As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, Lee’s retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur’s retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947—and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued. France’s departure from Indochina was ignominious, and her abandonment of hundreds of thousands of faithful Algerians to … [Read More]

Last week, the front pages of the world press blossomed with photos of four Iranian rockets, fired in salvo, heading skyward. The image was powerful, and the message reinforced by the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Should Israel attack Iran, said Ali Shira, Tel Aviv will be “set on fire.” U.S. reaction was swift and bristling. “Rice Says U.S. Will … [Read More]

Deterrence was profferred as a legitimate, noninterventionist solution to the problem of Iranian and other Third World nations’ nuclear weapons in the earlier discussion. Nuclear proliferation to the Third World in general is a problem because such countries are less likely to keep a tight hold on their nukes, rocked as they are by periodic coups, a culture of endemic bribery, … [Read More]

After the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, Austria got from Kaiser Wilhelm a “blank cheque” to punish Serbia. Germany would follow whatever course its ally chose to take. Austria chose war on Serbia. And World War I resulted. On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its dispute with Germany over Danzig, … [Read More]

The Iraq Campaign has more or less discredited the idea of preemptive war to stop the acquisition of nuclear weapons by unfriendly nations.  But does our unlucky situation in Iraq mean we should never use force to prevent nations such as Iran from getting nuclear weapons? Let me explore some paleoconservative heresies. Nuclear arms would make Iran an order of magnitude … [Read More]

“The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives–people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary–plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.” Sounds like Pat Buchanan, writing well before the first … [Read More]