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Recent surveys indicate that Canadians increasingly care about international matters and want our country to play a constructive role in world affairs.

But what role should that be?

To help consider the options, globeandmail.com has invited three foreign policy activists to give us their thoughts and lead us in debate and discussion.

Today, Jack Granatstein, political and military historian, and senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, insists we must pursue our true national interests and they can never be divorced from those of the U.S. and other like-minded nations.

All Canadians want Canada to play a useful, credible role in the world. We all want us to be as independent as we can be in an increasingly globalized world. And we all understand that we must protect and advance Canadian national interests, even if we tend not to talk very much about them.

What are Canada's national interests? The first, the basic one common to every state, is obvious: We must protect our people, territory, and sovereignty. We must see that we remain united and independent. Then we must advance the economic well-being of Canadians. We must help protect North America and, as we are not now and never will be a great power, we must work with like-minded states to advance freedom and democracy around the world.

None of those national interests should be controversial, though the last one may sound so. It's not. In fact, the spread of democracy and freedom has been Canada's basic goal abroad for more than a century and that is the reason we have gone to war against autocrats and dictators in the past. That is why we offer development aid to nations around the world today. Our values, our humanitarianism, our multiculturalism, and our belief in justice at home and abroad, spring directly from our national interests and our long history as a democracy.

To realize our national interests, we need an interested and involved population, strong political leadership, a capable foreign service, and a small but robust military that can operate effectively in benign blue beret peacekeeping, in counter-insurgency campaigns such as that in Afghanistan, and in wars fought by coalitions of our friends and allies.

These aims are hard to achieve, and some might believe that we have failed totally here. Curiously, for an unmilitary nation, we have likely come closest to achieving a small, capable Canadian Forces. Going to war, however, just as sending peacekeepers abroad, must serve our national interests.

Above all, given our geographic location, we must have close relations with the United States. The U.S. is our best friend, as a now-forgotten politician said 45 years ago, "whether we like it or not." Strong in their anti-Americanism, Canadians took a long time to learn this, and some never have. But unless we can learn to eat grass to survive, we must have access to the American market, the largest, richest in the world. We need Americans' investment, and access to their brainpower and culture. We will need their military support in extremis. And the Yanks aren't going away — Canada is not an island, nor can we hide behind psychological or trade barriers.

Some Canadians foresee the Americans being surpassed in the coming years by others such as China, India, Brazil, or the European Union. If that occurs, and it may, then Canadians must realize that we will inevitably be forced even closer to the U.S. in our own economic and defence interests. The bulk of our trade will almost certainly continue to flow in a north-south direction, and we will only prosper if it does. Who dares to contemplate a future in which Beijing, say, occupies the economic role that the U.S. now plays for us? Could anyone, even the most fervent anti-American, believe that would be better for Canada?

We can be as independent as we want to be, as interdependent as we must be. But too much independence or interdependence can carry a high price, and Canadians must weigh their nation's interests — and their own — in making choices about where we go.

Realizing what our national interests truly are may help.

Earlier: Lloyd Axworthy, president of the University of Winnipeg, and foreign minister of Canada from 1996-2000, argued we must throw out our slavish adherence to outdated U.S. policies and embrace truly international practices..

Tuesday: David Eaves, a public policy consultant, and the lead author of the 2004 Canada25 report From Middle to Model Power, concludes that we must unleash the great under-utilized power of our outward-looking citizenry in roles still to be determined.

Question and Answer: Join Mr. Axworthy, Mr. Granatstein and Mr. Eaves in a discussion Tuesday on the issues raised in their essays.