Why Did Canada End The Cold War

A man named Igor Gouzenko, the secretary of state for Canada, had found evidence that Russian spies had infiltrated the American government system and reported it. this lead to both countries to be in rival of each other. The United States and Soviet Union had nuclear missiles aimed at each other and had World War 3 in their near future until Canada intervened and diverted it. That is why Canada should be labeled an effective middle power during the Cold War era. Canada helped out alot with ending the Cold War by using their advanced technology, diplomatic skills, and with their peaceful mentality.

Though the Cold War had some physical conflict throughout it, most of the the conflict was flexing and showing off who had the bigger “muscles”. The United States and the Russia were constantly showing how advanced their technology was with
their making of rockets and missiles. This lead to the ‘space race’ with both countries competing in who could get into space and on the moon the fastest to gain an advantage and power over the other. Both these countries were at the top of technology field across the world but Canada was right behind both of them. Canada had made plenty of rockets at the same time America and Russia were making them but they chose not to show off as much. Canada developed a rocket named the Black-Brant in 1960 that was able to study and interfere with radio waves in the atmosphere and was the most successful of its type across the world. Canada had also made an advanced satellite shortly after the United States and the Soviet Union made theirs. But Canada's biggest accomplishment at that time was making the landing gear for the Apollo Spacecraft which the United States developed. In 1969 this was the first ship to successfully land on the moon and finally end the space race that had been going on for the past 20 years.

Canada's peaceful mentality really showed during the suez crisis in 1956. Alongside Egypt is the Suez Canal and it is part of the British Empire's land. Egypt’s government did not like that Britain owned part of their land so they took over control there. Britain fought back but the Egyptians had too much gunpowder that was given to them by the Soviet Union. Once Britain found out that the soviet union was helping out Egypt they requested assistance from the other countries of NATO to help take back the canal. NATO decided to bomb the canal and take it back. Canada did not want part of the destruction and killing so they chose not to fight and instead end the conflict peacefully. A man named Lester Pearson who was a canadian scholar and diplomat who came up with the idea of a peacekeeping force that would attempt to end conflicts peacefully if possible.
This force is still used to this day. He informed NATO of his idea and they approved so they ordered a cease fire in Egypt and used the peacekeepers instead. Pearson won a Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution and also stopped the conflict from getting out of hand with other countries jumping into the fight leading to another large scale war.

World War three was looking like it would come in the near future but Canada alongside NATO kept deescalating the conflict and loosening the tension between countries before everything snapped with a large scale war breaking out.
Canada played a very large role in the development of NATO and how they handled each situation involving the Cold War. Canada came up with the peacekeeping force that were successfully de-escalating problems across the world like in the Suez Crisis, Korean war, and in the Congo that might have lead to something bigger. Another thing Canada did with NATO was supply their soldiers to the peacekeeping force and give their navy to them so they could escort trade ships across the Atlantic Ocean that were being Intervened and gun down by Soviet submarines. The last thing Canada did was use a variety of tools to watch over the Soviet Union to keep a look out for an attack. The tools they used were spies, radars, planes, missile detection and many other methods that could detect if an attack was going to happen so they could prepare and report it to the other countries of NATO to set up an effective
defense.

In conclusion Canada was a very effective middle power during the Cold War with their use of technology, peacekeeping forces, and with their assistance to NATO. They de-escalated a lot of conflicts that could have lead to a large scale war or even World War Three. All these points suggest that that Canada made a large impact on the world making them an effective middle power during this era.