Politics & Power Quote by Norman Angell

Angell’s line flatters Canada with a benediction, then quietly pulls the rug: the only real invader is domestic complacency. “God has made” borrows the certainty of providence, a rhetorical shortcut that turns geography and history into destiny. But the sentence is engineered to land on its final clause like a gavel. “Except by itself” makes the praise conditional, almost accusatory. It reframes national security as moral and political self-management, not just military readiness.

The context matters: Angell built his career arguing that modern war was economically irrational, that conquest no longer “paid” in a tightly interdependent world. Read through that lens, Canada becomes a case study in the limits of external threat. Buffered by oceans and a superpower neighbor that is more market than menace, Canada’s vulnerability is less about invasion than erosion: polarization, underinvestment in institutions, regional resentment, a hollowed public sphere, the slow drift from shared facts to tribal vibes.

The subtext is also a warning against self-satisfied exceptionalism. Nations that believe they’re unconquerable tend to confuse luck with virtue. Angell’s phrasing invites Canadians to treat stability not as a birthright but as a maintenance project: keep governance credible, keep pluralism functional, keep the bargain between provinces from turning into a permanent cold war.

It’s patriotism with teeth. The country is “safe” only as long as it doesn’t outsource its future to inertia, cynicism, or the comforting myth that geography can substitute for cohesion.