The Daily Signal - Most Geo-Politically Significant Year Since Fall of Berlin Wall | Victor Davis Hanson

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

President Donald Trump has been the catalyst for a lot of the world’s current upheaval—Iranian threat decimated, Donroe Doctrine enforced in Latin America—and both members of his base and his opponents are making sure we know he’s to blame. Three quarters of these conflicts, however, are reaching a resolution, explains Victor Davis Hanson on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”  “There is a good chance they could turn out with the United States in a preeminent position that we haven’t seen since at least World War II.” 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. 2006 looks like it's going to me the most tumultuous, geostrategically significant and dangerous years since the fall of the Soviet system and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Donald Trump is the catalyst of this. A lot of people, both in his base and his opponents, both here in the United States and abroad, blame him. There are disruptions all over the world, but three quarters of them are reaching a consensus. I don't know how they're all going to turn out, but there's a... a good chance they could turn out with the United States in a preeminent position that we haven't

seen at least since World War II. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen. 2006 looks like it's going to me the most tumultuous, geostrategically significant and dangerous years since the fall of the Soviet system. and follow the Berlin Wall. The whole world is an upheaval. Donald Trump is the catalyst of this. A lot of people, both in his base and his opponents,

both here in the United States and abroad, blame him. I think a few years ago, one European diplomat said, well, he's a bull in a China shop, only he's a bull in a nuclear China shop. Maybe, maybe not. But let's just review what's taking place right now. For the second time, we're bombing Iran,

And this time, the negotiations clearly were not going to lead to this 47-year problem resolution. Iran's theocracy has no intention of stopping nuclear proliferation. It wants a bomb to dominate the Middle East, to intimidate the petro kingdoms of the Gulf, to show its dominance over Sunni Islam, and to destroy eventually Israel, threaten Europe for blackmail concessions and eventually us. We've known that. Every president, all seven of them before Trump said that and they were going to take care of the problem or prevent it from exacerbating. None did anything. Trump tried to negotiate, take out the nuclear facilities, and then he learned that they were still trying to, after the bombing, restore them,

expand their Russia, North Korean, Chinese ballistic missile force, ensure that nobody, would they had such deterrence that nobody would dare attack them again, and Trump did. And this time, his plan is to remove either now or so detrit theocracy that it would be, it would erode in the next few months by a popular uprising or maybe have a Venezuela solution. Barring that, at least make it inert militarily. This follows the Maduro, what do we call it, kidnapping coup. We removed this communist thug, drug lord, shipper of dangerous opiates into the United States, propped up Cuba, and was trying to spread the Chavez communist message throughout Latin America. It looked like he was succeeding under Joe Biden.

Now the whole world there is different. Venezuela doesn't have Maduro. It has a strong government in the same. that they will keep order and maybe they will have transitions to democracy. We hope so, but they are terrified of the United States that remove their government and told them they put the oil on the world market, they reform their economy, they get the Chinese out, and they will have a bright future. This coincides with democratic revolutions in Central America, Chile, maybe Bolivia and Peru,

we'll see how those work out, and of course Argentina. So it's a whole new Latin America. It's experiencing a westernized constitutional system revolution. And again, the catalyst has been Donald Trump, first by telling the Panamanians, we know what you're doing. It's not smart for you to do this to triangulate with the Chinese. If you do it, we'll take back the canal, and he got results. And the result is China and Russia are now extremely. excluded from the Western Hemisphere.

At the same time, he's pressuring the Cubans. They have no more subsidized oil from Russia. They know that their drugs, that they are intermediaries in smuggling and shipping the U.S. are being blown up on the high seas. There's no more Chavez-Maduro free fuel, and their innately incompetent and inert economy is imploding. And Trump is basically saying, you saw what happened to Venezuela, you saw what happened to Iran, you're not halfway across the world, you're not down in South America, you're right here 90 miles away from us, and this will be a

cakewalk if you don't try to reform and give your people a choice, an economic liberation, a political liberation, a cultural, social liberation. And it looks like they're going to allow American businessmen, mostly Cuban Americans, to go back in there and invest. If that happens, and you start to see offshore companies, energy development, hotels, tourism, communism will die on the vine. So what am I getting at? I'm getting at that there's a world upheaval that Donald Trump sort of took a fuse and he lit it and things are blowing up everywhere and everybody is paranoid and crazy and they're thinking that he's a disruptor. And then we have the Ukraine war. And he has convinced the Europeans that you have to do two things that they don't understand.

understand. You can't buy energy from Russia. Maybe he's lifted that because the straits of Hormuz are closed temporarily, but you can't subsidize the Russian war machine and then tell the United States that because of your suicidal energy policies, you have to do that, but you also have the United States step in and save you. And so we're trying to find a solution, but one of the tax that Trump is using that's very misunderstood. He's trying to say, Putin is a monster. Of course he is. Don't trust him, but I wasn't the one that started this crazy reset. I was the one that got rid of the Wagner group. I was the one that went after the oligarchs. I was the one that got out of the missile treaty. I was the one that gave offensive weapons to Ukraine. Not you. I was the one that warned you about the Nord Stream pipeline. Not you, not Biden. I did. So here, if I'm going to get involved, don't demonize them because we can. weaken him and then we can flip him so that he doesn't go back into Europe, but he also triangulates against China.

So what I'm getting at, if that happens, and you see a different government in Cuba, Venezuela, and a tidal wave of reform in Latin America, where at the same time you get rid of the 47-year cancer in the Middle East for which American troops have been based, take away the Iranian Theocracy, and there's not going to be 200 bases. 200 insulations of Americans in Syria and Iraq.

And then you add into the combination what Cuba has done to us all these years. It's been a receptacle of American terrorists, hijackers, drug smugglers. At one time, remember, it was going to base nuclear weapons from Russia pointed at us, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 62. It's just been a headache. If you could solve all of those things in one year, it would be unheard of. It would make Reagan's achievement of destroying the Soviet Union, although it fell during his successor, George H.W. Bush, it would look minor in comparison almost. And think about this very quickly. This was not necessary in Trump's political calculus. He had the midterms coming up eight or nine months when he went into Venezuela and Iran that took a great risk to distract attention away from the economy.

The economy had been morbid under Joe Biden, and it was starting to pick up, and he was bragging about the low cost of energy. If you're just a political animal, what you don't do right before the midterms is go into two of the largest oil-producing countries in the world, and for the short term, at least, ensure that oil is going to be reduced, and yet he took that risk. and more importantly, he knows how Europe feels about it. Europe is so touchy because they have ruled out basically producing their own natural gas, their own oil. They're very reluctant to follow the French example of nuclear power, and the result is they're very dependent on imported oil, and they're whispering in Trump, don't do this, don't be disruptive.

So he's got a problem with this. And then the mega base, remember, says no optional. wars abroad. And Trump is trying to say, well, these are using air power. I haven't used ground troops. This is not Afghanistan. These are going to be short-term solutions to long-term problems. And in the future, if we're successful, there will be fewer Americans abroad because we'll have a greater number of American allies and friends who will be consensual, that will be ruled by consensual governments. They'll have free economies. And more importantly, they will have a different attitude or view of the United States, not one as a reluctant weakling or unarmed or a Joe Biden,

Barack Obama appeaser, but somebody who's very unpredictable but follows up what he says, and they will be more likely to respect and join us. Strength radiates, friendship, weakness, repels it. Finally, again, I think we've misunderstood what's going on. There are disruptions all over the world, but three quarters of them are reaching a consensus, an end, some type of resolution one way or the other. I don't know how they're all going to turn out, but there's a good chance they could turn out with the United States in a preeminent position that we haven't seen, at least since World War II. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this.

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