What role do you think Canada played as a Middle power during the Cold War and how did this shape our relationship in the Global Community?.
Response.
After World War II, Canada emerged as a world power, and ended up with a strong sense of pride and nationalism felt by the citizens. Our role as a "middle power" in the cold war shaped our relationship in the global community. Unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, we were not a superpower. At this time, the world was referred to as a "bipolar world" because of the two superpowers. Being a middle power didn't mean we were a country with no power at all. In fact we had a powerful military, we just didn't use it to attack other countries. Benefits came from being a middle power; we were able to get seats at the council, one of the ten rotating ones, more than any other country. The fact that we were a middle power, our military would be used in various places. This is why peacekeeping became important to us. .
What showed how we were a middle power? Well we didn't start things, or invade countries but we were asked to partake in certain situations, and became members of various groups across the world. We joined la Francophonie (French colonies), British Commonwealth, and Pan American Congress. We were also a part of Red Cross, NATO, NORAD, United Nations, Royal Bank and G8. We never took sides during the war, as we would be asked numerous amounts of times to join the US in military ventures in stopping communism. We disagreed in going to Vietnam, but maintained friendly with the US as we still made trades back and forth. We were able to get out of the ventures USA was sending to because we came up with the idea of peacekeeping. Our military was focused mainly on peacekeeping, and were used by other countries. Our soldiers were sent to keep peace while negotiating was happening in areas where war hadn't broken out yet.