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 […]
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The crisis in Ukraine is just the latest in a long series of foreign policy failures brought about by the incoherence in our thinking about foreign relations. On the one hand, we have championed ethnic-national self-determination as the highest international good, while on the other we have assumed that
The Incoherence of Western Foreign Policy Read More »
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine For three centuries the West built up enormous economic, cultural, and military capital that dwarfs and dominates that of the rest of the world. Other countries may hate and resent Europe and the United States, but they still have to imitate, adapt, or steal the technology, financial systems, and
Western Arrogance and Decline Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner Vladimir Putin all but said the above yesterday, after annexing the Crimea — and promising to let alone the rest of the Ukraine. If we just insert Ukraine and Russia for Czechoslovakia and Germany, the following speech could easily be Putin’s: Share This
‘This Is the Last Territorial Demand I Have to Make in Europe’ Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner The new administration party line is that Putin is now weak and acting out of just that weakness by sending troops into Ukrainian territory — a sort of chihuahua who took on a pit bull because he knew he was weak. But even weak states do not typically
The Chihuahua Theory of Foreign Policy Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s the Corner Of all the advice to Obama to reverse his brand of Carterism, the best might simply be to shut his eyes, and every time he gets angry and is about to say something about Israel, stop, and think first to substitute the reset vocabulary he has used with
A Modest Proposal on Ukraine Read More »
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Vladimir Putin, playing geopolitical chess while our president plays tiddlywinks, has effectively taken over Crimea. Armed men, looking suspiciously like Russian military personnel, have seized both airports and established border checkpoints decorated with Kalashnikovs and Russian flags. This comes after other armed men seized two government buildings and raised
Sacrificing the Military to Entitlements Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner Each step to the present Ukrainian predicament was in and of itself hardly earth-shattering and was sort of framed by Obama’s open-mic assurance to Medvedev to tell Vladimir that he would more flexible after the election. Indeed, Obama, as is his wont, always had mellifluous and sophistic arguments
The Stepping Stones to the Ukraine Crisis Read More »
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner I am used to being sent bizarre things from readers of The American Conservative, but former Ron Paul foreign-policy adviser Leon Hadar’s accusation that I somehow published on National Review Share This
Putin ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Vladimir Putin has the world’s attention this week. The circumstances will remind everyone that reset with Russia is dead. Its working hypothesis — that it was the George W. Bush administration, not the
The Value of Putin Read More »