Reinventing foreign affairs: faced with challenges from counterinsurgency to Twitter, Canada's policy planners need fresh ideas.

Owen, Taylor

An online review of Getting Back in the Game: A Foreign Policy Playbook for Canada, by Paul Heinbecker

Every year, a new book emerges that seeks to "rethink Canada's place in the world." Inevitably, as someone who studies and writes about international affairs, I do my part, buy a copy and settle in for the nearly inevitable slog.

There is nothing wrong with these books per se. The authors are often colleagues and friends. Most are written in a smart and accessible manner. They deal with the big issues facing the world and how Canada can play a role in them. They discuss all the subjects I personally care about--conflict, the environment, peacebuilding, the United Nations, our relationship with the United States and so on. They prescribe thoroughly reasonable courses of action. They are sometimes marginally provocative. Yet they invariably leave me wanting ...