“Revising the Vision”: Canadian Foreign Policy in the Aftermath of World War Two

Review ''Revising the Vision'': Canadian Foreign Policy in the Aftermath of World War Two MARGARET DOXEY John W. Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943-1957. Volume 2. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982, pp. viii, 443. $37.50. Readers of Volume 1 of The Shaping of Peace (reviewed in the Spring 1982 issue of this Journal) will need no encouragement to turn their attention to Volume 2. The first book cried out for its sequel which, happily, was not unduly delayed and the completion of this impressive study of Canadian theory and practice of "peace-shaping" in the 1940s and 1950s adds an indispensable element to the expanding body of literature on post-World War II Canadian foreign policy. In the author's words, Volume 2 is concerned with "revising the vision": the application of the ideas and concepts developed in the mid-1940s to the realities of the post-war world. In the process those ideas and concepts required constant refinement and modification and it is one of the major virtues of The Shaping of Peace that the rare combination of firsthand 'inside' experience and dispassionate, lucid 'outside ' analysis which John Holmes can provide gives the reader a real sense of the interplay of ideas and events. This is policy-making 'as it happened' - not in a vacuum but in the midst of problems and crises which came, like Hamlet's sorrows, "not single spies but in battalions" (although Igor Gouzenko, who finds his place in these pages, revealed the existence of spies galore). Holmes describes his subject as "a set of political ideas seen in time and space" (p. vi) and he is largely, though not solely concerned with Canada's institutional linkages - the United Nations first and foremost, but also NATO and the Commonwealth. "For a perversely situated country, institutions were essential'' (p. 377) and it was within these frameworks that Canada could make an appropriate and effective contribution to the pursuit of peace and prosperity. "The gospel [in Ottawa] was 'functionalism'" (p. 4), and the basically pragmatic, functional - ·and optimistic - approach of Canadian foreign policy-makers is well illustrated in The Shaping of Peace in such diverse contexts as the negotiations leading to the estab144 lishment of NATO, the Korean War, the expansion of the Commonwealth to include Asian members, the resolution of the membership log-jam at the United Nations and the strains produced by the Suez crisis · in both the Commonwealth and the United Nations. The years from 1947-1957 when the Cold War spread its deepening chill from Europe to Asia saw Canada active on many international fronts in complete contrast to the prevailing theory and practice of1 the 1930s. But if the aspirations and possibilities for Canadian activism in the numerous international bodies set up after the war are brought out in these pages, so too are the perceived limitations on the achievement of an 'independent' foreign policy. The policy-makers in Ottawa were no more enamoured of US policies in many cases than they had been of British policies in an earlier period, but repeatedly the decision was made in the final analysis to go along with, or not to offend, the United States. Changing sides was hardly an option and neutral positions, like those of Sweden and Switzerland, were not realistic for Canada which, perforce, had to play a supplementary role. Holmes comments dryly: "Jumping off a ship can be a grand gesture, but one is apt either to drown or end up permanently on an atoll" (p. 15). One might add that not all atolls have proved to be safe havens in the age of nuclear testing. He describes Canada as technically non-aligned in Asia (p. 189); it was certainly somewhat less aligned than in Europe in that it was not a member of SEATO, the US-Jed security pact for South-East Asia. But for the period covered by The Shaping of Peace (and beyond), in Asia as in Europe, Canada was inevitably associated with US positions and the prolonged hesitation in Ottawa over recognition of the People's Republic of China, described in Chapter 9 of Volume 2, is...