Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness Did Demons Create the First Atomic Bombs? Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This August has been no exception. As ever,… Continue reading Were the Bombs of August 1945 ‘Demonic’?
America Is Not Caught in a ‘Thucydides Trap!’
Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness The distinguished political scientist Graham Allison, author of the 2015 Atlantic article “The Thucydides Trap,” argued that often in history an established power will stage a preventive war against an ascendant adversary—for fear that otherwise it will soon lose its primacy. His title derives from two passages in the first book of… Continue reading America Is Not Caught in a ‘Thucydides Trap!’
VDH: When I Cruised Iraq in an Abrams Tank
Loose Talk About the End of Everything
Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness After a recent summit between new partners China and Russia, General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin issued an odd one-sentence communique: “There can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought.” No one would disagree, even though several officials of both… Continue reading Loose Talk About the End of Everything
When Has War Even Been ‘Proportional?’
Victor Davis Hanson American Greatness Proportionality in war is a synonym for lethal stalemate, if not defeat. When two sides go at it with roughly equal forces, weapons, and strategies, the result is often a horrific deadlock—like the four years of toxic trench warfare on the Western Front of World War I that resulted in… Continue reading When Has War Even Been ‘Proportional?’
Remembering the Horrors of D-Day
Seventy-nine years ago this week, the Allies assaulted the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Their invasion marked the largest amphibious landing since the Persians under Xerxes invaded the Greek mainland in 480 B.C. Nearly 160,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers stormed five beaches of Nazi-occupied France. The plan was to liberate Western Europe… Continue reading Remembering the Horrors of D-Day