After 1945, as part of the new Pax Americana, Canada lent its resources and ideas of functionalism to the creation of the United Nations, the Bretton Woods system and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Indeed, Article 2 of the NATO treaty, which calls for the formation of a North Atlantic political and economic community, is commonly held to be "Canada's clause." As the Cold War enveloped the globe, threatening to smother the post-war aspiration for multilateralism, it was the initiative of Canadian diplomats that helped to breathe new life into the UN, in the form of peacekeeping. Such skilful diplomacy also served the interests of the great powers, including Canada's former colonial masters. Lester Pearson, in Peter Lyon's words, "helped to get Britain and France off their self-impaled hooks" (2) during the Suez crisis, by inventing the United Nations Emergency Force. The Canadian commitment to multilateralism and the peaceful resolution of disputes carried through to the latter part of the 20th century, as seen in the Canadian-led campaign to rid the world of land mines (known as the Ottawa Process) and Canada's role in the preparatory meetings leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
Throughout the post-1945 period, the label "middle power" has been used as shorthand to encapsulate Canada's international role. While Canada lacks the economic and military capabilities of a great power, it likes to think it has more influence than the small powers at the "bottom of the heap." Canada has exploited this ambiguous position within the international hierarchy to great effect. The language and practice of middle power diplomacy justified Canada's attainment of disproportionate influence in international affairs and furnished it with a distinctive national foreign policy brand.
