How Will Illegal Immigration End?

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

We hear all sorts of solutions for ending illegal immigration. Build a wall! Beef up border security! Fine employers, and create a massive guest-worker program. Or America could insist on tamper-proof identification cards, or detention, deportation or even amnesty for some illegal aliens — or all of these measures somehow combined. Continue reading “How Will Illegal Immigration End?”

Club America

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”

Did Iraq Really Ruin the U.S.?

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.?”

If We Fail…

Been there, done that.

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…”

Global Schizophrenia

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”

The Surge Gamble

All eyes now turn to Baghdad and Sadr City.

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”

Just Deserts

Separating Hussein’s execution from therapy.

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”

A War of Endurance

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”

The Sense of Good

American confidence necessary to succeed in a war for freedom.

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”

Stasis or Victory?

A surge in troops will fail miserable unless we correct past laxity.

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?”