Prime Minister Trudeau’s November 15, 2017 announcement of Canada’s new contribution to a rapid reaction force, airlift capabilities and monetary fund to recruit and train female UN peacekeepers and police is far different the originally announced goal of 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel and 150 police officers more than a year ago. If it is an innovation or unimaginative non-event remains to be seen.

Historian Paul Kennedy famously concluded in his Rise and Fall of Great Powers (1988) that the ebb and flow of national power (or as the case may be, superpower) was a function of economic health. With this in mind, Canada should congratulate its policy-makers for helping escape the worst consequences of the 2008-2009 “Great Recession” by virtue of fiscal responsibility and judicious budgeting. Our policy makers, however, rarely contemplate what this success means relative to other powers which have not fared so well – namely, our primary trading partner, the United States.

True, job growth in the United States is stellar, but job growth is an indicator of national power only if it translates into tax revenue. The latest news is that the Congress has passed a new tax bill, which the Wall Street Journal calls the most significant tax overhaul since 1986. Meanwhile, the United States government has been unable to pass a single budget since 2008, resorting instead to Continuing Resolution Authorisations (CRAs) which are in effect permissions to raise the debt ceiling, and to borrow more, some four months at a time. True, much of this inability is due to partisan clashing. However, despite historically-low interest percentage rates, the US government’s debt is higher than its GDP according to the Pew Research Center. The combination of these factors may continue to distract it from its (mostly self-imposed) global obligations. The Pentagon already complains that a reliance on CRAs prevent it from engaging in meaningful long-term strategic planning.

Even if it weren’t the case, there is a far more damning trend at work; that of the death-spiral of American hegemonic authority. First, there is the ever increasing distrust of President Trump at the national level , but there is also the overwhelming decline of global trust in the United States as an honest broker; the Pew Research Center’s website allows one to track the relative popularity of countries around the world, based on Pew Research surveys, and the results are unmistakable – ever since the final years of Obama’s presidency, trust in the United States has been collapsing. In contrast, Germany has become the number 1 tourist destination, and Canada’s positive influence rating, based on the World Economic Forum, stands at number 1 also at 81 percent .

Positive influence rating is an interesting term. Influence means the ability to effect meaningful change. Can we really say that Canada has been doing that? Canadian policy makers have trouble identifying the country’s real worth worldwide – leading Canadians to clutch to the familiar. Witness Canada’s 150th Anniversary birthday bash; beavers, free healthcare and maple syrup. That’s the view from here in Germany. Canadians don’t dare admit it, but we are much more than that, and other countries are starting to notice. And they may hold us to account for the future state of the world. That is, as U.S. hegemony dwindles, we and a few other countries may be prompted to use our talents and resources to support the West’s continued dominion on what we deem positive and constructive global development and prosperity. The frequency with which Prime Minister Trudeau and Chancellor Angela Merkel are positively identified with change on popular online media (the most influential – if not always trustworthy) like BuzzFeed, Vice, and Upworthy only equals negative broadcast of Mr. Trump’s and the U.S. image worldwide.