The late, learned editor of The Washington Post, J. Russell Wiggins, liked to tell people, particularly visitors from abroad, that in the American way of national security and foreign policy, “the stockade comes first.”

Mr. Wiggins, who had read deeply in American history, drew on the experience of the Old West where the cavalry sought to defend settlers by riding out of their stockade, or wooden fort, to the rescue. But if the horse soldiers had to choose between defending the settlers or fighting for their home base, the stockade took priority.

The notion that the homeland comes first was underscored in Ottawa, Canada, last week when the defense ministers of Canada, Mexico, and the United States held their first ever trilateral meeting. The Defense Minister of Canada, Peter Mackay, called it “historic” to the expressed agreement of his Mexican and American counterparts.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the symbolic meeting was an “unprecedented opportunity to try to bring together our nations in a common approach to continental security.” The National Defense Secretary General of Mexico, Guillermo Galvan Galvan, added: “We intend to pursue the principle of shared responsibility. Undoubtedly, what each country does or fails to do will have a direct impact on the others.”

With the eyes of many Americans focused on Afghanistan, the nuclear summit meeting in South Korea, the threat of a North Korean missile launch, and a myriad of other security or economic issues, the meeting of the three defense ministers seemed to slip under the radar.

Even so, the Ottawa gathering comes as the U.S. has begun a gradual retrenchment, pulling back from some foreign entanglements. The polls have shown that, among other reasons, the American people have become war weary as well as tired of carrying a heavy political and economic burden around the world.

Critical to the effort to reduce commitments abroad is the willingness of allied and friendly nations to pick up some of the load. Said a Korean diplomat, “America can no longer do it by itself. Others must help.”

After decades of neglect, it is especially vital that the U.S. cultivate reliable neighbors along its northern and southern borders. Only then could the U.S. count on help in stopping the infiltration of terrorists, smugglers, illicit drug runners, and human traffickers.

The meeting in Ottawa was but a first step in that campaign. MacKay said: “When you talk about the security of North America, none of the three of us will ever be able to work alone. We have to work together.”

The defense ministers agreed that an early task would be to fashion a common threat assessment. As host of the meeting, MacKay said: “We will work together to develop a trilateral threat assessment for the continent that will provide a basis for common understanding and an approach as we work to address these challenges.”

He added: “We’ve also pledged to better coordinate our armed forces’ support to the work of civilian public security agencies, countering illicit activities in the hemisphere such as narcotics, narco-trafficking, human trafficking, trafficking in arms.” He mentioned in particular working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The Mexican defense minister chimed in: “Our first decisions will be made within a framework which formalizes our trilateral cooperation. We are aware that the manner and level of reciprocal collaboration can vary by country depending on competing national interests and the specific threats which have to be faced.”

He said Mexico would “enthusiastically endorse” a proposal by MacKay “to institutionalize our dialogue and meet on a regular basis in order to follow up with the purpose of facing head on and neutralizing the threats and improving security and prosperity for all of North America.”

Panetta sought to encompass the US-Canada-Mexico alliance in a wider context. He said that in the new U.S. defense strategy “is the recognition that America must continue to strengthen key alliances and build innovative new partnerships around the world. This is exactly what we’re doing today.”

Among the other elements of that evolving strategy is what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called a “pivot to Asia,” in which the U.S. national security establishment is to focus more on the Asia-Pacific region. Within the region, attention and forces are being shifted from Northeast Asia to the South China Sea.