Nukes + Nuttiness = Neanderthal Deterrence
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Acting crazy has worked for rogue regimes, but Western appeasement is not a long-term solution. How can an otherwise failed dictatorship best suppress internal dissent while winning international attention, influence — and money? Apparently, it must openly seek nuclear weapons. Second, the nut state should sound so crazy and […]
VDH Ultra
04/24/17 From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, As a registered Republican, I am disgusted with the behavior of President Trump and always surprised with the support he receives from people who appear to be well educated knowledgeable, and intelligent. I would give your written opinion more credit if you did not position yourself so far […]
The Tar Pits Abroad
by Victor Davis Hanson// Defining Ideas As missiles fall on Syria in retaliation for Bashar Assad’s medieval use of chemical weapons—and as voices call for the use of some American ground troops to expedite his removal—we might reflect upon American military interventions in the post-Vietnam era. America’s major interventions include Iraq in 1991, the […]
Apocalyptic Progressivism
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Instead of overcoming challenges, progressive politicians exploit them to expand government. Shortly after the 2008 election, President Obama’s soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously declared, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” He elaborated: “What I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things […]
What Happened to the ‘Special Relationship’?
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Not all that long ago we were lectured that Obama, with his charisma and savvy, had won over Recep Tayyip Erdogan and formed a new partnership with him that would lead to Middle East stability and a new Turkish omnipresence as a force […]
VDH Ultra
From an Angry Reader: You used to be my favorite columnist, in fact the only one I read. But it seems you’ve recently become overly mesmerized with Trumpism and the resulting anti Obamaism. I wish you’d returned to objective history. Doug Waltner Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply: Dear Sort of Angry Reader Doug Waltner,You should […]
Restoring Deterrence, One Bomb at a Time?
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The only thing more dangerous than losing deterrent power is trying to put it back together again. The Tomahawk volley attack, for all its ostentatious symbolism, served larger strategic purposes. It reminded a world without morality that there is still a shred of a rule or two: Do not […]
Obama Is America’s Version of Stanley Baldwin
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Both leaders put their successors in a dangerous geopolitical position. Last year, President Obama assured the world that “we are living in the most peaceful, prosperous, and progressive era in human history,” and that “the world has never been less violent.” Translated, those statements meant that active foreign-policy volcanoes […]
04/10/17 From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson – In your truly myopic article about the Russian/Trump connections you point out the Democrats’ contacts with Russians but you fail to make an apples and apples comparison. You don’t mention BUSINESS and MONEY. You don’t mention Trump making $50 million on a house worth much less in […]
Hall of Mirrors in Syria
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Syria is weird for reasons that transcend even the bizarre situation of bombing an abhorrent Bashar al-Assad who was bombing an abhorrent ISIS — as we de facto ally with Iran, the greater strategic threat, to defeat the more odious, but less […]
A Multi-Front War
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The House Intelligence Committee fights, the Susan Rice revelations, the stale Russian collusion story, the Gorsuch battle, the Bannon battles, the end of the filibuster, etc. are all different fronts of the same existential struggle: the unlikely Trump victory is unpalatable for the […]
Ancient Laws, Modern Wars
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review After eight years of withdrawal, what rules should the U.S. follow to effectively reassert itself in world affairs? The most dangerous moments in foreign affairs often come after a major power seeks to reassert its lost deterrence. The United States may be entering just such a perilous transitional period. […]
The Millstones of the Gods Grind Late, but They Grind Fine . . .
The Corner: The one and only. By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review The latest disclosures that former Obama national-security adviser Susan Rice may have requested that intelligence agencies reveal or “unmask” those from the Trump team who were surveilled in purportedly normal intelligence gathering — and that such requests may have extended over an apparently […]
Journey to the Center of the Country
By Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Trump seems radical only to the radicals who aim to take America far, far left. There have been roughly two sorts of Democratic presidents over the last century. A few were revolutionaries who sought to take the country leftward with them. They were masters of “never letting a serious […]
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 […]
VDH Ultra
03/29/17 From an Angry Reader: Do you mean educated people who worked hard to better themselves? Let’s all just stay in the old steel mill towns and coal mining towns gripping about how unfair the world is to us. You know, the good old days when blacks knew their place and we didn’t have no […]
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 […]