canada would be seeking to promote Western and Canadian values in the world’s less privileged corners. Yet, the core values of our common culture, the things that make us Western and modern – democracy, equality, the rule of law – were forged through the rejection of religion and the overthrow of spiritual authority.

Of course, this is what made “religious freedom” possible in the first place, by allowing religion to become a separate sphere away from public life – a matter of choice, rather than a requirement of existence. Canada could promote this peaceful removal of faith from the state, in countries where religions try to dominate. But our Office of Religious Freedom will send the wrong message to the wrong people.


The Office of Religious Freedom is nonsense, but there are, in the civil service, as in the military, some people who prove the absolute truth of Parkinson's Law, and they can be posted to it and we can cut their Internet access and they will do no harm.

parkinsons-first-law.jpg
 
E.R. Campbell said:
We, Canada, have no bloody business sticking our noses into the internal affairs of other, sovereign countries ~ unless it is with aid (bribes) or bombs and bullets (real aid) ~ especially not into the affairs of states which don't matter.

Too bad the Thirty Year's war took place so long ago; that settled the issue in Europe in 1648, but apparently some people have trouble learning and understanding the lessons of history...
 
Here is the first of two interesting pieces from the Good Grey Globe - this one, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is really interesting because Lawrence Martin manages, albeit with difficulty, to put aside some of his hatred of Prime Minister Harper long enough to examine the direction of his foreign policy:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-tories-are-on-the-right-track-on-trade/article4592591/
The Tories are on the right track on trade

LAWRENCE MARTIN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Oct. 09 2012

Radical change? From the Harper government, we expected it in domestic policy. But the surprise is, it’s more clearly evident in foreign affairs.

There’s a two-track approach to external affairs, each one representing a major break with the past. One track sees the Conservatives contentedly ending Canada’s days as a voice of moderation. Now we’re the trigger-happy Great White North. We thumb our noses at the United Nations, shut down embassies, follow a brashly partisan approach in the Middle East and leave talk of collective security to others. Nuance has been replaced by ideological certitudes.

But there’s some welcome counterbalance to this narrowing of the Canadian mind. The Conservatives may be closing corridors, but they’re also seeking to open them through the most ambitious policy of trade expansion the country has ever seen. They’re seeking to build free or freer trade bridges here, there and everywhere – with the European Union, South Korea, Japan, India, China.

The trade initiatives are the most important of the two foreign policy tracks. Unilateral aggressiveness can easily be reversed by the next government. Trade pacts are more enduring and economically consequential.

In times past, Ottawa made some modest attempts to diversify trade, but the country was largely content to reside in the fortress North America trading bloc. Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement. That deal changed our economic mindset, and ended an era of economic nationalism and protectionism. Having made that leap of faith, it’s now time, as Brian Mulroney says, to make another leap, this time to Asia.

The trade opening to China – by a government that all but ignored Beijing in its first years in office – is nothing short of remarkable. As well as just having signed an investment treaty with China, the Conservatives are about to make a key decision on a proposed $15-billion takeover of Calgary’s Nexen Inc. by a state-owned Chinese energy company.

Sinclair Stevens, a trade minister in the Mulroney government, captured the bizarre nature of what’s transpiring. How strange, he said in an interview, that conservatives who once wanted our own state-owned company, Petro-Canada, out of the oil patch now appear willing to accept a state-owned enterprise from Communist China.

Stephen Harper has a big personal stake in the outcomes of all the trade talks. He wants to create a lasting policy legacy to complement an already successful political one. The turning of Canada into a global trader from a bilateral one would fit that purpose. There’s nothing more important for Canada right now, says former industry minister Jim Prentice, than trade diversification to Asia.

Free trade is good, but not if you’re giving away too much in the interests of getting a deal. The devil is in the details, and trade agreements can be so complex that only experts understand the potential value or lack of it. It becomes a matter of trust, particularly if a government cares little about openness and public consultation.

The Conservatives have raised expectations. They have so much invested in getting some of the proposed deals that the worry is they might be willing to give up too much. Opposition critics cite the investment agreement with China as an example.

What can be said, though, is that the government’s direction is the correct one. The fear was legitimate – the years of giving the cold shoulder to China, for example – that rigid political thinking would extend to commercial and trade relations. Thankfully, it hasn’t. Thankfully, foreign policy’s second track is the right rail.


First: a quibble ~ the nuance that Martin and all then other conservatives (used in the way John Stuart Mill defined "conservatives") desire was, actually, just the visible sign of Pierre Trudeau's abysmal ignorance of foreign policy. Under St Laurent and Pearson Canada was not nuanced, we had "a brashly partisan approach" to liberty and democracy, we had cast aside King's timidity and, proudly, stood for something. Trudeau, like Isaiah Berlin's hedgehog, had one, single, defining idea: he opposed nationalism. But he, Trudeau, wasn't for anything; he just knew that nationalism was "bad;" in reality he wasn't even sure why. It is madness to want to hang one's intellectual hat on such a weak hook.

But: Martin is right that the Conservative government is "seeking to build free or freer trade bridges here, there and everywhere – with the European Union, South Korea, Japan, India, China." Of course Martin would not be Martin if he didn't get that wrong, too ~ his (and Sinclair Stevens') complaints about "free trade" not being "managed" enough are silly.
 
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