Canada and conflict: A hard-hitting look at Canadian security post-9/11, from the Afghanistan war to US relations and Arctic sovereignty by Patrick James

Patrick James Canada and conflict: A hard-hitting look at Canadian security post-9/11, from the Afghanistan war to US relations and Arctic sovereignty Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012. I56pp, $16.95 (paper) ISBN 978-0-19543220-6Did the 10 years following 9/11 do more to shape Canada's security policy than any previous decade in the country's history? And has there been a fundamental transformation of Canadian security policy in that time? To argue yes, as Patrick James does, is a bold move (118). Even if questions remain for some readers, this short volume could serve as a jumping-off point for compelling discussions in the right seminar at the senior undergraduate or junior graduate level.Despite the broad title, Canada and Conflict is centred on five specific issues of Canadian security policy (narrowly defined), asking how each changed as a result of the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the US and the war in Afghanistan that followed. Analyzed through the lens of Canada-US relations, the topics are a mix of continental and global issues: border management, the Arctic, ballistic missile defence (BMD), and the international interventions in Iraq and Libya. In each case, James accounts for policy decisions in terms of four forces: realism, liberalism, "the world of ideas," and domestic politics. An empiricist, James concludes that a different mix of factors is determining for each issue. Nevertheless, he sticks to his thesis that Canadian security policy in the decade after 9/11 has been fundamentally different from before, and presents his arguments in this light.As a teaching tool, Canada and Conflict is a work of synthesis, based on existing, predominantly Canadian, scholarship and memoirs. Before getting to the Canada- US issues, James spends chapters 2-4 reviewing the war in Afghanistan from a Canadian perspective. Some of this material is narrative, and at times the argument recedes. James' claim, though, at the book's halfway point, is that the kinetic war in Afghanistan was an influential force that moved Canadian security policy away from a pre-9/11 focus exclusively on peacekeeping and human security, and back to a more balanced position where realist national security considerations are again equally important (64). The author is aware that the development assistance agenda came to define Canada's purpose as the war went on, with Afghan security needs in a supporting role, but his primary point is simply that Afghanistan reopened within at least some Canadians an acceptance of proactive forceful engagement as a means to advance national interests.James introduces and presents his five Canada-US cases in chapters 5 and 6. Despite the book's brevity (seven chapters in 137 pages) and avowed selective focus, a few extraneous points make their way in, such as the explanatory material about United Empire Loyalists after the War of 1812 (68), and about how Colonel Gadhafi came to power in 1969 (71). James' basic assessment is that Canada-US relations during the twentieth century were largely driven by liberal cooperation, with legacy realist forces emerging where interests actually diverged (the Arctic) and Canadian domestic politics intervening on sensitive issues like BMD (85). James recounts the political theatre over BMD in the Chretien and Martin eras, albeit without delving too deeply into BMD's technical merits as a security policy issue.The crux of Canada and Conflict is the question of whether 9/11 transformed Canada's approach to each of the issues dealt with in the five cases. No one can doubt that 9/11 had a tremendous impact on Canada's security policy environment. James is on solid ground in pointing to the urgent need to keep the US border open and functioning post-9/11, and the steps that had to be taken to achieve this, culminating in the current bilateral "Beyond the Border" initiative. One might note, though, that for Canada, this is above all an economic imperative, demonstrating that it is not easy to maintain a narrow focus on issues that are "primarily" about security, as James sets out to do (1). …