News headlines are not encouraging: Insurrection. Trump on trial.
Massive debt. Sluggish vaccine rollouts. Businesses shuttered.
Increasingly violent protests. A vast resurgence of Marxism.
Yet, all these headlines still don't address the world's greatest threat, China.
Harvard University's Graham Allison in his work "Destined for War," draws a foreboding parallel between ancient Athens and Sparta with a similar contest between modern China and America.
Some 2,400 years ago, Thucydides wrote of the Spartan fear sparked by emerging Athenian power, a dynamic he theorized made war between them inevitable. The fatal "trap" in ancient Greece has been repeated through history when rising powers threatened ruling ones.
Beyond the ancient period, France challenged Britain's dominance of the oceans to cause a revolution. So too, ascendant post-World War II Russia, with a falsely promised partnership, crushed Eastern Europe and ignited the Cold War.
Everytime, appeasement with totalitarian rule equals millions dead.
Did I mention Mao Zedong? Or, did I mean Xi Jinping?
War has context, but all involve saber rattling.
As tensions escalate, clashes must be averted. Could the U.S., with cooler heads, prevent the inevitable with China?
Even with a step back from the edge, isolated actions have profound consequences.
Remember the murder of the Austrian archduke one day in 1914 and the decimation of Europe that followed?
Another trap for rising nations, but what if the assassin's bullet had been stopped?
As Allison reminds us, even George Washington warned of foreign entanglements in his farewell speech.
Unless America starts paying attention, we might find ourselves at the point of no return.
Since Mr. Gorbachev tore down that wall, we have settled for a blind complacency, hard pressed to learn the lesson that the world is not the United States.
Unbridled globalism betrays national sovereignty and demands open borders and mass immigration.
Whether or not China expands its footprint for war, we cannot detach from China Sea lanes or worldwide geopolitical influence secured since World War II.
After victory over the Soviets in 1989, we gave the Chinese capitalism and they accepted it, then overtook the protective domain of the United States, in Africa, the Mideast, Australia, and around the world. America is losing ground to a gargantuan economy buying political influence and loyalty.
Hollywood, big tech, transnational corporations, are all too big, and how embarrassed are we to admit Karl Marx was right when he warned us of our own insatiability in the wake of global capitalism or earned money without borders. ''The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.''
Marx read the future.
Despite elitist stakes in a globalized world, a fading partner in an aging socialist European Union and growing censorship, the American people know one nation under God has laws that must be honored.
Our social contract is our Pax Americana, a republic (not an empire), if we can keep it.
President Biden by fiat has already ordered the return of the malign policies that elected Trump.
Mass immigration. Climate accords, and more business as usual in China.
American citizens need an alternative economy to combat the bias in the media and the academy, though scholars have written extensively about the rising danger.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago realizes, ''If China continues to rise,you better be careful, because that will drive the United States stark raving crazy.''
Michael Pillsbury of Hudson Institute adds, ''The Chinese have built missiles costing a few million dollars that can sink a $4 billion American aircraft carrier ... because the missile may have been based on stolen American technology.''
The battle is no longer against foreign power alone, but the media that extols their narrative.
On the World War II frontline were John Ford, Frank Capra, and John Huston serving the pro-American forces to win the propaganda war.
What would happen today if we could produce films that warn of the coming conflict about to engulf the world, or how we can endure?
Can the American electorate see past the burning cities or hear over the woke-ish culture to avoid the same mistakes?
In Destined for War, Allison concludes, ''Avoiding Thucydides's Trap in this case will require nothing less than bending the arc of history.''
The trap is the ancient warning of the coming war. Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were also standing in the gap to ward off the Cold War becoming a hot war.
And, love him or hate him, Trump left an American-centered doctrine.
How does the American voter avert the China Trap?
Well, to begin with, we need to establish a self-representative government, end foreign entanglements, honor freedom of speech and assembly and shore up our national borders.
But wait a minute; that sounds like the United States of the 20th century.
Can we ever make America great again?
To learn more about the dangerous trap China poses to the U.S., please access this link: www.thechinatrapfilm.com
Robert Orlando is a filmmaker, an author, an entrepreneur and a scholar. As an entrepreneur, he founded Nexus Media. As a scholar, he has in-depth knowledge of ancient and modern history and politics. As an award-winning writer/director, his latest films are the thought-provoking documentaries "Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe," "Silence Patton," and the new release, "The Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War." His books include "Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe" and, as co-author, "The Divine Plan." His work was published in "Writing Short Scripts" and he has written numerous articles on a wide range of topics for HuffPost, Patheos and Daily Caller. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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