The Plan & the Snags

In the second year of peace, the foremost U.S.-Canadian problem was the problem of continental defense. But the problem, with its serious and delicate questions of national pride, military strategy and diplomacy, was being discussed on such a high and hush-hush level that Americans and Canadians alike were hearing only snatches, sometimes garbled, of what -was going on. Nevertheless, by last week, as the two nations prepared to meet in Montreal this month on the problem, some of the story could be told.

Arctic Defense. Most of the talking and planning has been done, since last January, by the six-year-old U.S.-Canadian Permanent Joint Defense Board, which meets irregularly (alternating between Montreal and New York) and makes proposals to Washington and Ottawa. Some of its proposals have been routine and noncontroversial. Others are knotty and controversial. Knottiest: the defense of the Canadian Arctic. What is under discussion is whether the U.S. and Canada shall i) man Arctic bases (some wartime ones, some to be built) with troops of both nations and 2) standardize weapons, all the way from aircraft to rifles.

Specifically U.S. and Canadian troops, with uniform equipment, would be stationed at big bases like Churchill, Manitoba (tentatively, Canada would have 500 men there, the U.S. 100), at forlorn little landing strips like "Crystal 1," at Fort Chimo in northeastern Quebec, and "Crystal 2," on Baffin Island's Frobisher Bay. Soldiers of both nations would also staff a ring of weather stations and radar listening posts all across the continent's bleak Arctic vastness and down the east and west coasts to the U.S. The suggestions sounded simple. But the arguments pro & con were complex.

Britain Too. Some older Canadians on the General Staff oppose arms standardization on the grounds that Canada has twice gone to war far in advance of the U.S. They are against committing the Canadian Army to the use of U.S.-type weapons unless Great Britain agrees to standardization too--an unlikely prospect. They also want to make sure, before committing themselves, that Canadian factories would manufacture whatever U.S.-type weapons the Canadian Army might need. If not, Canada might find herself in the dangerous position of going to war without the U.S., yet depending on U.S. factories for munitions. (A new U.S. neutrality act would thus leave Canada virtually weaponless)

But the young wing of the Canadian Army, which favors standardization with the U.S., argues ominously that Britain should be secondary in Canada's planning, as the next war's aggressors will surely strike directly at the North American heartland. Thus, if another war comes, Canada and the U.S. will be forced to fight together from the start.

Nor are many Canadians disturbed at the thought of U.S. troops permanently based in Canada. Few if any Canadians would regard this as a foothold for U.S. aggression. Nevertheless, the Canadians, who refused Britain permission to establish R.A.F. bases in the Dominion as late as 1938, want to go slow. (Actually the question of stationing British troops in Canada would probably raise much more furor.) They want to be sure there is no infringement of Dominion sovereignty.

Who Pays? The question of who would foot the enormous bill for cooperative bases in Canada, when & if established, is another stickler. Many Canadians feel that the well-heeled U.S. should pay some or all of the cost, as it is willing to do. But other Canadians, proud of Canada's record of paying more than its share in the last two wars, might regard such subsidization as an affront to national honor.

Overshadowing these diplomatic problems is military strategy. On both sides of the border are military men who say flatly: the best defense in the Arctic is to build nothing, other than weather and radar posts. Instead of establishing Arctic bases, they would rely for defense on the 50DEG below temperatures and vast distances. Arctic bases, they argue, would be easy to seize in a surprise atomic blow, and used for a full-scale .attack on Canadian and the U.S. cities.

On the whole problem, the U.S. attitude is to accept reasonable Canadian reservations to the Arctic defense plan, iron out any other troubles in friendly argument. Canada, on its part, is willing to cooperate to the hilt as long as her rights are not infringed. Neither country is fretting about solving the problem, and both recognize it for what it is--a plan between two friends for defense, not offense against anyone.

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