RIGHTEOUS HOSERS

Don't blame Canada for missile-defense snub (Michael O'Hanlon, Christian Science Monitor, March 3rd, 2005)

On its face, the request probably struck Bush as eminently reasonable. After all, any system the US developed would protect Canada too, making it natural that Ottawa would offer at least minimal support and political blessing.

During the cold war, Canada cooperated with the US on air defense, making missile defense seem a natural successor. And Canada had recently agreed to cooperate with the US at the NORAD air defense command in Colorado, tracking not only traditional threats from aircraft but possible missile launches against North America as well.

But Canadians, who have followed the American missile defense debate closely since Ronald Reagan's "star wars" Strategic Defense Initiative, did not hear Bush's request in such innocuous terms. They know what is in the Pentagon's long-term plan for missile defense systems. It isn't simply a pragmatic and modest defense against possible North Korean or Iranian threats, of the type now being deployed in California and Alaska. Although not yet formalized, it also envisions the possibility of a land-based and sea-based system that might be large enough to challenge China's deterrent (and even make some Russians nervous). And perhaps most controversial of all, it speaks of space weapons - be they small interceptor missiles or lasers to shoot down threats from wherever they might be launched.

These concepts remain red-flag topics in the great white north. Canadians are not wasting their time wallowing over the demise of cold war arms control; they are worried that the Rumsfeld Pentagon's missile defense efforts might damage future great power relations and might also result in the near-term weaponization of space - a prospect that most countries, including Canada, find highly objectionable.

Goodness knows the deference that the American left accords to Canadian wisdom and sophistication can be mighty seductive, especially after a hard day ducking slings and arrows on Brothersjudd. Perhaps Mr. O’Hanlon exaggerates just a tad the average Canadian’s mastery of the long term strategic implications of the most sophisticated defense system in history. But surely he is right that Canadian objections are grounded in a deep and compassionate quest for world peace and a selfless yearning for the prosperity of all mankind.