Canada's role in the international community has transformed dramatically since the events of September 11, 2001. Where Canadians may once have thought of themselves as a "moral super-power" on the world stage, the past decade has witnessed new alliances and new global regions of conflict. Canada has emerged with a very different foreign policy and is making key changes to its army, navy, and air force. Canada has moreover made some significant, perhapsunprecedented, decisions in the past decade. Consider its engagement in sustained combat in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. Canada's positioning towards the United States has also changed in recent years in a range of key areas, such as border management, the war on terror, the narcotics trade, and ballisticmissile defence. Moreover, as Arctic boundaries begin to alter with the advent of climate change, this question is taking on new urgency. This short, concise book evaluates the new Canada that has emerged in the first decade of the new millennium.

• List of Tables


• Acknowledgements


• 1: Introduction


• 2: A Country (Un)ready for War


• 3: The Afghan War: Battles at Home and Abroad


• 4: A New Postwar Canadian Identity


• 5: The Elephant and the Muskox: Canada-US Relations


• 6: The United States: Ally or Adversary?


• 7: A "Model Citizen" on the World Stage


• Notes


• References


• Index

Patrick James is a professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California and the director of the USC Center for International Studies. He has published over seventy-five articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as thirteen books. Awards and honours include distinguished scholar in Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Association, 2007; president of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States, 2007-9; and consultant for the U.S. Department of State, Institute for Political Training, 1980-83.