Lester B. Pearson and the Korean War: Dilemmas of collective security and international enforcement in Canadian foreign policy, 1950–53

Abstract

Canada's engagement in the Korean War was initially presented as an exercise in collective security under the United Nations Charter. However, after China's involvement, an impassioned policy review within the Department of External Affairs demonstrated deep divisions within the department. Those who were determined to sustain Canada's conversion from the mistaken isolationism of the inter‐war period to the ideal of collective security were in dispute with senior members of the department who now favoured the realism of security through the newly‐formed North Atlantic Alliance. It was Lester B. Pearson, as Secretary of State, who brought unity to Canadian policy in conditions which dramatically illustrated the dilemmas of collective security and severely tested Canadian‐American co‐operation. Pearson showed discernment in promoting a Canadian policy which gave strategic priority to collective defence through NATO, while refusing to abandon the collective security ideals of the UN Charter. If the Korean War was a lesson in realism, for Pearson it equally confirmed the necessity of renewed multilateral approaches to peace maintenance through the United Nations ‐ a path which would soon lead to the pioneer peacekeeping experiments of 1956.