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Canada, Grand Strategy, and the Asia-Pacific: Past Lessons, Future Directions

By David S. McDonough

This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version

of Record, has been published in the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 18, 3 (2012) [Copyright

© Taylor and Francis], available online at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/11926422.2012.737340#.UZ6aD9L2auI.

David S. McDonough is a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science,

Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. He is editor of Canada’s

National Security in the Post-9/11 World: Strategy, Interests, and Threats (University of Toronto

Press, 2012). Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L

6C2. Email: dsmcdonough@hotmail.com.

Some observers are willing to admit that Canadian security policies have at times proven

strategically astute, even if such comments are rarely extended beyond the 1940-50s (Richter

2002; Maloney 2007). Yet few would label such behavior as grand strategy. As J. L. Granatstein

(2011, p. 1) concludes, grand strategy is “only found on the side of the big battalions” and

amongst great powers with sufficient “human, industrial, and military resources.” However, this

view is overstated. Indeed, it places too great an emphasis on a strategy that is grand, as defined

in a narrowly material sense, while forgetting that the crux of the term is actually on strategy –

and the need to match limited means with political ends. For one, David Haglund (2000, p. 7)

makes clear that grand strategy is a “more urgent imperative for those states that are not

bounteously endowed with the material attributes of power.”

Importantly, grand strategy is no longer ignored in the Canadian context. For example, former

defense minister David Pratt (2008, p. 2) was quick to advocate its use as a description of past

behaviour and a tool to turn “long term interests into long term policy.” Indeed, much of his

writings carry a forceful message that policy-makers should once again adopt a grand strategy; a

prescriptive appeal with a strong lineage in the Canadian foreign policy literature, from R. B.

Byers’ (1986) advocacy of a “security policy” to Nils Ørvik’s (1981) call for a “defence against

help” strategy. But there are exceptions. David Haglund (1997, 2000) has pointed to the role of

grand strategy principles – exemplified in the concept of cooperative security and the North

Atlantic Triangle – as reflecting much of Canada’s post-war behaviour, even if he acknowledges

“modesty” (1997, p. 481) in this strategy since the late 1960s.

The paper also accepts the existence of Canadian grand strategy. Indeed, it is my contention that

Canada has not only demonstrated a historic capacity for strategic action, but has indeed pursued

a consistent and relatively successful grand strategy. In that respect, it departs from much of the

wider literature on Canadian foreign policy, which rarely deigns to look at grand strategy and

tends to be quite critical of the country’s strategic direction since the end of the so-called “golden

age” of Canadian foreign policy (Byers 1986; Nossal 1998-99). Even grand strategy, when raised

by individuals like Pratt, is often used as a prescriptive or heuristic tool designed to inculcate an

element of strategy hitherto missing in the country’s behavior.

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In contrast, this account conceives of grand strategy as a description of behavior, which would be

designed – whether implicitly or explicitly – to “bridge” military and non-military means with

political ends (Gray 1999, p. 17). It is much closer in spirit, if not substance, to Haglund’s

perspective. Simply put, while he situates Canadian grand strategy on a trans-Atlantic basis, this

account places it squarely in Canada’s “special relationship” with the United States. Without the

capacity to shape the international system, it is largely confined to adapting to and managing

strategic relations with its superpower patron.

However, despite a strategic tradition largely preoccupied with North America and Europe,

Canada has not necessarily ignored events in the Pacific. Officials have twice before applied the

same strategic principles in this theatre – first as a direct participant in the Korean War and later

with a more arms-length approach to Indochina. But there are important limits to any purported

Canadian grand strategy in the Pacific. Indeed, Ottawa’s role in Korea and Indochina reveal both

the strategic centrality of the United States and the country’s strong inclination for strategic

disengagement from the region. Ultimately, Canada has only a modest capacity to independently

engage in the Asia-Pacific. This fact will continue to constrain the application of a grand strategy

towards this region for the foreseeable future, irrespective of any policy pronouncements that

might emerge from Ottawa.

<A> Canada’s Grand Strategy at Home and Abroad

Canada’s post-war behaviour has always been balanced between our role as a loyal American

ally and our inclination towards what can only be termed ambivalence towards the United States,

which becomes especially acute on those issues – from nuclear weapons to missile defence –

where our preferences occasionally diverge. It is easy to disparage this balance as being either

overly intimate, irrespective of any disagreements that may arise, or far too distant almost

regardless of how much cooperation actually exists. However, Canada’s position towards the

United States rarely embodies either proximity or distance to an absolute degree, instead

reflecting an often overlooked element of continuity in Canadian behaviour. On one hand, close

cooperation tends to overshadow the low-key effort at distancing necessary to maintain a

semblance of sovereignty and independence. On the other hand, arms-length positioning tends to

mask cooperative measures designed to allay any possible American ire, thereby ensuring that

the Canada-United States security alliance remains unharmed.

Yet few accounts have examined this principle or behaviour trait in any great depth.1 Fewer still

would accept that such ambiguous or vacillating policy responses has served Canada well, let

alone embodies a strategic quality that has matched means with ends. Rather than discounting

the wisdom of this balance, it might more appropriate to recognize this strategic principle as the

defining characteristic in Canadian grand strategy. After all, it has ensured that Canada’s

perennial interest in both security and sovereignty were achieved, and trade-offs minimized. For

example, Canada has found it beneficial to cooperate with the Americans on a variety of security

matters. But even then, officials proved interested in ensuring that Canadian sovereignty and

perceived independence abroad were not threatened. Yet occasionally, Canada is confronted with

American policy preferences in which cooperation, while perhaps required and even beneficial

1 For an important exception, see Molot (1982).

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from a security standpoint, would also detract from such political interests. In those cases,

policy-makers tend to adopt a more explicitly distancing policy response, though one also

matched with an equal measure of implicit cooperation in order to ensure that security was not

compromised.2 Such a narrow conceptualization of Canada’s grand strategy also has an

additional benefit – it provides some much needed specificity to a term often used in an overly

broad and conceptually-haphazard manner.

Canada has foremost been concerned with straddling the fine line between these two inclinations

in what amounts to a “goldilocks” grand strategy. Elements of this strategy was first hinted at in

1938, when President Franklin Roosevelt promised to defend Canadian territory from predation

and Prime Minister Mackenzie King assured that Canada would not allow enemy forces to

threaten the United States. This bargain provided the foundation for the Canada-United States

security alliance, but also contributed to Canadian concerns over the consequences that could

arise from being too close to the Americans. After all, much of the rationale for King’s promise

was to reassure our larger ally and ensure that it did not violate Canadian sovereignty – a

rationale well encapsulated in the term “defence against help.” However, due to the strategic

disparity between both countries, even cooperation with the Americans could put at risk

Canadian sovereignty. This point was brought home in the Second World War, when officials

discovered the United States had deployed a veritable “Army of Occupation” on Canadian

territory (Grant 1988).

Canada entered the post-war period recognizing the need for adequate cooperation with the

Americans, while ensuring that such joint endeavours did not endanger Canadian sovereignty.

With Washington’s growing concerns over the Soviet threat and attendant interest in Canadian

territory, which permitted bomber interceptions further away from populated areas, Canada had

little choice other than to cooperate with the Americans on strategic defence. For example, both

countries agreed to the joint construction of the Pinetree Line radar extension to America’s own

Permanent network. And soon thereafter, Canada permitted the United States Air Force to cross

the border in order to push any interceptions further north. Yet it is important not to

underestimate the lingering concerns and “extreme sensitivity to the potential derogation of

Canadian sovereignty” generated by America’s wartime presence in the Far North (Sutherland

1966, p. 261). As a result, Ottawa also obtained assurances on Canadian involvement in and

control over the Pinetree Line extension and sought to place limits – unsuccessful as it turned out

– on America’s capacity for cross-border interceptions (Jockel 1987).

Canada’s strong interest to place some limits on cooperation can also be seen with its proposal to

form a joint Military Study Group, which according to David Cox (n.d., p. 11) was a quid pro

quo for Canadian acquiescence of radar tests on its territory and designed to slow down the pace

of these air defense efforts. It can also be seen in Canada’s offer to independently fund and

construct a Mid-Canada radar line, which led the United States to carry the burden of the costlier

Distant Early Warning Line. Indeed, even when NORAD introduced seamless air defense

cooperation between both countries in 1957, it was quickly followed by an exchange of

2 In its use of adaptive/incremental policy responses and the minimally-purposeful pursuit of higher-order priorities

(security, sovereignty, independence), this process can be seen as cybernetic in origin. For a full exposition on the

theoretical framework that underpins this analysis, which represents a combination of cybernetic theory and strategic

culture, see McDonough (2011).

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diplomatic notes that emphasized a nominal linkage to NATO and at least a promise of

consultations. Canada was clearly heavily invested in cooperation at this time, but it is important

not to underestimate the need for at least a semblance of distance from our ally, if only to create

the illusion of independence necessary to make these bilateral/bi-national efforts political

palatable.

Importantly, Canadian officials would continue to adhere to this principle when the policy

preferences of both countries began to diverge on the issue of ballistic missile defence. In these

episodes, Canada showed a strong inclination to refrain from continuing with the cooperative

ventures of the preceding two decades, whether due to the nuclear warheads envisioned for Anti-

Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems or the close association between Strategic Defense Initiative

(SDI) and space weaponization. Such initiatives offered a means to strengthen this bilateral

partnership, but also represented a potential risk to Canada’s sovereignty – and even to its

interest in an independent role abroad, given the controversy that came with these initiatives.

Yet there was also a surprising degree of implicit cooperation calibrated to assuage American

security anxiety, which critics of these decisions often overlook. In the former, while refusing to

be committed to ABM, Canada was also careful to wait for American assurances that the 1968

NORAD renewal did not automatically entail such participation. Officials also accepted the

ABM exclusion clause offered by the United States, while readily assenting to the short-lived

assignment of NORAD’s early warning role to the Safeguard system (Fergusson 2010, p. 45). In

the latter, while refusing Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger invitation to be involved in

SDI, Canada was also careful to allow private firms to participate in related research projects.

More importantly, Canada’s refusal also coincided with significant effort by both countries to

modernize and upgrade the continent’s air defence system. For example, Canada signed on to the

1985 North American Air Defence Modernization Agreement, which resulted in a number of

upgrades to the existing architecture, while also participating in the Air Defense Initiative that

looked at ground- and space-based technologies for future air-breathing threats (Tutwiler, 1989).

That being said, officials were equally keen to “escape the dangers of a too exclusively

continental relationship with our neighbor” (Pearson 1973, p. 32) With Soviet intransigence

creating an effective stalemate at the United Nations, Canada soon joined with its British and

American allies to discuss an alternative arrangement, which resulted in the signing of the North

Atlantic Treaty in 1949. Yet even here, despite both countries now closely tied to the defence of

Europe, officials still sought a small measure of independence in this latest cooperative venture.

For instance, Canada was careful to ensure that their respective commitments took place within a

multilateral setting that could “mitigate the unilateralism of American policy” (Buteux 1995, p.

159). And to make the agreement domestically palatable, Canadian negotiators successfully

pushed to include a modest economic and social provision in Article 2 of the Treaty.

At first, Canada was hopeful that signing the North Atlantic Treaty would actually result in

defence savings (Eayrs 1980, p. 191). Yet Canadian resolve, and that of its allies, was quickly

stiffened by the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea. As a direct result, Canada

not only accelerated its air defence efforts at home, but also followed the American lead in

expeditionary deployments abroad – temporarily in Korea and on a more permanent basis in

Western Europe. While assenting to the alliance’s militarization, Canadian officials were also

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keen to show its public that such cooperation in no way detracted from its independence. As

such, they welcomed a role on the Committee of the North Atlantic Community and the

Committee of the Three to study non-military forms of cooperation, while also ensuring that

such distancing was modest in scope and did not go beyond American tolerance (Milloy, 2006).

Yet the St. Laurent government soon found itself under increasing pressure from its NATO allies

and particularly the Americans for an even greater expeditionary commitment that it could ill

afford, especially given the concurrent air defence efforts taking place in North America. This

did not mean that Canada was quite ready to scale back its commitments, but it surely was keen

to at least put in place some important limitations – first by effectively freezing the size of its

contributions to these forces-in-being, and then by incorporating nuclear warheads as a more

cost-effective solution. The fact that the United States was also looking at nuclear weapons to

offset the perceived Soviet conventional advantage made such a solution especially palatable

(Bercuson 1992).

As the 1960s progressed, however, officials were soon eager to relinquish this increasingly

controversial nuclear role. But they were also less enamoured by the prospect of even

maintaining a Canadian military contribution to Europe, let alone increasing it – even if NATO’s

acceptance of Flexible Response in 1968 seemed to presage a conventional build-up. Such a

prospect was anathema to successive Liberal governments eager to refocus on a domestic agenda

and avoid higher defence spending, especially during a period of détente that many expected

would result in a peace dividend. Indeed, under the leadership of Lester Pearson and Pierre

Trudeau, Canada undertook a gradual military withdrawal from NATO’s forces-in-being in

Europe – a trend that was never fully reversed even by their Conservative successor.

While their respective actions have often been decried by critics, it is important to recognize that

this retrenchment was gradual in nature, limited in scope, and partially offset by other measures.

For instance, while cutting Canada’s air contribution by half, Pearson was careful to leave

Canada’s ground commitment to the Central Front untouched and promised support to NATO’s

newly created mobile force (English 1990; Maloney 2004). To be sure, Trudeau would go further

by cutting and denuclearizing Canada’s air and ground commitments to Europe – from four to

two air squadrons and from 10,000 to 5,000 troops (Maloney 2005). But the prime minister also

accepted the formation of a transportable brigade group to reinforce Norway in wartime and by

1975 injected new funds into the capital portion of the defense budget. Even denuclearization

took place at a time when NATO’s interest in such tactical weapons was in sharp decline.

Importantly, both Pearson and Trudeau refrained from following the advice of those officials

hoping for an even more dramatic cut – from Paul Hellyer and Walter Gordon to Donald

MacDonald and Ivan Head.

Canada’s grand strategy has been directed at the United States and guided by the principle that a

balance must be maintained between proximity and distance. Cooperation would proceed largely

uninterrupted so long as the country’s sovereignty and perceived independence were not

threatened or at least safeguarded by modest efforts at distancing, whether by ensuring that

Canadian sovereignty was protected on air defense or by becoming a stalwart advocate of non-

military cooperation within NATO. But once these political interests were endangered, officials

were quick to adopt a much more arms-length position to our close ally – though such distancing

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was always offset by concurrent effort at cooperation and accommodation to ensure that the

security alliance remained intact. The important point is not necessarily the distinction between

proximity and distance, but rather Canada’s tendency to combine elements of both inclinations in

its strategic behaviour, thereby showing a degree of strategic consistency often overlooked by

other accounts of Canadian foreign policy.

This strategic principle has continued to shape Canadian policy responses to the Americans even

into the post-9/11 era. This can be seen in the most recent iteration of missile defence, when

Canada’s refusal to participate was offset by both the permission to use NORAD’s early warning

and attack assessment role in any such intercept and the substantial increase in defence and

border security funding (Barry 2010, p. 36). And it can also be seen in its decision to refuse to

participate in the Iraq War, even as it deployed under NATO auspices in Afghanistan and

continued with a low-key military role in Iraq.3 Yet this does not mean that Canada’s attention

never looked out to the Pacific. Indeed, by identifying the major characteristics of Canadian

grand strategy in its traditional domain, one can usefully assess whether such a strategic principle

is also evident in the country’s strategic behaviour in that often neglected theatre.

<A> Canadian Strategic Principles in the Asia-Pacific

Even at the onset of the Second World War, Canadian officials could ill afford to ignore events

transpiring in the Pacific. Indeed, Canada first undertook a modest military build-up in 1936

largely in response to developments in the Pacific – an early example of “defence against help,”

designed to ensure that America did not encroach on British Columbia in a military confrontation

with Japan (Perras 1998, pp. 15, 20-21). Yet such concerns proved to be especially short-lived.

Indeed, Canada’s wartime role in the Pacific was a small and relatively disengaged one – limited

to the Battle of Hong Kong, a joint operation with the United States to capture an abandoned

Aleutian island, and the designation of some air and ground units to help protect the West Coast

and Alaska (Morton, 1946). As Stephen Beecroft (1991, p. 44) concludes, Canada’s defeat at

Hong Kong “eradicated any…taste for future participation in the strategic affairs of the region.”

Canadian political leaders emerged from the Second World War still heavily disinclined to be

involved in the Pacific, which Washington’s clear preference for bilateral “hub-and-spokes”

arrangements did very little to quell. However, Canada took a tentative step forward by agreeing

to the American request to serve on the UN Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTCOK) in

1947, which might have allowed Canada to project the image of a North Pacific power but was

primarily motivated by the need to cement the Canada-United States partnership within the

United Nations (Price 2004, p. 307). When North Korean intransigence obstructed efforts at

peninsula-wide elections, Canada acquiesced to American preferences for using the commission

to supervise and help legitimize elections in South Korea. Yet this did not stop officials from

subtle effort at distancing – such as by making the case that supervising South Korean elections

was neither part of UNTCOK’s mandate nor conducive to the commission’s independence

(Stairs 1974). Indeed, the St. Laurent government was quick to extract itself from serving on a

new UN commission formed to deal with the contentious issue of political unification.

3 For example, Canada commanded the multinational naval task force that supported the Iraq War and had 30

Canadian military personnel at US Central Command in Qatar, as well as military exchange personnel amongst its

allies who were involved directly in Iraq. See Stein and Lang (2007) and Beltrame (2003).

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With North Korea’s aggression across the 38th parallel, Canada joined the United States in

undertaking a sizable military rearmament process, which led to greatly accelerated defense

efforts in North America and Western Europe and an unprecedented military engagement in

Korea. It would begin modestly enough, with the deployment of three destroyers and a transport

squadron. Undoubtedly, Canada had a considerable interest in supporting a “police action” under

the auspices of the United Nations. Much of its diplomatic activity was even directed at ensuring

the UN character of the mission, if only in the wording of the resolutions that authorized this

intervention. Yet Canadian officials continued to delay in committing ground forces to Korea. To

be sure, Canada’s military was simply too small for such a military expedition (Prince 1992-

1993, p. 139). Yet there was also a conviction that “the main strategic front in the ‘cold war’ was

in Europe, and that Korea comprised a peripheral engagement which must not be allowed to

drain Canada’s strength from more important theatres” (Stairs 1974, p. 76)

However, pressure was also surely mounting for Canada to undertake more than a token

contribution to Korea. Before long, Ottawa agreed to the formation of a Canadian Army Special

Force, which was earmarked for deployment to Korea and designed to not detract from regular

force expansion. Clearly, even as it prepared a temporary force for deployment to the Pacific,

officials were eager to retain a regular capacity to contribute to the equally pressing (and more

important) commitments in North America and Europe. Indeed, on two occasions, Canada

contemplated deploying this special force for use in Europe – first, when General Douglas

MacArthur’s planned the successful landing at Inchon, which seemed to presage an end of active

combat operations; and second, when China’s massive intervention fundamentally altered the

character of the Korean War (Bercuson 1992). But despite such entreaties, Canada was soon

cajoled to deploy this special force – renamed the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade – for combat

operations in Korea.

It might be true that the United Nations provided a critical stimulus for Canada’s military

involvement in Korea. At the very least, it made Canadian participation more palatable to

officials who might have shown some wariness at being too close to the Americans. Yet one

should also not discount the fact that Canada faced considerable pressure to commit more

substantial (e.g., ground) forces, which was especially evident from its American ally – as shown

on those occasions when officials had either prevaricated over a ground commitment or sought to

deploy such a force elsewhere. While still preferring a strategically disengaged role in the

Pacific, Canada found itself deploying air, naval, and eventually ground forces in Korea, and it

did so largely at the behest of increasingly adamant American preferences. As Robert Prince

(1992-93, p. 136) notes, the initial reaction of officials like Lester Pearson and John Holmes can

be described as giving “a seal of approval” to American action and reassuring our “ally of

Canadian support rather than warn that ally of Canadian concerns.”

But Ottawa was not necessarily unqualified in its support of the United States. Indeed, Canada

were keen to maximize the authority of the United Nations and thereby help restrain some of the

more hard-line elements in the United States, lest our neighbor be tempted to finally “rollback”

communist influence in Asia. Canada might have chosen to delay its recognition of Communist

China upon the outbreak of the Korean War, but it had little interest in condoning any American

actions in Korea that could precipitate a wider war with China, especially since such a conflict

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would pose an intolerable danger to the West’s strategically crucial position in Europe – and at

worst could serve as a prelude to Soviet-United States military conflict. Simply put, Canadian

leaders thought that “the conflict in Korea should not be allowed to siphon the defensive

capabilities of the West away from more vital theatres elsewhere” (Stairs 1974, p. 149).

As a result, Canada opted to balance its cooperation in the Korean War with a modest dose of

distancing, in what Stairs has aptly termed the “diplomacy of constraint.” For example, given

their interest in keeping the Korean War localized, officials often reminded the United States on

the need to refrain from linking the Korean conflict with the defense of Formosa. As noted by

Timothy Sayle (2007, p. 700), they used their role in bilateral consultations to discourage the

Americans from either relying on nuclear threats or escalating “any small conflict into a global

war.” Yet on many issues, Canada was simply “not willing to pressure the Americans very hard

at all” (Prince 1992-93, p. 137). This was exemplified by its decision to acquiesce to the

expansion of the conflict north of the 38th parallel, even though this likely helped to ensure

China’s eventual military participation in the war.

Canada was not necessarily uninterested in achieving distance in its relations with the Americans

– whether by initially trying to shirk responsibilities or by leveraging the UN and other

mechanisms to restrain their more bellicose behavior. But Ottawa also had little inclination to

forego close cooperation with the United States, especially since officials largely shared

American fears over communist aggression in Korea and recognized that the fate of the UN as a

collective security organization hinged on this police action. In such circumstances, cooperation

did not necessarily detract from Canada’s interest in achieving an independent role abroad, even

if concern about further escalation did prompt some modest effort to constrain our ally.

Canada’s participation in the Korean War lasted until an armistice was finally signed in 1953.

Officials also took part in sessions of the 1954 Geneva Conference that was convened to finalize

a peace treaty for Korea, even if it ultimately failed to materialize. Yet the Geneva Conference

was not solely limited to the Korean War. Indeed, between those sessions that dealt with the

Korean peninsula, other participants had come together to discuss a resolution to France’s

colonial war in Indochina. Canada might not have been a participant at these Indochina sessions,

but its presence at Geneva did offer an opportunity to be kept abreast of key developments in that

other Asian conflict (Lennox 2009; Ross 1984).

Officials in Ottawa were well aware of the bloody war between the French Union Forces and the

Vietminh. True, Canada did offer some modest support to its NATO ally, such as putting little

resistance when military equipment given to French forces in Europe under Mutual Aid was

transferred to Indochina (Eayrs 1980, pp. 150-153). Equally, however, it had little inclination to

be involved in this colonial war, and indeed saw it as only another drain on NATO’s military

strength in Europe. For instance, France’s military commitment to Indochina stalled its training

of personnel for Europe, while the deployment of twelve divisions to this war significantly

detracted from NATO’s Medium Term Defense Plan force goals (Duffield 1995, p. 58).

.

Canada was also quite clear that it had little desire to be engaged in Indochina. This can be seen

in 1952, when he stated that that the conflict did not entail a “clear-cut breach of the peace,”

which was used so successfully to justify police action in Korea, as well as when he took issue

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with John Foster Dulles’ call for “united action” in March 1954 (Ross 1984, pp. 42, 49, 59). It

was also on display at the 1954 Geneva Conference itself, when Pearson responded to the rumors

of a collective security pact for the Pacific by giving an “airtight” case for “non-involvement in

the Indochinese fighting” (Ross 1984, p. 69). Not surprisingly, the United States did not invite

Canada to join the Southeast Asian Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) announced soon after

the Geneva talks.

Canada might have observed France’s colonial war with a sense of disquiet. But it soon grew

alarmed when President Eisenhower contemplated military intervention and nuclear use to

forestall France’s defeat at Dienbienphu. In that sense, Canada’s dominant concerns in Indochina

clearly paralleled that which so troubled policy-makers during Korea – that the conflict could

either quickly expand to a war against Communist China or escalate to involve tactical and even

strategic nuclear weapons. However, while relying on the United Nations to help justify its

decision to enter the Korean War, Canada proved equally adroit in using the UN’s minimal role

in Indochina to justify its military non-involvement in this one.

Canada clearly shared American preferences on the need to resist aggression in Korea, especially

given the prospect that the Soviets had used this war to test the West’s resolve. But Ottawa saw

Indochina as an anti-colonial struggle that lacked Korea’s clear-cut aggression and took place at

a time when Communism seemed less monolithic and threatening. One should also not

underestimate the recent wartime experience in Korea, which had dangerous escalatory potential

that would only be magnified in Indochina. Simply put, while cooperation might have been

palatable in Korea, officials were inclined to see a similar role in Indochina as being

incompatible not only with Canadian interest but more broadly with its independent role abroad.

As a result, Prime Minister St. Laurent was inclined to adopt much greater distancing role in

Indochina.

With the Geneva Conference producing a temporary end to hostilities in Indochina, Canada was

asked to serve on the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC). The ICSC

was given responsibility to oversee the implementation of three Cease-Fire Agreements for

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as the Final Agreement for a political settlement between

North and South Vietnam. Unfortunately, there was little expectation that these agreements

would actually be fully implemented, especially since they only served to postpone rather than

resolve the conflict (Ross 1984, p. 86). Indeed, South Vietnam was never part of any of these

agreements, while the United States refused to sign the Final Agreement.

As a result, Canada took up this role on the ICSC with more than a little reluctance. Unlike with

UNTCOK, Canada benefited neither from the legitimacy proffered by the United Nations, nor

enjoyed much in the way of American support for the ICSC. As Douglas Ross (1982a, p. 59)

notes, officials even had legitimate fears of “American antagonism towards all governments

associated with this alleged act of ‘appeasement.’” Still, with its intent on playing a more distant

arms-length role in Indochina undiminished, Canada took position on the ICSC and its delegates

sat alongside those from India and Poland. Canada also agreed to use its position on the ICSC to

gather intelligence on the North Vietnamese. However, as noted by Patrick Lennox (2009, p. 21)

“the agreement to serve as Washington’s intelligence gatherer was to remain unpublicized.”

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The ICSC did have some success in the initial years of its existence, such as with the

disengagement and regroupment of the armed combatants. Soon enough, it faced a major crisis

in dealing with North Vietnam’s violation on the free movement of people, in which the North

tried to stem the number of refugees fleeing to South Vietnam. While the Americans might have

preferred a strong protest of the North’s violation of the armistice, the Canadian delegation to the

ICSC demurred (Ross 1984). They might have had little illusion as to the nature of North

Vietnam’s violations, whether on the free movement of people, the import of arms and material

from Communist China, or the human rights violations then underway in the North. But Canada

was also worried that a more confrontational approach would only jeopardize the precarious

peace in Indochina, at a time when the Americans were already embroiled in a nuclear crisis over

Quemoy and Matsu islands in the Formosa Straits (Chang 1998).

That being said, Canada was adroit enough to offer some implicit support to the American

position, which helped to delay the seemingly inevitable clash between North and South and

ensured that both South Vietnam and the United States would be better prepared for such a

conflagration. For example, the Canadian delegation consistently turned a blind eye to the

Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission, which was ostensibly mandated to transfer out French

military equipment but instead often gave refurbished materials back to South Vietnam. Canada

also successfully recommended that the ICSC provide Saigon with export credits to offset the

destruction of French military equipment, while also permitting the United States to double the

Military Assistance Advisory Group (Ross 1984, pp. 224, 230-231). Importantly, such

cooperation continued to be overshadowed by Canada’s voting record that tended to penalize

South Vietnam, to the extent that some observers (Thakur 1980, pp. 133-34) placed an inordinate

emphasis on Canada’s impartiality on the ICSC and overlooked its cooperative stance with South

Vietnam’s rearmament.

By the 1960s, as the Americans escalated their military involvement in Vietnam, Canada

continued to show little interest in following Australia into that quagmire. It also had little

problem by continuing to point to the UN’s non-involvement in order to help justify such

inaction. Yet Canadian officials were also keen to offset its non-participation with some effort at

cooperation calibrated to assuage its large ally. Both elements were readily apparent in Lester

Pearson’s Philadelphia Speech in 1965. While often remembered for his suggestion for

American restraint and an attendant bombing pause, he also offered verbal support for South

Vietnam’s “resistance to aggression” and defended American action as an example of

“peacekeeping and peacemaking” (Ross 1984, p. 258).

With the savagery of the war unrelenting, Canada turned increasingly to strengthen its effort at

distancing – from its mediation role between North Vietnam and the United States to the

increasingly vocal calls by Pearson, Martin, and others for unconditional bombing pauses.

Clearly, Canada had grown sanguine on the American capacity to prosecute this war with only

conventional means, even if officials still had some fear that such a conflict could escalate to

involve China. Yet Canada still refrained from any drastic action. For example, while Canadian

military exports to United States were being used in Vietnam, the Pearson government refused to

rethink the defense production sharing arrangements with the Americans, lest there were costs if

Canada ever “broke decisively with the United States on this issue” (Kirton 1974, p. 130)

11

In 1973, when the Americans finally managed to extricate itself from Vietnam with the signing

of the Paris Peace Accords, Canada then found itself serving at American behest on a new

commission – the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS). To be sure,

Canada was under no illusion that this agreement actually represented a substantial peace

settlement. And the ICCS was even less successful than its predecessor, in so far as the conflict

between South Vietnam and the Vietcong showed little sign of abating. However, Canada was

not only invited by its superpower ally to serve on this new commission, but also eager to

support any measure that could help finally put an end to America’s military intervention.

Yet the Canadian delegation would leave the ICCS only several months after the signing of the

Paris Peace Accords. Given that this agreement was far from a peace settlement, it is doubtful

whether Canada’s disengagement did much to hasten the eventual collapse of the Accords.

Importantly, however, Canada’s exit took place soon after the last American ground troop had

left Vietnam, thereby accomplishing what some officials had always envisioned; in Mitchell

Sharp’s words, “To help the United States extricate itself from Vietnam” (Lennox 2009, p. 37).

As Douglas Ross (1982b, pp. 33-34) concludes, “the loss of South Vietnam…was not per se a

concern of any great moment to western governments, including Canada’s. America’s capacity

to sustain its credibility as a great power guarantor was a real concern.”

Canada has clearly found it necessary to turn its grand strategy on occasion to the Pacific –

though much of this effort was directed to ensure that the United States did not overextend itself.

As Brian Job (1991, p. 33) explains, this commitment was “seen as an extension of a larger Cold

War containment strategy centred in Europe.” Canada did seek to do so with minimal

involvement in the region, but it still played a supportive military role in Korea and an equally

important diplomatic role in Indochina. Importantly, this account also shows that some of the

debate on Canada’s role in both episodes has been overstated. On one hand, Canada did

participate in the Korean War at the behest of the Americans, but this does not mean that Denis

Stairs is incorrect on either the importance of the United Nations or the Canadian interest in

constraining the United States – though such distancing efforts should be placed in their proper

context. Just the same, while surely interested in ensuring that peace prevailed in Indochina, this

does not mean that Canada was not also complicit in American action – even if such effort at

proximity remained relatively modest in nature.4

With the conclusion to America’s military forays, however, one can detect a notable decline in

the Canadian role in Asia-Pacific security affairs. This decline undoubtedly has much to do with

Washington’s own disengagement from the region following the Vietnam debacle. But it is

equally a result of Sino-American rapprochement, which finally put an end to the possibility of a

war between both countries that could escalate to nuclear use and destabilize the wider East-

West balance. Henceforth, Canada would look at Asia-Pacific security with some degree of

equanimity. Yet Canada’s disengagement took place just as its economic and trade relations in

the region were rapidly developing, first with Japan, then with the newly industrialized

economies, and most recently with China. In that sense, Canadian behavior seems to violate that

well hued realist notion that from economic interests inevitably arise strategic concerns.

4 References to the debate over Canada’s role in Korea and Vietnam are raised by Timothy Sayle (2007) and Patrick

Lennox (2009).

12

Yet such musings tend to overlook what Haglund (1999, p. 191) calls America’s “overwhelming

presence” in Canada’s economy, which “greatly reduces the discrepancy between Asia-Pacific

and European trade profiles.” Just as it is important not to overstate the importance of trade with

the Asia-Pacific, one should be wary of exaggerating the potential impact of China’s rise to

Canada’s economic future. Despite claims of a “strategic partnership” in 2005, Canada’s trade

with China remains small and is indeed declining relative to other advanced Western economies.

As noted by Bruce Gilley (2011, p. 255), “To the extent that Canada is structurally integrated

with any Asian country, it is Japan, not China, and neither comes close to rivalling Canada's

structural integration with the United States.”

Of course, successive Canadian governments have continued to emphasize Canada’s role as a

Pacific nation. The Trudeau government claimed that it had “new interest in Pacific affairs

generally” (Keith 1992, p. 319), even if little of substantive actually emerged under his tenure. In

turn, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney promised a more muscular role in the Pacific, whether by

creating a three-oceans navy or procuring nuclear submarines that could buttress Canada’s

surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capability in that theatre (Langdon and Ross 1987;

Sokolsky 1989). But Mulroney’s naval ambitions would fall prey to tough economic and

budgetary realities. Even his Liberal successor seemed much more inclined to focus on economic

matters – exemplified by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic

Cooperation forum and decision to send Team Canada missions to China.

Canada’s only significant venture in Asia-Pacific security after Indochina appears to have been

Mulroney’s North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue (NPCSD), which was designed to

facilitate discussions on security issues between government officials (track-one) and academics

(track-two) from key North Pacific countries (Henderson 1992). Yet the Dialogue was also

notoriously short-lived, lasting from 1990 to 1993. One participant even concludes that the

NPCSD’s sudden end “damaged Canada’s reputation in the region” and left many people to

doubt the country’s “staying power” (Jones 2008, p. 15). It was surely Canada’s most significant

attempt to become strategically re-engaged in that region. Since then, most of Canada’s others

efforts have been limited to narrow economic concerns, in which security matters were largely

left to the initiative of other Asia-Pacific players. Canada might have then punched “above our

weight” on issues of economics and trade, as Hugh Stephens (2012, p. 3) recently described it.

But even if true, it would still be an exaggeration to use the label strategic to describe such

economic activity, let alone grand strategy.

<A> Conclusion

Much of Canada’s forays in the Pacific were underpinned by concern over the direction of

American strategic policy and its detrimental impact on the Central Front. This reveals not only

the historic limits to the country’s strategic role in that theatre, but also the challenges likely to

arise in the pursuit of an independent grand strategy for the region, notwithstanding the

occasional exhortations on Canada’s place as a “Pacific nation.” Yet this does necessarily mean

that Canada’s Pacific strategy has simply come and gone. Nor does it mean, as John Holmes

(1971, p. 9) once said, that Canada should leave “security initiatives to those giants” of the

Pacific Rim and concentrate instead “on economic issues.” Canada could very well find itself

strategically re-engaged and in pursuit of a grand strategy in the Asia-Pacific, but it could only

13

do so as a North American rather than a Pacific nation – and one with a historic and intimate

strategic partnership with the United States.

Much still depends on how America’s own strategic orientation to the Pacific develops, with

perhaps the most important question being how Washington responds to China’s rise. Does the

United States continue to hedge its bets by combining elements of engagement with

containment? Or does it move more decisively in either direction? After all, the Obama

administration has recently announced a pivot towards the Asia-Pacific, after nearly a decade in

which America’s strategic attention was largely fixated on the “global war on terrorism” and

stabilization missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is still too soon to know whether this strategic

re-engagement actually represents a prelude to more significant changes in American strategy,

but Canada would do well to recognize that Washington’s attention will increasingly be directed

across the Pacific.

So far, Canada has shown little interest in the American debate on how to best deal with a rising

China, even if much of its economically-driven behavior speaks of an implicit preference for

engagement. And the United States has preferred to look to its own resources and those of its key

Asian allies to buttress the offshore balancing elements of its hedging strategy. Yet this might

very well change in the coming years. On one hand, Washington seems set to implement some

modest effort at defense retrenchment, which could still impact its capabilities in the Asia-Pacific

and lead to some cajoling of its key allies, including Canada. On the other hand, there is a

possibility that the United States might need to openly buttress its military balancing role against

China. As such, unless the geo-strategic situation changes sufficiently to permit greater

engagement, Canada is likely to feel even greater American attention on its role in the region.

It is difficult to assess the Canadian response. Much depends on the context, specifically whether

Canada’s acquiescence to American preferences would result in a trade-off to the pursuit of an

independent role abroad. For example, officials would likely be much more open to cooperate in

the face of either growing Chinese belligerence or explicit interest among America’s allies in the

theatre. Otherwise, Canada might be tempted to continue its strategically disengaged role in the

Asia-Pacific – though officials would likely not openly criticize or obstruct American action and,

if necessary, might even offer the covert use of military assets in support of our ally.

That being said, Canada might have little choice other than to fall in line with the Americans,

especially if they hinted in no uncertain terms their interest in Canadian support. First, Canada

could seek out greater military-to-military ties with a number of American allies in the region,

such as Australia and perhaps even Japan. Second, it could pursue a greater naval role in support

of American strategy in the Pacific, which seems especially natural given the historic

cooperation and high-level of interoperability between both countries’ respective fleets. This

would necessarily the further repositioning of naval assets from the Atlantic to the Pacific

(Adams 2012). It could also very well involve Canadian involvement in naval exercises beyond

RIMPAC and in any future maritime “coalitions of the willing.” Even then, however, officials

would likely prefer to situate such cooperation on a multilateral basis – though given America’s

suspicion over such multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific, it would likely have to settle for a

semblance of a more independent role, such as by encouraging further Sino-American dialogue.

14

Naval assets have a certain advantage irrespective of the Canadian response. While useful for

open naval cooperation with the Americans, they also represent very flexible assets that could be

used in a more unpublicized manner. In either case, however, it is important that these naval

platforms have the capabilities necessary to participate in more contested maritime domains,

especially given China’s growing anti-access capabilities designed to contest American maritime

supremacy. With current plans to replace Canada’s aging frigates and destroyers, the government

should ensure that any next-generation naval assets be capable of operating in more contested

domains in East Asia. Sadly, there has been little discussion on what naval capabilities might be

required for future contingencies in the Asia-Pacific – and whether more advanced systems, such

as the Aegis combat system, might even be required (McDonough 2012).

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