Last week, as the conflict raged on the Israel-Lebanon border, I watched Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri being interviewed on television.

He told the interviewer that the best way for a nation to enhance its security is to make friends with its neighbors.

What a simple principal – and one that all the technology and all the force in the world cannot overcome.

A few weeks ago, I traveled to the coast of Nova Scotia to make new friends with Vermont’s northern neighbors, at an annual networking event for Canadian business and government leaders. Former Canadian Ambassador to the US and former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna invited me. McKenna, who hosts the annual one-day event, is now deputy chair of TD Bank Financial Group.

There were well over 100 guests, including a small club of a dozen or so US attendees -- among us, current US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, and former US President Bill Clinton. President Clinton also delivered the keynote address.

The former president spoke about the AIDS crisis in Africa, world poverty, water security, and other topics of global importance. Later, I met with him one-on-one, and asked him about his plan in the mid-90s to normalize relations with the nation of Cuba. Those plans were cut short on February 24, 1996, when Cuban Air Force MiG fighter jets shot down two small, unarmed US civilian aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue -- a Miami-based organization formed by Cuban exiles to rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba.

I was an F-16 pilot with the Vermont Air National Guard at that time, and President Clinton was Commander-in-Chief.

Minutes after the planes were shot down, I received orders to get into my F-16, loaded with live missiles, and be ready at a moment’s notice to take off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. I sat awake in that jet for most of that long night, but I never received orders to launch. I vowed then and there that if I ever did have a chance to go to Cuba, I would.
Since taking office in 2003, I have twice traveled to Cuba as your Lt. Governor -- to promote sales of Vermont agricultural products to the island nation, and as Prime Minister Hariri says, to make friends with a neighbor situated only 90 miles off the tip of Florida.

I was able to share with President Clinton the work I’ve done to establish a relationship, built around agriculture, between the people of Vermont and the people of Cuba. Since my first trip to Cuba in April of 2004, that relationship has generated millions of dollars in sales of powdered milk and Vermont short-bred dairy heifers, as authorized under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) of 2000.

President Clinton was able to provide valuable insight into what was happening behind the scenes, in the days and hours leading up to and following the Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down. Our conversation encouraged me to press forward with my goal of normalizing relations with Cuba.

And the day of networking in Nova Scotia encouraged me to keep forging new relationships in Canada. Thanks to my friendship with Frank McKenna, I was able to make many new friends for Vermont in the vast Canadian business and government community.

The key to enhancing security through friendship is to build strong relationships with your neighbors.

Since 2003, the revitalized relationship between Vermont and Quebec has led to a cross-border mutual aid agreement, so Vermonters and Quebecers can deliver immediate aid to each other in times of emergency. It has led to a new intelligence-sharing agreement that is playing an important role in US national security. It has led to new, forward-looking relationships that will enhance Vermont’s energy security, and it has enhanced our economic relationships, through jobs and tourism growth.

Plus, making friends with neighbors is just the right thing to do. And it’s something that I will continue to do as Vermont’s Lt. Governor.