Tag: War

Now What?

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by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online

What are the president’s strategic objectives in the present mess? Does he know?

There are four general strategic options — predicated on the political fact that either the Congress will approve the operation or that the Obama administration will ignore it if it doesn’t, and that Obama is not worried about either the present absence of both public support and any militarily credible allies, and that he need not explain our primary objectives that will be made up as we go along  (e.g., punish WMD use, regime change, enhance U.S. security, help the insurgents, restore U.S. prestige, etc.) Continue reading “Now What?” →

Obama Indicts Obama

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

One of the problems that Barack Obama has in mounting an attack against the Assad regime is that the gambit violates every argument Barack Obama used against the Bush administration to establish his own anti-war candidacy. Continue reading “Obama Indicts Obama” →

Is The War to Save Face or Save Lives?

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

Click here to see the symposium of PJ columnists analyzing the pros and cons of an intervention in Syria.

Most of the arguments pro and con for an intervention in Syria have already been made. Continue reading “Is The War to Save Face or Save Lives?” →

What Is the Syria Plan?

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by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner

We are on the verge of a war with Syria. Yet I don’t think the administration has as of yet articulated what its aims are and thus is confused about the means of obtaining them. Is the point of the impending military action to remove Assad, engage his opposition, and foster a consensual society in his place, as if the U.S. can at last do

what so far the Arab Spring has not? To destroy enough of his assets to allow the insurgents (but who exactly are they?) to rebound somewhat? To establish a new American-enforced global statute that WMD use is not permissible in a way that a Rwanda, Grozny, or the Sudan apparently was? To Continue reading “What Is the Syria Plan?” →

Victor Davis Hanson on the ‘Savior Generals

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by Paul Schnee // FrontPage Magazine

Victor Davis Hanson is an American military historian, former classics professor, scholar of ancient warfare, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and the author of some 20 books. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Tribune Media Group. Thus, it was particularly interesting to hear him talk about his new book, “The Savior Generals,” at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Wednesday Morning Club luncheon held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills on August 12th.

Continue reading “Victor Davis Hanson on the ‘Savior Generals” →

Same old warfare?

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by Victor Davis Hanson // TLS

A Review of three books:

Saltpeter: The mother of gunpowder by David Cressy (Oxford University Press, 237pp)

Napalm by Robert M. Neer (Belknap Press, 310pp)

Warrior Geeks: How twenty-first-century technology is changing the way we fight and think about war by Christopher Coker (US: Columbia University Press, 330pp) Continue reading “Same old warfare?” →

Why Some Wars Are So Savage

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by Victor Davis Hanson

Wall Street Journal

A prominent Syrian rebel commander with the nom de guerre Abu Sakkar recently appeared on YouTube cutting open the chest of a dead government soldier, pulling something out of it—the heart or perhaps a lung—and taking a bite. Continue reading “Why Some Wars Are So Savage” →

North Korean Mythologies

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by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Much of what is written about the North Korean crisis seems to me little more than fantasy. Let us examine the mythologies. Continue reading “North Korean Mythologies” →

Iraq a Convenient Scapegoat

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by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Bring up Iraq — and expect to end up in an argument. Conservatives are no different from liberals in rehashing the unpopular war, which has become a sort of whipping boy for all our subsequent problems. Continue reading “Iraq a Convenient Scapegoat” →

Why Did We Invade Iraq?

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by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the back-and-forth recriminations continue, but in all the “not me” defenses, we have forgotten, over the ensuing decade, the climate of 2003 and why we invaded in the first place. The war was predicated on six suppositions. Continue reading “Why Did We Invade Iraq?” →