 On 5 February 1951, at a time when the Chinese were advancing in Korea, the Defence Minister, Brooke Claxton, announced in the House of Commons an emergency military budget of $5 billion which committed the government to raise an infantry division within the next three years and committed a brigade to Europe at once.At the time, it was believed that Stalin had ordered the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950 as a part of an diversion to tie down Western forces in Korea as a prelude to a Soviet invasion of West Germany.Consequently, Canada followed the United States in increasing forces for the defence of West Germany instead of South Korea during the Korean War.