Canada and Ballistic Missile Defence, 1954-2009: Deja Vu All over Again

"This is the first attempt to tell the full story of Canada's policy regarding ballistic missile defence. Fergusson lives and breathes this topic and, in this book, he demonstrates unsurpassed personal experience and knowledge of all the relevant government documents and academic literature from Canada, the US, and elsewhere. He is `Mr. BMD' in Canada, and few can approach his expertise. His book is a much-needed corrective to the biased and often ideologically based accounts dealing with different aspects of Canadian policy-making in this area."Co-author of Canadian Defence: Decisions and Determinants

"This is important scholarship. It is the first history of Canada and ballistic missile defence, placing the most recent debates in the context of more than fifty years of developments and revealing recurring (and lamentable) patterns of Canadian decision making. Moreover, it sheds needed light on Canadian involvement in NORAD, Canada-US relations more broadly, and how important defence decisions are made in Canada."author of Canada in NORAD, 1957-2007: A History

Since the mid-1950s, successive Canadian governments have responded to US ballistic missile defence initiatives with fear and uncertainty. Officials have endlessly debated the implications - at home and abroad - of participation. Drawing on previously classified government documents and interviews with senior officials, James Fergusson Offers the first full account of Canada's unsure response to US initiatives. He reveals that factors such as weak leadership and a tendency to place uncertain and ill-defined nations of international peace and security before national defence have resulted in indecision. In the end, policy-makers have failed to transform the ballistic missile defence issue into an opportunity to define Canada's strategic interests at home and on the world stage.

is the director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies a professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba.