Canadian Security and Defence Policies Towards Latin America: Liberal Engagement or Harsh Realism?

Drawing on some critical works aimed at addressing the interaction between values and interests within Canadian foreign and security policies (CFSP), this chapter explains how Canadian engagement towards Latin America during the Cold War managed to harmonize liberal values and strategic interests within what Costas Melakopides and Kim R. Nossal called pragmatic idealism and liberal realism. However, it argues that values and interest became divorce each other as economic security interests related to the energy and mining sectors have emerged during the post-Cold War. That is to say, economic security interests have eclipsed, or even undermine, liberal policies towards the region. This chapter reviews the central controversies related to the Harper government’s Americas Strategy, as well as how such a strategy might be the best recent example of the divorce between liberal values and strategic interests. As concluding remarks, it examines whether the Trudeau government’s foreign and security policies can pave the way for a broad engagement willing and able to harmonize values and interests or if it constitutes another split engagement toward the region.