Anti-Ballistic Missiles and the Liberal–Conservative Internationalist Divide in Cold War Canada, 1966–1970

Abstract

Shortly following Canada's controversial adoption of nuclear weapon roles in NORAD and NATO in 1963 the focus of nuclear debates shifted to the potential impact on Canadian and international security of the construction of US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. This article expands the focus of scholarship on the ABM issue from the political and policymaking settings to include members of the attentive elite and the news media, and finds these groups deeply divided between liberal and conservative internationalists. On the one hand, supporters of liberal internationalism believed that AMB systems would destabilize the international security environment and ultimately increase the likelihood of nuclear war. Conservative internationalists took the opposite position, arguing that the systems represented a necessary addition to the Western nuclear deterrent and would make nuclear war less likely. In other words, the ABM debate exposed deep divisions in Canadian society between those who preferred diplomatic and multilateral versus military means of achieving middle power goals in the international system.