The 1956 Suez crisis confirmed that a bankrupt Britain could no longer dominate the world. Egypt’s current upheaval is a sign that America’s era is coming to an end. For Canada, the decline of yet another imperial protector means wrenching change.
In substantive terms, the differences between 1956 and now are vast. Then the crisis was over who ran the Suez Canal. Now it is about who runs Egypt itself.
But like the Suez crisis, today’s events signal that a dramatic shift in global power has occurred.
Like Britain in the 1950s, America no longer has the wherewithal to maintain its empire. It is crippled by debt. Its industrial economy has been savaged.
Even its currency is under siege, as up-and-comers like China and Brazil muse about the need for a new international standard of value.
While vowing to cut spending, America’s politicians have so far refused to significantly scale back the country’s immense and expensive war machine.
But like Britain after World War II, Washington will soon have no choice. The American people will simply not agree to see police and fire services at home slashed just to keep troops in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, North Africa, South Korea and Japan.
Nor, as events spiral out of control in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, will the U.S. easily be able to keep its stable of client states in line. Empire is just too pricey
In 1956, events in Egypt forced Canada to choose between a declining imperial power with which it had sentimental ties and a new, harsh reality.
Then the declining power was Britain which, along with France and Israel, had decided to seize Egypt’s recently nationalized Suez Canal.
Reality, meanwhile, was represented by the U.S. — the world’s newest great power and one that did not approve of Britain’s Suez adventure.
Canada’s response was rather brilliant. In effect, it sided with the U.S. by refusing to endorse Britain’s attack.
But at the same time, it disguised this support by inventing the concept of United Nations peacekeeping.
The prospect of having peacekeepers patrol the Israeli-Egyptian border muddied the issue and allowed the real miscreants — France and Britain — to withdraw their troops from the canal zone with a modicum of dignity.
Today, however, there is no recognition on Ottawa’s part that the world has changed.
Instead, Canada’s Conservative government — as well as the opposition Liberals — continue to carefully toe the American line.
Like U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he wants democratic reform in Egypt — but not necessarily now and not in a manner that would upset American strategic interests.
As Obama calibrates his position from day to day, Canada acts in lockstep.
What Ottawa seems to forget, however, is that the U.S. no longer has the power to make countries like Egypt accede to its wishes.
The Americans are increasingly pinning their hopes on Mohamed ElBaradei to act as a moderate replacement for dictator Hosni Mubarak – who now has promised to step down in September.
Yet history suggests that ElBaradei, who lacks any popular base, would soon be replaced by the real alternative power centres in Egypt — which are more Islamic and less Israel-friendly than Washington would like.
A more realistic Canadian foreign policy would take this into account.
It’s true that no single country is yet powerful enough to replace the U.S. It’s also true that America, like Britain 55 years ago, is a sentimental favourite among Canadians.
But as an imperial power, the U.S. is not what it was. We have to come to terms with that.
Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday and Saturday.