Canada Keep Itself Safe During the Cold

¶ … Canada keep itself safe during the Cold War?

Canada played a unique role during the Cold War. As an immediate neighbor of the United States, but in relatively close physical proximity to the Soviet Union, Canada had legitimate reasons to fear that it would be physically involved if the hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union ever erupted into an actual war. Because of its physical proximity to the United States and its basically capitalistic system, it would be fair to suggest that Canada was more ideologically aligned with the United States. However, it would be incorrect to suggest that Canada was a U.S. ally; Canada maintained relationships with communist countries China and Cuba throughout the Cold War and opposed the U.S.'s involvement in the Vietnam War. Instead, it is more appropriate to characterize Canada as opposing the spread of communism without wholeheartedly embracing some of the American ideals that characterized the Cold War.

Even prior to the beginning of the Cold War, Canada took an anti-Bolshevik stance. Canadians opposed labour advances because of fears of the spread of communism. In fact, Canada engaged in a significant amount of anticommunist propaganda in the years leading up to the beginning of the Cold War. As in the United States, this anti-communist propaganda helped establish an us-versus-them mentality, which made it easier to label the Soviets as enemies once the actual Cold War began. In fact, while tensions between the Soviet Union and the West had been growing since the Bolshevik Revolution, the official beginning of the Cold War happened in Canada. In September 1945, Russian Igor Gouzenko walked into the newsroom of the Ottawa Citizen, where revealed that he had proof of a Soviet spy ring operating within Canada. This revelation made Canada aware that the Soviet Union posed a direct threat to it, and the presence of a spy ring in a country with which it had not traditional hostilities made most of the Western world aware that the Soviet Union posed a threat to Western-style democracy. While the Canadian government's initial response to the revelation was slow, it eventually developed a plan, PROFUNC, which was aimed at identifying communist sympathizers during the Cold War. This top-secret plan would actually have allowed for the detention of suspected communists.

However, while Canada was willing to zestfully pursue communists, it was not as determined to do so as the United States. For example, Canada did not outlaw communism. It also refused to purge trade unions, though it did screen some union members as suspected communists. Unlike the United States, Canada did not engage in communist-seeking witch hunts. In fact, when security breaches contributed to the suicide of a Canadian Ambassador to Egypt, Canada threatened to cease sharing information with the United States. At the time, this threat placed Canada in a somewhat vulnerable position, because the United States was engaging in a huge amount of espionage that could have revealed additional Soviet plots targeting Canada, and refusing to share information means that Canada may not have been able to get sufficient information to protect itself. However, the close physical proximity to the United States undoubtedly worked in Canada's favor, because the United States simply could not afford to allow the Soviets to invade and control Canada. Therefore, Canada could take an aggressive position against the United States, secure in the knowledge that any threat to Canada would be perceived as a threat to the United States.

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that after World War II, the world was sharply defined by superpower nations. The United States and the Soviet Union were the two nations to achieve superpower status. Therefore, while Canada may not have necessarily been an absolute ally to the United States in regards to Cold War issues, it is important to realize that Canada did support U.S. goals in the Cold War. This was almost certainly a good strategy, because the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan helped demonstrate the willingness of both superpowers to use other nations as staging grounds for their hostilities. However, there were consequences to allying itself with the United States. During World War II, Canada and the United States had entered into agreements that gave the U.S. some actual power over Canada's politics and military. These agreements placed Canada in a vulnerable position, but it was able to change some of this vulnerability during the Cold War.

For example, Canada refused to take the hard-line anti-communist stance that the United States took. Though it shared intelligence with the United States and engaged in surveillance of communists, it also maintained relationships with communist countries. Therefore, although the United States had no official relationship with Cuba or China, Canada could act as a middleman in the relationships between these countries and the United States. In fact, Canada was able to begin its role as a peacekeeper during the Cold War, because of its ability to help these countries, which had dissolved official relationships, maintain some type of diplomatic relationship. However, Canada's refusal to take the same hard-line stance as the United States against communism threatened some of the things the two countries had worked together to accomplish during the 1950s. Canada and the United States created a joint air-defense system. However, Canada initially refused to allow U.S. nuclear weapons into Canada. While Canada eventually permitted those weapons during the 1960s, that refusal was a step in helping assert Canadian autonomy. In fact, Canada later removed nuclear weapons from Canadian soil. It also engaged in activities that could have been perceived as being pro-communist. It recognized China and Cuba. However, while recognizing those countries could have been seen as a strictly diplomatic position, Canada also decreased the number of Canadian troops stationed at NATO bases. All of these moves helped Canada establish itself as a peaceful nation, even if it did not take a strictly-neutral position like Switzerland.

In fact, these peacekeeping tendencies from the Cold War have helped Canada maintain a powerful position in the international community. Moreover, this role was not only diplomatic, but also backed by Canada's willingness to use elements of force during the Cold War. Though Canada did not lead the charge to become involved in wars, it played an important role in helping send forces once the United Nations had decided to become involved in these organizations. In fact, the theoretical role of any United Nations military forces was to keep the peace. Canada was actually the first country to propose that the United Nations maintain a peacekeeping military force. While this proposal was initially dismissed by the United Nations, during the Suez Crisis in 1956, the United Nations adopted the Canadian idea of a peacekeeping force. Moreover, during this time period, peacekeeping forces were actually peacekeeping forces, not aggressive military forces. They were literally used as a human shield between opposing parties. This worked in the Suez Crisis, leading to a cease-fire. Therefore, while peace in the Middle East was short-lived, it is critical to realize that Canada played a huge role in averting a major disaster.