The Price of Alliance: The Politics and Procurement of Leopard Tanks for Canada’s NATO Brigade by Frank Maas
| Author | Susan Colbourn |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702018811368 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
potential readers ought to know that the interviews are not an exact transcription
and may reflect the editors’ interpretation of what each interviewee revealed.
If the alternative meant not having this collection, readers can be thankful for the
efforts of Bothwell and Granatstein. The editors devoted substantial time, energy,
and resources to organize and interview such a large and important group of pol-
icymakers, diplomats, and militaryofficials connected with the Trudeaugovernment.
Regardless of the editorial choices underlying the text, Trudeau’s World is a model
oral history project that will surely serve as a valuable resource for students and
scholars of Canadian policy during the post-1968 Cold War era.
Frank Maas
The Price of Alliance: The Politics and Procurement of Leopard Tanks for Canada’s NATO
Brigade
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. 188 pp. $32.95 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-0-7748-3519-0
Reviewed by: Susan Colbourn (susan.colbourn@yale.edu), Yale University, New Haven,
United States of America
In 1970, Pierre Trudeau announced plans to halve Canada’s brigade in Western
Europe and to replace the aging Centurion tanks with new light vehicles. The 1971
Defence White Paper reaffirmed the decision to move toward a light vehicle, one
which Trudeau continued to support despite pushback from the Canadian Forces.
By 1976, however, the Trudeau government had agreed to purchase 128 Leopard 1
tanks from the Federal Republic of Germany. Why did the Trudeau government’s
position change? What made Pierre Trudeau change his mind?
Frank Maas’ The Price of Alliance: The Politics and Procurement of Leopard
Tanks for Canada’s NATO Brigade explores these questions, making a valuable and
much-needed contribution to the literature on Canadian foreign and defence policy
during the Trudeau years. Little recent work has tackled these issues. Maas rightly
points to Robert Bothwell and Jack Granatstein’s Pirouette (1990) and Roy
Rempel’s Counterweights (1996) as the last authoritative studies, but over two
decades have passed since their publication.
2
Maas illustrates how and why the Trudeau government ultimately agreed to
purchase the Leopard, arguing that Canada’s allies in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) ‘‘became the most important group determining the char-
acter and composition of Canada’s ground forces in Europe’’ (5). In particular,
Maas points to the role of West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt in influencing
Trudeau’s thinking. Schmidt emphasized the symbolic importance of Canadian
tanks: they were a tangible sign of the country’s commitment to the defence of
2. J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); Roy Rempel, Counterweights: The Failure of
Canada’s German and European Policy, 1955–1995 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 1996).
Book Reviews 631
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