Victor Davis Hanson’s New Book Explores How Civilizations End

Victor Davis Hanson is well-known for his clever commentary and astute evaluation of present occasions. But for his newest e-book, he tackles a subject associated to his work on military history. It’s referred to as “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation.”

Hanson studied 4 historic examples of wartime extinction that he options within the e-book. Then he applies these classes to up to date society to look at our personal vulnerabilities. The e-book is on sale at present, and Hanson spoke with The Daily Signal to share his observations together with some recommendation about what’s at stake for the United States within the brief time period.

Listen to the complete interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or learn the transcript—edited for size and readability—under.

Rob Bluey: Could you share with our listeners your motivation for doing this e-book?

Victor Davis Hanson: I’ve written lots of books on navy historical past and I’ve come throughout instances the place the defeated didn’t simply develop into occupied or give up unconditionally or have change of governments or endure grievous losses, however they had been fully worn out.

And by that I imply, it wasn’t simply their bodily area, their populations—after all, within the historical world, they enslaved anyone, they didn’t kill—however their language, their tradition, their civilization, their faith disappeared inside a technology. So, for at present, we don’t know a lot about Punic tradition in North Africa or the Aztecs in Mexico.

It didn’t occur steadily, however what had been the situations beneath which it occurred? And then, I’ve a protracted epilogue making an attempt to invest if that would nonetheless occur provided that the brokers of annihilation—nuclear, bio, chemical, [artificial intelligence]—are a lot simpler to make use of than muscular labor of the previous.

Bluey: In what methods are we at present susceptible to the specter of extinction?

Hanson: I attempted to take a look at a sample—if there was a sample. In all these instances, these societies didn’t understand they had been in decline. They didn’t understand that, previously, after they had wars, there have been often negotiations between the victor and the defeated, that they had no concept who Cortés was, who Scipio was, who Mehmed II was, or Alexander, that these had been killers, they usually had been different types than that they had encountered earlier than.

They additionally had this type of naive selfish concept that allies would come to their rescue—the Spartans will come and save us, the Venetians will come to Constantinople, the Macedonians will assault the Romans from the rear. And they didn’t actually perceive that each one allies are self-interested.

And then, lastly, they didn’t perceive that these killers, the destroyers, weren’t like Genghis Khan or Tamerlane, they had been males of training. Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. Scipio Aemilianus had Polybius, had his facet, the nice Roman historian, when he destroyed the town. Mehmed had the most important library within the Islamic world. Cortes was a person of letters.

So, they didn’t understand that that they had thought deeply about learn how to destroy. They didn’t simply are available in, kill, rape girls, and depart. They actually had an existential plan to erase these cities.

And if you have a look at at present, there’s the identical concept that nobody would ever try this, it couldn’t occur right here, that is previously.

So, I went via within the epilogue and checked out all of the threats of extinction that we have now seen in, say, the final 15 years. I used to be shocked.

It wasn’t simply Kim Jong Un saying that he wished to wipe out South Korea, and he would, nevertheless it was folks like Erdogan, [Turkish President] Recep Erdogan, he has threatened, he mentioned not too way back, about eight months in the past, that the Athenians, the trendy Athenians, would get up one morning and there can be a barrage of rockets to wipe them out. That was anger over his try and take again islands which are Greek off the coast of Turkey.

He mentioned to the Armenians at Nagorno-Karabakh—a yr in the past, they ethnically cleansed each Armenian out of Azerbaijan. And that they had been there for a thousand years. And he mentioned, “We are going to deal with Armenia itself in the way that our grandfathers did.” And that was, after all, the destruction of Armenian tradition in Turkey.

We know what the Iranians have mentioned. There was a really controversial assertion by [Former Iran President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, about 20 years in the past, however extra, that’s been reiterated recently, in a wide range of contexts, that the thought of Israel is the house of religious Jews is definitely a present to Iran as a result of it concentrates religious Jews in a single place.

Half the world’s Jewry is now in Israel, however extra importantly, these are the observant Jews, and they’re at what Rafsanjani referred to as a one-bomb state, that one nuclear weapon may erase Jewish civilization itself.

[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, after all, says that Ukraine is an aberration that doesn’t actually exist, it was a province of the Soviet Union, and the language ought to be obliterated, it ought to be reincorporated into Russia. I’ve counted about 16 statements within the press that Russian generals, Russian media, or Russian authorities officers have mentioned if the struggle had been to proceed, they might use nuclear weapons.

In the case of China, they’ve threatened to wipe out Taiwan and destroy the bastard concept of a Taiwanese civilization, they are saying it doesn’t exist. And they’ve threatened to nuke, as properly, Japan if it aids Taiwan.

I solely talked about that as a result of I’ve had fairly good luck with Chinese publishers shopping for books on navy historical past. I wrote a e-book on World War II they bought, however they despatched a letter to my writer and mainly mentioned if I didn’t take that sentence out of the e-book, then they had been going to cancel the publication settlement. And, after all, I couldn’t take it out. Instead, I despatched again, not only one risk of Taiwan, I discovered about 15 others, and I mentioned, “This is ridiculous, you’ve done this more than—” And so, they’ve canceled the Chinese translation. But it’s fairly prevalent.

And additionally, the denial. People on the partitions of Constantinople mentioned, “We can work with a sultan. He won’t kill everybody.” And folks mentioned, “Alexander the Great is a philosopher, he won’t obliterate us like Philip did,” … or one thing like that.

And if you see the identical denial, folks get very indignant if you point out Putin’s threats, they are saying, “Oh, he’s just bluster. He would never do that.” And, “Kim Jong Un would never do that.” And, “I’m not sure that’s true.” History says that the percentages are they received’t, nevertheless it’s occurred and there’s no second probabilities when that occurs.

Bluey: What position do you assume expertise is enjoying in both facilitating and even exasperating the potential for these actors to destroy different societies?

Hanson: I believe we discovered with COVID gain-of-function analysis that the expertise was accelerating rather more quickly than the social, political, financial, cultural evaluation of learn how to deal with it. And there have been individuals who had been freelancing, like EcoHealth, for instance, that was giving experience to the Wuhan lab. I believe the identical factor is true of AI.

Unfortunately, I work at Stanford proper subsequent to Silicon Valley, so once I exit and eat dinner at evening, I usually hearken to conversations of techies and I do know individuals who give to Stanford, and so on. I’ve little or no confidence on their ethical sense. I’ve quite a lot of confidence that they’re very adept in high-tech analysis like AI.

So my level is that once we see issues just like the FBI hiring Twitter contractors to suppress information a few laptop computer within the final election, these are the identical folks, the identical mentalities that can be answerable for AI.

And there was, I discussed within the e-book, a Pentagon simulation wherein they used a pc launch fully directed by an AI program. And so, they despatched a missile on a pc they usually programmed each protection mechanism in it attainable. So because it went into the pc, they launched laptop simulations of air assaults from plane, from anti-ballistic missile methods, climate issues, and so on. And then, when it was nearly over, that they had the pc kill the launch as a result of it was over.

Well, the launch didn’t kill, it circled and went again on the launch individual as a result of it had been programmed to assume spontaneously a few risk. So the one that launched the missile had by no means thought that the missile would assault him.

And so, they shut down the whole experiment as a result of they realized that they didn’t have the aptitude in the true world of making certain that an AI couldn’t purpose or analyze a risk, together with the one that launched the missile, which might be the best risk of all if he canceled the missile and aborted it.

So issues like which are fairly scary, identical to the COVID and the biochemical, and so on.

And I believe in the event you have a look at what these folks mentioned previously, I used to be simply shocked concerning the denial.

Montezuma mentioned, “We’re going to be here forever.” He had visions of the Cortes had been some kind of deities perhaps, however he thought he may appease them.

And the identical factor was true of the Carthaginians, they mentioned, “You know what? We will give up our elephant. We’ll do everything. The Romans won’t do this.” And that they had no intention of doing anything aside from destroying them.

So I do assume there’s folks—just like the Chinese Communist authorities, like the federal government in South Korea, like the federal government in Turkey, like the federal government in Iran—who’re in a complete completely different ethical universe than what we expect they’re in.

Bluey: Do you assume that a few of that denial exists right here within the United States at present?

Hanson: Absolutely.

I don’t assume the typical American understands that the Chinese are producing 4 ships per yr to our one ship. Or that in the event you took any of our $15 billion carriers and you set them within the straits between Taiwan and China, they wouldn’t final greater than an hour given the Chinese have developed missile batteries the place they may launch 5,000 or 6,000 small missiles that will go about 6 inches above the water and hit the waterline at evening. And you couldn’t cease that.

They are constructing nuclear weapons at an exceptional charge. They’re engaged on anti-missile protection. They’re again as much as most likely 250,000 college students within the United States, if 1% are engaged in espionage—and the FBI says it’s greater than that—you’ve received hundreds of people who find themselves appropriating expertise.

I don’t assume anyone understands that it’s going to take us six years to replenish Javelin shares and perhaps we will’t. North Korea is producing extra 155 mm shells than we’re. At least they despatched 2 million of them to the Russians.

So, we aren’t armed and but, our strategic duties, our strategic confidence, our conceitedness has not lessened commensurately with our decreased protection capability.

We’re 40,000 recruits brief now within the navy, by no means occurred earlier than. And if you analyze who will not be becoming a member of the navy, it’s not blacks, it’s not Latinos, it’s not gays, it’s not girls, it’s not trans folks, all of these numbers are the identical, it’s the most important group are white males from the decrease and center courses whose households fought in Vietnam, first Gulf War, Afghanistan, however this third and fourth technology are usually not becoming a member of up.

And sadly, for the navy, in the event you have a look at the casualty or the fatality charges in Afghanistan and Iraq, that demographic dies at twice their demographics—72% to 74% of all of the useless in Afghanistan, in Iraq are white males from the center and decrease courses.

And but, that is the very demographic that [retired Gen.] Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and [Defense Secretary] Lloyd Austin, in testimonies, have instructed endure from white rage or white privilege. And the Pentagon was investigating simply these type of slanders about that demographic they usually discovered, after all, in December, they quietly issued a report, there was no cabal of white supremacists.

But the purpose is, you’ll be able to’t actually have a profitable navy if you’re 40,000 recruits brief in only a yr.

Bluey: What do you recommend that societies at present, together with the United States, study from these historic examples you gave us earlier within the interview to perhaps mitigate among the dangers that we’d discover ourselves in sooner or later?

Hanson: I might not put a lot confidence in worldwide our bodies and even in so-called shut allies. The Spartans got here all the way in which as much as the Thebans they usually heard the Macedonians, they turned proper again. On the final day of the existence of Constantinople, they had been searching on the partitions on the Hellespont considering that Venetian galleys en masse would come up and save them.

So don’t.

I support NATO. I don’t actually assume the [United Nations] is of a lot worth. The solely factor that can say the United States is a deterrent navy, and we don’t have that now, an overwhelmingly giant, profitable, sensible navy. And if we don’t have that, we’re going to see extra of what we noticed in Afghanistan, what we noticed with the Chinese balloon, what we see in Gaza.

And I believe Americans don’t understand that we’re on a again of a tiger and we will’t get off as a result of we arrange the postwar world, and we had the pretensions of claiming to the world, “You can go in the Red Sea, you can go in the Black Sea, you can go in the Strait of Hormuz, you can do all that and you won’t be injured.” That was an exquisite factor to do. But in the event you’re going to have these pretensions that you simply’re going to have a postwar order, it’s important to have a navy that, once in a while, takes care of the Houthis or eliminates Soleimani.

And it doesn’t imply you’re going to be a neocon interventionist, however I believe beneath [former President Donald] Trump and [former State Secretary Mike] Pompeo, that they had a, I suppose you’d name it a Jacksonian concept that there can be no higher pal than United States and no worse enemy. And we didn’t wish to become involved in non-obligatory navy adventures, however we’d be very, very robust on our enemies. And then, the more durable we had been, the much less we must do it as soon as we reestablished deterrence.

So, we’ve misplaced deterrence, and that may be achieved militarily, economically, politically, however we’ve misplaced it in each class and it’s going to be very, very harmful to reestablish it.

Bluey: How a lot is at stake this yr because it pertains to the way forward for this nice nation?

Hanson: Everybody says every election is crucial, however I can inform you that this election is extra necessary than 2016 and 2020 as a result of, in my lifetime, we’ve by no means seen the Democratic Party—they all the time say the Republican Party was taken over MAGA, however you have a look at 90% of the MAGA agenda, and it’s historically low taxes, small authorities, robust protection, closed borders.

But the Democratic Party, as we’re seeing with Columbia [University] and all these pupil protests, they’re a revolutionary social gathering. It’s not that they consider in a porous border, they consider in no border. It’s not that they consider in mild sentencing, they don’t wish to sentence anyone. They don’t wish to have bail. They don’t consider that there’s such a factor as deterrence, the way in which we received out of Afghanistan. They consider in radical local weather change. You can present them information, you’ll be able to present all of them kinds, they don’t care, they wish to ban flamable engines, they don’t need fossil.

So, it is a group of individuals, as we’re seeing on this cut up display screen with Donald Trump charged with these ridiculous misdemeanors bootstrapped onto felonies. At the identical time, individuals are getting into with violence right into a Columbia constructing. And as considered one of them mentioned the opposite evening, “They will be out in 24 hours.” I don’t assume they’re even in jail as we communicate, they’re already out.

I suppose what I’m saying is we’re in a revolutionary Jacobin interval, type of a Reign of Terror. And I don’t see it stopping until—I don’t assume the election of Donald Trump can be sufficient. You’ll must elect the Senate, Donald Trump, and enlarge the House majority. And then, they’re going to must act in a short time to cease it, to revive the border, to revive deterrence, to revive deterrence in opposition to criminals, to get again our preeminent place economically, to cease this $1 trillion borrowing each 100 days.

We’re in dangerous form in each class. And I believe, whether or not we prefer it, I do know there’s lots of Never-Trumpers on the market, however no matter drawback they’ve with Trump’s temperament, it simply pales as compared with the ideological revolutionaries which are in there now … .

If [President Joe] Biden is reelected, what we noticed the primary time period can be nothing, it’ll be enhanced to a magnitude, it’ll be a lot higher. So, I’m actually frightened about this election, particularly the integrity of the balloting and turnout and all of these different points.