A year after taking power, in June 1934, Adolf Hitler made his first visit abroad—to his idol Benito Mussolini in Venice. Babbling on incessantly about Mein Kampf and the Negroid strain in Mediterranean peoples, the Führer made a dismal impression. “What a clown this Hitler is,” Mussolini told an aide. Two weeks later, Hitler executed the Roehm purge and murdered scores … [Read More]

In a 1955 foreign-policy cabinet meeting, Dwight Eisenhower is reported to have remarked, “Adenauer’s the West’s ace in the hole.” The president was of course referring to the chancellor of the German Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer, who was at the time rather assiduously pursuing good relations with Washington and taking the lead in the establishment of various international institutions: from the … [Read More]

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO. Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow’s superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile … [Read More]

Every so often, someone in the Bush Administration actually makes a sensible point, though often not in the manner they intend.  Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, before jetting off to the Caucasus (an area that makes the Balkans look friendly), stated that the Administration’s “message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the … [Read More]

In response to the movement of Russian troops into Georgia this morning, State Department spokesperson Amanda Harper announced to the German press: “We support Georgia’s territorial integrity and we call for an immediate ceasefire.” Senator McCain was even more forceful, demanding, “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.” Both statements are … [Read More]

Yglesias says: The crux of the matter is that while truly conservative foreign policy thought has a long history of wrongness in the United States it’s rarely genuinely held sway on the big issues. Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan all at key moments broke with elements of their conservative base to preserve containment, to initiate détente, to continue with the bilateral … [Read More]