Get to Know Your North American Neighbor Part II: Canada

Here’s part II our our “A Good Neighborhood Requires Good Neighbors” series….

Some Canada facts:

• Canada has 41 million people, making it slightly more populous than California and just shy of twice as populous as the Mexico City metropolitan area.
• Canada’s GDP is $2.215 trillion, making it the 9th largest economy in the world in nominal terms (16th in PPP). Canada’s per capita GDP is significantly (20%) lower than US per capita GDP, but on the upside Canada has a low (29.2) GINI coefficient and a high (.935) human development index
• Canada has extremely high democracy scores on all relevant metrics.
• Canada is an exceedingly big boi, ranking 2nd globally in territory behind only Russia.

No one here will be surprised that socially and economically Canada fits very well into the Transatlantic North typology, with strong, advanced economy, high human development, and high democracy. Canada’s physical geography is quite weird, but given that the vast bulk of the Canadian population lives in a thin strip of land near the US border, it’s easy to overstate the relevance of that weirdness. Canada’s non-weirdness is also an aspect of its foreign and security policy, which have long been tied to cooperation with either the US or the UK,

Until 1922 Canada in effect had an external security guarantee in the form of the commitment of the United Kingdom to the defense of the Commonwealth. In the immediate wake of World War I London and Washington eyed one another cautiously, with both running wargames as to how a trans-Atlantic conflict might play out. Ottawa’s (correct) belief that war between the UK and the US would almost certainly lead to the end of Canadian independence was influential in London’s decision to abandon the Anglo-Japanese alliance and embrace the Washington Treaty framework. This effectively put Canadian security in American hands, a situation Canada was willing to tolerate because it did not regard either a US invasion or US active political and economic interference to be very likely outside of US-UK conflict.

Canada found itself in a structurally similar position to Mexico as World War II approached. Structure isn’t everything, as bonds of history, language, and democracy made Canada an early and enthusiastic participant in the Second World War. By the end of the conflict Canada had made one of the largest contributions to victory outside of the Big Three, a fact that remains undersold everywhere other than Canada. BTW, I was told by a non-native Canadian on the occasion of visiting the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa that “Canadians believe that Americans believe that Canadians are ‘fierce,'” which seems to me to suggest that Canadians have confused themselves with Australians.

After the war Canada embarked on a foreign and security policy that was almost the opposite of Mexico, becoming a charter member of NATO (thus binding its security tightly to London and Washington) and a leading contributor on questions of peacekeeping, foreign aid, and the institutionalization of global politics. This did not come without costs; Canada became a target of the Soviet Union, although it would have been hard to avoid that outcome given Canada’s geographic position. In the post-Cold War world essentially none of this has changed, apart from a noticeable reduction in Canada’s defense outlays. The US and Europe make up about 80% of Canada’s trade, followed by China and Mexico. Canada remains a member in good standing of NATO, and continues to be a generous donor of foreign aid and a consistent participant in major international fora. Canada’s security policy is so tightly tied with the United States that Canadian personnel are a part of the nuclear enterprise, at least insofar as they contribute to early warning and air defense in the Arctic. Canada’s current defense outlays amount to 1.2% of its GDP, which given the country’s size and wealth gives it the 14th highest defense budget in the world.

Canada’s deal with the United States is different than Mexico’s deal. In large part because of a shared linguistic and colonial heritage, US and Canadian foreign policy have been in simpatico over the course of the 20th century to far greater degree than Washington and Mexico City. For long stretches in the post-war period the US-Canadian border was not much more than an imaginary line, and Canadians have historically had far more opportunity than Mexicans to visit and travel in the United States. Moreover, Canada’s substantial involvement in international institutions is almost always in accord with US policy preferences. As part of NATO, Canada enjoys an explicit security guarantee from the United States, and would probably enjoy a bilateral guarantee even if NATO did not exist.

I find Canada less “weird” than Mexico because Canada looks a lot like Australia or a mid-sized European country look like, while Mexico is pretty weird compared even to other countries in Latin America. But Canada’s size, wealth, and position make it one of America’s most important allies, so important that Americans often take it for granted. Whereas Mexico’s unusual foreign policy is a great boon to the security of the United States, Canada is an asset because Canadian and American foreign policy are almost always tightly tied together. Few Great Powers now or in the history of the modern international system have what amounts to a “Mini-Me” in such cultural, political, and defense accord, much less one that lays astride and guards its most vulnerable approaches.

Some more general takeaways… in theoretical terms, it’s important to understand that the critical strategic advantages tha t seem to stem from geography are made, not given. The shared ethno-linguistic heritage of the US and Canada is not, as the Russia-Ukraine and India-Pakistan cases show, a guarantee of amicable relations. Mexico could be (and in the past has been) a rough equivalent to Ukraine for Russia or Pakistan for India; a weaker but hostile power that poses an ongoing security problems. Canada could be (and in the past has been) Poland for Russia or Vietnam for China; a weaker but hostile power whose threat is magnified by an external security alliance. Canada and Mexico are neither of those things today because of careful, wise statecraft in Washington, Ottawa, and Mexico City.

Second… wise statecraft can end. In 2014 Russia unwisely shifted from a policy of limited tolerance for Ukrainian democracy to a policy of intolerance, and both Russia and Ukraine are paying grievously for that decision today. The Trump administration has embarked upon literal beggar-thy-neighbor policies with respect to Mexico and Canada, policies that very well may disrupt long-term relations. In addition, Trump has suggested that active military measures are on the table with respect to Mexico and has belittled and scorned Canadian national identity. This is the recipe for creating a Pakistan or a Ukraine on the US border, which is an outcome that will not serve the United States well under any conceivable grand strategic framework.