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The Realities of Strategic Planning The Decision to Build the Alaska Highway M. V. BEZEAU In 1982, while serving as Head of the Directorate of History for the Canadian defense ministry, M. V. Bezeau participated in a 40th Anniversary Symposium on the Alaska Highway at Northern Lights College in Fort St. John, British Columbia, near the beginning of the highway. The symposium, organized by Curtis Nordman, presented papers by a number ofscholars on all aspects of the history of the road that connects the North with the Outside. Bezeau challenged a particularly tenacious northern misconception in his article dealing with the decision to construct the road-that it was a supply road needed by the military to support the defense of the North. The prewar British Columbian Premier T. D. Patullo had for many years pushed for a northern road as a way to encourage development in the northern tier of his province. But he had met with a cool reception both in Ottawa and in Washington, D.C., where he also went to enlist support. The Ottawa government was not eager to spend the money which such a venture would cost and not happy about the implications for Canadian sovereignty of a road across Canada to connect two U.S. areas. On the other hand, while some officials in Washington were enthusiastic, the American military saw the project as unnecessary and too far outside its defense mission to be justifiable. The onset of World War /I changed some minds. But as Bezeau points out, the road was not intended as a supply route; it was too primitive, problematical, and unreliable for such use. Moreover, the American military only grudgingly gave approval to the project, and then only on the condition that its construction would divert no military resources needed for the war effort. At first glance, the strategic reasons for building the Alaska Highway appear obvious. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, This article appeared originally in Kenneth Coates, ed., The Alaska Highway: Papers ofthe 40th Anniversary Symposium (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985), pp. 25-35; it is reprinted here by permission. 301 302 M. V. BEZEAU and destroyed a large part of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet. American territorial vulnerability immediately increased, especially in the North. Although the Great Circle route, the shortest distance linking Tokyo with the west coast of the United States, passed through the Aleutian Islands, American militaryplanners earlier had concluded that a road to Alaska had little military value. Now, facing a greatly increased threat, they declared that a land link was imperative. Both American and Canadian authorities approved the construction of a highway as a defensive measure. These facts seem to indicate that the military recommendation to build the road stemmed from a careful strategic reassessment of changing defense requirements under wartime conditions. In reality, it did not. For many years prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, various Canadians and Americans advocated construction of a road to Alaska. They stressed economic and developmental advantages but also noted the possible value of such a road for defense.1 In response, the United States War Department repeatedly examined these suggestions and rejected them. From a military point of view, the strategic areas of Alaska were the Panhandle, the south coast, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. These all lay near ocean transport and probable air routes. Other areas had low temperatures and poor communications which made year-round operations difficult. The sea lanes connecting all the valued areas were shorter in both time and distance than any highway route. Moreover, the proposed roads did not provide links to such areas as the Alaska Peninsula and could not do so to Kodiak, Unalaska , and other islands where important installations were located. Thus, sea transport would be required in any case. The navy saw little likelihood of any permanent interruption to sea communications in the event of war with Japan. Shipping could be in short supply in an emergency , but this was more quickly corrected by new marine construction than by building a road. Hence, the defensive value of a highway to Alaska was "negligible," and construction on the basis of military necessity alone was unjustified and unsupportable.2 The Canadian-American Permanent Joint Board on Defense (P.l.B.D.) reached similar conclusions on 15 November 1940.3 Of course, military communications to Alaska could not be, and were not, ignored. Primary reliance was...

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