Dakota Beacon

There are many admirable analysts commenting on military matters these days. Two individuals are a cut above. One is Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters and the other is Victor Davis Hanson.

Ralph Peters attended Pennsylvania State University before enlisting in the US Army in 1976. His first assignment was in Germany. Following Germany he attended the Army’s Officer Candidate School and was commissioned in 1980.

Subsequently, Peters returned to Germany spending the next ten years serving in Infantry and Military Intelligence units. He later became a Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Soviet Union.

His last duty assignment was in the Pentagon with the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired after 22 years of service in order to pursue more freely a writing career.

Subsequently, Peters published 21 novels and 9 non-fiction books. Additionally, he has written many pieces for Military Review, Armed Forces Journal, New York Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Weekly Standard and many more. He receives no political contributions and makes his living with his pen.

Some of Peters’ comments may sound edgy and he is not reticent about speaking his mind. Here are some of his comments.

WikiLeaks: With the release of highly sensitive diplomatic cables Peters has called for the assassination of Julian Assange. He did so on November 29, 2010 on Fox News. He accused Assange of cyber terrorism and crimes against humanity by placing at risk the lives of human rights workers, journalists and dissidents.

Iran: Peters believes Iran is building a new Persian Empire.

Afghanistan: In 2009 Peters called for the withdrawal of troop from Afghanistan. Reason? “…we’ve mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn’t want to be transformed….We need to smash our enemies and leave.”

Then there is Victor Davis Hanson another superb voice in military analysis. Hanson grew up on a family farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley. His mother was a judge and his father a college administrator.

Hanson received his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1975. His PhD in classics came from Stanford University in 1980. He began a teaching career in 1984 at California State University, Fresno where he established the classics program. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute and a Fellow in California Studies at the Claremont Institute. He also holds the visiting professor Shifrin Chair of Military History at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Hanson has been published in The New York Times, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He writes a weekly column for National Review On Line and Tribune Media Services. He has been interviewed on NPR, PBS, CNN and Fox News. His writing of military history was influenced by John Keegan and Donald Kagan. His heroes include Winston Churchill, General William T. Sherman and General George S. Patton.

Victor Hanson is a rather newly minted conservative. Although he is a registered Democrat in California, he voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Hanson has publically stated, “I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative.” He further states, “The Democrat Party reminds me of the Republicans circa 1965 or so – impotent, shrill, no ideas, conspiratorial, reactive, out of touch with Americans, isolationist and full of embarrassing spokesmen.

Iraq War: He believes it was a worthwhile undertaking but disagrees with certain points such as the dissolution of the Iraqi army.

Iran: Hanson believes the US must take a much more confrontational stance.

Hanson explains his most notable thesis in a few words. From the earliest days of Greece the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any armies in world history. Most deadly of all is when one western army fights against another. This argument was proposed in his most notable and readable work Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. His book examines milestone battles including Salamis (480 BC), Cannae (216 BC), Poitiers (732), Lepanto (1571), Midway (1942) and Tet (1968) among others. It is through the lens of cultural values: democratic dissent, inventiveness, adaptation and citizenship that he analyzes military effectiveness in battle.

If a lay person paid attention to these two men they would gain more than an adequate ability to assess contemporary military policy.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)