Only Deterrence Can Prevent War [Peace Through Strength]

National Review ^ | 9/4/2014 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Servant of the Cross]

Most aggressors take stupid risks only when they feel they won't be stopped.

The world seems to be falling apart.

Only lunatics from North Korea or Iran once mumbled about using nuclear weapons against their supposed enemies. Now Vladimir Putin, after gobbling up the Crimea, points to his nuclear arsenal and warns the West not to “mess” with Russia.

The Middle East terrorist group the Islamic State keeps beheading its captives and threatening the West. Meanwhile Obama admits to the world that we “don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with such barbaric terrorists. Not long ago he compared them to “jayvees.”

Egypt is bombing Libya, which America once bombed and then left. Vice President Joe Biden once boasted that a quiet Iraq without U.S. troops could be “one of the great achievements” of the administration. Not now.

China and Japan seem stuck in a 1930s time warp as they once again squabble over disputed territory. Why all the sudden wars?

Conflicts rarely break out over needed scarce land — what Adolf Hitler once called “living space” — or even over natural resources. A vast, naturally rich Russia is under-populated and poorly run. It hardly needs more of the Crimea and Ukraine to screw up. The islands that Japan and China haggle over are mostly worthless real estate. Iran has enough oil and natural gas to meet its domestic and export needs without going to war over building a nuclear bomb.

Often states fight about prestigious symbols that their own fears and sense of honor have inflated into existential issues. Hamas could turn its back on Israel and turn Gaza into Singapore — but not without feeling that it had backed down.

[Servant of the Cross]

[jsanders2001]

The article is spot on.the only reason the ISIS and Hamas punks are acting up is because they know they can get away with whatever they want like a spoiled child with parents who are lax and not strict

[jsanders2001]

The article is spot on.the only reason the ISIS and Hamas punks are acting up is because they know they can get away with whatever they want like a spoiled child with parents who are lax and not strict

[Servant of the Cross]

VDH ping ...

[GOPJ]

Conflicts rarely break out over needed scarce land — what Adolf Hitler once called “living space” — or even over natural resources. A vast, naturally rich Russia is under-populated and poorly run. It hardly needs more of the Crimea and Ukraine to screw up. The islands that Japan and China haggle over are mostly worthless real estate. Iran has enough oil and natural gas to meet its domestic and export needs without going to war over building a nuclear bomb.

Hanson 'gets' it. It's primal. Like family members who fight over grandma's picnic basket - while ignoring the hundreds of thousands left to them in the will...

[GOPJ]

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges once summed up the Falklands War between his country and Britain as a fight “between two bald men over a comb.” In fact, Britain went to war over distant windswept rocks to uphold the hallowed tradition of the British Navy and the idea that British subjects everywhere were sacrosanct. The unpopular Argentine junta started a war to take Britain down a notch.

This is as insightful as anything Greenfield or Sowell has ever come up with...

[katykelly]

Obama is afraid to use the “ big stick “ that uncle joe told us about .