The Stupid Lies That Hawks Tell

The goal is to make people shut off their brains and fall in line behind whatever aggressive policies hawks want to pursue.

George Will really shouldn’t write about foreign policy:

Right now is the most dangerous U.S. moment since World War II, more menacing than the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

There is no sense in which that claim is true. The U.S. is not on the verge of nuclear war. In fact, it is not currently under any serious direct threat from abroad. To the extent that the U.S. is at risk of getting into foreign wars in the near future, it is because of unwise and unnecessary entanglements that have nothing to do with American security. If the U.S. itself is in any danger, it is because of overstretch and too many commitments, but it is a lie to say that the U.S. is in more danger than at any point since 1945. It’s a lie being peddled by several prominent hawks these days.

It’s no mystery why hawks lie about the dangers that the country faces. If Americans appreciated how extraordinarily secure they are and how little danger the U.S. is in, they might begin to question the need for a globe-spanning military presence, hundreds of bases, and a seemingly endless list of overseas commitments.