Geopolitical Integrity

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. His latest works are Who Killed Canadian History?, Who Killed
the Canadian Military, and Hell’s Cor

When the Institute for Research on Public Policy began to turn its gaze
to defence and foreign policy, in 2001, there was a sigh of relief from
scholars who work in those areas. Some people who mattered were taking
Canada’s weakness in those areas seriously. It may be only a
coincidence, but by 2004–05, defence and foreign policy reviews were
under way and money was, at last, being promised to rebuild the
nation’s diplomatic and military forces. The IRPP matters, and under
Hugh Segal, its president, it has mattered even more in recent years.

The papers collected here were all published by the IRPP in its various
series. They amount to an important body of work by leading defence and
foreign policy scholars such as Joel Sokolsky, Doug Bland, Don
Macnamara, Denis Stairs, and Sean Maloney—all of whom understand the
country’s military needs and the costs of our diplomatic weakness.
Equally important, Segal, a good Conservative, understands that
political balance matters. The inclusion in the volume of an essay by
Tom Axworthy, Pierre Trudeau’s former aide and the brother of Lloyd,
thus is important. The Liberal Axworthy calls for the rebuilding of the
military and for far more attention to be paid to Canada’s national
interests in formulating policy. With Segal’s own paper reaching the
same point by a different route, and with the academic scholars building
a case for more resources (and more good sense), the collection of
papers makes a strong case and one crafted to be heard—and
understood—in Ottawa.