Canada in the Cold War

During the Cold War, Canada 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 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 leading to tensions. Canada refused to join the Vietnam War and in 1984 the last nuclear weapons based in Canada were removed. 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.

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