By Heather Hurlburt

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Barack Obama's first foreign trip as president shines a spotlight on the neighbor Americans think mostly of in cliche and not in terms of real strategic importance.

But like those cousins you don't see as often as you used to, relations with Canada have been allowed to drift over eight years of ties that were ad hoc at best, negligent or hostile at worst.

Yet our relationship touches on the core questions that will determine Obama's success or failure as president and the quality of all our lives over the decade ahead: economic revival, energy security and global warming, terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. This trip of less than 600 miles underscores the challenges the Obama administration faces all over the world.

The biggest shift will be attitudinal. With Obama, there has already been a clear departure from the rhetorical obstinacy of the Bush administration and a clear indication that we need to cultivate better relations with Canada. This means working together in both strategic and economic terms, as the greatest transnational challenges we both face -- financial vitality and national security -- are really in part determined by a mutual destiny. This is not just symbolic. It is the first step toward reinvigorating this special alliance.

We need an improved prism through which to view our mutual security. President Obama likes to make the point, underlined by his own life and family history, that the United States can't live isolated from the rest of the world. Canada, whose troops have had the highest casualty rate in Afghanistan, is our largest oil supplier. And Canada is a bigger market for American goods than the 27 countries of the entire European Union combined, even though its population is 15 times smaller.

Whether it is economic security, security from terror or energy security, Canada is America's closest ally, both geographically and existentially.

But rhetoric alone won't cut it. So the next step, after the photo ops, is working through disagreements. The greatest mistake the Bush administration made in diplomatic terms was casting aside nations and leaders who disagreed and simply embracing those who shared the same worldview.

On economic security, we need to ensure that trade between the two nations remains robust and that the flow of goods and services that bolster each economy remains vibrant. As Obama said, "We may have a tendency to take our relationship for granted, but the very success of our friendship throughout history demands that we renew and deepen our cooperation here in the 21st century."

Though you might not think it, the threat from terrorism also greatly determines our strategic partnership. We've seen in the past, with the thwarted millennium bomb plot as well as the Lackawanna Six, that the American-Canadian border is both a gateway for economic growth and a potential impediment to ensuring domestic security. We need a smarter partnership around our border that increases security without jeopardizing economic development.

For years, Canada has criticized U.S. detentions at Guantanamo Bay. Now the United States will be inviting Canada to put its resources where its mouth has been and help provide secure destinations for ex-detainees so we can close Guantanamo, put in place systems of detention and trial that really work and end a source of tremendous global anger with us.

Afghanistan may be the greatest strategic challenge between Canada and the United States. Here, Canada gave as generously as any ally, with hundreds of troops fighting and dying in the toughest places in Afghanistan, easing the burden on American soldiers. Obama has already announced an increase in troops while Canada is planning to remove all forces there by 2011. Yet we can still do a great deal -- with Canadian forces on the ground and with Canada's expertise in humanitarian work and police training -- to implement together a strategy for Afghanistan that will actually work.

As Canada is America's largest energy supplier, we have a two-part job: ensure the steady flow of energy and build a partnership on clean energy that will brighten our futures and spark global progress in the fight against climate change. Finding solutions to thwart global warming through new energy technology should return to the top of our shared agenda, especially as both nations have an important presence in the arctic, which is reeling from the effects of global climate change at a rapid rate.

It's easy to overlook Canada as an essential international strategic partner with so many other vexing global situations. But sometimes solutions to the toughest challenges can be met best by first forging a closer relationship with those in your immediate back yard. With Canada, this is the opportunity we now have in front of us.

--

(Heather Hurlburt is the executive director of the National Security Network, a group advocating for progressive national security policy in Washington, D.C.)