Strategika Issue 56: The Defense of Europe

European Defense

Please read a new essay by my colleague, Angelo M. Codevilla in Strategika.

Europe was never a full partner in its own defense. The very question—Will Europe ever fully partner with the U.S., or will the European Union and NATO continue to downplay the necessity of military readiness?—is no longer meaningful as posed, because the political energies of Europe’s elites are absorbed as they try to fend off attacks on their legitimacy by broad sectors of their population.

Read the full article here.

NATO Renewed (Coming soon to a theater of war near you)

Please read a new essay by my colleague, Ralph Peters in Strategika.

Clio, the muse of history, has a fabulous sense of irony: As the human pageant unfolds, she delights in confounding our intentions and expectations. Thus, two public enemies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (whose acronym, NATO, sounds like another Greek deity) promise to be the unwitting saviors of the alliance, rescuing it from complacency, lethargy, and diminishing relevance.

Read the full article here.

Urging More from Our NATO Allies

Please read a new essay by my colleague, Robert G. Kaufman  in Strategika.

The United States should never expect to achieve full burden-sharing with the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Even in the most balanced alliances, the most powerful member will pay some premium for ensuring its credibility and effectiveness. The United States can strive plausibly to minimize but not eliminate the massive degree of free riding and strategic incoherence that has become politically untenable and strategically unwise. 

Read the full article here.

Our Icarus-in-Chief

Obama’s global fantasies are falling to earth along with him.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

In the last two weeks, we learned that Bashar Assad has dismantled only 5 percent of his WMD arsenal, despite President Obama’s soaring rhetoric Emblema_CIVto the contrary. Russia violated a long-observed agreement with the U.S. about testing missiles. Iran’s take on the negotiations over its bomb program bears no resemblance to our interpretation. Chinese officials now happily leak fantastic stories about using their military to punish Japan. All that is trumped by veiled threats from the Sunni Gulf monarchies, terrified of Iran, to buy a bomb or two from Pakistan. We hear other rumors that even China thinks the new leadership in North Korea is unhinged and is not worried about friendly warnings from Beijing.

Whether all these incidents are minor or serious, and whether they are random or interconnected and perceived as proof of the loss of U.S. deterrence, depends on which particular bad actor is studying them to try to guess whether the Obama administration will do anything should a provocateur start a war or attempt to redraw a regional map.

In short, our Icarus-in-Chief, without much foreign-policy experience but with youthful zeal and good intentions, soared far too high for his flimsy waxen wings. Now they are melting, and as the American commander-in-chief careens back to earth, lots of those below are wondering what will come next. Still, there is a lot of irony as Obama freefalls to earth. Continue reading “Our Icarus-in-Chief”

The Failure of American Leadership

Obama’s foreign policy of appeasement has created a dangerous void in the international order.

by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas 

The standard critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is now generally well-known—Photo Credit: Robert Hruzek vic Flickrmercurial, paradoxical, and passive. “Leading from behind” seems at odds with the traditional American commitment to ensure—preferably with allies or, if need be, alone—the continuance of the postwar global system of sovereign borders, free trade, safe commerce, and open communications.

Many of Obama’s recent foreign policy initiatives have resulted in a diminished United States and they have found little success. The reset with Russia earned us a strange sort of contempt from Vladimir Putin. Moscow almost gratuitously thwarts the U.S., gloating that we offer loud self-righteous sermons to others that are not backed by consequences.

The Obama administration’s approach to radical Islam and the larger Middle East has been especially confused. Al Qaeda is not, as the president assured, on the run, but more likely moving onward and upward. Continue reading “The Failure of American Leadership”

Surreal and Suicidal: Modern Western Histories of Islam

by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com 

The full magnitude of the modern West’s ignorance of its own past recently struck via RaymondIbrahim.comme while rereading some early history books concerning the centuries-long jihad on Europe.   The historical narrative being disseminated today simply bears very little resemblance to reality.

Consider some facts for a moment:

A mere decade after the birth of Islam in the 7th century, the jihad burst out of Arabia.  Leaving aside all the thousands of miles of ancient lands and civilizations that were permanently conquered, today casually called the “Islamic world”—including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and parts of India and China—much of Europe was also, at one time or another, conquered by the sword of Islam. Continue reading “Surreal and Suicidal: Modern Western Histories of Islam”

An Irrelevant Middle East

Thanks to oil discoveries elsewhere, the region is losing its geostrategic clout.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Since antiquity, the Middle East has been the trading nexus of three continents — Asia, Europe, and Africa — and the vibrant birthplace of three of the world’s great religions. Continue reading “An Irrelevant Middle East”

War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

1. Why Did Athens Lose the Peloponnesian War?

It really did not in a way: Athens no more lost the war than Hitler did the Second World War between September 1939 and May 1941. Continue reading “War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’”

Europe’s Wishes Came True

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Almost a decade ago, Europeans and many progressive Americans were lamenting how the United States was going to miss out on the 21st-century paradigm symbolized by the robust European Union. Neanderthal Americans were importing ever more oil while waging a costly “war on terror” and fighting two conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our budget deficit in 2003 hit $374 billion.
Continue reading “Europe’s Wishes Came True”

World Order, Under Siege?

by Victor Davis Hanson

Defining Ideas

What seems sometimes incomprehensible in the contemporary world makes perfect sense — if we pause and study a little history.
Continue reading “World Order, Under Siege?”

Are We Becoming Medieval?

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

A tourist mecca like Venice now boasts that it dreams of breaking away from an insolvent Italy. Similarly Barcelona, and perhaps the Basques and the Catalonians in general, claim they want no part of a bankrupt Spain. Scotland fantasizes about becoming separate from Great Britain. The Greek Right dreams of a 19th-century Greece without Asian and African immigrants who do not look Greek. Continue reading “Are We Becoming Medieval?”

The Nobel Committee and Its Orwellian Peace Prize

by Bruce Thornton

FrontPage Magazine

Norway’s Nobel Committee added yet another absurd pick to its long list of politicized and shameful Peace Prize awards. Giving the prize to the disintegrating European Union is not as despicable as giving it to the bloodstained terrorist Yasser Arafat, or as laughably naive as bestowing it on the communist fraud Rigoberta Menchú. Continue reading “The Nobel Committee and Its Orwellian Peace Prize”