Canadian grand strategy and lessons learned

Abstract

The nature of Canada's international role has been the subject of much discussion in recent years, especially since 9/11. This article explores the extent to which it is possible to discern elements of a Canadian ‘grand strategy’ since the end of the Second World War and argues that, during the Cold War in particular, Canadian policy-makers laid the foundations for such a strategy. Drawing on the work of a number of Canadian writers and statesmen, the author identifies several basic principles that have underpinned Canadian foreign policy since 1945 and suggests that they still hold relevance today as Canada re-examines its international contribution in the twenty-first century.

Keywords:

• grand strategy
• Canada
• North Atlantic Triangle
• Cold War
• foreign policy

Notes

1. This article is based on the Ross Ellis Lecture series delivered by the author on June 12–14, 2007 at the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. The lectures were entitled ‘Is there a grand strategy in Canadian foreign policy?’

2. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (New York: Barnes and Noble, 2003).

3. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (London: Oxford University Press, 2007).

4. B.H. Liddell Hart, Defense of the West (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970); and Deterrent or Defense: A Fresh Look at the West's Military Position (Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2007).

5. Edward Meade Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), viii.

6. Liddell Hart, Defense of the West.

7. Paul Kennedy, ed., Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 5.

8. George Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–50 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

9. Perhaps the major attempt to interleave a reckoning of Canada's international situation with a narrative of its foreign and defence policies was the series of five volumes produced by James Eayrs. See James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964–83). See also R.J. Sutherland, ‘Canada's Long Term Strategic Situation’, International Journal XVII, no. 3 (Summer 1962): 199–223.

10. David G. Haglund, The North Atlantic Triangle Revisited: Canadian Grand Strategy at Century's End (Toronto: Irwin Publishing/Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 2000); see also David G. Haglund, ‘Brebner's North Atlantic Triangle at Sixty: A Retrospective Look at a Retrospective Book’, London Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (2004–05): 117–140.

11. John Bartlet Brebner, North Atlantic Triangle: The Interplay of Canada, the United States and Great Britain (New Haven, CT, Toronto and London: Yale University Press, The Ryerson Press and Oxford University Press, 1945). See also Edgar McInnis, The Atlantic Triangle and the Cold War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959); B.J.C. McKercher and Lawrence Aronsen (eds), The North Atlantic Triangle in a Changing World: Anglo-American-Canadian Relations, 1902–1956 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996); C.C. Eldridge, Kith and Kin: Canada, Britain and the United States from the Revolution to the Cold War (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997); Tony McCulloch, ‘Revisiting the North Atlantic Triangle: The Brebner Thesis after 60 Years’, London Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (2004–05): 1–4; Hector Mackenzie, ‘Delineating the North Atlantic Triangle: The Second World War and Its Aftermath’, Round Table 95, no. 383 (January 2006): 101–12.

12. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, ix–x.

13. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 15.

14. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 20–1.

15. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 21–5.

16. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 59.

17. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 92.

18. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 94.

19. Haglund, North Atlantic Triangle Revisited, 94.

20. The Right Honourable Louis St. Laurent, Secretary of State for External Affairs, The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs, The Duncan and John Gray Memorial Lecture, University of Toronto, 13 January 1947. For recent discussion of the Gray Lecture, see Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007); Adam Chapnick, ‘The Gray Lecture and Canadian Citizenship in History’, The American Review of Canadian Studies 37, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 443–58; Hector Mackenzie, ‘Shades of Gray? ‘‘The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs” in Context’, Ibid., 459–74.

21. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 10.

22. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 14.

23. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 15.

24. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para 16.

25. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para 18.

26. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 19.

27. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 20.

28. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5.

29. For an excellent brief account of the international context of St Laurent's Gray lecture, see the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/department/history/canada7-en.asp, 1945–57: A Divided World.

30. For Mackenzie King, see C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, Vol. 2, 1921–48: The Mackenzie King Era (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1981).

31. Lester B. Pearson, Mike (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 3 vols, 1972–75).

32. Sir Winston S. Churchill, The Sinews of Peace, Speech to Westminster College, Fulton, MO, 5 March 1946.

33. George Kennan to Secretary of State, The Long Telegram, Moscow, 22 February 1946. Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946).

34. X, ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’, Foreign Affairs, July 1947.

35. For Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, see Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996); David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).

36. For origins of NATO, see Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO Divided: The Evolution of an Alliance (New York: Praeger, 2004); Peter Duignan, NATO: A History (New York: Hoover Institution Press, 2001).

37. Lord Ismay, Memoirs of Lord Ismay (Montana: Kessenger Publishing, 2007).

38. Louis St Laurent, Speech to United Nations General Assembly, 18 September 1947.

39. Pearson, Mike, 56.

40. Article II, NATO Treaty, 4 April 1949, Washington, DC.

41. Pearson, Mike, 56.

42. For Canada and the origins of NATO, see Escott Reid, Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North Atlantic Treaty, 1947–1949 (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1977); James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Growing Up Allied (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980); Hector Mackenzie, ‘Canada, the Cold War and the Negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty’, in Diplomatic Documents and Their Users, eds John Hilliker and Mary Halloran (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1995), 145–73; Hector Mackenzie, ‘The North Atlantic Triangle and the North Atlantic Treaty: A Canadian Perspective on the ABC Security Conversations of March-April 1948’, London Journal of Canadian Studies 20 (2004–05): 89–116.

43. For Trudeau, see J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991); also Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McLelland and Stewart, 1994).

44. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book 1, Chapter 1.

45. Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2004). Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).

46. Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003), 4.

47. Paul Martin, A Role of Pride and Influence in the World (Ottawa: Government of Canada 2005).

48. Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna, A Study in Allied Unity: 1815–1822 (London: Constable, 1948), vii.

49. St Laurent, Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy, para. 35.