Providing a comprehensive continental defense against the growing Soviet nuclear threat was not an automatic response. Many supporters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) believed that it was the United States’ best hope to prevent a surprise attack and that it should be the primary element of U.S. defense policy. As long as the United States could threaten the Soviet Union with its own devastating nuclear holocaust, the Soviet Union would not risk provoking an atomic exchange. Many SAC supporters argued that any funds diverted from strengthening SAC could weaken the overall U.S. defense posture. By funding SAC, supporters knew what they were getting a decent return for their military dollar and enhancing U.S. offensive capabilities.
The loss of its atomic monopoly caused the United States to give continental defense improvement a higher priority. Erecting an adequate defense, though, came with a wide-variety of inherent problems. Would it work? If it was effective, how close to perfection would it be? As the Soviet atomic arsenal grew and would soon contain the even more power hydrogen bomb, a near 100% efficiency had to be achieved; with anything less, there might as well be no defense at all—unless the purpose of improved continental defenses was not to protect population, industry, and national infrastructure but SAC. Warning SAC of approaching enemy bombers would provide SAC with the necessary alert to get airborne and take its deadly payload on a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union and the greater amount of warning time the better. If that was the case, then it was the deterrent value of continental defense, including the early warning element, that would become its primary purpose for existing. Before these issues could be further explored, the United States and Canada would have to decide whether a
comprehensive continental defense would be worth the monetary commitment needed and, if so, what should be the components of the continental defense system.
By the early 1950s, the president, government agencies, and the military had authorized numerous committees to study continental defense issues. Because of the increasing importance of technology in defensive matters, scientists often made up the membership and substantially contributed to these studies. A topic that was intensely debated and scrutinized thoroughly was early warning, particularly the establishing of a radar chain as far north as technologically and logistically possible. The DEW Line and other continental defense issues attracted increased hostility from military leaders, who had concerns about the primacy and funding of SAC.
Many Canadian government officials became cautious of the rumblings for improved continental defenses emanating from the United States. They were under no illusions that a more comprehensive continental defense would involve Canadian territory. They questioned not only what the extent of that commitment would be but what the defense partnership with the United States would entail. A large part of the continental defense system would be placed on Canadian territory, potentially bringing more U.S. military and civilian personnel into Canada. Some of the more important problems arising from this arrangement were sovereignty concerns, fiscal matters, and manpower. Another major concern for Canada, as pointed out in a memorandum by W. H. Barton, Defence Liaison (1) Division, to Jules Léger, Under-Secretary of State for
External Affairs, was, “Will the existing arrangement for command and control be adequate, and if not, what steps should Canada take to ensure that the air defence system operates with
maximum effectiveness and that at the same time Canadian interests are protected?”1 Canada
must be careful to protect its national interests in a bilateral arrangement, especially when cooperating with a superpower.
If U.S security from the Soviet nuclear threat was to become a reality, then the United States must place more emphasis on defending the American continent from air attack. In order to improve the continental air defenses, collaboration with Canada was essential. Since the most plausible route that Soviet bombers could take to U.S. continental targets was over Canada, the northern neighbor of the United States was sure to figure greatly into U.S. continental defense strategy. The greater the cooperation between Canada and the United States, the better the chances for sufficient air defenses, which included more elaborate radar coverage, advance interceptor aircraft, and surface-to-air missiles. All of these features would be tied together into a centralized command and control system. Ultimately, the DEW Line would become a major component of the continental defense system. First, though, the DEW Line would not only have to be conceived, but would need the required approval from both the United States and Canadian governments.
With the approach of World War II, the relationship between the United States and Canada significantly changed, as the nations came closer together, especially in matters concerning the common defense of North America. In 1938, when Japan was already at war with China and becoming increasingly aggressive and when Germany was shaking off the
restraints of the Versailles treaty, at Queen’s University on 18 August, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a speech in which he promised, “[T]he people of the United States will not stand by if domination of Canada is threatened by any other Empire.”2 Two days after
Roosevelt’s proclamation, Mackenzie King said:
We, too, have our obligations as a good friendly neighbor, and one of these is to see that, at our own instance, our country is made as immune from attack or possible invasion as we can reasonably be expected to make it, and that, should the occasion ever arise, enemy forces should not be able to pursue their way either by land, sea, or air, to the United States across Canadian territory.3
While not disagreeing with Roosevelt’s declaration for defending a threatened Canada, King emphasized in his response that the Canadian position would not be one of total
defenselessness and that Canada would do all in its power to help protect the northern approaches of the United States from enemy attack. King stopped short of interpreting Roosevelt’s pronouncement as some sort of defense pact. The Canadian Prime Minister said nothing about coming to the aid of the United States if it were attacked by means other than through Canadian territory.
Even though Canadians might have had some qualms about this new arrangement, contemporaries and historians regarded Roosevelt’s pronouncement as an extension of the 19th
century Monroe Doctrine to include Canada. If not a change in foreign policy, at least
Roosevelt made explicit in his address at Queen’s University that Canada is now included in the American defense strategy of the Western Hemisphere.4 The exchange of sentiments on defense between Roosevelt and King in 1938 was the beginning of a closer military relationship between the United States and Canada.5
Roosevelt’s statement about aiding in the defense of Canada recognized the changing reality of Canada’s defense position. It was a subtle indication that Canada’s traditional defense partner, Great Britain, might not be able to provide Canada support as in the past. In 1940 the United States and Canada formed a cooperative partnership for the defense of North America, partly as a result of the growing reality that Great Britain’s involvement in the defense of Canada was waning. With the outbreak of the war in Europe in September 1939, Britain had to place primary emphasis on the European continent and the British Isles. By the summer of 1940, not only could Great Britain supply little to aid in Canada’s defense, but Britain herself was under the serious threat of a potential German invasion.6
Mackenzie King’s 1938 response to Roosevelt’s pledge verbalized a major concern of Canadian - United States relations: the threat to Canadian sovereignty. Would thousands of U.S. troops in Canada raise some nationalistic apprehensions among the Canadian people? If these troops did enter Canada, could the United States be persuaded to remove them at Canada’s request? Mackenzie King, along with succeeding Canadian leaders, realized the potential hazards of increased defense commitments with Canada’s stronger southern neighbor. The realities of World War II, however, brought Canada and the United States into a special
partnership for the defense of North America. Canada, exercising the independence in matters of foreign policy that it had gained in 1931, waited until 10 September 1939, to declare war against Germany, a week after Great Britain.7
In the summer of 1940, when the war in Europe was at a particularly low point for the Allies, pressures were increasing in the United States, but especially in Canada, to address the issue of joint defense of North America. A number of members of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, a private institution comprising businessmen, government officials, and academics interested in public awareness of foreign policy, released the following statement to try to influence future defense policy:
While self-respect demands that Canadians conduct their own defense as much as possible, the United States will, in order to protect herself, insist on intervening at once if Canada is attacked or threatened – particularly if she is not sure of . . . Canada’s strategy and strength. Therefore, Canada’s best chance of maintaining her national existence is the frank admission from the beginning that her defense must be worked out in cooperation with the United States, on the basis of a single continental defense policy. The emphasis must therefore be on continental effort rather than on national effort.8 [emphasis added]
In this statement by a private entity, Canadian concern for defense is carefully balanced by concern for sovereignty. It is important to point out, though, that Canadian sovereignty issues were not yet formulated into specific public policy.
The next month, on 17-18 August 1940, the heads of government of Canada and the United States met at Ogdensburg, New York to discuss Canadian-United States defense. From this meeting came the announcement of the creation of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (PJBD). The purpose for such a bilateral organization was greater cooperation and coordination for the defense of North America. The text of the Ogdensburg Agreement follows:
The Prime Minister and the President have discussed the mutual problems of defense in relation to the safety of Canada and the United States. It has been agreed that a Permanent Board on Defense shall be set up at once by the two countries. This Permanent Board on Defense
shall commence immediate studies relating to sea, land and air problems including personnel and material. It will consider in the broad sense the defense of the north half of the Western Hemisphere. The Permanent Joint Board on Defense will consist of four or five members from each country, most of them from the services. It will meet shortly.9
The PJBD met for the first time on 26-27 August 1940 and became the primary conduit of senior military and diplomatic contact between the two countries. The term “permanent” was not chosen randomly or without thought by the President and the Canadian prime minister.10
They assumed that this organization would continue after World War II.
The PJBD established the precedent for the conduct of defense relations between Canada and the United States. The PJBD forwarded its recommendations to their respective
governments, creating “institutional arrangements.” The sides looked at continental defense cooperation as a partnership.11 The Canadian-United States defense arrangement created by the
1947, Canada and the United States agreed to continue defense cooperation in peacetime. Thus the PJBD continued into the Cold War.13
The Canadians had begun to formulate their postwar defense commitments as early as January 1945. A Canadian study group, the Advisory Committee on Post-Hostilities Problems, believed that no hostile power would pose a threat to the Western Hemisphere “for several years at least [but] adequate protection against airborne attacks, especially from the north, northeast and northwest has become an essential part of North American defenses.” The committee also recommended that Canada become more involved in defense efforts for North America, pointing out that these efforts needed greater coordination with the United States. What was implicit was that Canada’s primary partner for defense after 1945 would be the United States, not Great Britain.14 This exchange of defense partners astutely reflected the reality of the postwar world. Great Britain would spend many years trying to repair its war-damaged economy. In the years immediately following the war, Great Britain would have to lessen its world-wide commitments and would be in no position to reestablish closer defense cooperation with Canada.15 Canadian officials would have to decide whether to maintain the closer defense relations established during World War II or to attempt to extricate themselves from this potential troublesome association with a partner as large and powerful as the United States. The option of defending itself (and convincing the United States that Canada’s defensive measures met U.S. requirements for defending the upper part of the North American continent), though less threatening to Canadian sovereignty, would be more expensive. These realities and the pro-American attitude of the Mackenzie King government led Canada to favor the continuation of the PJBD and support the creation of a special committee under the PJBD to broaden the Canadian-United States military defense partnership.
After the war, the defense of North America grew more complex. New threats began to appear, forcing more time and effort to be spent on current projects and preparing future plans for joint continental defense. To reduce the burden on the PJBD, the Board recommended the creation of a lower-level committee specifically to focus on generating and implementing a Basic Security Plan that would guide postwar and later Cold War joint continental defense policies. The Basic Security Plan, as recommended by the PJBD and approved by the U.S. and Canadian Joint Chiefs of Staff, would be put into motion, if both governments agreed, at the eruption of hostilities or if they felt that hostile action against North America was inevitable. Accordingly, the Basic Security Plan “represents simply the best view of the military advisors of the
government of the two countries on the defense of North America.”16 On 28 February 1946, the PJBD created the Military Cooperation Committee (MCC), another joint entity. The purpose of the MCC was to recommend cooperation in defending North America from potential threats. The MCC was the “second major institutional expansion of the U.S.-Canadian defense relationship.17
The Soviet Union recognized the closer defensive ties between the United States and Canada and showed concern by denouncing their cooperation. According to United States officials, Soviet propaganda made “a special point of taunting the Canadians as the victims of U.S. imperialism.”18
The MCC focused on planning, spending much time developing a Basic Security Plan (BSP). In formulating a BSP, military planners surmised what the future threats to the “north half of the western hemisphere” might be. The MCC agreed that the Soviet Union posed the greatest threat to the North American continent. However, the Canadian and United States representatives disagreed on the immediacy of the Soviet threat. The United States, although
slow in implementing continental defenses, worried from the end of World War II that a surprise air attack on the continental U.S. would be the most likely beginning of the next general war. Some historians have dubbed this the “Pearl Harbor syndrome,” saying that the United States had an “over-riding fear of a bolt from the blue.”19 Canadian concerns about matters of continental defense forced the United States to approach continental defense problems more slowly, allowing more time for serious examination of defense plans and thus helping to shape their ultimate composition.
At a very basic level the BSP was a strategy to coordinate closely the land, air and naval forces of Canada and the United States in the event of hostilities directed against North America. As stated above, the planning focused on an emergent Soviet threat as the most likely danger. Because of this, the defense of continental North America needed to include surface and air surveillance to provide early warning of a trans-polar air attack. What both countries would be able to do with this warning, and the length of warning provided, improved over the years, but not without extensive debate on what the proper composition of the radar coverage should be – always mindful of the price tag attached to these endeavors. The first BSP agreed upon in 1946 took into account the growing importance of the Arctic region for staging military operations and called for “a program of air photography, mapping and charting, tests of personnel and
equipment in the Arctic environment.” To prepare better for joint operations, the BSP also involved personnel exchanges between the corresponding services and promoted standardization of equipment and training.20
As planning matured and the defense relationship strengthened, the BSP included the sharing of intelligence, bilateral exercises to test and improve mutual defense efforts and developing a more sophisticated joint command structure. What began as an important
continuation of joint defense efforts in peacetime would ultimately culminate in the creation of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in 1957. The original purpose of
NORAD was to establish “a bi-national command, centralizing operational control of continental air defenses against the threat of Soviet bombers.”21
In 1949, the MCC sent its recommendations for slight adjustments of the Basic Security Plan to the PJBD, which in turn endorsed them and forwarded the changes to their respective Joint Chiefs of Staff. Approved, the new Basic Security Plan stated that:
It may be put into effect by decision of the two Governments upon the outbreak of hostilities or in anticipation of such an event . . . it sets forth in detail the manpower and facilities which should be available in the organization that should be provided to meet an emergency. . . it represents . . the best view . . . on the defense strategy of North America.22
The BSP could be reviewed and modified according to any new information or any change of circumstances. The Basic Security Plan’s implementation was not immediate, due to financial constraints of both countries and the belief that the Soviet Union would be unable to strike decisively at either Canada or the United States until 1952 at the earliest.23 There were some improvements in the areas of standardization of equipment and more consistency in training, but outside of discussion at various levels, little was done in the late-1940s to address the need to increase early warning time for a trans-polar air attack.
While the United States and Canada improved and extended commitments to continental defense in the immediate post-war years, another significant alliance was taking shape in Europe in the latter part of the decade. The size of the conventional forces maintained by the Soviet Union, who did not demobilize its forces to the extent of the other Allies, caused concern among