Canada in the Cold War

Canada in the Cold War era
1946–1991[note 1]
Roll-out for the Avro Arrow in October 1957
Including	1945–60, 1960–81, 1982–92
Leader(s)	W. L. Mackenzie King Louis St. Laurent John Diefenbaker Lester B. Pearson Pierre Trudeau Joe Clark John Turner Brian Mulroney
Chronology World Wars and Interwar era Post-Cold War era

Part of a series on the
Military history of Canada
Military history of...
Army Navy Air Force Crown and Forces Militia Colonial New France Acadia Nova Scotia Peacekeeping
Conflicts
Beaver Wars Anglo-French War (1627–29) Acadian Civil War Anglo-Dutch Wars King William's War Queen Anne's War Father Rale's War King George's War Father Le Loutre's War Seven Years' War American Revolutionary War French Revolutionary Wars War of 1812 Pemmican War Rebellions of 1837–1838 Fraser Canyon War Chilcotin War American Civil War Fenian raids Red River Rebellion North-West Rebellion Second Boer War World War I Russian Civil War World War II Korean War Vietnam War October Crisis Oka Crisis Gulf War Somalia Yugoslav Wars Afghanistan Iraq War Libya Mali War ISIL
Installations
Air Force Armed Forces French forts Navy
Lists
Conflicts Operations Peacekeeping Victories Wars
Research
Bibliography Historiography Historians
Canada portal
v t e

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Canada in the Cold War" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Canada in the Cold War was one of the western powers playing a central role in the major alliances. It was an ally of the United States, but there were several foreign policy differences between the two countries over the course of the Cold War. Canada's peacekeeping role during the Cold War has played a major role in its positive global image.^[3][4] The country served in every UN peacekeeping effort from its inception in 1948 until 1989.^[5] This resulted in Canada provided the greatest amount of UN peacekeepers during the Cold War.^[6][7]

Canada was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) in 1958, and played a leading role in United Nations peacekeeping operations—from the Korean War to the creation of a permanent UN peacekeeping force during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Subsequent peacekeeping interventions occurred in the Congo (1960), Cyprus (1964), the Sinai (1973), Vietnam (with the International Control Commission), Golan Heights, Lebanon (1978), and Namibia (1989–1990).

Canada did not follow the American lead in all Cold War actions, sometimes resulting in tensions between the two countries. For instance, Canada refused to join the Vietnam War; in 1984, the last nuclear weapons based in Canada were removed; diplomatic relations were maintained with Cuba; and the Canadian government recognized the People's Republic of China before the United States.

The Canadian military maintained a standing presence in Western Europe as part of its NATO deployment at several bases in Germany—including long tenures at CFB Baden-Soellingen and CFB Lahr, in the Black Forest region of West Germany. Also, Canadian military facilities were maintained in Bermuda, France, and the United Kingdom. From the early 1960s until the 1980s, Canada maintained weapon platforms armed with nuclear weapons—including nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets, surface-to-air missiles, and high-yield gravity bombs principally deployed in the Western European theatre of operations as well as in Canada.

Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).