Victor Davis Hanson
The post-Cold War new world order is rapidly breaking apart. Nations are returning to the ancient passions, rivalries and differences of past centuries.
Take Europe. The
decades-old vision of a united pan-continental Europe without borders is dissolving.
The cradle-to-grave welfare dream proved too expensive for
Cultural, linguistic and economic divides between Germany and Greece,
or
Nationalism is returning, based on stronger common ties of language, history, religion and culture. We are even seeing the return of a two-century-old European "problem": a powerful Germany that logically seeks greater political influence commensurate with its undeniable economic superiority.
The tired Israeli-Palestinian fight over the future of the
With nuclear weapons, theocratic
Turkey is flipping back to its pre-20th-century past. Its departure from
Turkish revisionism now glorifies the old Ottoman sultanate. Turkey wants to recharge that reactionary model as the unifier and protector of Islam -- not the modern, vastly reduced secular state of Kemal Ataturk. Weak neighbors
One of two rather bleak Asian futures seems likely. Either an ascendant
Oil-rich Russia -- deprived of its communist-era empire -- seems to find lost imperial prestige and influence by being for everything that the U.S. is against. That translates into selling nuclear expertise and material to
Closer to home, Russia has become a strange sort of friend. It devolves daily into a more corrupt and violent place than
Instead,
But American citizens are tired of picking up the tab to subsidize nearly 15 million poor illegal aliens. The growing hostility between the two countries is reminiscent of 19th-century tensions across the Rio Grande.
How is America reacting to these back-to-the-future changes?
Politically divided, committed to two wars, in a deep recession, insolvent and still stunned by the financial meltdown of 2008, our government seems paralyzed. As European socialism implodes, for some reason a new statist U.S. government wants to copy failure by taking over ever more of the economy and borrowing trillions more dollars to provide additional entitlements.
As panicky old allies look for American protection, we talk of slashing our defense budget. In apologetic fashion, we spend more time appeasing confident enemies than buttressing worried friends.
Instead of finishing our border fence and closing the southern border, we are suing a state that is trying to enforce immigration laws that the federal government will not apply. And as sectarianism spreads abroad, we at home still pursue the failed salad bowl and caricature the once-successful American melting pot.
But just as old problems return, so do equally old solutions. Once-stodgy ideas like a free-market economy, strong defense, secure borders and national unity are suddenly appearing fresh and wise.
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Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization
At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes
- Widening Divide in American-Chinese Commercial Interests
- The New Old World Order
- Global Human-Rights Cause Gets a Shot in the Arm
- Obama's Foreign Policy Performance
- New Russia Takes Root in Saint Petersburg and Moscow
- Dismantling Worst-Case Proliferation Scenarios
- A Numbers Game in the Middle East
- Middle East Peace Talks: Here We Go Again
- Obama and Clinton Revive Middle East Peace Talks
- Guess Who's Coming to the Table
- Iraq: Unanswered Policy Questions on U.S. Troops
- Iraq: Implications of a Pointless War
- Iraq: Book Review
- Iraq: No Drums and No Bugles: None Dare Call It Victory
- Pakistan's Leadership Sustains Flood Damage
- A French Leftist Ritual Takes on Sarkozy
- United States Losing Latin America Market Share
- The Power of Being Multilingual
- Chavez's Obsession With Past Turns Creepy and He's Not Alone
- Obama Could Help Stop Mexico's Bloodshed
- Interdependency Theory: China, India and the West
- The Dangerous Dog Days of Summer
- The Next 500 Years
- A New Plan For Nuclear Postures
- Strengthening the Political - Military Relationship
- Hydraulic Pressures: Into the Age of Water Scarcity?
- South Korea: Prosperity and Anxiety
- China Wealthy? That's Rich!
- Islamism Unveiled: From Berlin to Cairo and Back Again
- Beyond Moderates and Militants: Charting a New Course in the Middle East
- Middle East Peace Talks: Pointless Talks
- Why Israel Can't Rely on Deterrence Against Iran's Nuclear Program
- How to Handle Hamas
- Bringing Israel's Bomb Out of the Basement
- Iraq: Anxious Iraqis Look at Uncertain Future
- Iraq: U.S. Combat Troops' Departure Leaves Uncertainty in its Wake
- Iraq: A Promise Kept?
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- Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011
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- Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret
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- Mexico's Narco Problems Are Our Problems, and Vice Versa
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- Afghanistan Timetable Remains a Factor of Uncertainty
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- Defusing Lebanon's Powder Keg
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- End Poverty: Export Capitalism
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- Iraq - Mission Accomplished II
- The Fight Escalates Against Fake Drugs
- China's Coal Addiction
- Afghanistan: The Pentagon's Lost War
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- Afghanistan: Pentagon Papers Redux?
- Behind Iraq's Long Political Indecision
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- Will China Rule the World?
- NATO's Future Involves More Global Partnerships
- Gloom Awaits U.S. Climate Diplomacy
- U.S. - U.K.: Difficult Duet in Afghanistan
- 'Pariah of the Pacific' Has Ham-handed Grip on Fiji
- Turkey Takes the Veil
- For Israel a Two-State Proposal Starts With Security
- Is It Too Late to Stop Iran
- The Middle East's Private Little War
- Reality and Reform for How the EU Keeps Its Peace
- Chancellor Angela Merkel's Sinking Support
- The Real Reason Why Afghanistan Is a Lost Cause
- The War Drones On
- When the 'Right War' Goes Wrong
- The Afghanistan Paradox
- Pakistan's Gambit in Afghanistan
- Obama Wasting Opportunities in Latin America
- Stopping Nuclear Proliferation Before It Starts
- Veiled Truths: The Rise of Political Islam in the West
- Steps to Stop Iran From Getting a Nuclear Bomb
- Iran: The Nuclear Containment Conundrum
- Iran: The Right Kind Of Containment
- China Is the Key to Handling Nuclear North Korea
- Coping With China's Financial Power
- What China's Currency Reform Means For Investors
- Russian-American Obstacles Overshadow Obama-Medvedev Meeting
- Russia's Courtship of Silicon Valley
- Ukrainian Blues: Viktor Yanukovych's Rise and Democracy's Fall
- Russia: Prisoners of the Caucasus
- The Afghan Challenge Is Far Tougher
- New Guard, Old Policy on Afghanistan
- Fear and Uncertainty in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan: Bribing the Enemy
- Afghanistan Poses Difficult Challenges
- Defining Success in Afghanistan
- Sad Stan, Famous Petraeus
- The Challenge of Reconciliation in Kenya
- The Tyranny of Unity in Zimbabwe
- Mexico: The New Cocaine Cowboys
- Under Santos Colombia Could Rise to the Next Level
- Autocrats' Latest Weapon: Indirect Censorship
- Latin America's Rich Should Be More Generous
- Castrocare in Crisis
(C) 2010 Victor Davis Hanson