Canada in NATO

{{main|List of permanent representatives of Canada to NATO}}

Canada is a principal initiator (founding country) of the alliance.[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nato-when-canada-really-mattered-feature NATO: When Canada Really Mattered] by Norman Hillmer in The Canadian Encyclopedia This Atlanticist outlook was a marked break with Canada's pre-war isolationism, and was the first peacetime alliance Canada had ever joined.

Canadian officials such as Hume Wrong and Lester B. Pearson and including Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent worked in favour of the alliance because they sought to contain the Soviet Union, as did other members, and because they hoped the treaty would help to eliminate any potential rivalries between the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European great powers (principally at the time France, but later including West Germany), where Canada had to choose sides. This had long been the overriding goal of Canadian foreign policy.

The main Canadian contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty was Article 2 which committed members to maintain a "free" political system and to promote economic cooperation, in addition to the more usual diplomatic and military matters. Trans-Atlantic unity in political and economic matters has not come to fruition, as European states have looked toward the European Union and its antecedents while North America had the North American Free Trade Agreement, later superseded by United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.

Canada has stationed troops in Germany (at Kaiserslautern) since 1951.Isabel Campbell, Unlikely Diplomats: The Canadian Brigade in Germany, 1951-64 (2013). During the 1950s Canada was one of the largest military spenders in the alliance and one of the few not receiving direct aid from the United States.{{cite book|author=Rand Dyck|title=Canadian Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BUOoN8e5Ps0C&pg=PA108|accessdate=22 November 2011|date=March 2011|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-17-650343-7|pages=108–}}

The costs of maintaining forces in Europe combined with those defending its own vast territory and participation in the Korean War caused strain on the Canadian budget during the 1950s.{{cite book|author=John C. Milloy|title=The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1948-1957: community or alliance?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IWa4Q9xOsx8C&pg=PA192|accessdate=22 November 2011|date=22 March 2006|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-3043-0|pages=192–}}

In 1969 then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau withdrew half of Canada's forces in Europe, even as many leftist intellectuals and peace activists called for a complete withdrawal from NATO.{{cite book|author1=Albert Legault|author2=Michel Fortmann|title=A diplomacy of hope: Canada and disarmament, 1945-1988|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CkaV0twc93IC&pg=PA433|accessdate=22 November 2011|year=1992|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-0955-9|pages=433–}}

With the success of the Canadian participation in the Suez Crisis, with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus and on other UN peacekeeping missions like the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, United Nations Operation in Somalia I and Unified Task Force United Nations Operation in Somalia II or the four-year commitment to United Nations Angola Verification Mission II, perception in the 1990s evolved into the feeling that the forces had shifted from conventional warfighting to peacekeeping missions.{{cite book|author=Robert Cameron Orr|title=Winning the peace: an American strategy for post-conflict reconstruction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kq2Dbt0X7I8C&pg=PA49|accessdate=22 November 2011|year=2004|publisher=CSIS|isbn=978-0-89206-444-1|pages=49–}}

The bulk of Canada's military was focused on the less-glamorous NATO mission in Germany, where there remained a brigade group and an air division. In all, over 5,000 soldiers at any given time were deployed until 1993, when the remaining Canadian troops were withdrawn from Europe by the government of Brian Mulroney following the end of the Cold War. The peace dividend was spent elsewhere than on the military.{{cite book|author=John R. Deni|title=Alliance management and maintenance: restructuring NATO for the 21st century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5LE3jdpyDBgC&pg=PA33|accessdate=22 November 2011|year=2007|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=978-0-7546-7039-1|pages=33–}}

Given the small size of Canada's military, most contributions to NATO were political but, during NATO's 1999 Kosovo War, Canadian CF-18 jets were involved in the bombing of Yugoslavia.

Since it began in 2001 Canadian troops were part of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, ISAF.

In March 2011, the Canadian Forces participated in NATO-led UN missions in Libya.

In 2019 it came to light that Canadian governments of the 21st century have been relative lightweights in the Alliance.{{cite journal |last1=Gay |first1=Robert D. |title=NATO Partners: Are They Paying Their Fair Share or Not? |journal=American Intelligence Journal |date=2019 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=150–155 |jstor=27066347 }}

{{reflist}}

• Bercuson, David J. "Canada, NATO, and Rearmament, 1950-1954: Why Canada Made a Difference (but not for very long)," in John English and Norman Hillmer, eds., Making a Difference: Canada's Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order (Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1992) pp 103–24
• Bercuson, David J. and J.L. Granatstein. Lessons Learned? What Canada Should Learn from Afghanistan (Calgary, 2011).
• {{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Isabel |title=Unlikely Diplomats: The Canadian Brigade in Germany, 1951-64 |date=2013 |publisher=UBC Press |isbn=978-0-7748-2565-8 }} [https://networks.h-net.org/system/files/contributed-files/roundtable-xvii-11.pdf online review]
• {{cite journal |last1=Cooper |first1=Andrew F. |last2=Momani |first2=Bessma |title=The Harper government's messaging in the build-up to the Libyan Intervention: was Canada different than its NATO allies? |journal=Canadian Foreign Policy Journal |date=4 May 2014 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=176–188 |doi=10.1080/11926422.2014.934855 |s2cid=154860882 }}
• Granatstein, J. L. "Is NATO Still Necessary for Canada?." CDFAI policy paper, March (2013). [https://web.archive.org/web/20161013055225/http://www.cdfai.org.previewmysite.com/idevicepapers/IsNATONecessaryforCanada.htm online]
• Granatstein, J. L. Canada's Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace (University of Toronto Press, 2002)
• Kasurak, Peter C. A National Force: The Evolution of Canada's Army, 1950-2000 (University of British Columbia Press, 2013)
• Keating, Thomas F., and Larry Pratt. Canada, NATO, and the bomb: the Western Alliance in crisis (Hurtig Pub, 1988).
• {{cite book|author1=Legault, Albert |author2=Michel Fortmann|title=A diplomacy of hope: Canada and disarmament, 1945-1988|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CkaV0twc93IC|year=1992|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP|isbn=9780773509559}}
• Maloney, Sean M. War Without Battles: Canada's NATO Brigade in Germany, 1951-1993 (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1997).

{{Portal|Canada}}

• [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nato-when-canada-really-mattered-feature NATO: When Canada Really Mattered] by Norman Hillmer in The Canadian Encyclopedia
• [https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2014/05/canada-nato.html Canada and NATO]{{cbignore|bot=medic}} by Foreign Affairs Canada

{{Foreign relations of Canada}}

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Category:Foreign relations of Canada

Category:NATO relations