Dr. Rosemary Hollis, Head, Middle East Program, Chatham House, London

Participants were invited to discuss how the US and Canada feature in the international system, in accordance with the three alternative theoretical frameworks already identified and discussed at some length. These are: Realism, Liberalism and World-System Theory.

Within the framework of Realism it is easy to discern that the US will be considered the most powerful state or actor in the world, indeed the only superpower. This is important because, according to Realists, states are the most important actors on the world stage. They alone can provide security, which essentially only exists within any given state. At the global level anarchy prevails, though the power balance between states may provide a sort of order. This was very clear during the Cold War years, when the global order consisted of a bipolar power balance between the Soviet Union and its allies on the one hand and the US and its allies on the other.

Although the US enjoys predominance in the post-Cold War world, it may not always be engaged in conflicts around the globe. The order that prevails is patchy and dependent on the US projecting its power. When it does so, it can be expected to prevail unless confronted by a more powerful coalition of states. However, coalitions could be transient or operate only in certain contexts. As a single entity, the US possesses the single most powerful military in the world. Even its NATO allies lack the capabilities possessed by the US. For example, in the operation mounted to protect Kurdish refugees who attempted to flee from Iraq to Turkey in the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991 and were turned back at the Turkish border, Britain, France and Italy could not manage between them and needed the capabilities of the US to make the operation effective. More blatantly, it was the US that took the overwhelming lead in the liberation of Kuwait and the war would not have happened without it. Indeed, the prevailing view is that the Gulf War would not have happened if the Soviet Union had still been in a position to challenge the US and counterbalance its power in the world.

These examples serve as proof, according to Realists, that military force is the most important facet of power in the world - the ultimate decide. From a Realist perspective, the US can be expected to act in pursuit and protection of its own national interests. These will determine when it becomes engaged and when not. It was able to give up its intervention in Rwanda because vital interests were not at stake. In the Gulf, however, the access to vital energy resources was perceived to be at risk and so the US not only acted to oust Iraq from Kuwait but established a sort of ‘Pax American’ in the area thereafter.

According to the Realist school, meanwhile, Canada ranks as only a middle or small power. It is dependent on the US economically and is in no position to challenge it from a military point of view. The population of Canada is only about one tenth of that of the US, which in part explains why the size of its economy and military are so much smaller. From the Realist perspective, therefore, Canada has little choice but to try to remain on the right side of the US and will act in concert with it in order to have some influence on the world stage.

The Liberalism school takes alliances and collective security arrangements much more seriously than the Realist school. Therefore, it will put more emphasis on the power of NATO than of its individual members and when NATO acts it will be more compelling than when the US acts alone. Similarly, if the US acts with the blessing of the United Nations, this will be seen as more effective as well as more acceptable and moral by Liberals. Respect for International Law is both achievable and desirable for Liberals. Under International Law, Canada can claim rights to the same extent as the US can and Canada’s role in international peacekeeping gives it status according to Liberals.

In keeping with the scale of values identified by Liberals, economic development goes together with free markets and democracy. The fact that the US is both democratic and capitalist helps to explain, from a Liberal perspective, why the US enjoys prosperity and is accorded a leadership position. Liberals also do not expect democratic, capitalist states to fight with each other. Therefore, they do not see the US as a threat to Canada, simply a natural partner in economic life and the pursuit of democratic values. Canada, just like the US, can serve as an example to others.

Meanwhile, since Liberals believe that states are not the only important actors on the world stage, they do not think that the US can always have its own way. It is constrained by international norms and rules of trade and by economic interdependence. Liberals distinguish between what multinational companies do and what states or governments do in the world. They believe that transitional organizations of environmentalists and philanthropic associations can influence the policy decisions of both states and companies. This dynamic will affect Canada and the US. And international organizations may provide Canada with opportunities to combine with others to influence the US.

Liberalism is thus an important tool for understanding why Canadians are actively involved in ‘good causes’ like helping Palestinian refugees. They believe that development aid, even if disbursed in small surns, can make a difference and that this can provide Canada with the means to influence events outside its borders, regardless of its relatively modest power in the world.

According to this school of thought, states as such are not the key determinants of the balance of power. States operate within the context of a world-system determined by economics. Some will be identified as being at the core of this system because of the wealth they have accumulated and can generate. Other states will be located on the periphery of the global economic order, trapped in poverty and dependency. Even within states, meanwhile, there will be core and periphery areas and communities.

From the perspective of World-System Theorists, the US and Canada are located at the core of the economic order that prevails today. Nevertheless, they cannot be secure in this position. The internal contradictions that characterize capitalist economics portend the collapse one day of the global economy. Companies that have cut their costs down by substituting machines for people in the developed world and locating some of their operations in parts of the world where labor is cheap will eventually reach a point at which further savings cannot be made. Meanwhile, laying off employees in the name of efficiency reduces the number of people with money to spend and therefore reduces consumer spending. This in turn will hit the profits of companies. Equally, laborers in the peripheral areas cannot be allowed to earn more and consume more because this would draw off resources from the rich core. Any one company cannot respond to the demands of poor laborers for higher wages without losing out to more ruthless competitors. Therefore short-term thinking prevails with detrimental effects in the longer term for the players (companies) involved.

Canada and the US are simply areas of wealth at the core, rather than actors in the system, and since the system, determined by the dynamics of economic activity, dictates all that happens within it, neither the US nor Canada can ultimately avoid the consequences. For the time being, however, their governments will try to placate the demands of their citizens without having the power to alter the system itself, or, in other words, the power to deliver. They may profess to operate according to democratic principles, but since they cannot deliver, they will succumb to more totalitarian measures to keep a semblance of order in the face of economic forces beyond their control.

It may be helpful, at this point, to introduce a model from the field of International Political Economy. A theorist in this field, Dr. Susan Strange, has developed a model to define the most important facets of power in the international system. She identifies four sources of power, which she compares to the four faces of a pyramid. The four together are thus mutually supporting and reinforcing. The four facets are as follows: the power of military force, the power to grant or deny credit, the power of production, and the power of knowledge.

This is a useful tool for assessing the relative power of different actors on the world stage. The US possesses a significant amount of all four types of power. Since all four reinforce each other, the chances are that the US can go on being powerful, contrary to what systems theorists contend. Canada, meanwhile, is a much lesser power in the world, given that it possess less of all four types of power than the US.

Both the Realism school and the Liberalism school are useful frameworks within which one can define the national interest of any state.

This school maintains that the interests of a state are permanent and unaffected by changes of government within. What this means is that geostrategic factors will determine the interests of any given state. These factors include: geography, resources, neighbors, and the prevailing balance of power.

Geography will determine the size and nature of the terrain. Switzerland, for example, has been able to adopt a non-aligned posture because the mountain ranges that surround it have provided natural protection from its neighbors. The US is a vast country encompassing a variety of types of terrain. Most importantly, it has two seaboards, giving many points of access for sea traffic east and west and affording it the benefit of not being surrounded by other states. It therefore has freedom of access to the rest of the world but can enjoy relative isolation. Canada is actually bigger than the US, but a large proportion of the country is uninhabitable and icebound in winter. Its eastern access to the sea is also constrained by weather conditions in the winter. Its relative isolation predominates over ease of access and obliges Canada to look southwards to the US for land communication.

The resources of the US are so abundant that it has been able to build up a very large economy within, regardless of external trading relations. It has massive stretches of arable land, sufficient water supplies (given proper management), and minerals, including fossil fuels. Canada too has good farming land and other natural resources. However, whereas the US has upwards of 260 million people, Canada has but a tenth of that figure. True, in both cases, education standards and skills are high, but the sheer distances in Canada render it sparsely populated outside the main urban centers and less integrated than the US. In other words the US benefits from a greater manpower base.

The proximity of the US is thus the determining factor for Canada’s national interests, whereas the converse is not true. The only security problem posed for the US by its neighbors today is the potential for illegal immigration and smuggling from Mexico to the south. Neither Mexico nor Canada pose a military threat and neither do their economies represent rivals to that of the US, except in specific cases.

Having said this, the prosperity of the US does depend on its access to resources and markets in other parts of the world. For some years now, the US has been a net importer of oil. America is run on the motor car and the high percentage of car owners amongst the population, along with established patterns of consumption of electricity to run air-conditioning, heating, consumer durables like refrigerators and all kinds of other gadgets, quite apart from industrial needs, gives the US the highest rate of fuel consumption per capita in the world. This helps explain why energy resources in the Middle East are considered a vital interest of the US. Even though the Americans can import sufficient supplies from closer to home, from Latin America and West Africa, the health and growth of the economy depend not only on energy supplies but prices. Were supplies elsewhere to become unavailable, the cost of meeting US needs would mount, as it did during the energy crisis of the 1970s.

Export markets, meanwhile, are the key to expanding the US economy. The theory goes that the US entered World War II in part to prevent Western Europe from being overrun by a hostile power and thereafter helped to rebuild the European economies in the interests of ensuring that they could remain good trading partners. Also, according to the Realists, the US could not withdraw into isolation at that point because the Soviet Union posed a threat to capitalist economics, on which the US thrives, and later became a nuclear power, capable of destroying the US physically.

For Canada, according to the Realist perspective, the national interest is determined by its neighbor, the US. Canada has extensive investments and vital trade links in the much larger US economy. This means that what is good for the US economy is good for Canada, even if the relationship is one of dependence, and Canada has no choice but to ‘get along’ with the US.

This school of thought provides useful insights into how Canada has chosen to define and pursue its national interests. While not denying the compelling factors revealed by Realism, Liberalism suggests ways to maximize the benefits of alliance politics. Canada simply does not have the option of dominating the world stage like the US, therefore it must protect its own prosperity and well-being in more subtle ways. Inevitably it must work with not against the US, but beyond that it can champion causes like international law, peace, and human rights, from which it too stands to benefit. Similarly, Canada depends on open markets and the effectiveness of regulations that protect businessmen wherever they operate. Thus Canada is essentially predisposed to enhancing the benefits of economic interdependence.

The US can afford to be more selective in its compliance with International Law and support for international organizations such as the United Nations. Even so, the values that the US professes to uphold and many Americans do espouse, embrace the concepts of democracy and free markets as universal goods.

Where Liberalism differs from Realism on the matter of national interests is in terms of choice. Realism says that states automatically act in their national interests, regardless of others. If policymakers try to go against the dictates of geostrategic factors and aspire to goals such as promoting world peace and human rights, according to Realists, the results could endanger the state itself. For Liberals, however, choices do exist, and they want statesmen to act in the interests of the collective good rather than from purely selfish motives. They believe this will benefit all in the long run. However, Realists say you cannot count on others putting long-term goals and collective benefits ahead of short-term self-interest. Consequently, they argue, the only real option is self-interest or perish.

Dr. Rosemary Hollis

Theories about how decisions are made are principally a facet of the Liberal or Pluralist approach to international relations. After all, for the Realist school, the internal dynamics of domestic politics are a minor or irrelevant consideration. Realism assumes rationality on the part of states and sees them as unitary actors. Interests are permanent and states are assumed to calculate the costs and benefits of certain policies in accordance with state interests. The World-System school, meanwhile, focuses on the structure within which all actors must operate and assumes that their options are prescribed and proscribed by this structure.

For the Liberal or Pluralist school, however, states are considered important actors but not the only ones on the world stage. At the state/domestic level, not only are there interacting and sometimes conflicting interests and groups, but there are decision-makers whose rationales may have more to do with their personal ambitions than ‘raison d’état‘, or indeed with their positions within bureaucracies.

A theorist called Graham Allison produced a set of three alternative models for how foreign policy-making takes place. These are summarized below.

This model encapsulates how Realists see the world. It serves as a contrast to the other two models. It assumes that the state or the government is a unitary, rational actor. State action is thus seen as a rational choice in which:

goals and objectives are identified (national security etc.);

available options are discerned in the context of the international marketplace;

consequences are assessed in terms of outcomes, costs, and benefits;

choices are made on the basis of net evaluation.

The organizational process model assumes an ethos of behavior, an operational program.

Governmental actions are not choices but the product of organizational functioning according to standard patterns of behavior.

Organizations (foreign ministry, transport ministry, armed forces, etc.) operate according to their own standards regarding operating procedures and programs, e.g., training to automatically take orders in armed forces, the profit motive and accountant’s bottom line in business.

Government options are dictated by available organizational resources, including the armed forces and how they operate, e.g., mobilization procedures.

Some factors involved in the process are:

corporatism (or organizational ethos);

each organization has its own agenda behind foreign policy;

sequential attention to problems/goals;

feeding information upwards as part of the standard operating procedure, which is resistant to speedy action/change;

an existing repertoire of programs to call upon;

uncertainty avoidance - all new information is fitted into a framework of knowledge;

a range of decentralization versus control between government leaders and organizations;

different arrangements for the interaction between the various bodies.

In conclusion, leading decision-makers receive only such information and assistance as an organization is capable of providing, given its role in the picture.

Policy is an outcome of political bargaining between those in the government hierarchy.

Government officials have separate and unequal powers over different aspects of the whole situation, as well as separable objectives in various sub-games.

Individuals involved in decision-making have their own constituencies, personalities, background and ‘baggage’.