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The following is excerpted from A Two-Edged Sword: The Navy as an Instrument of Canadian Foreign Policy by Nicholas Tracy.
The Monroe
Doctrine and the American fleet contributed to Canada’s immunity to the threat
of direct German power projection, or that by any other naval power, but
Canadians did not consider dependence on the United States for their defence a
comfortable option. The 1895 Venezuela boundary dispute, in which British
interests had been opposed by the United States, had raised the spectre in
Ontario of the United States invading Canada to punish Britain, and had forced
Laurier to consider the need for local naval defence on the lakes. At the 1897 Colonial Conference Laurier, echoing Macdonald, asserted that any
differences with the United States were “family troubles which mean nothing
very serious,” and he reportedly told General Douglas Cochrane, Earl of
Dundonald, arriving in Canada in 1902
to take charge of the militia, that Canada
was quite comfortable relying upon the Monroe Doctrine for her defence. But the reality was somewhat different. The U.S. Navy demonstrated
its new power in the Spanish-American war, at the battle of Santiago de Cuba on
3 July 1898, when the Spaniards lost 160 men killed and 1,800
captured, while the Americans lost only one
man killed and another wounded. The spoils of war included the American acquisition
of the Philippines and Guam, the establishment of naval bases on Puerto Rico,
Cuba, Guam, and at Subic Bay, in the Philippines, and the annexation of
independent Hawaii. Vancouver wondered whether it might be the next to
experience American naval power.
Meet the author
Nov 29, 7:00 pm
A Two-Edged Sword Book Launch
Beaverbrook Gallery, New Brunswick
To learn more about A Two-Edged Sword or to order online, click here.
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