Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
Historians traditionally blame the failure of the League of Nations—the post-World War I, Versailles-era dream of President Woodrow Wilson—on many things.
Its membership was small (58 nations). The League’s utopian rhetoric lacked commensurate force.
The postwar ascendant United States refused to join.
The winners of World War I, like France and Britain, were terrified of rearming, while the losers, such as Germany and Austria, were eager to.
Consequently, the League in the mid-1930s allowed fascist powers to make a mockery of the Versailles Treaty. It could never even enforce its own embargoes and sanctions.
Without big power backup, the League soon watched the Axis powers prey on weak nations and start another world war.
In response, the post-World War II United Nations was said to have corrected the impotence of the old League.
The U.S. was now in. Indeed, the UN headquarters were to be in New York.
Almost all the nations of the world—currently 193—eventually joined.
A “Security Council” of the great powers (and former great powers) would “police” the consensus of the General Assembly of all members.
The UN would spin off a host of subordinate globalist projects, such as the World Health Organization, International Criminal Court, and World Bank, to promote peace, law, health, and profit.
Yet the UN’s 80-year record has proved as dismal as the League’s 26 years.
Only half the UN members are free societies and true democracies.
The two greatest threats to world peace—dictatorial Russia and communist China—exercise veto power in the Security Council.
Anti-Semitism is now a UN brand. So are rank corruption and profiteering.
No one expects the UN either to prevent or stop a war.
Aside from serving as a platform for national propaganda, it is increasingly both impotent and toxically anti-Western.
So who or what on the global stage is dealing with the planet’s existential crises?
Who makes any effort to stop the Iranian race to get the bomb and its use of terrorist proxies?
How about the war in Ukraine? China’s serial threats to absorb Taiwan? And serial border conflicts in the Balkans, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East?
As far as the West goes, who or what is warning about its suicidal trajectory of open borders, massive illegal immigration, and crashing fertility rates?
Who lectures on the dangers of disarmament, green energy mandates, and attacks on international shipping in the Black Sea, the Red Sea, the Straits of Hormuz, and the South China Sea—along with the shaky future of the Suez and Panama Canals?
So far, only the U.S. has stepped up—or, more particularly, its controversial president, the supposed neo-isolationist Donald Trump.
In whirlwind fashion, Trump has inserted himself into the middle of numerous border wars.
He apparently has used American economic and military carrots and sticks to achieve cease-fires for now between Rwanda and the Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, Kosovo and Serbia, Cambodia and Thailand, and Egypt and Ethiopia.
The UN has done nothing to stop the horrific fighting in Ukraine—a modern, three-and-a-half-year-long Stalingrad, where 1.5 million are now dead, wounded, or missing.
Trump has tried everything—from engaging Putin to haranguing him, and from haranguing Zelensky to engaging him—while outlining a peace plan along a DMZ commercial corridor.
Iran will not obtain a bomb for years—thanks to Trump’s 30-minute use of American bombers.
For the first time in memory, Iran’s once fearsome terrorist armies of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis are nearly neutered. There is even rare talk of a comprehensive peace on Israel’s borders.
The U.S. border is secure. Illegal entries are nearly nonexistent, offering a model for Europe, beleaguered by massive illegal immigration from the Middle East.
Trump may fail to find lasting solutions to all these horrific conflicts and crises.
But unlike the UN and the past American administrations, at least he is trying to persuade the belligerents that each has more to gain by deals than deaths.
Instead of soaring UN utopian rhetoric or fueling one side with money and weapons to win these forever wars, Trump engages both aggressor and victim—even those he despises.
He offers neither sanctimonious Wilsonian visions of universal brotherhood nor “both sides” gobbledygook diplomatese.
Instead, Trump simply appeals to their mutual economic and financial interests by offering new trade and foreign investment openings—and the present and future goodwill of the U.S. to help the belligerents find security and prosperity.
Always looming in the background is the superb but unpredictable U.S. military.
The failed international community despises Trump’s mercantile approach. It hates his self-referential, one-man showmanship.
And it can’t decide whether he is a yahoo isolationist or a cunning interventionist.
But the record of sober and judicious utopian internationalists, past and present, is mostly one of failure, war, destruction—and more death.
The Nobel Prize guys have spoken: Anyone who is not pro UN will never get the prize. No matter how pro peace they are!
This post is a follow-up comment (for some reason this VDH no longer makes that easy this on this site) to David Fallen’s (shown above).
ISIS rose under Obama and caused over a million muslims to emigrate in to Europe via Angela Merkel’s Germany. Since then they have caused enormous disruption to the pre-existing European cultures. Yet, Obama turned a blind eye to ISIS.
During Trump’s first term he allowed his military to crush ISIS in a matter of weeks. Why did not the Nobel Peace Prize recipient Obama do this when he was president?
Here is my suspicion (and that is all it is): ISIS was a tool of Obama’s to spread the influence of Islam into Europe, and beyond.
I have never heard this hypothesis discussed by those with a soap box, but I would bet my suspicion is correct.
Agree with JONTYD comment: …3 point plan in Gaza. Disperse the population to the 23 existing Arab states, Israel annex the land and the US reposition and consolidate its bases in Qatar and Europe to Israeli controlled Gaza.
I hope you are feeling better, Prof. Hanson. I agree with everything you say above about Donald Trump’s unique approach to the MidEast, but like many others at Sabbath services this morning, I am very uneasy. We’ve gone from “Hammas must return all the hostages, living and dead, accept exile of its leaders, and accept disarmament as a step towards demilitarization of Gaza”, to “Hammas will try and locate hostages by a date undetermined, and won’t disarm, and wants to discuss keeping “defensive” weapons”.
I understand that Donald Trump is America First, but is he so happy about Arab, particularly Quatari, acceptance of his MidEast plan that Israel is being bullied into a situation that will ensure another imminent fight for its survival? I’m planning to work in my Democratic neighborhood to improve the 40-45% of the American Jewish vote that went for Donald Trump (I refer you to the Republican Jewish Coalition). I’ve already lost relationships with friends and family and colleagues over support of Donald Trump. And I’m very, very uneasy.
Thank you Donald Trump. Thank You VDH. Democrats/Leftist/Marxist/Communists/Globalists and Muslims, Hell is your ultimate resting place.
U.S. taxpayers can no longer afford to subsidize other countries with our massive national debt. We need to get our spending under control, meaning essential services only. Oil rich countries should step up to fund these global programs along with non-philanthropic China. The billionaire class can help fill the gap in funding too. Meanwhile, Trump’s economic incentives are a practical way to reduce tensions and improve relationships.
Thank god for Victors take on issues, he is truly grounded in reality vs. misconceptions, biases, and paranoia! He’s absolutely right about President Trump, the champion of common sense. Trump’s ingrained American spirit will and has achieved some great things. If anyone could reform the UN, it will be him.
How many illegal immigrants did you and your family employ on that Selma farmland? I went to school with your kids. I know about farm workers, “ y como se hace la machaca”, from living in the Central Valley. The rest of what they told me about your personal life I won’t even mention. All your talk about the MeToo movement years ago was deliciously rich. Your genius should be used for something besides hypocrisy.
I completely agree with JonTYD. However, my pick for dispersing the population of Gaza is to Norway, Spain, Ireland, France and the UK. I wonder how long those countries will function once they have their share of Gazans.
The UN is a terrorist organization. Trump’s rhetoric at the UN is undermined by his alliance with terrorist Qatar and malevolent Saudi Arabia. Trump is clearly bought off by Qatari and Saudi ‘investments’. These evil actors have infiltrated every Western institution including, it seems, the US government. Qatar was funding Hamas at a rate of $30m/mth, provides sanctuary for its plotting leaders that wallow there in luxury and hides behind the illegal US base there. Qatar should be bombed until it pays up $2t to Israel for war damages and compensation.
Trump is delusional about Qatar and Saudi Arabia as allies, just as he is delusional about his Gaza peace plan, if it is intended as presented. The repeatedly failed American narcissistic foreign policies focus on material issues when the reality is that the issues are thoroughly theological in nature.
There is only a viable 3 point plan in Gaza. Disperse the population to the 23 existing Arab states, Israel annex the land and the US reposition and consolidate its bases in Qatar and Europe to Israeli controlled Gaza.
Great historical summation for your readers. Excellent source of information and clarity about where we have been, what’s happening now, and specifically how DJT is providing different effective solutions, as opposed to the ineffectual rhetoric of the UN.
Dear VDH
Do you see any path to ending the UN?
I would anticipate a violent objection from the World Order Cartels. We should certainly remove all funding and real estate assets immediately though I believe they would reconstitute somewhere in Europe, at least without US resources.
Simultaneously I believe President Trump and the 2028 administration should set up a multilateral Board of Nuclear Powers. Predominately responsible for avoiding any and all nuclear confrontations worldwide. This multilateral board would be the powerful military nations and could strongly suggest to the world that they stand down from further conflicts and killing.
I believe this suggestion has merit though I also believe the US Military Industrial Complex will MURDER anyone who moves such an idea forward.
Just Thinking out loud.
Respectfully,,, CL
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. – William Shakespeare
Yup!
The maintenance of our Christian heritage versus radical Muslim and Islam freedoms of religion is an issue that is not getting the recognition it deserves from our government leaders. The example that is easily and readily accessible to us is the assimilation disaster of aliens on so many levels in the EU. Radical Muslim immigrants coming to the EU apparently have little interest in promoting a live and let live attitude regarding maintaining freedom of religious choice for all people in the country they are now living in and benefitting from. These radicals desire to marginalize all forms of religion and promote Islam. We are seeing this play out in Dearborn Michigan. The mayor of Dearborn told a Christian minister to leave Dearborn if this minister didn’t support the renaming of a street for a pro Hamas terrorists. The mayor went on to say that he would have a parade celebrating the minister leaving.
It strikes me that this represents a real threat from within that affects our future significantly. Thank you for your shows and clarity. I will look on the website for any discussions or opinion on this concerning issue.
Get a contract signed with professional American demolition companies, targeted and safe explosives (i.e. the old Tropicana in Las Vegas), earthmovers to dump the rubble in the East River and build a new ICE Detention Center with clean towels, showers and chocolate mints on the pillows for the detainees.
Now here’s an opportunity for President Trump:
-toward the end of his term then pass it along to, God willing, JD Vance, to:
– dismantle the United Nations entirely.
-Turn the building into a rental property for U.S. and international debates on critical issues to all nations.
-Preferential treatment for “air-time” is given to top 50 countries.
That’s it!
No one will even notice it’s gone….except for the blood suckers getting rich through the con games now thriving.
Another wonderful piece from a man with the genius of deep historical perspective describes the current situation brilliantly. Thank you professor Hanson for your capture of the developed moment. Trump is King of the world to me.
We don’t have to like the 24K gold leaf decor and the combative NYC rhetoric but the man is making choices, implementing and adjusting like a good executive would. For too long our politicians have only been concerned with how they look and sound on TV. As always, your historical perspective makes sense when the new kids talking think they understand the complexities of these issues cause they heard a podcast.
UN=Unsuccessful Ninnyhammers OR Nincompoops! Whatever floats your boat! No more funding inoperative escalators, microphones and teleprompters! Kick them out and put the building to better use….like Mamdani’s election headquarters!! Whoops!, sorry, that’s a bad idea come to think of it!!
Arafat, Krugman, Gore and Obama received Nobels. Add up everything the accomplished and it is a minute fraction of what President Trump has done in 9 months.