Roundup: Historians' Take

Conrad Black: Obama’s Defense Cuts are Defensible

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and, just released, A Matter of Principle. He can be reached at cbletters@gmail.com.It would be unfair to dismiss the administration’s latest assault on the U.S.’s defense capability as the folly and cowardice some commentators are already alleging. Without a worldwide rival of comparable strength threatening all American strategic interests, it is certainly possible to retrench gradually and support regional forces of stability and, preferably, moderation.

Burton Folsom, Jr. and Anita Folsom: Washington Shouldn't Be Responsible for Infrastructure

Burton Folsom, Jr. is professor of history at Hillsdale College and author of New Deal or Raw Deal? (Simon & Schuster, 2008). His new book, co-authored with Anita Folsom, is FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011). Anita Folsom works at Hillsdale College and is co-author of FDR Goes to War: How Expanded Executive Power, Spiraling National Debt, and Restricted Civil Liberties Shaped Wartime America (Simon & Schuster, 2011).Who should build and fix the nation's roads? The Democrats clearly believe road building and repair is best done by the federal government. President Obama, in fact, made infrastructure improvements a major part of his $787 billion stimulus package. And in the New Hampshire debate on Saturday night, the Republicans sadly seemed to look to Washington as well.

Geoffrey Kabaservice: “Moderate” is an Obscenity for Conservatives

Geoffrey Kabaservice has written for numerous national publications and has been an assistant professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of the National Book Award-nominated The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment and, most recently, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party. He lives outside Washington, DC. Rule and Ruin was reviewed in this Sunday’s New York Times.

Julian Zelizer: New Hampshire was the Key Test for Romney

(CNN) -- The New Hampshire primary will tell us a good deal more than the Iowa caucuses did about where the Republican candidates stand and how they might do in the general election against President Barack Obama.While the unpredictable nature of the Iowa caucuses offered Rick Santorum an opportunity to shine, Tuesday's vote will tell us where the party is really headed, in what has been a Wild West of a presidential selection process, one with more ups and downs than the Colorado Rockies.The New Hampshire primary, established in 1916, has a long and treasured history in American politics. It has often been the site where new voices have been able to upset the status quo and take on establishment figures.In 1952, the military hero Dwight Eisenhower successfully challenged "Mr. Republican" Robert Taft, the senator from Ohio, who was thought to be one of the strongest figures in the party. That same year, Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver shook up the Democratic Party by winning a stunning victory against President Harry Truman, fueling his decision not to run for re-election.

Max Boot: Overspending the Peace Dividend

Max Boot is a contributing editor to Opinion and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from an article in the current issue of Commentary.

Jonathan M. Hansen: Give Guantánamo Back to Cuba

Jonathan M. Hansen, a lecturer in social studies at Harvard, is the author of “Guantánamo: An American History.”IN the 10 years since the Guantánamo detention camp opened, the anguished debate over whether to shutter the facility — or make it permanent — has obscured a deeper failure that dates back more than a century and implicates all Americans: namely, our continued occupation of Guantánamo itself. It is past time to return this imperialist enclave to Cuba.From the moment the United States government forced Cuba to lease the Guantánamo Bay naval base to us, in June 1901, the American presence there has been more than a thorn in Cuba’s side. It has served to remind the world of America’s long history of interventionist militarism. Few gestures would have as salutary an effect on the stultifying impasse in American-Cuban relations as handing over this coveted piece of land.

Philip Zelikow: Obama's Foreign Policy is Reminiscent of Eisenhower’s

The writer is a dean and professor of history at the University of Virginia. From 2005 to 2007 he was counsellor of the US Department of State.Barack Obama’s new defence strategy caps the most important year in American foreign policy for a decade. Whatever grade one gives to the president’s decisions, they are certainly consequential, adding up to the most profound shift in US foreign policy since the convulsive period between September 2001 and August 2002.The shift is reflected in the planned defence posture outlined last week by the Obama administration, which makes clear that the "Atlantic community" is being eclipsed by the rising Asia-Pacific one.Some of the Asia-Pacific move reflects older initiatives; some is mainly symbolic. However, the cumulative boost of American energy and commitment is palpable. Indeed, the main challenge now for Washington may be to restrain the momentum of the large, coarse Sino-neuralgic political forces it has set in motion. Some of America’s Asian friends are uneasy. They wanted more reassurance, but not at the expense of rattling the table...



Gil Troy: Not Set in Granite



Gil Troy, professor of history at McGill University, is the editor, with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Fred Israel, of “History of American Presidential Elections, 1789-2008,” fourth edition.Right now, while we indulge New Hampshire’s childish insistence on its presidential primary being “first in the nation,” Americans should decide to bury this tradition. Nearly a century is enough: the Granite State has somehow turned a fluke into an entitlement. Worse, its obsession with primacy prolongs, complicates and distorts the presidential nominating process. In a democracy, no state should be first forever.People have been grumbling about this and other undemocratic anomalies for years. But the standoff between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008 gave the nominating process the equivalent of a stress test, which it failed.We can find redemption via randomization. Every four years — in March, not January — four different states, from the North, South, East and West, should begin the voting.

B. R. Myers: Dynasty, North Korean-Style

B. R. Myers is the director of the international studies department at Dongseo University and the author of “The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves — and Why It Matters.”KIM JONG-UN can count himself lucky that his first birthday in power falls today, on a Sunday, obviating the need for a new national holiday to be created at an awkward time. But the ease with which the new “supreme leader” has taken over North Korea has little to do with luck. For one thing, the propaganda apparatus did its job well. We now know why Kim Jong-un was such a peripheral figure on the evening news until his father’s death: so that North Koreans’ first long look at the pampered young man would be at the rarest of times — a time when he was suffering more than anyone.

Rick Perlstein: Santorum's 'Freedom' is Pretty Much Slavery

Rick Perlstein is the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Rick Santorum got high marks for his near-victory speech in Iowa. In the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne called it "by far the best speech Tuesday night." Santorum's address impressed me, too, but for a different reason: his astonishing endorsement of feudalism, wrapped up in a soaring tribute to something he called "freedom." A sharper illustration of the bad faith of at the heart of conservative rhetoric I never have seen in all my life.He began by doing what conservative presidential candidates always do in this season of economic privation: talked about his family's one-time economic privation. It wasn't off the cuff. "As you know," he said, "I do not speak from notes, but there's a couple of things I want to say that are a little more emotional, so I'm going to read them as I wrote them." And what were the words he so carefully wrote to read at this, his moment of triumph? That his grandfather came to the United States from Italy in 1925: "because Mussolini had been in power now three years, and he had figured out that fascism was something that would crush his spirit and freedom and give his children something less than he wanted for them." He came because—why else?—he loved freedom....

Michael Lind: Obama’s Revolution in American Strategy

Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of “The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution.”While the media has focused on the Republican presidential primaries, offstage the greatest revolution in American foreign policy in a generation has occurred, with little discussion or debate surrounding its announcement last week by President Obama.

Victor Davis Hanson: Will 2012 Be Our 1979?

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.

Julian Zelizer: Three Resolutions to Reform Washington

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" (Times Books) and author of the forthcoming book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).(CNN) -- At a time when many of us are making promises to change our behavior in the new year, politicians in Washington should make some resolutions of their own.In the past year, public disgust with the politics has intensified. The approval ratings of Congress are in the tank. The ratings of the president are much better but still low.Americans don't trust politicians, they don't trust government, and they have no confidence in the system. In their eyes, the nation's capital reflects the worst of the nation, not the best.What are some resolutions to which both parties could commit?The first would be to do something about the power of money in politics. Without campaign finance reform, the system won't change.

Daniel Pipes: Tehran Holds Obama Re-Election Wild Card

Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is president of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. © 2011 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.The formal end of the U.S. war in Iraq on Dec. 15 enhanced neighboring Iran as a major, unpredictable factor in the U.S. presidential election of 2012.First a look back: Iran's mullahs already has had one opportunity to affect American politics, in 1980. Their seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days haunted President Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign and – thanks to such developments as yellow ribbons, a "Rose Garden" strategy, a failed rescue operation, and ABC's America Held Hostage program – contributed to his defeat. Ayatollah Khomeini rebuffed Carter's hopes for an "October surprise" release of the hostages and twisted the knife one final time by freeing them exactly as Ronald Reagan took the presidential oath.

Andrew J. Bacevich: After Iraq, War is U.S.

Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?As framed, the question invites a sober comparison of benefits and costs - gain vs. pain. The principal benefit derived from the Iraq War is easily identified: as the war's defenders insist with monotonous regularity, the world is indeed a better place without Saddam Hussein. Point taken.

Victor Davis Hanson: Two Bad September Days ... How America Survived the Catastrophes of the Last Decade

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.Two terrible September days sum up the first decade of the new American millennium.The first, of course, was Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden’s suicide terrorists that morning hit the Pentagon, knocked down the World Trade Center, killed 3,000 Americans, and left in their wake 16 acres of ash in Manhattan and $1 trillion in economic losses. Two invasions, into Afghanistan and Iraq, followed — along with a more nebulous third "war on terror" against Islamic radicalism generally.America was soon torn apart over both the causes and the proper reaction to the attacks. The Left often cited America’s foreign interventions and Middle East policies as provocations. And it soon bitterly opposed the war in Iraq, and even more adamantly decried the antiterrorism protocols that followed 9/11.

Jonathan Zimmerman: FAMU Hazing, Robert Champion: Violent Rituals Don't Make Men Stronger

Jonathan Zimmerman is a professor of history and education at New York University. He is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory” (Yale University Press).“He is distinctly not a man,” wrote one defender of hazings in 1915, describing the typical college freshman, “and the fraternity must take up the task of character shaping where the parents left off or never began.” Hazing, he added, “is a means of determining what a man possesses, whether he has a streak of ‘yellow’ or whether he has stamina.”Universities struck back with anti-hazing regulations; in statehouses, hazing was banned as well. Today, 44 states have laws prohibiting the practice. From the very start, however, these rules were always observed in the breach. Boys would be boys, hazing advocates said, and no bureaucrat or legislator could stop them.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: The Long and the Short of It: Writings on Contemporary China (A Top Ten List for 2011)

LARB contributor and China matters specialist Jeffrey Wasserstrom offers multiple tiers of recommendation for year-end reading.

Michael Lind: Hitchens, Gossip Columnist of Genius

Michael Lind is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution" and "The American Way of Strategy."  “In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath,” Samuel Johnson remarked. Even so, claims that the world has lost a major thinker and great writer in the late Christopher Hitchens go beyond the mild flattery that is appropriate in obituaries and call for correction. The rule de mortuis nil nisi bonum does not apply to those who take part in public life or public debate; their deaths provide the most appropriate occasions to evaluate their significance and their legacies.

Peter Clarke: Churchill is a Poor Lodestar for Cameron’s Isolationism

The writer is former professor of modern British history at Cambridge. His new book, Mr Churchill’s Profession, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2012.Nearly everyone agrees that the crisis in Britain’s relations with the European Union has a historic dimension. Some proclaim it all goes back to the Maastricht Treaty 20 years ago, while others talk of the end of 40 years’ work, ever since Britain’s accession to the European Community. If Britain is now alone, then popular invocations of Churchill take us back to alleged parallels more than 70 years ago. Whether this is the end of 200 years of history, as Jonathan Powell argued in the FT ("Cameron has betrayed 200 years of history", December 12), continues to agitate readers of these pages. Such perspectives, however, may be far too short.