War could hit North America this century: expert

By Ian MacLeod, Postmedia News June 12, 2011

OTTAWA — The 21st century could see war on North American soil, says the author of Canada’s national security policy.

Driven by technology and by shifting geopolitics, the good fortune that exempted Canada and the United States from military battles on the home front in the 20th century could be dramatically shattered over the next 90 years, Irvin Studin predicts in an essay in this week’s international affairs magazine Global Brief.

What’s more, the U.S., “might very well raise the threshold beyond which it would be willing to directly defend or intervene to defend Canada in the event of attack. The U.S. of this new century — for better or worse — will let many sleeping dogs lie.”

Studin is with the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance and a former Privy Council Office staffer who co-authored Canada’s 2004 national security policy. He also is founding editor-in-chief and publisher of Global Brief and globalbrief.ca.

He believes failure to strengthen Canada’s demographic, economic, military and diplomatic capabilities in the coming years “could well result over the course of this less ‘lucky’ century, in a Canada that is a strategic cripple,” unable to advance its own interests, assert sovereignty or determine its own destiny.

Such reforms, however, now seem remote. North America’s leaders “do not even conceive of conflict at home because they do not and cannot believe it to be part of the realm of reasonable strategic futures.”

His 2,800-word commentary cites three key drivers that will jinx North America’s 20th-century fortunes. Technology will be first, he says.

It “will not permit the prospect of a serious country going to war with a North American power without having the means to attack it with some effect on its own soil,” he says.

Even secondary or regional powers such as Iran, Turkey, North Korea, Brazil, Pakistan and Venezuela will possess the technical means to directly and even regularly strike North America by intercontinental missile, air power, offshore bombardment or infantry by the middle of this century, he believes.

Second, foreign ships, private and military alike, will begin sailing through the Northwest Passage and Arctic waters within a decade or two.

“The new-century ‘great game’ — right at the continent’s edge — will, over time, assuredly introduce a new strategic consciousness into the decision-making of North America’s political class; a consciousness — and, before long, a new strategic culture — enabled by a popular paranoia about foreign interests promiscuously penetrating the continent’s theretofore near-perfect territorial sovereignty.”

Third, while the U.S. will remain the pre-eminent strategic power until about 2050, “the return of reasonable strategic parity of effective capabilities among other non-American, historic great powers — China, Russia and even Europe — poses both psychic and very practical consequences for North American strategic culture and doctrine.”

For the U.S., “a more acute sense of susceptibility to material retaliation on the home front from a serious foe might lower the inclination — or increase the threshold — for certain types of military adventure or extroversion.”

For Canada, diminished American power and increased American vulnerability to attack should “destabilize the long-held, implicit strategic assumption that the American superpower — theretofore unrivalled — will almost certainly defend the northern part of the continent should Canada come under attack.

“A U.S. more preoccupied with serious retaliation or even pre-emption by an enemy on the home front will demand far greater seriousness of performance from Canada in respect of investments in strategic capabilities.

It will threaten to ‘do the job’ for Canada if such investments are not made.

“However, because of diminished relative power, and given countless competing strategic imperatives and seductions, such American threats will not always be credible or carried out.”