The Cold War and After, Essay Example

It seems to me that after the World War II Canada had all the possibilities to maintain and promote its status of a Big Power. At least, economically the country had all the preconditions for staying among the world’s elite as there happened to be a rather smooth transition from war to peace. However, in the period between 1945 and 1948 Canadian government was concerned with promoting economical and social welfare and with prompting demobilization. Therefore, the country wasn’t able to maintain its military strength and more importantly there was no desire among the political officials to encourage the development of military forces because a prerogative attention and funding was given to social and economic spheres. Consequently, in the immediate post-war period, Canada had turned into a “middle power” and had fallen under an unofficial control of the USA concerning a vast variety of military operations and the country wasn’t able to break this status in later years.

The participation of Canada in mostly all UN and some non-UN peacekeeping operations in the period between 1947 and 1989 can by no means be considered an ‘unprofitable distraction that warped public opinion about the proper role of the military’. Firstly, due to the fact that peacekeeping was cheaper than involvement in other military alliances. And secondly, because of Canadians’ public pride that their country has a status of a major peacekeeping nation. Eventually, peacekeeping became Canada’s trademark, an engagement that is perceived separately from other military roles and which is viewed positively by the public.

From a first glance it may seem that Granatstein’s generalization is quite true. However, it should be noted that Trudeau years were marked not simply by “indifference” to the military, but rather by a certain level of hostility as during his tenure the size of Canadian Forces was severely cut and there occurred a stern change in military priorities. Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that Trudeau’s defense expenditures were quite the same as those of Mulroney. I find Granatstein’s statement regarding Canada’s 18^th Prime Minister to be absolutely true. Even though the Mulroney government was proposing a number of reforms in respect to CF, was promising a budget and force number increase, and was willing to undertake a review of the national defense policy, still none of these declarations were fulfilled. Basically, the only achievement of Mulroney regarding the CF was the re-introduction of distinctive uniforms for the three military branches.

It seems to me that even though the USA exercises certain control over Canada, still the country depends upon its southern neighbor mostly in terms of military and economical cooperation. However, in terms of the developments in military, economic and social spheres that were undertaken by Canadian governments since 1989, the country appears to be quite independent. For instance, in recent decades Canadian military forces were (and still are) going through a process of “organizational and attitudinal change”, however those changes have nothing to do with the USA as they origin from absolutely Canadian internal problems. Furthermore, the White Paper on Defense of 1994 states that Canadian military forces have connection with the US only in terms of North American defense, but regarding all other military involvements Canada is absolutely self-directed.