Author Description

In this incisive and devastating assessment of Canada's long-ignored defence policies, Peter C. Newman applies his authoritative and analytical style to the subject of this country's military priorities. As a benign, non-aggressive world power, Newman asserts, Canada has become almost comically careless of its military commitments. We are taking a free ride, he warns, on the American defence machine - a ride which makes us so vulnerably dependent on and beholden to our powerful neighbour that we have become a colony of the Pentagon. Newman documents the deplorable condition of Canada's "tinpot" navy, the dangerous inadequacy of our land-based troops, and the ludicrously antiquated state of our arctic defences; our only snow-traversing vehicles can be outrun by sled-dogs.In a world beset by awesome atomic stockpiles, Newman comes out strongly against a policy of Canadian nuclear arms, but suggests that Canada must play a positive role in world security with an effective, conventionally armed military force.In this timely, arresting analysis, Peter Newman puts Canadian defence issues into a sometimes frightening global perspective, cogently and accessibly addressing defence problems that have been too long neglected, as well as highly topical issues, such as the testing of cruise missiles on Canadian soil. Newman here is at his trenchant and articulate best, posing the many controversial defence questions that Canadians can no longer ignore.