Preface

This book contains twenty essays on Canadian foreign policy.It primarily covers the period from the Second World War through to the early 2000s and treats policy under Prime Ministers Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent, John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau.These essays are not theoretical; instead, they are narrative accounts based on extensive research into archives and interviews conducted in Canada, the United States, and Britain.I was very fortunate in acquiring early access to many hitherto closed collections of government and private papers, and the references, I believe, still remain a useful guide to the sources.An earlier collection of my essays, Canada at War: Conscription, Diplomacy, and Politics (2020), covered the period from the Great War through the Second World War and its aftermath.The two volumes together cover much of my writing on Canadian foreign policy, Canada-US and Canada-UK relations, and the Canadian military.I have chosen to group the essays thematically in three sections focusing on Canada's relationship with the United States, with the United Kingdom, and with the world.Some might have preferred a chronological organization, but it should be easy enough for anyone who so wishes to read the articles in the order they originally appeared by simply checking the publication dates on the permissions pages.Because the chapters were written some years ago, they will not seem current.I talk in chapter 6 of NATO winning the Cold War, for example, and keeping the peace since the 1990s.Clearly that does not take into account President Putin's Russia and its aggression against Ukraine since 2012.How could it?These are historical essays written by a historian.I have views on present events, and I have sometimes expressed them in the media.I have, however, not felt obliged to bring the chapters up to date.Indeed, that would destroy their value as historical artefacts.If I wrote of NATO's success in the 1990s, that was true at the time the

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