Peter Kasurak – författare

Canadians consider the period between the Second World War and the unification of the armed services in 1968 as a "golden age," a time when their army dropped the shackles of its imperial past and emerged as a truly national peacekeeping force.In this landmark book, Peter Kasurak draws on recently declassified documents to show that this era was in fact clouded by the army's failure to loosen the grasp of British army culture, produce its own doctrine, and advise political leaders effectively. The discrepancy between the army's goals and the Canadian state's aspirations as a peacemaker in the postwar world resulted in a series of civilian-military crises that ended only when the scandal of the Somalia Affair in 1993 forced reform.Kasurak offers an illuminating account of the organizational growing pains that wracked the Canada's army as it evolved into a force that could reflect the aspirations of both its country and military leadership.

Canada's Mechanized Infantry explores the largely ignored development of the infantry in the Canadian Army after the First World War. Although many modern studies of technology and war focus on tanks and armour, soldiers from the Second World War onward have discovered that success really depends on a combination of infantry, armour, and artillery to form combat teams. Peter Kasurak demonstrates how the army implemented successful infantry vehicles and doctrine to ultimately further its military goals during the Second World War. In the postwar period, however, progress was slowed by a top-down culture and an unwillingness to abandon conventional thinking on the primacy of foot infantry and regimental organization. This insightful book is the first to examine the challenges that have confronted the Canadian Army in transforming its infantry from First World War foot soldiers into a twenty-first-century combat force integrating soldiers, vehicles, weapons, and electronics.