The Politics and Procurement of Leopard Tanks for Canada's NATO

BOOK REVIEWS stance. Once again, Boot’s style illuminates tales of urban warfare, ‘quagmire’ unwinnable in any limited warfare scenario. Boot’s enemy sabotage, and frustrating Washington miscalculations. belief in the three “L’s” of ‘Lansdalism,’ (Listen, Like, and Learn) is compelling and has practical application in America’s modern Lansdale’s triumphs in the Philippines and South Vietnam conflicts. It is for these reasons that this book deserves a reading. birthed the legend of the master spy who would be immortal- The Road Not Taken would benefit any senior officer in charge ized in such literary works as The Ugly American, The Best and of counter-insurgency policies, and any service member charged the Brightest, and A Bright Shining Lie, and they served as the with winning ‘hearts and minds.’ basis for movie characters in Oliver Stone’s JFK, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Quiet American (a screenplay that was Edward Lansdale used a harmonica in the time of the machine re-written by Lansdale himself). The Road Not Taken, however, gun and diplomacy in the time of ‘war hawks.’ He hacked his own does not stop there. Max Boot ventures into the Oval Office, the idealistic trail through the jungle, while his counterparts cleared halls of Congress, the CIA-funded radio stations of Miami, and the road with bombs. What if the United States leadership had ultimately returns to Vietnam (now transformed by U.S. escala- listened to Edward Lansdale? Unfortunately, the answer to this tion and carpet-bombing). Unlike Washington’s wavering faith question will never be known, because in the history of Vietnam, in Lansdale, Boot remains steadfast in his belief that Lansdale’s Edward Lansdale’s path was the road not taken. methodologies would have yielded a better result in Indochina. Major Robert Davidson is a Special Operations Navigator Lansdale’s actions, while successful in the Philippines but in the United States Air Force with deployments to Iraq, prematurely undermined in Vietnam, are hard to reconcile as Afghanistan, and Africa. He is currently a candidate for a Master ‘idealistic,’ with the existing evidence of CIA machinations. Boot of Science degree in Defense Analysis at the United States Naval is correct in his assertions that Lansdale was a trailblazer, but Postgraduate School. he occasionally looks past the variables that made the Vietnam The Price of cause of the long slow demise of Alliance: The the Canadian Armed Forces’ pro- fessionalism over the last half of Politics and the Cold War era, which ultimately Procurement of led to its denouement in the early- Leopard Tanks 990s in Somalia. Interestingly, for Canada’s this persistent traditional historical NATO Brigade narrative is rarely re-examined, let alone contested, probably because by Frank Maas for the many who lived through Vancouver: University of British it, over time, it became far easier Columbia Press, 2017 to blame unpopular politicians or 188 pages, Illustrated military leaders than to be inclined HC~ISBN 978-0-7748-35183, $85.00 towards more objective introspec- PB~ISBN 978-0-7748-35190, $32.95 tion. And yet, while there is little Reviewed by Andrew B. doubt that from the mid-1960s to Godefroy the mid-1970s, Canada’s defence organizations were subjected to anada’s defence considerable bureaucratic upheaval policies and pri- and turmoil, historians on both orities during the sides of the argument have tended late-1960s and to focus only upon those issues early-1970s have that negatively impacted the mili- Clong been the subject of heated tary. Few have sought to instead and emotional debate. This con- examine the successes achieved troversial period is also often during this period (and there were described by both scholars and many), in all likelihood because practitioners as being the root these topics tend to challenge the 70 Canadian Military Journal • Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 2019 BOOK REVIEWS status quo as well as the beliefs of those authors who prefer Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, forced Trudeau into purchasing the to blame rather than to explain. Leopard C1 in order to secure other trade. The often-heard quip, “no tanks, no trade,” Maas reveals, was just another construct of Frank Maas’ new book, The Price of Alliance: The Politics the traditionalist historical narrative that sought to highlight the and Procurement of Leopard Tanks for Canada’s NATO Brigade, general incompetence of Canadian politicians and senior officers. offers a welcome departure from other more heavily-biased works The evidence presented in this book clearly demonstrates once examining this period. Drawing upon untapped archival sources, again that Canadian policy makers and planners were often far including Cabinet records, land force policy planning documents more competent than previous analyses have suggested. and procurement files, as well as interviews with several of the main actors involved, Maas employs the successful procurement Beyond the politics of the subject, this book also offers a of the army’s Leopard C1 Main Battle Tank as a focal point for a solid combat development history of the Leopard C1 project, and broader re-examination of Canada’s defence priorities, as well as its it should serve as an essential reference for those with an interest in ongoing relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization defence economics and procurement. Last but not least, Maas also (NATO). In doing so, he offers his readers a far more balanced and challenges the traditionally-assigned split between the army’s pre- evidence-based analysis of Trudeau’s defence agenda during these integration ‘command era’ and its post-unification ‘management years than has often been previously articulated. He effectively era,’ instead showing that key actors from before integration in dismantles and does away with previous arguments suggesting 1964 continued to have an impact well after unification took effect that Cabinet sought to eliminate Canada’s heavier mechanized in 1968. While other historians have also done this to a degree, forces in Europe completely, while the military sought every unlike other historians, Maas’ research and analysis reveals a far opportunity to undermine that stance. His book shows instead that more objective and accurate account of events. The result is a book the problem was indeed far more complex, and the responses to that is far more valuable to both scholars and practitioners alike. it far more nuanced. The military was, in fact, often just as big a proponent as was the government for converting Canada’s NATO New works that effectively challenge the status quo and brigade from a heavy force to a light force, and for moving it out give historians pause to reconsider past events seem to appear of the British-led Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) south into with less frequency these days, but Frank Maas’ The Price of the US/German Central Army Group (CENTAG). Similarly, his Alliance, stands out from the crowd in this regard. This book is work also reveals that senior members in Cabinet, including Prime highly recommended as essential reading for post-1945 Canadian Minister Trudeau himself, were at various times strong proponents military historians, as well as for students of Canadian political for sustaining the army’s heavier mechanized capabilities, as it history, Cold War defence policy, and those with an interest in directly affected larger political objectives and outcomes between defence economics and procurement. Canada and the rest of the Western alliance. Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew B. Godefroy, CD, Ph.D, is the Maas also offers a fresh look at the relationship between Chief of Army Professional Military Education at the Canadian Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany in this study, and Army Command and Staff College in Kingston, Ontario. similarly deconstructs the long popular myth that the West German Canadian Military Journal • Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 2019 71.

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