Soviet Union

Obama’s Enlightened Foolery

He views Putin, the 21st century, and himself as in a fun-house mirror. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  President Obama talks about Vladimir Putin as if he were a Pennsylvania “clinger” who operates on outdated principles, who is driven by fear, and whom unfortunately the post-Enlightenment mind of even Barack Obama cannot always …

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The Hitler Model

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 …

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Obama’s Ironic Foreign Policy

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  In the old postwar, pre-Obama world, the United States accepted a 65-year burden of defeating Soviet communism. It led the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. The American fleet and overseas bases ensured that global commerce, communications, and travel were largely free and uninterrupted. Globalization was a sort of synonym …

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Ignoring History: The Folly of Our Iran Pact

Dictatorships abandon treaties when they become inconvenient. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  According to our recently proposed treaty with the Iranian government, Iran keeps much of its nuclear program while agreeing to slow its path to weapons-grade enrichment. The Iranians also get crippling economic sanctions lifted.  Share This

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Facts, Democrats and the JFK Legend

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine  The mythologizing of John F. Kennedy in the 50 years since his death has verified the adage in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The JFK legend recycled all these years is of a liberal icon, the glamorous martyr whose violent death has validated …

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Our Truest Lies

If the truth doesn’t deserve social justice — well, tell a noble lie. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  At the end of John Ford’s classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the editor of the local paper decides not to print the truth about who really killed the murderous Valance. “When the legend …

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War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media 1. Why Did Athens Lose the Peloponnesian War? It really did not in a way: Athens no more lost the war than Hitler did the Second World War between September 1939 and May 1941. Instead it was defeated in a series of wars (only later seen as elements of …

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War Is Like Rust

by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm. Throughout history, we have seen that war Share This

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War’s Paradoxes: From Pearl Harbor to the Russian Front to the 38th Parallel

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media From time to time, I take a break from opinion writing here at Works and Days [1] and turn to history — on this occasion, I am prompted by the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Here are a few of the most common questions that I have …

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Winning Battles, Losing Wars

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Can We Still Win Wars? Given that the United States fields the costliest, most sophisticated, and most lethal military in the history of civilization, that should be a silly question. Share This

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