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July 23, 2005

VDH

I am increasingly irritated by the cult of Victor Davis Hanson. Take this assertion from his latest article, for example.

... Islamicists are selective in their attacks and hatred. So far global jihad avoids two billion Indians and Chinese, despite the fact that their countries are far tougher on Muslims than is the United States or Europe. In other words, the Islamicists target those whom they think they can intimidate and blackmail.

This is not only wrong it is so obviously wrong that I find it difficult to believe the blogosphere does not fact check the good professor's ass instead of throwing laurels at his feet. I have read several of VDH's books and am an admirer of his writing style in addition to broadly sharing his views about the need for toughness in the face of barbarism. But his rhetoric, in hot pursuit of an over-arching narrative, often runs ahead of the facts.

For me the last straw was VDH's recent criticism of Jared Diamond. I am much less likely to share Diamond's prescriptions on the environment than Hanson's on foreign policy. I also think Diamond's theories are usefully made subject to the sort of nitpickery that should give us pause about any grand narrative, historical, biological, political or otherwise. But it is a bit rich coming from the historian best known for "the Western way of war", perhaps the greatest wet fart of all encompassing, ill supported bloviation in today's popular history. By all means have a go at weak-kneed foreign policy against the jihadis but do not premise your argument on the nonsensical erasure of decades of brutal jihad against India and China. And for the enthusiasts of a "Western way of war" who have not read much classical history, Harry Sidebottom's "Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction" offers a useful, if less sexy, cautionary alternative.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 23, 2005 09:47 AM

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Comments

VDH's introduction to military history was "Western Way of War" where he presented two insights: economic war (destroying crops etc) didn't happen, and that how the Greeks fought was heavily influenced by the 'panoply's' weight. In the first, he pointed out that the three major Greek crops (wheat, olives and grapes) are not easily destroyed. From that he deduces a Western preference for short sharp wars. The second insight demonsrated that Greek battles were short and thus necessarily violent, which leads directly to the Western concept of "battles of annihilation".
While the above sounds dismissive, the book was thought provoking from a military point of view. Unfortunately, his first insight should have been aimed toward the proponents of the Strategic Centre of Gravity Principle (ie, Strategic Air Power and the American Way of War); the second was a rehash of Hans Delbruck. Unfortunately, VDH followed up his success with "Carnage", which had less military and more pseudo-philosophy of war. Since then I have been contented to ignore him., though I trust he does not find out, lest his feelings be hurt.

Cheers
JMH

Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 24, 2005 12:57 AM

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