Years ago, in college and graduate school, I studied communism and the Soviet Union. For the past four years, I have studied terrorism and Militant Islamism.

Similarly – though with infinitely more distinction – Michael Ledeen is a scholar of European fascism who now concerns himself primarily with Islamofascism.

It occurred to me recently that there is no word in English for the study of one’s enemies — who they are, what they think, what they want, why they hate us and – most importantly – how they can be defeated.

So I approached Victor Davis Hanson, the brilliant classicist, military historian, scholar, author and essayist:

If one wanted to form a neologism based on Greek or Latin, I asked, what might it be?

He replied: “A neologism would be either polemiologia or echthrologia ( the polemios root is for political/military enemies, the stronger echthros root would be for cultural, tribal, personal enemies.)”

Cornerites, your opinions please: Would you prefer to see at Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton — and of course at SMU — a Department of Polemilogia or a Department of Echthrologia?

It goes without saying that either would be preferable to the many Departments of Middle Eastern studies that serve as apologists for Militant Islamism and for the Departments of Conflict Resolution that teach that all differences can be amicably split.