The Canadians have had a difficult time generating the
Just as the title says, how could history change that Canada creates and maintains its own nuclear weapons during the Cold War? Also assuming that the war end colsly mirrors OTL, how would that affect Canada's post Cold War policy?
The Canadians have had a difficult time generating the political consensus to cover the costs of developing and
sustaining anything close to "national" design/ manufacture/ operate capacity for aircraft (even subsonic), naval vessels, and ordnance; trying to do the same for nuclear weapons would be waay outside the envelope of the politically possible.
Especially given the willingness of the US to provide a strategic umbrella over Canada since (arguably) 1940-41 and the ABC staff conferences...
Canada has had - at various times since 1945 - some fairly impressive capabilities for a small nation (demographically and economically, in comparison to the regional powers), but there's never been enough resources to develop truly high-end capabilities in-house, even those that arguably would make sense for Canada and the strategic environment where the Canadian forces have to operate - nuclear-powered fleet submarines being an obvious example.
So, absent a strategic threat significantly greater than the USSR, what's the point of a "Canadian" strategic force?
Best,