by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
When Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman pulled up to Savannah, Ga., after his legendary March to the Sea in December 1864, he was savagely slandered in the Southern press as a renegade leader of a “vandal horde.” Continue reading “Club America”
by Victor Davis Hanson
The Australian Financial Review
A shorter version of this essay recently appeared in the Australian Financial Review
Writing of the decline of the West — and the United States in particular — has been a parlor game from the time of doomsayers Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee to Paul Kennedy’s pessimism of the 1980s. Now the most recent serial epitaphs center on the Anglo-American experience in Iraq that will soon end, it is foretold, in defeat and a global loss of American prestige to the detriment of the West at large. Continue reading “Did Iraq Really Ruin the U.S.?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Most Americans accept that if the United States cannot stabilize Iraq, and, in frustration and acrimony, withdraws in defeat, crises follow. The only disagreement is over how bad they will be. Continue reading “If We Fail…”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
When it comes to intervening in international affairs, the United States is damned when it does and damned when it doesn’t. Critics of U.S. policy are always quick to pounce — and in this age of globalization, they’re only getting more impatient. Continue reading “Global Schizophrenia”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
This was not Churchill, not FDR, and not JFK Wednesday night, and there was not quite enough about winning and victory — but the content was still good enough. Continue reading “The Surge Gamble”
by Bruce S. Thornton
Private Papers
In Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, a “committee of sappy women” petition the governor to pardon the murderous Injun Joe. Continue reading “Just Deserts”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
As we begin a new year, with a new Congress being sworn in Thursday, it’s a good time to take stock of the “global war on terror.” The enormous conventional military power of the United States probably ensures that we will not lose in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. Yet the considerable advantages of the jihadists suggest that we might not necessarily win, either. Continue reading “A War of Endurance”
by Bruce S. Thornton
Private Papers
The execution of Saddam Hussein should be a moment of celebration for Americans. Continue reading “The Sense of Good”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
There are troop surges, and then there are troop surges, in military history. Some radically alter the calculus of the battlefield. Others simply add to the stasis and sense of quagmire, ending up as nothing more than preludes to defeat. Continue reading “Stasis or Victory?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
The Iraq Study Group, prominent U.S. Senators and realist diplomats all want America to hold formal talks with the government of Iran. They think Tehran might help the United States disengage from Iraq and the general Middle East mess with dignity. That would be a grave error for a variety of reasons — the most important being that Iran is far shakier than we are. Continue reading “Beyond the Braggadocio: Iran’s Ahmandinejad Far Weaker Than He Lets On”