Time & Perspective Quote by John F. Kennedy

Kennedy builds an entire foreign-policy argument out of inevitability. The line marches through four forces - geography, history, economics, necessity - each one tightening the screws on the idea that the relationship in question (most famously, the US and Canada) isn’t sentimental, it’s structural. You can dislike your neighbor; you can’t relocate them. You can debate the past; you can’t erase it. You can posture about sovereignty; you still trade, invest, share supply chains. By the time he lands on “necessity,” the partnership has shifted from preference to survival, a Cold War-era admission that security is now collective whether publics like it or not.

The genius is how the rhetoric disguises choice as fate. Kennedy’s “made us” phrasing quietly absolves leaders of the messiness of negotiation: these bonds weren’t engineered by politicians, they were forged by reality itself. That’s strategic, because it frames dissent not as an alternative policy but as an argument against the world’s basic logic.

Then comes the clincher: a biblical cadence borrowed from marriage vows. In a secular republic, that religious register still does political work - it sacralizes alliance, turning a pragmatic arrangement into something bordering on moral obligation. “Let no man put asunder” isn’t just a warning to external adversaries; it’s aimed at internal spoilers: nationalists, protectionists, and partisans tempted to score points by picking fights with the closest partner. The subtext is blunt: you can grandstand, but you can’t responsibly break what circumstances - and, rhetorically, God - have welded together.