How to win islands and influence superpowers

COMMENT

To

win an argument you must not only

be right, but also ready to show your resolve, something Canada has failed to do in the row with Denmark over who owns Hans Island in the Arctic.

Canada’s conciliatory language illustrates how we act more like supplicants on the world stage than a power with confidence.

While Denmark asserts the island is part of Danish Greenland, too many of Canada’s statements begin with words like “ Our position is ...” or “ Our view is that ...”

Bill Graham, the Defence Minister, boldly visited the tiny island, then said, “I wasn’t there to make some big dramatic statement.”

Okay, he was being ironic. But expressing “ views” and “ positions” tells the other side the question is up for debate and we may be persuaded to change our opinion.

That sort of talk continued this week as Pierre Pettigrew, the Foreign Minister, met his Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moller, on the margins of the annual United Nations debate.

“It is our firmly held view that Hans Island is part of the Canadian territory. I have made that very clear this morning as we have for many years,” Mr. Pettigrew said after reporters asked him to state clearly what he told Mr. Moller.

Compare that with Mr. Moller’s opinion piece last month: “Hans Island is part of Denmark and Greenland; it is part of our territory,” he wrote.

At their meeting, Mr. Moller was similarly forthright, vowing Denmark would continue to land Danish personnel on the island.

A joint statement from the pair acknowledged each country would alert the other in advance about visits, pending final resolution. They also agreed that Canadian and Danish bureaucrats would study decades’ worth of maps and other documents and “talk out” the problem.

Of course, the dispute should be settled peacefully. But Canada could at least use active verbs when making its case.

Although Hans Island is an uninhabited rock sticking out of icy water where there are no known resources, Canadian officials know asserting Canadian sovereignty there is vital if Canada is to overcome the bigger sovereignty challenges in the Arctic.

These come mainly from the United States and concern the legal status of the icebound Northwest Passage and the Western Arctic maritime boundary in the Beaufort Sea.

Global warming could one day transform the Northwest Passage into a major trade route between Europe and Asia. The United States says it is in international — not Canadian — waters. The border area of the Beaufort sea is rich in gas and petroleum.

Canada must oppose Denmark’s claim to have any chance of standing up to the United States, the argument goes. But Canada could be reducing its chances of prevailing by opening talks with offers to debate —rather than to assert — its sovereign rights.

But that’s the Canadian way, say experts in Canada.

“Canadian governments don’t necessarily make statements that have more iron in the glove than that one,” said David Rudd, president of the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies in Toronto.

Debate over whether this is the right approach goes back decades.

“Commentators on Canadian foreign policy going back to the 1950s and 1960s have said, ‘Look, Canadians are are too wimpish. They ought to be more vigourous in the pursuit of their interests, particularly in reference to allies like the United States,’ ” said Denis Stairs, professor emeritus of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

“ The counter-argument would be, ‘ Yes, but when you’re dealing with a country like the United States, it is better in the long run not to allow individual disputes to escalate.’ ’’

Canada has adopted similar conciliatory language in its disagreement with the United States over the Northwest Passage.

“ They basically take the form of ‘ These are inland Canadian waters, as we see it in Ottawa,’ ” Mr. Stairs said.

One view from the United States is that such an approach kicks the can down the road, but resolves nothing.

“ If the original negotiating position was fairly tepid, then, from a negotiating perspective, the Canadians have put themselves at a disadvantage,” said Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Washington- based Cato Institute.

But there is a danger of being too assertive over an issue neither side wants to press to the point of imposing punitive diplomatic measures, let alone resorting to force.

“ There are many islands around the world that are in dispute, but not a source of conflict,” Mr. Preble said. “But until those insignificant rocks are known to be of strategic or economic value, then it’s not likely to get very far.”

Fine. But in the meantime, can we at least match the Danes in verbal assertiveness?