Though the appetite for North American integration has been in flux for the past 100 years, Robert Pastor argues that closer cooperation is not only possible, but an easier than many think. The author of The Idea of North America and professor at American University, Pastor describes the opportunities and challenges facing the emergence of a common continental identity. He goes on to say that a more integrated North America would not only make a stronger Canada, United States and Mexico, but could grow to become a pre-eminent force in the global economy.

(Photo credit: An old plate hangs on the U.S.-Mexico border fence which reads in Spanish "Friendship Garden" in Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009. Guillermo Arias/AP.)