Canada and Ballistic Missile Defense 1954-2009 by James G. Fergusson
$34.95
Canada and Ballistic Missile Defense 1954-2009 : Déjà Vu All Over Again by James G. Fergusson
This book examines Canada’s hesitant involvement in U.S. missile defense programs. Fergusson uncovers a recurring pattern of indecision stemming from weak leadership, internal conflicts, and a reliance on U.S. protection. The book argues that this indecision has hindered Canada’s ability to shape its global role and offers essential insights for policymakers, scholars, and students of Canadian foreign and defense policy.
“This is the first attempt to tell the full story of Canada’s policy regarding ballistic missile defence. Fergusson lives and breathes this topic and, in this book, he demonstrates his unsurpassed personal experience and knowledge of all the relevant government documents and academic literature from Canada, the US, and elsewhere. He is ‘Mr. BMD’ in Canada, and few can approach his expertise. His book is a much-needed corrective to the biased and often ideologically based accounts dealing with different aspects of Canadian policy-making in this area.” – Danford Middlemiss, co-author of Canadian Defence: Decisions and Determinants
“This is important scholarship. It is the first history of Canada and ballistic missile defence, placing the most recent debates in the context of more than fifty years of developments and revealing recurring (and lamentable) patterns of Canadian decision making. Moreover, it sheds needed light on Canadian involvement in NORAD, Canada-US relations more broadly, and how important defence decisions are made in Canada.” – Joseph Jockel, author of Canada in NORAD, 1957-2007: A History
Since the mid-1950s, successive Canadian governments have responded to US ballistic missile defence initiatives with fear and uncertainty. Officials have endlessly debated the implications – at home and abroad – of participation. Drawing on previously classified government documents and interviews with senior officials, James Fergusson offers the first full account of Canada’s unsure response to US initiatives. He reveals that factors such as weak leadership and a tendency to place uncertain and ill-defined notions of international peace and security before national defence have resulted in indecision. In the end, policymakers have failed to transform the ballistic missile defence issue into an opportunity to define Canada’s strategic interests at home and on the world stage.
James G. Fergusson is the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies and a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba.
