Toward the Third Millennium: The Role of the United States in the New North America

Canadian Review of American Studies/ Revue canadienned'etudesamericaines Volume25, Number 3, Fall 1995, pp. 1-15 Toward the Third Millennium: The Role of the United States in the New North America JosephDuffey This is a particularly good time to consider the question of the role of the United States in the new North American community. Much of the world today is being compelled to reassess how international relations are to be handled with the advent of a new age. For forty-five years the Cold War provided a certain clarity to international relations. It is both exhilarating and terribly confusing to live in this "time between the times, 11 this puzzling, unnamed and inchoate period when Manichean dualities seem irrelevant as we try to understand and responsibly confront the opportunities of a new time. Even harder, perhaps, than learning to live with the threat of world war is to discover how to live productively together in a potential era of peace and cooperation. Here in North America three nations have managed for most of this tumultuous century to live in such a relationship; Here in North America we anticipate a period of cooperation and partnership as this particular quadrant of the globe prepares for a new century. It may be possible that we can set some examples of a relationship between nations in which national identity is neither lost nor over-emphasized, but rather in which the three nations' political and cultural diversity will together form a greater whole. The United States, Canada, and Mexico are prepared to enter the twentyfirst century as nations of mutuality and openness, directed toward partnership and friendship, and providing a model for democratic and economic cooperation. But the test is still before us. Even as we look optimistically to 2 Canadian Review of American Studies Revue canadienne d'etudesamericaines the future, there are many things in the present that confound us. In order to assume a leadership role in the new North America, the United States must set its own house in order. We are a nation inspired by the continuing legacy of our founding fathers and mothers. But we have also learned from our expatriates as well as our patriots. James Baldwin looking at America from his self-imposed exile in the south of France, W. E. B. DuBois looking across the sea from Ghana, James Wright in Paris: all at differing times helped us see more clearly the ideals we were struggling to achieve here in what was once called the New World. One of our national news magazines said at the time of the inauguration of President Clinton that his task was to help America "reimagine itself" as a nation at the end of the Cold War. American democracy was defined for the past fifty years almost exclusively by what it was not. It must now learn anew how to define what it is, what it can offer the world, and what the world can offer to it. In many ways it is a good thing, then, that Americans are turning inward during this particular time to make necessary repairs on its neglected democracy . We can never assume that the health of a democratic regime is an inheritance that can be taken for granted. It must be renewed in every generation . It requires special care; it must be self-healing. It must attend to its ills before they are too far advanced as to prevent a cure. "Democracy, heal thyself" must become the order of the day. This, of course, is not to say that America's introspection should become an excuse for solipsism. President Clinton has pointed out that nations can no longer easily divide domestic interests from international ones. As the twenty-first century approaches, it is obvious that healthy economic partnerships in the international arena will contribute to domestic fitness. There is no way that the economies of Canada or the United States, advanced industrial nations, will return to the kind of growth and vitality necessary to sustain opportunity for our own people, unless we are actively engaged in reciprocal trade with emerging new markets around the world. And, there is no way that will occur in the...