Unwilling or Unable

• Author: Craig Forcese
• Pages: 237-242

237

Chapter 30

Unwilling or Unable

If the Americans either cannot, or will not, guard the integrity of their

own soil, or prevent it from becoming the common arsenal and recruiting

ground of outlaws and assassins; if they cannot even prevent the National

Artillery of the United States from being carried away publickly at mid-

day by pirates, to be used for the deruion of a neighbouring and friendly

people; have they a right to expe that the soil of the United States will be

respeed by the deined viims of such unheard of violence?

— henry stePhen fox, British aMBassador to the united states

(19 january 1838)1

M ,  of military force in response to ter-

rorist groups has galvanized debate over yet another

matter for which the Caroline af‌fair serves as a signpost.

In March 2015, then Canadian defence minister Jason Kenney justi-

f‌ied the dispatch of Canadian f‌ighter jets to f‌ight the terrorist insur-

gency Daesh (ISIS) in Syria. By that point, Daesh occupied much of

northern Iraq and eastern Syria, with the intent of spreading fur-

ther. It would soon be responsible for terror attacks in Europe, most

notoriously at a concert hall in Paris in November 2015, where hun-

dreds were killed and wounded. Thereafter, the Security Council

(obliquely) suggested that states might use force against Daesh in

Iraq and Syria, without clearly authorizing such use.2

In the absence of a surer Security Council authorization, lawful

use of force in Syria in March 2015 (and even at the time of this writ-

ing) depended on self-defence. And in fact, Canada’s actions were

justif‌ied, Minister Kenney argued, under article 51 of the UN Charter

as an exercise of collective self-defence done in assistance of the

Iraqi government. The Bashar al-Assad government in Syria was not

a member of the alliance, and was at odds with much of the world