Abstract:

Canada is relatively overlooked in the literature on NATO and especially the so-called ‘Second Cold War’ from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. In this talk, Dr Luc-André Brunet will explore the policies pursued by prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney in East-West relations and arms control, and how far Canada provided a distinctive voice on these issues. He will also discuss the rise of the Canadian peace movement and its influence on policy-makers. Drawing on newly available archival evidence from nine countries, this talk will also reveal how allies viewed Canadian initiatives, providing new insights into intra-NATO relations during the final decade of the Cold War.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Luc-André Brunet is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History at The Open University and Deputy Director of the Cold War Studies Project at LSE IDEAS. He is the author of Forging Europe: Industrial Organisation in France, 1940-1952 (2017) and, most recently, ‘Unhelpful Fixer? Canada, the Euromissile Crisis, and Pierre Trudeau’s Peace Initiative, 1983-84’ in The International History Review (2018).

For more information please visit http://www.open.ac.uk/people/lb26383