Europe and Immigration<\/strong><\/p>\nIf we revised immigration policy and predicated legal entry on education and skill, ten million Europeans would arrive tomorrow, replete with degrees, expertise, and capital. There is a great unease over here, mostly in worry that no one knows the extent of aggregate debt, only that it is larger than let on and will result in higher taxes and fewer benefits without resulting in budget surpluses. It is always difficult for a government to ask its citizens to pay more than ever, receive less than ever, and end up nevertheless with greater debt than ever. We\u2019re next.<\/p>\n
Here and there a few Germans seem to wonder what Obama is doing, but they are torn: \u201cWe are flattered the U.S. wants to emulate our system\u201d versus \u201cWhy would you wish to get yourself into the jam we are in?\u201d<\/p>\n
Regensburg: World War II<\/strong><\/p>\nWe headed down the Main-Danube canal to meet the Danube with stops and lectures in Regensburg and Vienna. There was much discussion in the group on World War II and especially Operation Barbarossa, a lunatic gambit that ensured a war largely won (by May 1941, Europe from the Atlantic to the Russian border was mostly subdued, allied, or neutral) would be largely lost. But one must not fall into the fallacy of hindsight: to us it seems ridiculous for the\u00a0Wehrmacht\u00a0<\/em>to have sent 190 of its divisions into Russia when Stalin was granting all of Hitler\u2019s requests for strategic materials, when a far easier and smarter route (with implications for hampering the British fleet in the Pacific), would have been to send 100 divisions into Egypt, take Suez, and go into the Middle East \u2014 Russia and Turkey remaining quasi-allies eager for a share of the spoils.<\/p>\nBut again, at the time remember the Nazi logic, not all of it quite so unhinged as it is in light of the subsequent disaster: the full actualization of the dark ideas in\u00a0Mein Kampf<\/em>\u00a0could only take place in the east. The\u00a0Wehrmacht<\/em>\u00a0was largely undefeated and had little worries of losing anywhere. Britain was a relatively quiet front; and victory in the east was seen as a way of turning back again in more confidence to the west. Russian strategic materials in hand would ensure that a British sea blockade as in World War I would have no effect. Stalin had sort of cheated on his deals with Hitler and was carving up territory in the Baltic states and Romania. The World War I calculus (4 years and defeat in the west versus 3 years and victory in the east) loomed large in 1941, and so suggested Russia would fall even more quickly than had France.<\/p>\nThe Soviet Union had also done poorly in Poland both in the 1920s and again in 1939 and was undistinguished in its \u201cvictory\u201d over Finland. Its officer corps had not long earlier been wiped out by Stalin. Hitler added all that up and with some evidence felt the Red Army would fold when 200 plus divisions of Germans and allies surprised it with complete air superiority.<\/p>\n
Germany was not at war with the U.S. in June 1941, and had no idea that it would be in the immediate future \u2014 much less that Russia would ever be supplied by the full American industrial colossus via Iran. To Hitler, perhaps, more likely than a Pearl Harbor was the scenario that Japan might get over its bruising from the Red Army in 1939, forgive the Axis treachery of the Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact, and thus return to an offensive on Russia\u2019s eastern front, ensuring Stalin an eventual two-front war.<\/p>\n
By late 1941 Operation Barbarossa (Hitler could not have invented a more give-away codename for the invasion) was revealed as the flawed and suicidal plan that it inherently was; but in June 1941, if one were a demonic Hitler, there were logical reasons to think it would work (even with his lunatic intrusion into daily command decisions and the winter of 1941-2).<\/p>\n
As a general rule when reviewing historical idiocies, it is always wiser to understand the thinking of the time rather than just the post-facto realities. (e.g., Bin Laden after the first World Trade Center attack, the east-African embassy bombings, the USS Cole and other unanswered assaults could reasonably expect two big holes in the otherwise indestructible Twin Towers, a brief retaliatory cruise missile shower, and a Clintonian speech from a new and unknown president \u2014 and more such attacks on the agenda. That both towers collapsed from the enormous explosive force killing 3,000, that the American dragon was aroused, and that Bush was not Clinton seems logical to us, but not necessary to our enemies.)<\/p>\n
A Final Note<\/strong><\/p>\nAs much as we suspect the pretensions of the European Union, Americans must appreciate its achievement in lessening European tensions after the fall of the Cold War, the end of a common enemy in the Soviet Union, and the gradual diminution of a U.S. presence. If this implosion begins to unravel the EU, I think we will be once again right in the middle, rather than at the end, of history. There is simply too much history, too much memory, too many players over here to think a post-EU continent is going to always look like the Netherlands rather than from time to time the former Yugoslavia. Just think of Cyprus, the Turkish-Greek rivalry in the Aegean, the rise of radical Islam within Europe, Russia energy extortion, the large number of nuclearly capable but now non-nuclear states, and a hundred other scenarios that would have been unthinkable a year ago (but then so was the current meltdown).<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Nuremberg: Triumph of Will A German remarked on our Tour 2010 that he found it odd that, given all the graffiti one sees, there is never any defacement on the great stone stage at Nuremberg (patterned by Albert Speer after the Pergamon altar) that is immortalized in so many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[587],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-pp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5151,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/huck-finn-and-the-nuremberg-rally\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":0},"title":"Huck Finn and the Nuremberg Rally","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton The New Individualist Some of the most frightening images from Nazi Germany can be seen in Leni Riefenstahl\u2019s\u00a0Triumph of the Will, the cinematic record of the 1934 week-long party rally held in\u00a0Nuremberg\u00a0. In scene after scene, the metronomic synchronization of marching feet, arms angling upward in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1442,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-american-way-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":1},"title":"The American Way of War","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas William Shawcross, the British journalist, historian, and human rights advocate \u2014 once a fierce critic of the Nixon-Kissinger years, now a defender of the West\u2019s struggle against radical Islam \u2014 has written the best book yet on the dilemmas Western governments face in dealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/11"","block_context":{"text":"9\/11","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war\/911\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11815,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-progressive-anti-semitism-and-why-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":2},"title":"Why Progressive Anti-Semitism \u2014 and Why Now?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The\u00a0New York Times International Edition\u00a0recently published an anti-Semitic cartoon of a dachshund with the face of Benjamin Netanyahu. The composite animal was leading a hunched Donald Trump who had on dark sunglasses, as if blind, and a yarmulke. Almost immediately, everyone pointed out that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anti-Semitism"","block_context":{"text":"Anti-Semitism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/anti-semitism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5074,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-new-fascism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":3},"title":"The New Fascism","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"Frightening extremist rhetoric from America's critics. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Watching televised clips from a recent pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, along with other such demonstrations over the last few weeks, can be a chilling experience. One woman chanted, \"Israel will be no more\" \u2014 apparently a call\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2002"","block_context":{"text":"April 2002","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2002\/april-2002\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10586,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10586-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":4},"title":"09\/15\/2017 From An Angry Reader:\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"09\/15\/2017 From An Angry Reader: Angry Reader Sam Davidson Victor, I enjoy reading your articles in the National Review. I never understood why this country has statues that honor people that took up arms against the United States. I do not think there are any statues honoring Lord Cornwallis, General\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4987,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/perils-of-the-german-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":1575,"position":5},"title":"Perils of ‘The German Way’","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 11, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"What do these recent outbursts mean? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Magazine The problem with the recent German criticism of President Bush was not Chancellor Schroeder's willingness to voice unease with the purported American \"adventure\" in Iraq. Germany is a sovereign nation and can and must do as it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2002"","block_context":{"text":"November 2002","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2002\/november-2002\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}