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Contributor: 1419
Date: 2003-04-22 23:37:44
The second pillar of protection could be implemented by thinking of our role as not protecting ourselves from the US (they really don't want to kill us), but helping to channel the destructive energies of our big brother into constructive avenues. Consider that throughout history, an ascendant economy with vast amounts of excess GNP has always turned its excess wealth to raising armies and technologies for imperialistic ends. Our great ally south of us is in such a situation. But how should we protect ourself and other countries in the world from unchecked US imperialism? Canadian foreign policy should help the USA to use its excess GNP and cowboy frontier gusto to embark on something greater than taking over every country on this planet. Indeed, in a country as rich as USA -- a country that could send a man to the moon in one decade while waging the Vietnam war, its excess GNP should be channelled towards exploring the final frontier, the colonization of our nearest planet, Mars. When discussing foreign policy, this kind of tenet of policy (that Canada guide the world and if necessary goad the USA into colonizing Mars) is usually laughed at. But, the USA is the most militaristically powerful nation on Earth, with a cowboy mentality that needs a frontier to explore. The last great frontier on this planet for the USA was the Wild West. Canada exists because Upper and Lower Canada were so scared by 1 million armed Yankees just south of the border at the end of the American Civil War, they put aside their French and English differences to join with the Maritimes to make Canada. The winning of the Space Race by the USA during the Cold War may have saved the rest of us on this planet from a nuclear holocaust by giving the US cowboys (NASA and the Apollo program was really a military exercise) something successful and non-destructive (ie constructive) to do. The pittance spent currently by the USA through NASA on space exploration, colonization of other planets, and protection of our planet from space garbage is not enough to move the American cowboy psyche from worrying about 9/11 to America’s next great act for all mankind. Perhaps there is a fourth great pillar for foreign policy that is to expand beyond our planet. DFAIT (with Industry Canada and National Defence) should announce that Canada will put together a coalition of the willing to beat the USA in colonizing Mars within 15 years. This long-term constructive competition between USA and the rest of the world would do more for channelling the excess might of the giant next door than anything else. It would unite US citizens in a great (non-destructive) endeavour and unite world nations into various competititve consortiums as well. It would provide us with a decade of relative peace from excessive US interference in other countries' affairs.
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