Buchan on Foreign Policy

Sandy Arbuthnot in The Three Hostages:

“Lord!” he cried, “how I loathe our new manners in foreign policy. The old English way was to regard all foreigners as slightly childish and rather idiotic and ourselves as the only grown-ups in a kindergarten world.  That meant that we had a cool detached view and did even-handed unsympathetic justice.  But now we have got into the nursery ourselves and are bear-fighting on the floor.  We take violent sides, and make pets, and of course if you are -phil something or other you have got to be -phobe something else.  It is all wrong.  We are becoming Balkanised.”