"SAY
NO TO MISSILE DEFENCE"
Lloyd
Axworthy and Michael Byers
The Globe and Mail
April 29, 2003
Chalk up yet another potential casualty of the Iraq war: Canada's
impending loss of an independent voice on matters of peace and security.
Ottawa is under enormous pressure to join the Bush administration's
plans for a missile defence system to demonstrate that our apostasy
in not joining the war was but an aberration. Paul Martin's declarations
in support of this initiative, and of closer security ties with the
United States, only add weight to that pressure.
At stake is our freedom of action in international affairs, including
not least our ability to play a constructive role in a global system
based on co-operation and agreed rules rather than the threat and
use of armed force.
Even a cursory examination of the missile defence initiative indicates
that it has little to do with protecting our continent against terrorists
or "rogue states." The technology is yet unproved, and the
primary threat comes not from missiles but from the ability of international
criminals to infiltrate our borders and deploy asymmetric force in
the form of box cutters, pathogens and primitive "dirty"
bombs.
To the degree that a threat from intercontinental missiles does exist
— in North Korea, perhaps — is largely a response to the
bellicose foreign policy now emanating from Washington. In other words,
the strongest advocates of missile defence are those most involved
in creating an international climate in which it might become justified.
Canada thus has a choice. Do we hitch our country to the neoconservative
juggernaut, thereby committing ourselves to a self-perpetuating cycle
of threats, armed responses and dramatically increased defence budgets?
Or do we maintain some foreign policy space of our own, deploying
our money, expertise and considerable global reputation on strengthening
a multilateral system to control this kind of criminality, and restoring
our capacity to contribute to humanitarian and peacemaking missions
that address the root causes, including civil conflict, the breakdown
of law and order, and egregious violations of human rights. In choosing
the latter approach, Canada would not be abrogating its responsibilities;
to the contrary, violence of this kind caused the deaths of 250,000
people in the past year alone.
Participating in a missile defence system would culminate an effort
by our armed forces to achieve complete "interoperability."
The benefits to our generals are obvious: increased expenditures and
the opportunity to work with the world's most powerful military force.
But the non-financial costs could be extreme: We would lose our capacity
to make independent choices on the deployment of our troops and the
tasks given to them, and find ourselves having to backtrack or renege
on existing policies and treaties. In the Arctic, a critical area,
we would risk becoming unable to engage in the surveillance and protection
of our land and interests. Important elements of sovereignty would
thus be compromised.
Joining the missile defence system would also run counter to the long
held position that Canada has maintained as an advocate and architect
of arms-control agreements. For decades, Canadian governments have
insisted that all countries must live up to their commitments under
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the chemical and biological
weapons conventions. Our adherence to missile defence would condone
the Bush administration's preference for military and technological,
rather than co-operative, solutions to threats posed by weapons of
mass destruction.
As a country with significant commercial interests in outer space,
Canada has been a leading advocate of measures to prevent the weaponization
of that arena. The Bush missile defence proposals go way beyond the
limited plans of the Clinton administration, prescribing a multitiered
architecture, potentially including weapons deployed in and from outer
space.
Our adherence to the proposal would discredit any future efforts by
our negotiators to secure a treaty setting limits on military space
developments. By signing on, we could even be helping to ignite a
new arms race — a race in which Canada would necessarily be a
bit player, rather than the leader in multilateral approaches it is
today.
If these are the potential risks, they must be carefully and openly
explored before any decision is taken. Governments can and do legitimately
surrender aspects of sovereignty, but surrendering sovereignty by
stealth is the antithesis of democratic, responsible governance.
So why the current push to sign up quickly and quietly? The answer
is simple — atonement for the sin of disagreeing with Washington's
hawks, who might otherwise retaliate against us. This is an argument
that has received a powerful push from Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador-turned-proconsul.
It has been joined in by some in the opposition parties, in the business
community, and by associated intellectuals who (like Chicken Little)
predict dire acts of economic retaliation if we fail to support the
Americans' military doctrines. They are untroubled by the absence
of historical evidence for such threat and oblivious to the opposition
that the Bush administration's policies are generating within the
U.S.
The same faulty reasoning flows from the "security community"
of academics and think tanks, most of whom are funded by the Department
of National Defence. Their views that Canada's interests must be aligned
without question to those of the U.S. government of the day, even
if that government is opposed to multilateral institutions, systems
of justice and forms of international co-operation in which most Canadians
firmly believe.
Herein lies the central point. Joining in missile defence would take
us dramatically away from a course chartered by generations of Canadian
governments — a foreign policy based on the belief that a predictable
rule of law, and not the arbitrary rule of men, is the best way of
ensuring both national and global security.
The early 21st century should be Canada's moment: leading the multilateral
effort to meet the real threats of our interdependent world —
international crime, civil conflicts, pandemic disease, gross economic
inequalities, egregious human-rights violations, environmental degradation.
Each of these threats, if not adequately addressed through the collaborative
means that Canada has long mastered, could cause disruption and turmoil
comparable to that potentially resulting from military aggression
on the part of rogue states.
With so much at stake, the onus is on our public representatives to
maintain our capacity to act according to our own determinations of
where we can do the most good. This is a role now hanging in the balance,
desperately in need of a full airing in Parliament and among the public
before any choice is made.
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