[jyl]

Victor Davis Hanson is an interesting and well-known military historian. He's unconventional - rather than speculate how long ancient battles lasted, he had students running around in mock battles in the hottest California weather, wearing replica bronze and leather Greek armour and carrying replica weapons, and measured how long until his volunteers were passed-out and gasping.

Hanson has also written some interesting books. The one that comes to mind is "The Western Way Of War" which argues that starting with the Greeks, the Western civilizations have sought to fight their wars with head-on, high-intensity, set-piece, conclusive battles, while Eastern cultures have tended to fight harassing, strike and retreat, skirmishing and skulking wars. Acording to Hanson, the Western armies typically defeated the Eastern armies. If I recall correctly, in the book he takes this thesis up through Roman and medieval times, maybe later too, and concludes that the "Western way of war" has always been and will continue to be superior.

Considering Hanson's views, as typified by the "Western way of war" thesis, you can see why he vigorously supports the idea that global Islamic terrorism - an "Eastern" sort of attacker if there ever was one - should and can be destroyed by classic Western high-intensity military tactics.

I would assume he is the neo-conservatives' current favorite military historian.