Thanks for the link to that Scott Taylor article, Ed. He neatly summarizes most of my own most uncomfortable thoughts about our military adventures since the end of the Cold War.

Canada's defence problem is that, while we have no effective enemies, our friends are almost as troublesome as enemies would be. But if Canada were to make like Sweden and disentangle itself from its web of military alliances in favour of a focus on domestic requirements such as search-and-rescue, the result would be a massive loss of markets in the United States and, possibly, exclusion from the G8 (or however many are in the club these days). Our branch-plant economy would be shaken to its very foundations.