To one prominent historian and world observer, President Barack Obama’s policies are raising the stakes for war, as well as extinguishing opportunities for our youth as the country gets more Europeanized.
When President Obama abdicates American world leadership, knowingly or not, he raises the likelihood that in the next two years, belligerents around the globe may take more risks because America is no longer likely to respond. What kind of risks are there for the country?
Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution says these risks could include, “I will cross the 38th parallel. I’m going to readjust this settlement in Cypress. I’m going to bully Japan, or Taiwan is ripe for invasion, or maybe we can take another Soviet republic back into Russia, or South America, there’s areas for aggrandizement.”
Confusing America’s former allies and adversaries, President Obama’s rejection of American exceptionalism has consequences not readily realized. Hanson says in this new 26 minute video interview with The Daily Caller filmed on June 10, “The irony is that Obama wants to be the global peacemaker, but by projecting this image of ambivalence, he’s going to be the global war-maker, if he’s not careful.”
Discussing his recent serious bicycle accident that left him with a concussion and 75 stitches just weeks before this new interview with TheDC, Hanson was visiting Washington for a Heritage lecture on World War II and Lessons for Today, a compelling one-hour lecture given without a note in front of him.
A Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an author of 23 books who has three children of his own, Hanson talks about being worried for America’s youth. He explains the transition of values that inhibit entrepreneurism and the flourishing of ideas and prosperity based on an individual’s hard work for the false promises of government largess at times. He compares America’s former “can-do optimism” with an emerging, dangerous “European stasis, calcification.”
“England until Thatcher self destructed,” he says. “What destroys a society is not necessarily atomic bombs all the time. It’s the atomic bomb of destroying the human spirit and the idea that you can be creative and innovative and free to express your ideas.”
For more information on Hanson, who was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 and the Bradley Prize in 2008, see here and here.
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