REGIO N AL STRATEGIC SUBCULTURES: CAN ADIAN S AN D THE USE O F FO RCE IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ J USTIN M ASSIE * IN TRO DUCTIO N The ongoing debates surrounding Canada’s post-September 2001 international security policy raise fundamental questions regarding the nature of Canada’s strategic culture( s) . On the one hand, to argue, as some have, that Canada’s national unity is threatened by regional or linguistic divides about the legitimacy of the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests the absence of a pan-Canadian strategic culture. Canada’s military operation in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar has been criticized by the Bloc Québécois (BQ), the Liberal Party, and the New Democratic Party (NDP). Had an election occurred in the spring of 2007, Chantal Hébert commented, foreign policy would have been a contentious issue. It could have “turned into a referendum on the future of the Afghan mission,” with the likely event of strengthening “the Bloc Québécois’ hand in Quebec and consolidat[ ing] Liberal and NDP support elsewhere, all at the expense of Harper’s dream of a majority” (Hébert 2007). In July 2007, in the wake of the largest overseas deployment of Quebec-based troops since the Korean War, others feared strong reactions in Quebec to the death of soldiers named “Tremblay,” “Gagnon,” or “Potvin,” a sentiment considered most likely to be exploited by Quebec separatists ( Castonguay 2007) . Regarding the war in Iraq, Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Bernard Landry saw in the March 2003 protests in Montreal the expression of two solitudes: “It means that there really are two nations in Canada. Those who did not know it see it well. [ … ] We see here… that the Québécois form a nation and that this nation must accede to international instances” (quoted in Larocque 2003) . Another interpretation of the “two solitudes” was provided by Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh, who observed that “more and more, Canada is becoming a two-nation country: the Ottawa nation – with its aggressive anti-Americanism – and the nation of Alberta” ( Robitaille 2003a) . Indeed, while the Bloc and the PQ were pleased with former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s decision to forgo a role in the American-led Iraq war, Alberta’s Premier Ralph Klein sent a personal letter to George W. Bush congratulating him for his “exemplary leadership” and linked Iraq to the threat posed by international terrorism ( Alberts 2003; Robitaille 2003a) . These regional/linguistic divisions could in fact account for historian and former Liberal MP John English’s observation to Chrétien that “the decision to stay out of the war has averted a potential major national unity crisis” ( quoted in Goldenberg 2006: 297) . On the other hand, recent developments regarding Canada’s war in Afghanistan suggest the existence of common principles shared across the country vis-à-vis the legitimacy to use military force internationally; that is, a pan-Canadian strategic culture. For instance, BQ leader Gilles Duceppe recently softened his position regarding the war. While he threatened in December 2006 19 * The author is a Doctoral Candidate at Q ueen’s University and Associate Researcher at Canada Research Chair in Canadian Foreign and Defence Policy (UQ ÀM). He thanks Philippe Lagassé, J. Scott Matthews, and the reviewers of this jo urnal fo r their co mments and sug g estio ns. M ASSIE