Star wars revisited: an updated North American Aerospace Defence Agreement (NORAD) has Canadian defence officials extolling the merits of ballistic missile defence.

The new NORAD agreement, to go into effect this May, is described as allowing for but not requiring Canada/US co-operation in pursuing ballistic missile defence (BMD) for North America. Foreign Affairs officials keep pointing out there is absolutely "no obligation" to participate in BMD, but given the enthusiasm with which National Defence officials have been hyping it, that's a bit like inviting the foxes into the hen house and then comforting the chickens with the observation that their guests are under no obligation to dine.

A 1995 report by NORAD's Canadian headquarters leaves little doubt where our Generals stand. Quoting, with fulsome approval, the American NORAD Commander-in-Chief's assertion that "the number one lesson from Desert Storm was that we must develop a ballistic missile defence system capable of...defending North American borders from ballistic missile attack," the Canadian document concludes that "the necessity of having such a capability [to shoot down missiles fired at North America] is becoming increasingly important."

Despite its impressive contribution to the American deficit, the US Strategic Defense Initiative of the 1980s did little to advance the credibility of missile defence, but BMD fantasies are now enjoying a revival by virtue of the Patriot missile's CNN-mediated heroics against Scud missiles in the Gulf War and a US foreign policy focus on "rogue" states. While doubts over the true prowess of the Patriot have certainly surfaced, no such uncertainty has penetrated official US worries that a fragile world order and North American territory are both becoming increasingly vulnerable to the possibility that nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles will fall into the hands of rogue states.

Officials at NORAD's Canadian headquarters share the same worries and point out that because "NORAD has already adopted a system to monitor ballistic missile development worldwide,... NORAD's leadership views missile defence as a logical extension of NORAD's mission." In fact, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence has never assumed that ballistic missile defence is a logical extension of ballistic missile warning. In the "logic" of mutually assured destruction, early warning is linked to retaliation, not defence. Indeed, defence is linked to war-fighting doctrines, precisely what the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was designed, and supported by Canada, to reject. Ottawa officials insist on Canada's continued commitment to the ABM Treaty and so defend their openness to Canadian involvement in BMD as a way of making Canada a player, giving us a seat at the table of long-term North American defence planning. As a research participant, we are told, Canada could continue to press its support for the ABM treaty while also developing a commercial leg-up on contracts once deployments of theatre BMD systems begin.

The world may be changing, but some arguments obviously endure - and old arguments produce old questions. Does a seat at a table confined to Canada and the US yield Canadian influence or complicity? The fear that it is the latter is heightened by contemplating the basis of American interest in having Canada at that table - not to hand Canada the means to interfere with American plans, but to bring Canada on side and add political support to their own BMD work.

It is also worth pondering why a NORAD-type institutional arrangement is deemed essential for keeping Canada connected to US defence planning in aerospace defence, when no parallel arrangement is required for keeping on top of other areas of the military and security relationship - at sea, for example. The primary forum for Canada and the United States to pursue mutual defence concerns should be the Permanent Joint Board on Defence. As the 1994 Defence White Paper puts it, the PJBD has "served as a window on Canada-US defence relations for more than five decades...[and] has examined virtually every important joint defence measure undertaken since the end of the Second World War." So why not put BMD on the Board's agenda? There is no need for NORAD's integrated command structure - even if it now is, as Canadian officials describe it, a dormant one - to facilitate Canada/US discussions of mutual defence issues.

In the end, Canadians may not have to rely on either reason or sound planning to save us from the current ballistic missile defence boosterism, for we have a true friend in the frighteningly high public debt. On more than one occasion it has saved us from the follies of Canadian defence planning (nuclear subs, Cadillac helicopters for Canadian ships) - pray that it does so again.