Conrad Black: Americans ignoring us is to our peril

Last week I carefully read the statement of strategic purpose of the Trump administration, a document published by every recent incoming administration within a year of its inauguration. The strategic statement has been received with misgivings by members of the Fortress America school that holds that the United States should be ready at all times to repulse any initiative from any potential rival country or group of countries, and by Western Europeans always on the lookout for any softening commitment of the United States to the defence of Western Europe.

I will explain why I don’t share those concerns, but my principal reservation about the strategic statement is that the country, and indeed the word, Canada, is mentioned only once in this document. A number of other countries are also overlooked but none of them has as intimate a geographic, commercial, and cultural association with the United States as Canada does.

A couple of days ago I got an email from a very thoughtful and articulate Jewish Canadian friend whom I meet two or three times a year, always agreeably, who wrote that he had reluctantly concluded that “there is no cohesive nation known as Canada. What exists instead is a Liberal Party that manages — often quite poorly — the finances of a collection of provinces and territories, while relying on its media apparatus to shape and safeguard its narrative. It resembles a hedge fund supported by an image consulting firm.

“The unifying theme that enables the Liberal party to maintain its hold over Canada is persistent anti-Americanism. I like Canada, I would like to say I love this country — though as a Jew, it’s a bit hard at the moment. I hope Canadians finally mature, acknowledge that we are neither superior nor inferior to the United States, and abandon our collective national inferiority complex. Until that happens, Canada will remain merely a loose assemblage of people — essentially Americans-lite — forever a diminished version of the country it could aspire to be. In 100 years, I believe there will be an Israel. I cannot say that there will be a Canada in its current form.”

This is where we have arrived. After 158 years as an ostensibly independent country, we have the most durable political institutions of any country in the world with more than 20 million people except the United Kingdom and the United States, and we are the only transcontinental, bicultural, parliamentary confederation in the history of the world. We are overwhelmingly preoccupied with the contiguity of an immensely powerful neighbouring country that in its updated summary of its strategic condition, finds no reason whatever to mention us: nothing to embrace, nothing to object to, nothing.

In elaborating its strategic perspective, the U.S. administration states its goals and identifies countries that present obstacles and constitute a point of strategic concern. Canadians are certainly happy enough not to be present in either category. But there is something unsatisfactory about the condition of the country whose leaders are constantly professing a profound change in Canadian-American relations, usually accompanied by somewhat juvenile histrionics and pyrotechnics about defending the pure Snow-maiden of the North against some conjured ravening Wagnerian Dragon emerging from the canyons and bayous of America to smite us, not achieving one word of recognition in the principal strategic blueprint of the government of the United States.

What has concerned some observers in that the U.S. does not identify China and Russia as comprehensive threats to the national security of America in terms reminiscent of President Roosevelt’s references in the late 30’s to the Nazis and the comments of the Cold War presidents on the Soviet Union, the Trump administration correctly identifies China as a rival whose challenges it has no doubt it can meet and overcome, and Russia as an overstretched nation in decline which should no longer be capable of frightening the Western Europeans.

The strategic plan of the United States clearly restates that country’s goal, which has not changed nor failed to be achieved for nearly a century: to be “the strongest, the richest, the most powerful, and the most successful” country in the world. This cannot be considered a modest objective but since it is one that has been steadily achieved for many decades, nor can it be considered surprising, unreasonable, or in any way deprecating of any other country. The issue is chiefly encapsulated in the fact that in 1990 the European Union and the United States each had approximately 25 per cent of the world’s GDP and in 2015, China had approximately two thirds of the GDP of the United States and was widely expected to surpass it. Today the European Union has 14 per cent of the world’s GDP, China 18 per cent, the United States 26 per cent, and its status as the greatest economic power in the world appears as unassailable as it has been throughout the lifetimes of everyone now in the world.

There are other ways to evaluate the United States which are less flattering, but this is their strategic document, not ours. Polls indicate that separatists will win the next Quebec election, though I doubt that they could win a serious referendum on independence given that in order to maintain an appreciable number of French-speaking people in this country they had to attract many Haitians, Moroccans, Lebanese, and others who have no interest in Quebec nationalism (not a national adventure story that travels well). And Alberta has just been lured from the temptation to become the world’s wealthiest country and newest petro state by declaring its independence, because the environment crazed federal government is hovering on the verge of finally facilitating the exportation of Alberta’s oil and gas and the exploitation of the greatest wealth- generating industry in this country. As my friend pointed out a few paragraphs above, we can always find voice to criticize the Americans but we have not found a vocation for ourselves.

Is this too much to hope for from our statesmen? My friend thinks so.

National Post