In a wide-ranging interview on the latest episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special,” military historian Victor Davis Hanson warned that America’s global dominance is waning as the nation grapples with growing debt, internal divisions, and a weakening military.
Shapiro opened the discussion by mentioning Hanson’s latest book, “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation,” and asked the historian to weigh in on the current state of global affairs, especially considering that “there’s obviously a vacancy at the top of the American government.”
“So when you look at the world scene, how dangerous are things and where are the chief lines of danger?” he asked Hanson.
“Well, you know, in the book, I looked at four historical examples of complete civilizational erasure. And there were common themes. One is that a society that is targeted or vulnerable has no idea that it is it has it keeps reassuring itself that its grandeur is still there. It’s still powerful and has eerie similarities to the United States,” Hanson said. “They have no idea about the people who are attacking them.”
“We’ve had Mr. Erdogan in Turkey threaten to send missiles into Athens, send missiles into Israel, send missiles into Armenia. We have Kim Jong Un acting up again … China has made a video talking about destroying Japan if it were to intervene. And all of this is dismissed as rhetoric. And, you know, 99% of it may be. But we’re getting to a point now where the United States [which] is the keeper of deterrence worldwide, is no longer there for a variety of reasons.”
Some of those reasons, Hanson said, include America’s national debt and soldier shortage.
“We don’t have the economic clout with $36 trillion in debt. We’re borrowing a trillion every 90 days. We’re short 45,000 soldiers,” Hanson told Shapiro. He added that divisive racial rhetoric targeted at rural white men has hindered the U.S. military.
“People don’t remark at all that those are the soldiers of the white male world demographic that died at two times their numbers in the general populations in God-awful places like Afghanistan and Iraq, 75% of those fatalities came from that demographic,” he said. “Yet we alienated them. [Gen. Mark] Milley [and] Secretary of Defense [Lloyd] Austin calling them names [like] ‘white supremacy, white privilege.’ So I’m very worried.”
The historian also critiqued what he sees as inconsistencies in U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding Israel and Ukraine. He argued the Biden administration has been overly critical of Israel’s military operations while giving Ukraine more leeway.
“Ukraine is an ally, but it’s not an ally like Israel. And yet we tell the Israelis, you have to be proportionate. Ukraine, you got to see disproportionality. Israel, you have to have a cease-fire. Ukraine, you’ve got to keep fighting to the bitter end. Israel, you’ve got to have a coalition government. You’ve got to have elections. We don’t trust you, Netanyahu. Zelensky, we don’t have a problem with outlawing political parties.”
Regarding domestic issues, Hanson pointed to unchecked immigration and an expanding administrative state as factors contributing to America’s decline.
“When we let in 10 to 12 million people and we think that they’re going to work really hard … I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he stated. “I think what happens at this late stage, they get on entitlements or they commit crimes and they have no respect for any society that would let them in. And that’s a good sign of a decline that you don’t have a defensible border.”
The historian and author did express some optimism regarding domestic politics. He suggested that if former President Trump were to win re-election, he could potentially “heal the country very quickly.”
