Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq [Paperback]

Victor Davis Hanson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2004

In his acclaimed collection An Autumn of War, the scholar and military historian Victor Davis Hanson expressed powerful and provocative views of September 11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan. Now, in these challenging new essays, he examines the world’s ongoing war on terrorism, from America to Iraq, from Europe to Israel, and beyond.

In direct language, Hanson portrays an America making progress against Islamic fundamentalism but hampered by the self-hatred of elite academics at home and the cynical self-interest of allies abroad. He sees a new and urgent struggle of evil against good, one that can fail only if “we convince ourselves that our enemies fight because of something we, rather than they, did.”

Whether it’s a clear-cut defense of Israel as a secular democracy, a denunciation of how the U.N. undermines the U.S., a plea to drastically alter our alliance with Saudi Arabia, or a perception that postwar Iraq is reaching a dangerous tipping point, Hanson’s arguments have the shock of candor and the fire of conviction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hanson (An Autumn of War), who has been compared to John Keegan as a historian of war, doesn't display the objectivity of a scholar here. These 39 previously published essays (35 from National Review Online) assessing the U.S. war on terrorism mostly focus on broad-brush denunciations of Europeans, Arabs, the U.N. and Muslims, reserving praise for the U.S. and Israel as beacons of democracy. America's pre-emptive war in Iraq is applauded and, Hanson says, Syria should be next. Saudi Arabia should be seen more as an enemy than an ally and actively subverted. His targets are mostly caricaturesâ€"he portrays Europeans, for instance, as reactionaries in their anti-Americanism. Hanson, a scholar of the ancient Greek military, does not appeal to research or direct experience in the Arab world, but merely to what one can infer from mass media accounts. He professes faith that U.S. arms and good intentions will bring secular democracy to Iraq, and then beyond, but his dark portrayal of Arab culture gives little cause for optimism. The volume might have been more interesting if Hanson had confronted the difficult issue of just how less corrupt secular democracies might take root in the Middle East, including the problems of previous democratic experiments in the Arab world (in Lebanon, Algeria and Iraq itself before Saddam). What went wrong? Will the presence of U.S. soldiers insure that things go right this time? Hanson thinks so, but his reasons are not spelled out.
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Review

“Victor Hanson is a national treasure. . . . Every American needs to learn from him.”
—Donald Kagan, author of On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (February 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812972732
• ISBN-13: 978-0812972733
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson is Professor of Greek and Director of the Classics Program at California State University, Fresno. He is the author or editor of many books, including Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (with John Heath, Free Press, 1998), and The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999). In 1992 he was named the most outstanding undergraduate teacher of classics in the nation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vital to understanding the war, July 31, 2004

By 

T. G. Laufer "Is that you John Wayne?" (Annapolis MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq (Paperback)

For those unfamiliar, Victor Hanson is a military historian that specializes in Greek History and teaches classical history. This work is very much a continuation of his other excellent book An Autumn of war and has the same format; they both are a collection of his biweekly essays from the National Review written over the course of the official war. As he states in his introduction, the essays are not changed because of the conditions on the ground; thus, the reader gets a view into the accuracy of Hanson and can judge for themselves how his analysis shaped up.

Throughout, Hanson developed his thesis that Saddam needed to be removed on much more than WMDs and gets to the core issues; how the US could not allow Hussein to violate the deal of the armistice (as even Hans Blixs confirms), fire daily on US warplanes, harbor and support terrorists (Hussein paid money to suicide bombers, tried to establish a relationship with Al Qaeda and harbored Zarqawi and other terrorists) and be allowed to commit mass murder and starvation while we had the power to stop him.

He also takes to task the failure of some of the European community for their lack of support; how the French view themselves as the counterbalance to US power, how the destruction of the Soviet Union and reliance on the US for protection, and the decline in Europe's faith in the nation state (as Margaret Thatcher eloquently covers in her book Statecraft) and rise of the European community that largely exists in name only.

While bolstering the justifications of the war, Hanson also addresses the critics. Because the essays were written in real time, Hanson is able to effectively show how the media was deadest against the war from the start, promising quagmire after quagmire; who could forget how the media claimed that the war effort had broken down when the 3rd infantry hit a sand storm, or the abysmal cries of blood for oil as our troops were removing the apparatuses of terror used to enslave and murder in the most brutal regime in the Middle East. As the book (and time) progress Hanson shows how the press viewed the war as another Vietnam, to a chaotic and unjust endeavor that was cooked up in Crawford Texas.

Although written before Abu Ghraib and the rise in casualties, Hanson's thesis remains valid; America waged a just war to end a dictatorship that sought to defy the world, gain WMDs, aid terror, slaughter its own people and bred further hatred of the US and the tactical mistakes made and atrocities of individualizes does not and never will detract from that. As he put it, the Greeks were right; war was the mill of Ares (the god of war) and thus is a contest of wills won only by those that stay the course.

54 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hanson sets the record straight, again!, March 30, 2004

By 

Jim Symes (Laguna Niguel, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq (Paperback)

Feeling confused about America's current conflict in the world? Then you need to read Victor Hanson's "Between War and Peace". But I warn you, be prepared for a down to earth, unapologetic, crystal clear analysis of who we are, who our friends are, and of course, who our enemies are. Hanson's backround as a scholar of ancient history gives him a depth of understanding lacking in most of today's pundits who seem to be lost in too much "noise and chatter". A classic!!

38 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wisdom and Foresight, April 28, 2004

By 

Scott "Scott" (New York, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan to Iraq (Paperback)

Go back and read both of Hanson's books that sprung from 9/11. You will see how deeply this man understands historical trends. Read them and understand that no one knew how things were going to turn out. Some of his predictions and observations are almost exactly what wound up actually happening.

A man of such deep and broad learning has a lot to offer how we conduct our affairs in the current struggle. This volume serves as a valuable aid to understanding events and their consequences as they actually unfolded at the time.