Nunes etc.
The Corner: The one and only By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review When the feeding frenzy abates and moves on to the next target, among the flotsam and jetsam we may learn two things from the Nunes affair: One, intelligence-committee chairmen in the past have routinely gone over to various executive-branch locations, such as in […]
The Yanks over There — 100 Years Ago
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review American intervention saved Western Europe in World War I, but the result was a failed armistice. One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. The ongoing conflict ended just 19 months later with an Allied victory. The United States did not win […]
Nunes Affair
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The beleaguered Intelligence Committee chairman is the latest target in a partisan smear campaign. He must not step down. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) will not step down from the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. He is the new target […]
The Civic Cost Of Illegal Immigration
by Victor Davis Hanson via Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution) The arguments for ignoring illegal immigration are as well-known as the self-interested motives that drive it. In the abstract, open-borders advocates argue that in a globalized culture, borders are becoming reactionary and artificial constructs. They should not interrupt more natural ebbs and flows of migrant […]
The Russian Farce
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Remember when Obama and Hillary cozied up to Putin? And recall when the media rejoiced at surveillance leaks about Team Trump? The American Left used to lecture the nation about its supposedly paranoid suspicions of Russia. The World War II alliance with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union had led many […]
Law Takes a Holiday
And anarchy follows. by Victor Davis Hanson//National Review In the 1934 romantic movie Death Takes a Holiday, Death assumes human form for three days, and the world turns chaotic. The same thing happens when the law goes on a vacation. Rules are unenforced or politicized. Citizens quickly lose faith in the legal system. Anarchy follows […]
Monasteries of the Mind
When everything is politicized, people retreat into mental mountaintops — dreams of the past and fantasies of the future. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review So long, it’s been good to know ya, So long, it’s been good to know ya, So long, it’s been good to know ya. This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ […]
Moving Forward: The Need For Innovations In Technology And Strategy
by Kiron K. Skinner // Strategika Two broad sets of U.S. military strategies during the second half of the twentieth century combined ideas, innovation, and technology in ways that offset Soviet conventional (and later nuclear) superiority in arms and military forces. These strategies also contributed to the overall state of cold war, as opposed to […]
It’s Not Just the Technology: Beyond Offset Strategies
By Colonel Joseph (Joe) Felter (ret.) // Strategika A range of breakthrough technologies are emerging today that have the potential to radically change how we fight and deter threats across all conflict domains—air, land, sea, space, and cyber. Artificial intelligence, directed energy, robotics, and machine learning are just a few examples. Significantly, unlike in previous […]
Deterrence and Human Nature
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The dream of a therapeutic utopia without punishment for wrongdoing fails in practice. Deterrence is the strategy of persuading someone in advance not to do something, often by raising the likelihood of punishment. But in the 21st century, we apparently think deterrence is Neanderthal and appeals to the worst […]
You Say You Want A Revolution?
By Thomas Donnelly To paraphrase the Beatles: Well, you know, you’d better free your mind instead; you may want a revolution but ought to settle for some evolution. It is an article of revealed religion among defense elites that “we live in a relentlessly changing and fiercely competitive world.” Those words were from former […]
The World on January 20, 2017
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Red-blue tensions at home, mounting dangers abroad Most Americans are worried about our domestic crises. Obama left office after doubling the debt to $20 trillion. Near-zero interest rates over eight years have impoverished an entire generation of seniors — and yet remain key to servicing the costs of such […]
Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Politicians who cannot cope with the realities of governing should stop fantasizing about utopia. The recent Academy Awards ceremony turned into a monotony of hate. Many of the stars who mounted the stage ranted on cue about the evils of President Donald Trump. Such cheap rhetoric is easy. But […]
The Ancient Laws of Unintended Consequences
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Eight years of a fawning press have made the Left reckless. The classical idea of a divine Nemesis (“reckoning” or “downfall”) that brings unforeseen retribution for hubris (insolence and arrogance) was a recognition that there are certain laws of the universe that operated independently of human concerns. Call Nemesis […]
Talk Radio, Cable News, the Mainstream Media, and the News Revolution
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review In the hubbub over Trump’s attack on the media, we sometimes forget that Barack Obama et al. customarily went after talk-radio and cable-news conservatives — whose job, after all, was opinion journalism — as biased, whereas Trump went more after news-gathering organizations who […]
Is the American Elite Really Elite?
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The public no longer believes that privilege and influence should be predicated on titles, brands, and buzz. Establishment furor over the six-week-old Trump administration is growing. Outraged New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently compared Trump’s victory to disasters in American history that killed and wounded thousands […]
Presidential Payback for Media Hubris
by Victor Davis Hanson//Defining Ideas This article is reprinted from Defining Ideas, an online journal at the Hoover Institution. To read the original article click here. Donald Trump conducted a press conference recently as if he were a loud circus ringmaster whipping the media circus animals into shape. The establishment thought the performance was […]
The Metaphysics of Trump
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Paradox: How does a supposedly bad man appoint good people eager to advance a conservative agenda that supposedly more moral Republicans failed to realize? We variously read that Trump should be impeached, removed, neutralized — or worse. But until he is, are his appointments, executive orders, and impending legislative […]
‘False Documents’
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The Wall Street Journal wrote an unfortunate and misleading op-ed today on the new protocols on illegal immigration issued by the Department of Homeland Security — epitomized by the Journal’s weird sentence, “Mr. Kelly’s order is so sweeping that it could capture law-abiding immigrants whose only crime is using […]
Why the Central Valley votes more conservative
By Victor Davis Hanson// San Francisco Chronicle Photo: Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg Voters living in 85 percent of the country preferred Donald Trump, but he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. Not long ago on a farm south of Fresno, I watched a poorly paid mechanic in silence repair a gate’s hydraulic ram as easily […]