The little volume is a broadside in the Revolutionary tradition of Common Sense and the Federalist Papers. Hanson is a compelling read in his area of academic expertise, ancient warfare, but what is interesting here is that he has applied himself, as in does in the popular press, to a contemporary indictment of Soetoro's national security aims. It can be read in one sitting.

Written before the debacle of Obama suggesting Israel should pull back to the 1967 borders Hanson correctly notes that Obama's mishandling of Israel has resulted in the worst relations to our closest ally in the Middle East in decades. As Muslim apologists contend, Obama sees the path to peace through Israeli concessions. The withdrawals of Israel from Gaza and Lebanon did not result in a flourishing of human rights and dignity.

Iran has been unmolested in its doomsday quest for a nuclear bomb; it appears as if Obama is reconciled to the idea of Iran as a nuclear power.

Surprisingly for Obama, Iraq stabilized and Afghanistan has heated up so Obama finds himself increasingly drawn into a conflict he characterized as candidate Obama typified as `the good war.' Casualties have mounted and yet Afghanistan still looms large as an Asian land war quagmire.

"They [the Chinese among others] may well assume, as a result of Obama's early actions and international conversation, that the present government of the United States either would not object to these measures or would do nothing concrete to stop them--or perhaps even privately sympathizes with their particular grievances against the Western-inspired world order" (p. 7).

Cf. http://blogsmithconsulting.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-pentagon-report-outlines-chi...