Victor Davis Hanson probably is on many EU-lists of conservative euro-skeptics as an intellectual who has lost touch with the reality of Europe?
In Pajamas Media he recently wrote: "The European Union was always a paradox. Its existence was predicated entirely on the notion of German guilt, translating into massive cash transfers east and south. Just as Versailles was supposed to have restrained Germany, then a divided, postwar Germany, then NATO integration and the common Soviet enemy, and then the EU — and now what next?"
Earlier he also wrote in the Right Wing News: "The cold war was an aberration. Note how quickly the Europeans turned on America once 400 hostile divisions were no longer on their borders. They make up a big continent with a big population that deserves pride and power commensurate with their economy and population; so it is time for both of us to recognize that, bring the troops home or redeploy them in more friendly eastern European countries, and as friends let them develop their own military identity. Keeping 200,000 troops abroad to protect a rich continent is unhealthy for all parties involved." Sounds good? Not really.
Unfortunately Mr. Hanson is not qualifying his argument, or elaborating on the reasons why successive US Administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, have kept troops on the European continent and why they are now even planning to build a missile defense shield there. Or that most Eastern European countries are members of the EU and that any unilateral deal between the US and these countries could eventually jeopardize their membership in the EU.
Obviously Mr. Hanson is free to say and write whatever he likes, but one should certainly not qualify him as a reliable and balanced source of information about Europe.
Footnote: Wikipedia identifies Victor Davis Hanson as "a registered member of the Democratic Party who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections. He has been described as a "Neoconservative" by some commentators,and has stated : "I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative."
EU-Digest
In Pajamas Media he recently wrote: "The European Union was always a paradox. Its existence was predicated entirely on the notion of German guilt, translating into massive cash transfers east and south. Just as Versailles was supposed to have restrained Germany, then a divided, postwar Germany, then NATO integration and the common Soviet enemy, and then the EU — and now what next?"
Earlier he also wrote in the Right Wing News: "The cold war was an aberration. Note how quickly the Europeans turned on America once 400 hostile divisions were no longer on their borders. They make up a big continent with a big population that deserves pride and power commensurate with their economy and population; so it is time for both of us to recognize that, bring the troops home or redeploy them in more friendly eastern European countries, and as friends let them develop their own military identity. Keeping 200,000 troops abroad to protect a rich continent is unhealthy for all parties involved." Sounds good? Not really.
Unfortunately Mr. Hanson is not qualifying his argument, or elaborating on the reasons why successive US Administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, have kept troops on the European continent and why they are now even planning to build a missile defense shield there. Or that most Eastern European countries are members of the EU and that any unilateral deal between the US and these countries could eventually jeopardize their membership in the EU.
Obviously Mr. Hanson is free to say and write whatever he likes, but one should certainly not qualify him as a reliable and balanced source of information about Europe.
Footnote: Wikipedia identifies Victor Davis Hanson as "a registered member of the Democratic Party who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections. He has been described as a "Neoconservative" by some commentators,and has stated : "I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative."
EU-Digest
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