Historian’s Corner

Victor Davis Hanson What have the American armed forces often failed at? Democracies and consensual societies grow large bureaucracies for several reasons. And often stasis sets in, and ossified clerks and calcified careerists resent the talented outsider and the maverick, not-by-the-book loudmouth. And a result, brilliance is resented and smothered, and America is no exception […]

Victor Davis Hanson In sum, American war production was characterized by mass quantities, reliability, pragmatism, and affordability. What good did it do Panther tanks that they could blow apart Shermans at great distances if their hours of maintenance to hours of deployment were the inverse of Shermans? So what if the Tiger or Tiger II

Victor Davis Hanson Innovation It is no accident that the big-ticket, new weapons systems in World War II were American-made, or ironclads designed from the hull up with powerful guns, like the Monitor and its two state-of-the-art 11-inch Dahlgren turret guns, first appeared in the U.S. That is not to say friends and foes did

Victor Davis Hanson In reviewing America’s long wartime record, what does the United States do well, and what not—and what can we learn from both successes and failures? Production and Mobilization If America is often lax in maintaining deterrence during peace—cf. the disarmed era between 1870–1914 or 1920–1940—it is phenomenal at the 11th hour in

Victor Davis Hanson Soon the affluent woke went even further in their hubris. More statues were toppled, more names changed, more dangerous laws passed. Somehow in the mass madness of iconoclasm even the statues of Cervantes and Frederick Douglas were to be desecrated, along with monuments along Washington’s National Mall. The common denominator apparently was

Victor Davis Hanson Imagine this counterfactual—what if a President Donald Trump had released Viktor Bout from a U.S. prison? He is the convicted, notorious international arms dealer, who had supplied sophisticated weapons to help kill Americans abroad. And further imagine he gave up Bout in exchange for just one white, male, conservative athlete, known for

Victor Davis Hanson 3) Boarding passengers should be greeted with “Put all cell phones away until seated.” How many times, reader, have you watched someone with one hand on the phone talking, the other trying to slam a too-large carry-on into an already stuffed overhead? (Or how many times has a passenger blocked the aisle,

Víctor Davis Hanson I know the airlines have doubled the numbers of passengers of just a few years ago. I know in real dollars, fares, at least until Biden, are lower than ever. I know that chances of a lethal crackup in the skies are fewer than ever. I know they are gouged by astronomical

Victor Davis Hanson After the midterms, Republican blame-gaming reached a crescendo. And it was fueled by two realities: one, Ron DeSantis had a spectacular night (and two years ago had delivered Florida for Trump in 2020), and two, Donald Trump, in circular fashion and often vulgarly, attacked almost everyone, from his wife Melania and Dr.

Victor Davis Hanson I remember the rain year of 1982 when we rolled 100,000 raisin trays in 24 hours and hired anyone who could help us save the crop on the ground. Finally, my dad on his operated knees saw my mom rolling in the next row over and called out, “Well, look at that,