A more telling or ironic snapshot of endangered Mother Earth in the 21st century could scarcely be imagined: a naval war game by a nuclear-armed alliance delayed by a storm that drew its force from the human-caused warming of the oceans. The hurricane, of course, was Dorian, and the warRead...

To set the tone for their recent article on Twenty-First Century Nuclear Deterrence , four senior American nuclear war-planners approvingly quote from Arms and Influence, Thomas Schelling’s classic 1966 defense of ‘coercive diplomacy’ in the atomic age: The power to hurt – the sheer unacquisitive, unproductive power to destroy thingsRead More

I did not weep, I turned to stone inside…Dante, Inferno   I rarely cry, but on the evening of 8 December 1987, glued to radio coverage of the signing of a nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Soviet Union, I wept with a relief I had neverRead More

On numerous occasions in recent decades, Canadian governments have apologized for a host of egregious wrongdoings. While such words of contrition are too often unaccompanied by adequate actions, they can help make visible, as Trudeau argued in his 2017 apology, the “hard truths” Canadian society needs to confront. Yet theRead More

For he is our peace…and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility… And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near… Ephesians 2 …and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shallRead More

In 2003, Peace Quest Cape Breton launched a modest campaign for a ‘Pentagon Vacation’: a two-week (336-hour) reduction in the US Defense Department’s annual budget of $379 million (all figures in US dollars)– a saving, calculating 14 days at a Pentagon Hour (PH) rate of $42 million/hour, of around $14Read More

  Editor’s Note: Spectator contributor Sean Howard begins the New Year with a two-part consideration of the actual legacy — both domestic and global — of the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush. This month, in Part 2, Howard considers Bush’s foreign policy failures. (Read Part I)  Read More

The Spectator, Tree!Umphant I found Albert Barbusci! He’s in Kissimmee, Florida where “the Lemieux and Barbusci families” own and operate the Tree Trek Adventure Park! Okay, he may not actually be there right now (although why not be in Florida in December?) but he could be. When I stepped backRead More

On November 22, US President Donald Trump, asked who should be held accountable for the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, pinned the blame on an unlikely suspect: “Maybe the world should be held accountable. Because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very viciousRead More

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction…” Matthew 7:13   In September, I reported the case of the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven (KBP7), a group of veteran Catholic pacifist activists facing draconian punishment for ‘committing’ acts of symbolicRead More