In my latest National Post column I say the first step toward an effective foreign policy is to abandon illusions about the effectiveness of “soft power” without something hard behind it.

In my latest National Post column I deplore Canada’s tendency to ignore national security threats including, most recently, an aggressive Russian submarine presence in the North Atlantic that menaces vital communications systems.

"With God dead, there remains only history and power."

“Helen’s Exile” in Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays

“Winston had 10 ideas every day, only one of which was good, and he did not know which it was."

General Sir Alan Brooke, Winston Churchill’s chief of staff, quoted by John Keegan in National Post August 29, 2002

In my latest Loonie Politics column I praise John McCain's willingness to rock the boat politically even on some issues where I think he was wrong, because we need more mavericks and less partisanship.

“I imagine that every teenager today has heard of Stalingrad and Alamein and D-Day, but I wonder how many know the name of Imphal, that ‘Flower on Lofty Heights’ where Japan suffered the greatest catastrophe in its military history. There’s no reason why they should; it was a long way away.”

George Macdonald Fraser Quartered Safe Out Here

"It was said that the noble Don Quixote de la Mancha had been the last of the true knights. After his death, his trusted sword and his armour were sold to pay his debts. But somehow or other that sword seems to have fallen into the hands of a number of men. Washington carried it during the hopeless days of Valley Forge. It was the only defence of Gordon, when he had refused to desert the people who had been entrusted to his care, and stayed to meet his death in the besieged fortress of Khartoum. And I am not quite sure but that it proved of invaluable strength in winning the Great War."

Hendrick Van Loon The Story of Mankind