ABSTRACT
Since 1949, Canada has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance devoted to collective defence. Early in the 1950s, Canada provided an air division and an armoured brigade to bolster the defences of Western Europe, which had not yet recovered from the Second World War. Canadians are often reminded that their defence effort places Canada near the bottom of the contributors, with Luxembourg and Iceland. According to the Department of National Defence, the primary threat to Canada is that of general nuclear war between the USA and the USSR, against which there is at present no defence but deterrence. Canada’s participation in NATO is an opportunity to influence war planning and US policy. In 1949, it could not have been the intention of the Canadian government to maintain armed forces in Europe forever.
