From Peacekeeping to Peacemaking: Canada's Response to the Yugoslav Crisis by Nicholas Gammer (review)

368 letters in canada 2002 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 American economies in exchange for the material benefits that greater access to the United States market would make possible?= Two, >In accepting American proposals for closer economic partnership, did Pearson=s government sacrifice Canada=s political independence?= Donaghy would answer >yes= to the first question and >no= to the second. Pearson=s government, he writes, >virtually redefined the parameters of postwar Canadian-American relations. The economic relationship was increasingly grounded in a shared recognition of the value of formalized structures for continental cooperation. These in turn were slowly uncoupled from political considerations. Rather than compromising Canada=s independence, Pearson=s pursuit of closer economic relations with the United States rescued Canada from the parochial influence of Walter Gordon and his nationalist allies.= In this way the book is also the story of Lester Pearson, to whom Donaghy gives most of the credit for this transformation in Canadian-American relations. Pearson had to deal not only with the Americans, who could be tough and demanding, but he also had to cope with divisions in his own government, steering a careful course among competing ministers, especially between the nationalist Walter Gordon and the ambitious Paul Martin. Donaghy painstakingly describes the various sets of negotiations over trade, finance, defence, magazines, the Mercantile Bank, and more, and presents a very convincing analysis of the growing economic co-operation and integration of the Canadian and American economies, a transformation that he sees as a pretty good thing. But this policy of closer integration was not prepared in advance of the negotiations, it emerged from them, and it wasn=t an idea that originated with Pearson. The Autopact was signed and bilateral tariffs were reduced >despite= the Pearson government=s >professed intention to reduce Canada=s economic dependence on the United States.= Indeed, the outcome of the economic negotiations was less a Canadian accomplishment than it was a >triumph= of American undersecretary of state George Ball=s >continentalist vision.= Donaghy characterizes the United States as a >tolerant ally,= hence the title of the book, but with this economic integration well underway the Americans could afford to be understanding and >tolerant= of Canadian differences in foreign policy. The best chapters are those dealing with economic questions; as Donaghy rightly points out, it is these issues that historians have tended to shy away from. The chapters on Vietnam and the >containing= of 1960s Canadian nationalism cover territory that has been well travelled before, and they are somewhat less rewarding. But it is a good book, bringing new reflection on an important decade in Canadian-American relations. (DAVID MACKENZIE) Nicholas Gammer. From Peacekeeping to Peacemaking: Canada=s Response to the Yugoslav Crisis McGill-Queen=s University Press. x, 244. $ 27.95 humanities 369 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 Nicholas Gammer=s book is the first full-length analysis of Canada=s engagement with the wars of Yugoslav succession (1991B95). It is not an operational examination of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping during the civil conflict. The main finding is that the foreign policy of Brian Mulroney=s Progressive Conservative government (1984B93) shifted because of governmental , national, and international factors. It became much more supportive of multinational intervention to stop conflict and human rights abuses. Gammer is persuasive, but he also undercuts his argument about the government=s approach by revealing flaws in its thinking. The influence and extent of Ottawa=s shift towards assertiveness seem somewhat exaggerated . Gammer highlights Mulroney=s strong political, legal, and military support of interventionism. The author argues that his government challenged the principle of sovereignty and moved to an interventionist stance by recognizing Croatia and Slovenia (January 1992), attempting to bolster international humanitarian law, and deploying peacekeepers to Sarajevo (July 1992) and Srebrenica (May 1993BMarch 1994). This thorough discussion clearly reveals the multifaceted nature of Ottawa=s engagement with the Yugoslav crisis. The principal focus is on the calls by the prime minister and the secretary of state for external affairs, Barbara McDougall, for more assertive and intrusive action by the UN, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the...