By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, May 19, 2016
In 1939, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and
French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier warned Adolf Hitler that if the Third
Reich invaded Poland, a European war would follow.
Both leaders insisted that they meant it. But Hitler
thought that after getting away with militarizing the Rhineland, annexing
Austria, and dismantling Czechoslovakia, the Allied appeasers were once again
just bluffing.
England and France declared war two days after Hitler
entered Poland.
Once hard-won deterrence is lost, it is almost impossible
to restore credibility without terrible costs and danger.
Last week, Russian officials warned the Obama
administration about the installation of a new anti-ballistic missile system in
Romania and talked of a possible nuclear confrontation that would reduce the
host country to “smoking ruins” and “neutralize” any American-sponsored missile
system.
Such apocalyptic rhetoric follows months of Russian
bullying of nearby neutral Sweden, harassment of U.S. ships and planes,
warnings to NATO nations in Europe, and constant threats to the Baltic states
and former Soviet republics.
China just warned the U.S. to keep its ships and planes
away from its new artificial island and military base in the Spratly
archipelago — plopped down in the middle of the South China Sea to control
international sea lanes.
Iranian leaders routinely threaten to close down the key
Strait of Hormuz. North Korea and the Islamic State are upping their usual
unhinged bombast to new levels — from threatening nuclear strikes on the U.S.
homeland to drawing up hit lists of Americans targeted for death.
All the saber-rattling of 2016 is beginning to sound a
lot like the boasts and bullying of Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and Nazi
Germany of the 1930s.
But why so much tough talk — and why now?
After the abject pullout from Iraq in 2011 and the
subsequent collapse of the country eroded U.S. credibility, after the fake
Syrian red lines, the failed reset with Russia, the Benghazi fiasco, and the
slashing of the military, America has lost its old deterrence.
In a recent interview, President Obama claimed that his
Syrian flip-flop was one of his prouder moments, and he disparaged some of our
allies (presumably Britain and France among them) as unreliable, glory-hogging
freeloaders.
Israel has formed an alliance with some of its longtime
enemies in the Persian Gulf based on their shared fears of Iran and their
mutual distrust of American commitment. Israelis and Saudi Arabians alike are
confused about whether the Obama administration naïvely appeased Iran with a
nuclear deal or deliberately courted it as a new ally.
Japan and South Korea have hinted about going nuclear,
prompted by their growing distrust of decades-old American pledges to protect
them from neighborhood bullies such as China, North Korea, and Russia.
In a recent New
York Times Magazine interview, deputy national-security adviser and
presidential speechwriter Ben Rhodes ridiculed the “Blob” — his derogatory term
for the bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign-policy establishment. He also
bragged about deceiving journalists and policy wonks in order to ram through
the Iran deal without Senate approval or public support. Rhodes, who wrote
Obama’s mythological “Cairo Speech” and also the infamous Benghazi “talking
points,” seemed to confirm accusations that this administration has contempt
for traditional U.S. foreign policy.
If we know how and when the U.S. lost its ability to
deter enemies and protect friends, why is the world suddenly heating up in the
last year of Obama’s presidency?
Recent interviews with the president and his advisers
might confirm the impression abroad that the global order is, for a rare
moment, up for grabs, as a lame-duck administration retreats from America’s
role of world leader. And given that there are only eight months left to take
advantage of this global void, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Islamic
terrorists are beginning to believe that the U.S. will not do anything to stop
their aggressions once they change global realities by force.
South Korea, Estonia, Japan, Romania, the Czech Republic,
Poland, the Philippines, and much of Europe all expect provocations — and fear
the U.S. might issue more red lines, deadlines, and step-over lines rather than
come to their aid.
Aggressors are not sure whether Hillary Clinton, if
elected, will govern more like a traditional Democratic president committed to
leading the Western alliance. And if Donald Trump were to be elected, no
aggressor would know exactly why, when, or how he might strike back at them.
Given those uncertainties, it may seem wise in the waning
months of 2016 for aggressors to go for broke against the predictable Obama
administration before the game is declared over in 2017.
For that reason, the next few months may prove the most dangerous
since World War II.
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