A model power for a troubled world? Canadian national interests and human security in the 21st century.

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A model power for a troubled world? Canadian national interests and human security in the 21st century.

Canada greeted the approach of the new millennium with apocryphal visions of global economic breakdown resulting from an electronic glitch-Y2K--and its potential interruption of technologically dependent flows of ideas and commerce. Like environmental degradation and disease epidemics, this was exactly the kind of "new threat"--transnational, non-territorial, non-political, and indiscriminate that had been heralded as the primary challenge to international security and stability in a post-Westphalian world. Traditional tools of national security, such as the military apparatus of nation-states and their alliances with one another, were scarcely adequate to address these kinds of problems. The warriors of old would have to be replaced by the Microsoft generation with overlapping identities and identifications, "green" consciences, and preferences for individual rights over collective obligations.

Among its proponents, soft power, non-coercive approaches to leadership--based on mobilizing likeminded networks, empowering civil society, utilizing information technologies, and facilitating the development of new international norms--were better suited to meeting the challenges of 21st century security than military posturing. The old debate between values and interests in the conduct of Canadian foreign policy required revision. Human security, championed by Lloyd Axworthy as minister for foreign affairs between 1996 and 2000, served as a template for a new perspective on Canada's relations with the outside world that placed the rights, safety, and lives of people first. The Ottawa convention to ban antipersonnel landmines and the Rome statute to establish a permanent international criminal court were considered to be notable successes for Canada's human security agenda.

HUMAN SECURITY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?

When Canadians woke to the first dawn of the 21st century, the Y2K threat had failed to materialize. Although the problem was overstated to begin with, the episode demonstrated that new threats were not insurmountable given foresight, preventive action, and international cooperation. Other problems and transnational threats were less easily overcome and required collective responses and commitments. An ambitious set of common objectives, or "millennium development goals" (MDGs), ann...

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