Professional Affiliation

Assistant Professor of History, University of Toronto, Canada

Expert Bio

Timothy Andrews Sayle is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the International Relations Program at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order (Cornell, 2019) and co-editor of three volumes: with Jeffrey A. Engel, Hal Brands, and William Inboden The Last Card: Inside George W. Bush’s Decision to Surge in Iraq (Cornell, 2019); with Susan Colbourn, The Nuclear North: Histories of Canada in the Atomic Age (University of British Columbia Press, 2020); and with Sergey Radchenko and Christian Ostermann, NATO in the Cold War and After (Routledge, 2021). Professor Sayle is a Senior Fellow of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History. Graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Toronto have worked with Professor Sayle to build Canada Declassified, a web repository of recently declassified archival records. He is a project leader of the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project.

Expertise

• Cold War
• Global Governance
• History
• Security and Defense

Wilson Center Project

The Making of a Nuclear Ally: A Canadian-American History

Project Summary

Since the detonation of the first atomic bomb in the summer of 1945, Canada has played a pivotal role in establishing and maintaining the US nuclear deterrent. This project, currently entitled The Making of a Nuclear Ally: A Canadian-American History, revisits the bilateral relationship between Canada and the United States from a new vantage point, focusing on the collaboration between Ottawa and Washington over the ‘nuclear file.’ In so doing, it illustrates how Canada served as host to, participant in, and beneficiary of the US nuclear deterrent. This project will not only excavate a critical element of Canada-US relations, but also shed light on enduring dilemmas that continue to shape relations between Ottawa and Washington.

Major Publications

• Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order (Cornell, 2019)
• with Jeffrey A. Engel, Hal Brands, and William Inboden The Last Card: Inside George W. Bush’s Decision to Surge in Iraq (Cornell, 2019)
• with Susan Colbourn, The Nuclear North: Histories of Canada in the Atomic Age (University of British Columbia Press, 2020)