North American security cooperation: Prospects for growth

This study seeks to explore the possibilities for expanded security arrangements between North American states. What are the obstacles to North American security cooperation? First, are the problems largely due to organizational features? Bureaucratic inertia and bureaucratic politics are known to hinder change---specifically in an organization's standard operating procedures and fear of other organizations infringing upon another's jurisdiction. Second, is the problem centered on a theoretical miss-prediction? International integration theory specifies that spillover from different domains occurs, that moving from economics to security cooperation should happen. Third, is the problem one of elite attitudes and behavior among those affected by NORAD or NORTHCOM or something else? How do personal attitudes affect integration? These three theoretical perspectives served as guides for this project. The basic underlying themes found in the bureaucratic inertia literature were generally supported even though some sub-hypotheses did have data invalidating them. Many aspects of the literature speaking to elite influence causing spillover were not supported. Elites do not have to have direct involvement to facilitate spillover. Finally elites look favorably towards NORAD functional expansion but not regional expansion and NORTHCOM, as the new organization in the North American security equation, is looked on with suspicion by nearly everyone. The overall prospects of North American security cooperation remain good in the Canada-U.S. context and lukewarm in the U.S.-Mexico and Canada-Mexico context.