Picto Diary - 22 October 2018 (bis) - Victor Davis Hansen, Hoover Retreat
VICTOR DAVIS HANSEN, Hoover Fellow. Speaker. Hoover Retreat. Stanford University. 22 October 2018.
Topic: Post War Order's Decline.
Note: Note taker is fallible. Mistakes are his.
Post WWII assumption. We would do what it takes to stand up to communism. We were rich enough. We could contain communism's spread.
By 1989, the idea of containment was a smashing.success. The USSR had cried uncle.
It looked like the forces of democracy were ascendant. Francis Fukuyama declared the "end of history."
Our expectations were that there would be a diminished need for hard power... that the UN would be ascendant.
1998 Serbia was a cooperative NATO enterprise. All singing from the same hymnal.
Fukayama seemed to be right.
BUT.....
Human nature doesn't change. There is evil in the world.
1. Nine Eleven
2. Afghan and Iraq Wars
3. 08 Financial Crisis
4. USSR gone... but, Russia was still Russia.
AND... the US was not well liked.
Europe anti US. Yet, we pay their defense bills, and afford them a trade surplus, giving them a trade advantage. Why should we do this?
And Mexico anti US. They have a big remittance surplus. We are Mexico's largest source of dollars. We thought, wrongly, that NAFTA would normalize relations between the US and Mexico.
Russia has returned to the 19th Century.
China has a huge trade surplus thanks to their unfair currency manipulation. They steal US technology and engage in cyber attacks against US institutions. We thought, post 1989, that China would liberalize... become more democratic... but, no... China is increasingly autocratic, belligerent, and hostile to US interests.
NATO is splintered thanks to the "New Ottoman Empire."
It seems that "free trade" is always at the expense of the US.
The EU was to be a model for the post war order. But, the EU is torn from north to south. Greece and Italy are highly antipathetic towards Germany. The EU is also torn from east to west by differing attitudes toward immigration.
Brexit. Start of the break up of the EU? Or is UK outlier?
The world is the world. New conflicts, having new dimensions arise. It will be ever thus.
But, our institutions remain the same. Need to adapt. For example, NATO? South Korea?
Despite growing threats, US's post 89 "policy" was laid back, asymmetrical, lead from behind, go with the global flow. US position as global leader was eroded...weakened.
US policy certainly didn't help the US middle class. The US middle class, by voting for Donald Trump, seemed to sense the state of the world in a way that America's elite could not see.
We have to change institutions for world that didn't pan out the way we hoped in 89.
Q and A
CA has become medieval society.
US polarized. Yet, only 2% of the population watch cable. All revolutions start with minority. Self selection.
500 entities have sanctuary designation. Sinister. This is nullification. If sanctuary cities can do it, what's to stop any effort to set aside federal law for a "righteous" goal?
We are coming apart.
Left lost everything. State legislatures. House. Senate. Presidency. Supreme Court. They feel morally right in their progressive beliefs.. So any way to get back to power they feel justified in using...even if extra constitutional.
It's going to get worse.