The World and Us

Victor Davis Hanson offers some insightful observations on the state of things in the world. From National Review Online:

In the last hundred days, the world has seen not only how weak and divided are the European members of NATO, but also how the once-celebrated European notion of “soft power” means very little in the world of perpetually savage nations. What stops China from carving out a new co-prosperity sphere in Asian waters, Russia from reconstituting a hegemony over the former Soviet republics, Turkey from ending the notion that the Aegean is a Hellenic lake, a new alliance of radical Arab states from attacking Israel, a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran from threatening its Jewish and Arab rivals, and North Korea from invading the south is only lingering worries over a U.S. military response or an American-led alliance of resistance — not international sanctions or condemnation, a U.N. decree, an Arab League resolution, an International Criminal Court writ, an IMF or World Bank reprimand, a lecture from an EU grandee, or the EU rapid response force.