The Limits of Constraint: Canadian-American Relations and the Korean War, 1950-51

Abstract

Based on new research from documents in the National Archives of Canada and in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, this paper re-examines some of the key issues of Canadian-American diplomacy during the first seven months of the Korean War. Canadian foreign policymakers faced several difficult decisions during that period. As Denis Stairs has observed, Canada wanted to restrict American actions in Korea; yet at the same time, Canada was itself constrained by the need to preserve unity among the Western allies, by the desire to safeguard Canadian influence in Washington for more vital issues, and by the shared Cold War assumptions which dominated both Canadian and American perceptions of events in Korea.