Canada And United-States - Their Binding Frontier

Without a counterpart for any other country there is in the United States government a deputy assistant secretary of state for Canadian affairs, a post created in December 1972. This, like the lower-level Office of Canadian Affairs established in 1965, was an institutional recognition of the increasing importance of Canadian-American relations. Were these offices also harbingers of increased state-centric attention to relations between the two countries, which until then had been subject primarily to transnational and transgovernmental management of affairs? Or were they rather recognition that in addition to the uniquely complex web of transborder relationships outside of or at levels below those dealt with by high political authorities, state-centric relations were increasing because of the importance of and increase in unofficial and bureaucratic transactions?