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has changed in these 25 years? Using the same three dimensions as in the original study, the current book goes a long way toward providing answers to this third question.
From “inside” U.S.-Canada relations, what counts on each side of the border is the identity of government, its interests, the political party affiliations, the personalities of president and prime minister, the domestic political agendas, and the all-important matter of elections—not only at the federal level in both countries but also, for Canada, at the provincial level. From the perspective of international relations, the exogenous impact of worldwide events, global forces, historic change, and conflicts is very different. All of these external considerations impinge directly on U.S.-Canada relations and often transform these relations.
For example, in the quarter century encompassed by this book, the end of the Cold War, the advent of globalization accompanied by the rise of Asia and its market competition, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars symbolizing global terrorist threats have all wrenched and hammered the bilateral relationship from different directions. The end of the Cold War brought a loosening of relationships everywhere in the system, particularly within NATO, and therefore affected the way Canada and the United States interact with each other. Conversely, globalization had something of the opposite effect within the North American region. Globalization first brought Canada and the United States together in the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Underlying this agreement was a massive restructuring of corporate organization in North America with greater centralization of head offices at the same time that the information revolution permitted more diffuse corporate administrative controls. Globalization and the rise of China subsequently brought the three North American governments together under NAFTA as a hedge against the effects of that broader trade and commercial competition.
U.S.-Canada relations were again challenged by the events of global terrorism, the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That the United States and Canada agreed strategically on the response to most (but not all) of these external jabs at North America belies the fact that something of a security wedge has