Epoch INSIGHT Issue 16 (2022)

Nation Profile

Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, historian, and commentator.

THOUGHT LEADERS

The War, China, Globalism, and America

By every metric, the US should be stronger than ever, but it isn’t, Hanson says

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In two recent episodes of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek

52 I N S I G H T April 22–28, 2022

sat down with classicist, historian, and commentator Victor Davis Hanson to discuss Vladimir Putin’s possible goals in Ukraine, the resistance by Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians, the position of China in this war, and U.S. leadership.

Hanson is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the best-seller, “The Dying Citizen.”

MR . JAN JEKIELEK: Let’s

talk about the Russia– Ukraine war. There’s a lot of information flying around.

MR . VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: We don’t

really have an adequate picture, but the time factor suggests that Putin has underestimated the level of resistance; the level of supply from NATO countries, particularly the United States and the border

countries in Ukraine’s neighborhood, as well as the will of the West; and the efficacy of its weapons.

Put all that together, and Putin may find himself unable to set up a puppet government and make Ukraine subject to Russian influence. So what’s his fallback position?

I think it’s to divide the country from Kyiv to the east and destroy it, to raze the cities. This provides a

JACK WANG/THE EPOCH TIMES

ost people, unfortunately, human nature being what it is,” Victor Davis Hanson said, “are more apt to be impressed with displays of power than they are with humanity, and that’s where we are.”