American History of War

Victor Davis Hanson - next to Paul Johnson - is the finest historian writing today. Here's a little taste from his latest essay:

The second problem was that not only were we no longer clearly fighting a right-wing extremist ideology, but Texan, twangy, and conservative President Bush was hard to repackage into the reluctant liberal warrior in the image of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, or Bill Clinton.

So there was never much room for error in this war. We are not talking in this postmodern era in terms of a past Democratic president invading Latin America, interring citizens in high-plains camps, hanging terrorist suspects, nuking cities, or bombing pharmaceutical factories in Africa, but, at least from the weird present hysteria, something apparently far worse — like supposedly flushing a Koran at Guantanamo.

In a leisured and liberal society, it is very difficult in general for a conservative to wage war, because the natural suspicion arises — as a result of the conservative's tragic view of human nature and his belief in the occasional utility of force — that he enjoys the enterprise far more than a lip-biting progressive, who may in fact order more destruction. George H. W. Bush barely pulled off freeing Kuwait, but only because he fought on the ground for only four days, used the aegis of the U.N., pulled back on televised images of the so-called "Highway of Death," and was able to avoid going to Baghdad and dealing with a murdering despot still in power.