O Canada
On the 24th of Feburary, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin announced that Canada will not participate in our ballistic missile defense program. Ok, we knew they were cagey about this. We knew the program was not overly popular. But the whole idea of Canada not participating seemed so wacky, that I figured eventually they would come around. Looks like that's not going to happen. Martin was initially supportive of the BMD program, but as opposition in Canada mounted, it seems he really didn't do much to make a case for it, and has finally rolled over for domestic political convenience.
But then everything starts to gets slightly surreal.
Shortly after the PM's announcement, the US ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, stated quite bluntly that:
"We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty - its seat at the table - to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada."The following day, PM Martin said he expected to be consulted about intercepts over their airspace (transcribed from the CTV video clip attached to their story):
"In terms of Canadian airspace, yes we would expect to be consulted. This is our space, our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission."
What's wrong with this? Well, for starters, the laws of physics don't allow much time for consultation. With a possible incoming ballistic missile, you have only a few minutes to respond with a launch/no-launch decision, so it's best to get your policy and launch criteria hammered out in advance. Since the mid to late 70s, our nuclear war plans have included the option of a "launch on warning" posture. Not because we really, really, really wanted to start World War 3, but since we couldn't shoot down an ICBM and the time windows involved were so small, we felt we might not have any capability left to counter-attack if we waited til a enemy weapon detonated on our soil. Obviously, this left both sides open to false alarms, and several times over the years both sides came close to launching based on erroneous alerts. This, by the way, underscores one of the nice things about missile defense. If you have some capability to intercept an enemy missile, your response options become wider. You aren't limited to just selecting how many millions of his citizens to consign to death in a thermonuclear fireball.
On top of this, as they point out the Globe and Mail, it's not as if these intercepts would take place in Canadian air space, or any air space at all. The goal is to destroy the missile in space. The blustering over sovereign air space is nothing more than posturing over Cellucci's comments. Martin knows we'll shoot down any missile that looks like it's heading towards North America. He knows he doesn't need to expend any domestic political capital to reap any benefits of the system. I'm not one to suggest we refrain from intercepting missiles that threaten Canada, but I can't help but shake my head at the hypocrisy of their government on the matter.