In 1960, the Republic of Congo teetered near collapse as its first government struggled to cope with civil unrest and mutinous armed forces. When the United Nations established what became the largest peacekeeping operation of the Cold War, the Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, the Diefenbaker government in Canada faced a difficult decision. Should it support the intervention?Canada, the Congo Crisis, and UN Peacekeeping, 1960-64 shows that Canada’s involvement in the peacekeeping mission was not straightforward. As policy makers pondered Canada’s relationship with Africa, Canada became enmeshed in a complex web of foreign and defence policy determinants: domestic politics, commitments to NATO, the politics of decolonization, the Cold War, the increasingly interventionist nature of the mission’s mandate, and Canadian attitudes about the use of force. The Canadian government hesitated to heed the UN’s call, and its serious, ongoing reservations about the mission challenged cherished notions of Canada’s commitment to the UN and its status as a peacekeeper. This book explores an overlooked episode in Canadian international relations and offers one of the first detailed accounts of Canadian experiences in UN peacekeeping. It will appeal to those interested in Canadian foreign policy and relations with Africa in particular and the Congo crisis and United Nations peacekeeping more generally. | Canada the Congo Crisis and UN Peacekeeping 1960-64 by Kevin A. Spooner, Paperback | Indigo Chapters