A Future North American Defense Arrangement

The principal objective of this research is to inform the reader of the key aspects of and prospects for a possible bilateral Continental Defense and Security Agreement (CDSA) between the US and Canada. The approach here will be to apply a Canadian defense policy process model as a framework to analyze recent and pending Canadian government decisions with respect to North American defense. This policy model was originally formulated by US researchers to illuminate the US defense policy process and has been modified by the author as a tool for understanding the Canadian case. Areas for exploration include a brief history of the US-Canada defense relations, the lineage and evolution of the current proposal for enhanced bilateral cooperation, a summary of the current proposal for such an agreement accompanied an evaluation from the perspective of Canada, and considerations for the future. A by-product of this research is that it will provide the reader insights into past and present US-Canadian defense relations as well as a framework for understanding Canadian defense decision making.