From reset to the Iran deal, Obama’s mistakes are so comprehensive they almost look deliberate. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online How did Vladimir Putin — with his country reeling from falling oil prices, possessing only a second-rate military, in demographic free-fall, and suffering from an array of international sanctions — find himself …
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Contrary to the principles of American foreign policy of the last 70 years, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry tacitly invited Russia to “help” monitor things in the Middle East. Now they are learning that there are lots of Middle East scenarios far worse than …
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online – The Corner One of the more depressing things in watching Vladimir Putin is the manner in which Russian “experts” at home have for years now all but cheered him on. In the latest Nation magazine, Stephen Cohen has written one of the most embarrassing apologies of Putin’s imperialistic …
VDH commentary on the ‘CAN OR SHOULD THE WEST TRY TO STOP VLADIMIR PUTIN’S ATTEMPTS TO REABSORB PORTIONS OF THE OLD SOVIET UNION?’ issue 13 of Strategika by Victor Davis Hanson // Strategika Our elites often diagnose Vladimir Putin as acting from “weakness” in his many aggressions. A list of Russia’s symptoms of feebleness follows: demographic crises, …
Aggressors often attack weaker neighbors to restore a sense of pride. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a disaster of a declining population, corruption, authoritarianism, a warped economy, and a high rate of alcoholism. Why, then, would Putin want to ruin additional territory in Crimea and Ukraine the way …
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 …
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Review Online President Obama talks about Vladimir Putin as if he were a Pennsylvania “clinger” who operates on outdated principles, who is driven by fear, and whom unfortunately the post-Enlightenment mind of even Barack Obama cannot always …
Obama’s postmodernism has met its match in premodern Putin. by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Vladimir Putin thinks he has a winning formula to restore the global clout of the old Soviet Union. Contemporary Russia is a chaotic, shrinking, and petrodollar-fed kleptocracy. It certainly lacks the population, the vast resources, and territory of its former …
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 …