In this regard, according to Segal, Canada is no better than our Western allies. In the Ukraine crisis, for example, Canada’s stance is best described as “big hat, no cattle,” with a yawning gap between our rhetoric about Ukraine’s needs and the meagre substance of our actions. He writes that the Canadian Forces, for example, “have a patrol deficit, a logistics deficit, a materiel deficit, an intelligence deficit, a training deficit, and a reserves deficit, and the federal budget has an operational deficit.… This is worse than a shell game. A shell game actually has a pea.”
If this book was only one more “cri de coeur” about Canada’s commitment-capability gap, it would join several others in trying to wake Canadians up from ignoring the state of our armed forces and the relative stinginess of our foreign aid donations. But Segal also has a prescription for the ills he so eloquently identifies. He wants an ideas-based, moral foreign policy founded on the twin goals of freedom from fear and freedom from want.
There are many ideas and things to value in society and a myriad of instruments that serve to guarantee the maintenance and promotion of these, but Segal argues that certain goals must be given priority, with freedom from fear and want holding pride of place. This “radical reboot,” he argues, would give clarity and ambition to our foreign policy:
For Canada, putting these basic freedoms at the top of its foreign policy priorities list as the key requirements for trade, economic progress, and peaceful and civil societies would have two clear benefits: it would make clear and compelling the reasons for what it does in the international bodies in which it participates, the rationale for its military and humanitarian deployments, trade policies, and policies on immigration, development, and diplomacy; and it would be a valuable litmus test for choosing, calibrating, funding, and deploying its human, financial, and diplomatic resources.
Hugh Segal knows government and is quite aware that in advocating for a values-based foreign policy he is flying in the face of conventional bureaucratic and academic wisdom. Harassed diplomats desire a peaceful posting, and Segal’s advocacy, for example, for a Canadian foreign policy that is forthright in opposing the plethora of anti-gay measures in Africa and elsewhere is a fight that many diplomats would prefer to avoid. Similarly, those dazzled by the wealth of China would whisper about human rights to the Chinese leadership rather than make a clarion call. Canada’s Department of Finance will certainly groan about Segal’s call for one hundred thousand regulars, fifty thousand reservists, and a sixty-ship navy to end once and for all the “big hat, no cattle” embarrassment of Canada’s current foreign policy and defence capacity.
Yet, Segal’s call for a values-based foreign policy, one with the capacity to back it up, could not come at a more opportune time. In a chapter on the challenges posed by Russia and China today, Two Freedoms: Canada’s Global Future shows that the West, as it tries to adapt to the realities of the twenty-first century, does not today enjoy the certainty it felt in the 1990s, when it believed itself the victor in the Cold War and that the world would soon be made safe for democracy and capitalism. The values enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights are now under siege in many parts of the globe. China has become more authoritarian; Russia is turning the clock back toward tsardom; extreme interpretations of religion oppose women’s equality and choice; and in ISIS, we have a return to barbarism, which not only bedevils the Middle East but attracts young recruits from Western cities such as Birmingham, Marseilles, and Calgary.
The tragedy of the civil war in Syria is an augury of the globe’s future if we continue to turn our eyes away from the interrelationships of fear and need. The West broke its commitments on the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, thereby causing a desperate migration of millions of refugees, who are now swamping Europe and creating in their wake a new cycle of fear and misery.
The choice is ours. Live by our professed values or see them destroyed bit by bit — at first in seemingly faraway places, but inevitably on our shores too. Hugh Segal makes the case for a values-driven foreign policy and provides a prescription on how to achieve it. In a West paralyzed by doubt, and in a Canada complacent about its role, Two Freedoms: Canada’s Global Future is an appeal for both wisdom and the courage to meet the challenge. It should be heeded by us all.
Thomas Axworthy is secretary-general of the InterAction Council, and senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs.
Introduction
The idea for this book really belongs to Patrick Boyer, a senior editor at Dundurn Press, who came to me with a suggestion of a foreign policy book — one that would express a concise view of how Canadian foreign policy might change for the better. Patrick, who is a former MP, a distinguished author of books on law, ethics, the Senate, and constitutional issues, is someone whom I have known for years. The fact that we have disagreed as often as we have agreed with one another in no way diminishes my respect for him as an engaging and public service-oriented intellectual.
His case to me about writing a book was well developed. I have chaired both the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and its Committee on Anti-Terrorism. I have served on the Standing Committee of National Defence and Security. I have visited Bosnia, the Middle East, and Afghanistan in various capacities. I have chaired the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, served as a senior fellow at the Global Affairs Institute in Calgary, and as the founding vice-chair of the Canadian International Council. Patrick also argued that my work as Canada’s special envoy to the Commonwealth and as the Canadian representative on the nine-member Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group focused on reform, human rights, and rule of law, both of which positions took me to countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Australia, qualified me in a reasonably unique way.
“Surely,” he argued, “you are the right person to lay out how a more focused and balanced foreign policy would better serve Canada and the world.”
While I had referred to foreign policy issues in most of my writings, especially as they related historically to Canadian Tory policy strengths and weaknesses, an entire effort on foreign policy would be a new departure.
My decision to acquiesce to the suggestion really emerged from two compelling biases I have had about Canadian foreign policy for some time: sadly, our foreign policy has been more about “muddling through” with as little clarity as possible, avoiding controversy and restraining excess financial commitment for Canada rather than pursuing a precise purpose; and Canada’s best moments historically, in war and peace, have been underlined when our purpose and direction were precise, clear, and well-understood.
My respect for the professional diplomats in our Department of Foreign Affairs and my strong belief in the competence of our military have not, however, diluted my anxiety when they have been massively under-resourced for the tasks at hand or working in something other than a coordinated and coherent fashion.
My stand-up conclusion about this modest work is that it has to deal directly with both purpose and implementation as, if one of these were omitted, the book would not then actually address the full nature of the challenges and opportunities foreign policy represents for a dynamic and progressive democracy.
As I travelled over the years on one assignment or another in Bosnia, Poland, Russia, the Middle East, Turkey, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Cuba, the Caribbean, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and throughout Europe, I came to two compelling, deeply persuasive conclusions. Want and fear are acutely destructive and damaging elements in every society. Their prevalence and dominance usually mean genuine trouble and dislocation for families, communities, and countries, and in extremes, can lead to violence and war.
Freedom from want and freedom from fear struck me as the foundational freedoms upon which all other aspects of freedom, prosperity, and stability could be built. It was through this prism, this lens that I began to write this book.
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