The Czech and Slovak armed forces immediately before the CSFR split: notes from Canadian classified diplomatic records

Abstract

A recent Access to Information Act request to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and international Trade resulted in the release of 256 pages of text concerning Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR) defense and security issues. A close look at the available records reveals some of the subjects of interest to the Canadian government as well as the relative importance given to various security and defense issues. The material also offers information which is not usually very accessible to researchers. From the pages that were released, I conclude that the Canadian government, in the last year preceding the end of the CSFR did not have a very good appreciation of what was happening within the armed forces and that its reporting and, particularly, its analysis on security and defense were rather superficial. Of course, this is only based on a limited sample of the records. This conclusion will only stand as long as the remaining classified records is kept under wrap. However, I believe that the records released under the act could be of assistance to researchers attempting to piece together the history of the dying days of the Czechoslovak armed forces. This story has yet to be written.