As the author of such utterly convincing books as "Soul of Battle", sometimes his columns disappoint me. I'd characterize them as "hit or miss" but certainly not partisan. I think sometimes he can say to much about things he doesn't know much about, and comes off looking a bit shallow. Although, he is certainly not as grevious of an offender in that department as, say, Paul Krugman or Gore Vidal, who come off looking like no-nothing nitwits in half of their publications on politics or domestic/foreign policy. When he sticks to putting things in context and relating to their historiocity, he is quite persuasive.
VDH is not ideological as far as I can tell, and I find him an astute judge of motive. Sometimes he treads to lightly, like blaming the current economic crisis on "Wall Street greed". Well, no, that isn't true, but this certainly is:
"What, then, is the soul of battle? A rare thing indeed that arises only when free men march unabashedly toward the heartland of their enemy in hopes of saving the doomed, when their vast armies are aimed at salvation and liberation, not conquest and enslavement. Only then does battle take on a spiritual dimension, one that defines a culture, teaches it what civic militarism is and how it is properly used. Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, and other great marshals used their tactical and strategic genius to alter history through the brutality of their armies. None led democratic soldiers. They freed no slaves nor liberated the oppressed. They were all aggressors, who created their matchless forces to kill rather than to preserve. As was true of most great captains of history, they fought for years on end, without democratic audit, and sought absolute rule as the prize of their victories. None were great men, and praise of their military prowess is forever tainted by the evil they wrought and the innocent they killed. They and their armies were without a moral sense and purpose, and thus their battles, tactically brilliant though they were, were soulless."
