If military history, both past and in the making, is your thing, then Friday night's program is for you.
We’re fortunate to have two of the leading military thinkers on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border with us.
We’ll kick off the program with an interview with Jack Granatstein, Canada’s foremost military historian. His latest book is called Whose War is It? How Canada Can Survive In the Post-9/11 World.
Granatstein begins his book with an apocalyptic scenario that some days doesn’t seem so far fetched. British Columbia has been laid waste by an earthquake, while at the same time, terrorist attacks grip Toronto and Montreal.
Can the country’s first responders and military handle the bicoastal crises? Not according to Granatstein, who fears this country isn’t nearly serious enough in appreciating the dangers, both politically and militarily, that terrorism today poses to our way of life.
South of the border, Max Boot from the Council on Foreign Relations has just penned a lengthy but extremely well researched tome on 500 years of military history, chronicling the reasons why history’s great empires have collapsed.
It’s called War Made New Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today.
One of Boot’s points, that being great and powerful yesterday is no guarantee of being great and powerful tomorrow, seems particularly instructive, given how militarily overstretched America seems to be these days.
Two fascinating books, two terrific interviewees, all of it Friday night at 8 and 11 pm, and on this website on Monday if you miss it.
One more thing: Granatstein told me he has written or edited at least sixty books during his career (he’s lost count) but that this will be his last.
To find out why, click on the link below for an explanation that isn’t on the television program, but only on this website.
And just finally, they’ve told me to get out of here for a few days and recharge my batteries. So on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week, we’ll feature three substitute hosts: Tarek Fatah, Sadia Zaman, and Ralph Benmergui.
See you again next Thursday.
