Bringing Bergdahl home was useful for closing Gitmo and winding down the war. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Soon we shall get to the bottom of the swap of five Taliban kingpins from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for one Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. In time we will learn whether Bergdahl really served with …
Obama’s foreign-policy weakness encourages our enemies and disheartens our allies. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The final acts of the Obama foreign policy will play out in the next two years. Unfortunately, bad things happen when the world concludes that the American president has become weakened, distracted, or diffident about foreign policy. …
by Bruce Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Every parent should be happy for the Bergdahl family, whose son was returned to them after five years of captivity among the Taliban. But every parent is not the president of the United States, whose primary responsibility is to protect the security and interests of all Americans, both …
American foreign policy could use a does of hard-nosed realism. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas United States foreign policy has been defined lately by serial failures. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and appears to be preparing a reprise in eastern Ukraine, and possibly in the Baltic states. Syrian strongman Bashar al Assad is …
Our allies and our enemies have seriously recalculated where the U.S. stands. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online It was not difficult to define American geopolitical strategy over the seven decades following World War II — at least until 2009. It was largely bipartisan advocacy, most ambitiously, for nations to have the freedom of …
Why do weak nations like Russia provoke stronger ones like the United States? by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas An ascendant Vladimir Putin is dismantling the Ukraine and absorbing its eastern territory in the Crimea. President Obama is fighting back against critics that his administration serially projected weakness, and thereby lost the ability to deter …
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine For three centuries the West built up enormous economic, cultural, and military capital that dwarfs and dominates that of the rest of the world. Other countries may hate and resent Europe and the United States, but they still have to imitate, adapt, or steal the technology, financial systems, and …
Obama’s global fantasies are falling to earth along with him. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In the last two weeks, we learned that Bashar Assad has dismantled only 5 percent of his WMD arsenal, despite President Obama’s soaring rhetoric to the contrary. Russia violated a long-observed agreement with the U.S. about testing missiles. Iran’s take on the …
There is nothing accidental about the president’s apparent foreign-policy blunders. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Does Barack Obama have a strategy? He is often criticized for being adrift. Nonetheless, while Obama has never articulated strategic aims in the manner of Ronald Reagan or the two Bushes, it is not therefore true that there …
The Obama administration has little interest in world leadership. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The United States has ridden — and tamed — the wild global tiger since the end of World War II. The frantic ride has been dangerous, to us, but a boon to humanity. At the same time, America’s leadership …