Canadians consider the period between the Second World War and the unification of the armed services in 1968 as a “golden age,” a time when their army dropped the shackles of its imperial past and emerged as a truly national peacekeeping force.
In this landmark book, Peter Kasurak draws on recently declassified documents to show that this era was in fact clouded by the army’s failure to loosen the grasp of British army culture, produce its own doctrine, and advise political leaders effectively. The discrepancy between the army’s goals and the Canadian state’s aspirations as a peacemaker in the postwar world resulted in a series of civilian-military crises that ended only when the scandal of the Somalia Affair in 1993 forced reform.
Kasurak offers an illuminating account of the organizational growing pains that wracked the Canada’s army as it evolved into a force that could reflect the aspirations of both its country and military leadership.
Introduction
1 The 1950s: A Professional Army?
2 Soldiers, Civilians, and Nuclear Warfare in the 1960s
3 The Army and the Unified Force, 1963-67
4 Trudeau and the Crisis in Civil-Military Relations
5 Reform, Regimentalism, and Reaction
6 The Plan for a “Big Army”
7 The Unified Staff and Operational Difficulties
8 Reform and Constabulary Realism
Conclusion; Notes on Sources; Notes; Bibliography; Index
Peter Kasurak is a retired public servant who led the defence and national security sections of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada until 2007. He is also the author of A National Force: The Evolution of Canada’s Army, 1950–2000 and of many articles on Canadian-American relations, the Canadian Army, counter-terrorism, Parliamentary oversight of defence, and police governance. He is currently a part-time instructor in history and political studies at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario.
This book is probably the most exhaustive study of Canadian Army doctrine and development in print. Readers should understand that Kasurak set out to produce a history of the doctrine of the Canadian Army and the development of the force as an institution representative of the nation that it serves. Anyone looking to understand the Canadian Army, its history, institutional culture, and relationship to the Canadian nation will not be disappointed in this book.
~Blake Whitaker, Army History
C.P. Stacey Award for scholarly work in Canadian Military History
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