Canada once spent 7.4% of GDP on defence in peacetime.
This is a final look at Canada 75 years ago as presented in the Canada Yearbook.
In 2026, as we re-arm and review our ideas of which allies to place more trust in, this article describes a similar period of transition.
In 1952, Britain was working to repair its war-damaged cities and industries. It was beginning to pay off the tremendous debt load incurred during the war. Expressed in Canadian dollars of 2026, Britain was $2.2 trillion in debt. Britain's war loans from Canada and the US were only completely paid off in 2006.
In contrast to Britain, the United States had done well economically in both world wars ... as it was protected from most direct enemy action by ... 'the stopping power of water'. Its factories turned out and sold large quantities of war essentials.
After extensive industrial investment during the Second World War, the US was the pre-eminent nuclear science, aviation, and manufacturing power of the world when the war ended.
* * *
As the war started, Britain's 1939 ally, Canada, was producing weapons of British design. The challenge after the war was to set up Canada's factories to produce US-designed aircraft and armaments ...
To compensate for inflation, multiply 1952 dollar values x12 to convert to 2026 dollars.
1952: $1.94 billion
2026: over $23 billion
Defence expenditures stood at 6.8% of GDP in 1952 and peaked at 7.4% of GDP in 1953.
At this point, 3.5% to 4% of GDP was spent on social programs and transfers.
This was mainly for OAS (at age 70), Family Allowance and Veterans' Rehabilitation.
The United Nations and The United Nations
The United Nations 'brand' had originally been used in 'our' propaganda to describe 'The Allies' in the Second World War.
To participate in the drafting of the charter of 'The United Nations' in San Francisco in April-June 1945, it was necessary to have declared war on 'The Axis Powers'. That declaration had to be signed before 1 March 1945.
Post-War Developments in Korea
Was the Korean conflict (1950-1953) a 'police action of The United Nations' ?
... or ...
Was the Korean War part of a comprehensive US doctrine to contain the communist power of the USSR?
... The answer is 'yes'.
As they did in Europe, after the Japanese surrender, the Allies occupied and partitioned some Asian countries such as Korea. The USSR zone in post-war Korea was in the north.
In the South
In South Korea, the future President, Syngman Rhee (1875-1965), had been returned from exile in the US. Between 1948 and 1960, South Korean elections could not have been considered 'free and fair'. Rhee was effectively a dictator who crushed dissent. He was deliberately under-armed by the US so he wouldn't turn around and invade the North.
Unique in its diplomatic statements about Asia, the US avoided defining 'territorial red lines' in Korea. Sometimes, it's preferable to be silent on failures of democracy.
In the North
Stalin's preferred candidate (after long deliberation) to lead North Korea, Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) had returned from exile in China. The apparent US ambivalence about arming and protecting South Korea was seen as an opportunity by Kim ... that he could take over the south.
... Stalin finally gave his permission for Kim's invasion. China eventually pledged to support this action if the US got involved.
North Korea began a surprise invasion of the South on 25 June 1950.
* * *
The Soviet Union was boycotting the United Nations Security Council over its failure to recognize China's new government: The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (1949).
'Police Action' ... not a War
... Without a USSR UNSC veto, it was possible for US President Harry Truman to avoid the necessity of obtaining a declaration of war from the US Congress because the UN Security Council Passed Resolutions 82 and 83, which allowed a UN action to go ahead. A coalition of 21 nations, including Canada, participated in this 'police action' of the United Nations.
In April 1950, the US National Security Council had passed a top-secret doctrine - NSC-68 - for the 'containment' of Soviet power. The Korean War was its 'first test' when The People's Republic of China joined the conflict to support North Korea.
* * *
These developments helped let loose the profligate spending by many countries ('on both sides') ... in the development of all the exponentially-redundant horrors of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems ... and modern biological and chemical weapons ... and future proxy wars between superpowers.
While it is perhaps nationally prestigious to possess a pre-owned aircraft carrier. Their main use in recent history has been to project a nation's foreign policy at various locations chosen around the globe.
Canada now makes weapons of US design, rather than of British design.
A veteran of the RCAF, volunteering at the Aviation Museum in Ottawa, offered his opinion to me that the CF-100 was nicknamed 'The Clunk' because of the sound made by the oversized nose-gear strut and door which closed with some force right underneath the cockpit.
He also suggested that the loss of the Avro Arrow (see below) was not as tragic as it seems today because it would have been 'just another Avro plane' [meaning: with lower-quality engineering and refinement than its 'great power' brand-name competitors]. He had spent some of his career in CF-101 Voodoos.
This is the end of the Canada 1952 Yearbook article.
* * *
Here is a Canada 1953 Yearbook article:
The opening refers to Prime Minister Louis St Laurent (1882-1973).
The United Nations had no access to a deployable standing army.
So NATO provides its members with a pledge of mutual aid.
'It must become much more than a defensive alliance'.
Should NATO constitute a pickup 'street gang' anytime a member starts a war?
No ... and Canada-drafted Article 2 aims to promote some of the softer democratic skills.
... and also "eliminating conflict in their national economic policies".
(World-wide blog visitors from our miraculous AI future: This post is from late October 2026.)
The aircraft 'letterboard' can't be resolved.
Below the windows: Air Transport Command.
Accounts from this era suggest that these transport activities were very challenging for RCAF personnel.
* * *
 |
| from: Fall of an Arrow; Murray Peden; 1978; Canada's Wings. |
In the Canadian House of Commons ...
" ... the greatest single achievement in Canadian aviation history, and the greatest combined effort of design and development ever undertaken in this country."
"Not only that, I regret, and I want to put this on record again, that this government, did not have the courage to finish (Arrow) No 6 and let it take the world's speed record away from the Lockheed 104. I think this is a matter which will cause regret to Canadians for decades to come - that when we had reached a stage where, in a few weeks of additional development and testing, this plane could have captured the world's speed record for this country, the decision should have been made not only to stop work on the plane but to cut up the corpse and put it underground as soon as possible."
... Liberal Paul Hellyer commenting on the decision of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker on 20 February 1959 to cancel the CF-105 Arrow.
The 5 finished aircraft were cut up in secret in mid-April with only an enterprising photographer in a private aircraft circumventing the prohibition on photographing the event.
According to this book, about 30,000 employees and employees of subcontractors were laid off. A reporter calculated that the severance costs would have paid for the production of the first 37 aircraft.
Many of the best Canadian professionals from this program were snapped up by the US space program and by US corporations specializing in aviation.
* * *
 |
| from: Canadian Nuclear Weapons; John Clearwater; 1998; Dundern Press. |
... And we bought their F-104 Starfighter.
Except ... with the advent of Soviet ICBMs which could be accurately targeted (early 1960s) ... and ballistic missile submarines ... there was little remaining need for high-speed interceptors to destroy bombers flying over the arctic region to attack North America.
Right off the bat: The Arrow and the Starfighter became useless. The admitted coolness of the hardware is quite distinct from what a wise government would do with the money.
In the scene above, the RCAF in western Europe ... would be doled out low-yield nuclear weapons by US personnel ... working inside a fortified US nuclear arms compound located within the RCAF airfield.
The Starfighter was designed to operate at high altitude. However, in this mission it was to skim over the land until it went vertical to 'loft' the bomb ... which would fall by parachute onto its Warsaw Pact target (all with the aid of a computer onboard the Starfighter).
In the battlefield chaos surrounding a real nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR, it is extremely hard to imagine how the outcome of this mission would be worth the cost of the hardware, training, maintaining readiness and all the other associated costs, including the pilot's life.
... However, in the 1970s and 1980s there were all kinds of ideas which kept military planners lucratively employed.
And ... to quote the arcade game Missile Command ...
The End
