ABSTRACT
Canada went through the last great power shift with some soul-searching but little harm. From Confederation to the Second World War, Canada was a British country at heart. 1 Although the presence of a significant French-Canadian minority weakened ties to Britain in the francophone parts of the country, Canada's loyalty to the British Empire was unmistakable. Nowhere was this devotion more evident than in Canada's military affairs. When Britain went to war in 1914, Canada obediently followed. Nor, notwithstanding the increasing influence of a Canadian independence movement in the 1920s and 1930s, did the country's political leaders hesitate to join the United Kingdom's struggle against Nazi Germany in 1939. 2 As Britain's global economic and political importance declined at war's end, however, Canadian decision-makers quickly recognized that their country's fate lay with the new hegemonic power, the United States. Although a few members of the Canadian political elite clung to the British connection for decades after the war, there was no turning back, and especially not in matters of national security. Shared geography, values, and interests ensured that Canada was destined to go through the Cold War, post-Cold War, and post-9/11 eras as one of the United States' closest military allies.
