Peyton V. Lyon

II Image and Policy Preference: Canadian élite Views on Relations with the United States

That thinking Canadians think often about their relations with the United States will surprise no one. It is also easy to understand the widespread perception of threat to Canadas autonomy and identity arising out of proximity to the worlds most powerful nation, and the massive, easy interaction between the two peoples. Believers, if any, in a formal merger remain silent, while public support appears general for the objectives of the governments Third Option the strategy initiated in 1972 to diminish Canadas vulnerability to governmental and societal pressures emanating from the United States. Support for the specifics of the Third Option, however, varies significantly.2 So too does the reasoning behind the concern about Canadas identity and independence vis-4-vis the American colossus. Many are concerned because they dislike the United States and its treatment of Canada. Those Canadians, for example, who reject the liberal-capitalist philosophy as embodied in the United States, from either a socialist or a conservative perspective, are very likely to be found among the advocates of determined measures to differentiate and separate the two nations; many, repelled by American overinvolvement in Vietnam and revelations of in-

The Canadian International Image Study

The analysis of images is one of the approaches adopted by scholars to describe, explain, and even predict occurrences in international relations. Researchers generally employ image to embrace analytically distinct, but inter-related components. The cognitive component is an individuals awareness and understanding of particular aspects of reality, which may or may not be factually correct. The affective component is an individuals liking or disliking of the perceived state of affairs. Finally, some researchers define image as including the predisposition to act, that is the preferred responses to the perceived state of affairs. No agreement exists concerning the relationships among these components or whether all three exist for a particular image or set of images. Image analysis suggests that individuals behave in accordance with a set of relatively stable and durable thought patterns relating to the international environment and actors within the environment. As Kenneth Boulding pointed out some years ago, the people whose decisions determine the policies and actions of nations do not respond to the objective facts of the situation, whatever that may mean, but to their image of the situation. It is what we think the world is like not what it is really like that determines our behavior.2 Thus far attempts to link the content of images to international behaviour have been disappointing.

Saint-Simon and the Origins of Scientism and Historicism

Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, was born in 1760; his writings date from 1802 until his death in 1825. He is widely regarded as perhaps the most enthusiastic of all scientistic writers, and one of the most influential, but the nature and motivation of his scientism have been frequently misunderstood. Scientism I understand to be the belief that all, or virtually all, moral and political problems can be solved by methods similar to those used in the natural sciences. Historicism, a form which scientism very often takes, I would define as the revealing of laws of history by which, it is claimed, the future of man can be predicted. Exponents of scientism appear to have one or more of three different but related objectives: one, the pursuit of truth about man and society; the second, the acquisition of techniques to cure social ailments; the third, the re-establishment of ideological uniformity.

The Trudeau Doctrine

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau made one promise about foreign policy during his election campaign of June 1968: all of Canadas external relations and commitments would be subjected to the most rigorous re-examination. Nothing would be taken for granted and a wide range of options would be considered. The result, it was suggested, would be a realistic policy for the next decade derived from a rational framework. During succeeding months, while a host of studies was being undertaken, Mr Trudeau often declined to give definite answers to questions on foreign relations on the grounds that this review was incomplete; and he encouraged members of his cabinet to argue, in public, opposing sides of the central questions in foreign policy. Canada, it seemed to be assumed, could take a holiday from international affairs while its external policies were fashioned anew from first principles. But of course, as the government subsequently conceded, the world does not stand still. Canada was obliged to take important decisions, especially with respect to NATO and defence, long before the new framework could be enunciated. The six multicoloured papers presented to parliament on 25 June 1970, the culmination

Review: United States: The Politics of AttractionTHE POLITICS OF ATTRACTION Four Middle Powers and the United States FoxAnnette BakerNew York: Columbia University Press, 1977, xii, 371pp,

could have gone to Germany; and it offered a pretext for sending forces into Norway and Sweden to seize the Swedish iron ore mines supplying the German war economy. Of the ioo,ooo to 15o,ooo troops envisioned for the intervention in Scandinavia early in February 1940, only one division would have been deployed in the Finnish theatre. Swedish and Norwegian neutrality were considered violable, and even the risk of war with Russia was entertained, though Churchill and others successfully opposed such a course. The Finns, however, did not make a formal appeal for Western intervention and concluded peace with the Russians, despite British and French threats of total abandonment. Catastrophic defeats in the field, the inadequacy of Western material aid, discrepancies in information about the timing and size of the planned intervention, and the fear that it would bring about a German invasion of the north left the Finns no choice in the end. Yet they had delayed entering talks with the Russians for perhaps ten days, with the consequence that the slaughter, now at its peak, continued for that much longer. The possibility of Western intervention may have impelled Russia to end the war without conquering Finland. But from an overview of the later course of World War ii, this only weakened the eastern front of the Grand Alliance. In the peculiar halfheartedness and unreality of Western planning Nevakivi sees that the Munich politicians and the strategists of the phoney war proved to be kindred spirits.

15.00

Nineteen seventy-five might not seem a propitious year in which to relaunch the reciprocity debate of 1911, and to anticipate a more rational outcome. Nationalism is in the ascendant, and it is only three years since the government firmly rejected the Second Option, an approach embracing increased economic collaboration with the United States, on the grounds that it would accelerate the trend towards integration in North America. The First Option, which would continue existing policies, was also rejected as inadequate to preserve Canadian distinctness and autonomy. Although opinions differ widely concerning the degree of governmental commitment to the Third Option (which stresses the cultivation of relations with third countries in order to reduce