By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Weaker enemies, by design, do not threaten stronger powers existentially; ‘proportionality’ means stalemate. From the Punic Wars (264–146 b.c.) and the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) to the Arab–Israeli wars (1947–) and the so-called War on Terror (2001–), some wars never seem to end. The dilemma […]
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review Hitler and his Axis cohorts couldn’t match their enemies’ resources to begin with. That they learned all the wrong lessons from military history while the Allies learned all the right ones doomed them. Editor’s Note: The following is the second in a series of excerpts adapted from
by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review History shows that a lack of deterrence, not loose rhetoric, spurs aggression. As tensions mount with North Korea, fears arise that President Trump’s tit-for-tat bellicose rhetoric with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un might lead to miscalculations — and thus an accidental war that could have been prevented.
The obligation to honor the war dead has often conflicted with the need to make distinctions among them and their causes. By Victor Davis Hanson// Wall Street Journal A few years ago I was honored to serve briefly on the American Battle Monuments Commission, whose chief duty is the custodianship of American military cemeteries abroad.
by Victor Davis Hanson// Defining Ideas History teaches us that during war and international crises, just when things were looking most grim, they were oftentimes already getting better. Consider the dark days of World War II. Seventy-five years ago, 1942 started out as an awful year. The United States and the British were still
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.
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
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online While in London last week, President Obama waded into the upcoming British referendum about whether the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union. Controversy followed his lecture about the future of the Anglo-American relationship should Britain depart the EU. Obama also implied that without an EU,
by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas Seventy-seven years ago, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, triggering a declaration of war by Great Britain and its Empire and France. After Hitler’s serial aggressions in the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, the Munich Agreement, and the carving up of Czechoslovakia, no one believed that a formal war
Much of what we think we know is false; what really happened matters desperately to us today. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, and we should reflect on the “lessons” we have been taught so often on how to avoid another such