Peace through strength deters war, appeasement invites war, and letting an enemy build up unmolested makes wars longer, costs higher, and risks greater.

William R. Hawkins | May 19, 2026

i Jinping holds the titles of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chairman of the Central Military Commission, President of China, and Core Leader of the CCP. President Donald Trump used the title “President” when meeting with Xi last week, but in reality, his CCP tittles are what matter. Xi’s title as Core Leader elevates him to dictatorial power on a scale held previously only by Mao Zedong.

The pomp and circumstance shown to President Trump was an obvious play to the American’s ego, but also a display of Great Power status on a par with, if not better than, the United States. Chinese state media, academics, and officials have long promoted narratives declaring the “rise of the East and decline of the West” and that “the Chinese model is more effective, more competitive, and superior to the American model.” Xi, in a not very subtle way, asked Trump if he had read Harvard professor Graham Allison’s 2017 book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap? This was widely reported as an effort by Xi to promote peaceful relations, but such a view is not supported by the contents of the book and why Xi likes it.

Allison’s argument is that too many wars, starting with the conflict between Athens and Sparta described by the ancient historian Thucydides, have been the result of an established power (like America today) trying to resist a rising power like China. The status quo power is cast as the aggressor. So, it is better to accommodate the challenger to keep the peace. This will take “huge, painful adjustments in attitudes and actions” writes Allison, including accepting that America is doomed to fall to second place behind China. It is better to lose without a fight is his decadent advice.

The passage that Xi most likes is when Allison argues that resisting China’s rise is not even possible anyway because “China has already passed the United States” in economic strength and military potential.

Yet, Allison’s own historical examples show just the opposite of his preconceived conclusion if you instead start with the record. In each of his twelve examples of modern war between a “ruling” power and a rising power, it is the rising power that starts the war with acts of aggression. In none of the cases does the ruling power act in a pre-emptive manner to push its rival down before it feels strong enough to attempt an outright seizure of power. That was their mistake. Even Allison’s core example of Sparta reacting to Athens’ rise notes that the two Greek city-states had a 30-year peace treaty during which, as Thucydides writes, Sparta did little until “the better part of Greece was already in their [Athenian] hands.” This means that the ruling powers behaved exactly as Allison wants the U.S. to do; they did nothing to protect their position. But instead of the peaceful outcome Allison desires, war was the result as inaction invited continued aggression. The rising power saw no limits. The real lesson is obvious to anyone not blinded by Allison’s leftist ideology that embraces American decline. Peace through strength deters war, appeasement invites war, and letting an enemy build up unmolested makes wars longer, costs higher, and risks greater.

China’s leaders are happy to welcome scholars like Allison for visits where they can reinforce beliefs which favor their advance. During Trump’s first term, Allison visited China and stated, “For four decades, Republican and Democratic administrations alike saw China as a ‘partner’ or ‘strategic partner.’ But the Trump administration now publicly calls China a ‘strategic rival’ or ‘adversary.’ Obama, Bush, and Clinton pursued a strategy of engaging China and welcoming its integration into the global economic and security order the United States has led for seventy years.” If read in its proper way, this statement confirms that past presidents practiced appeasement. They did not just allow but encouraged the massive transfer of capital and technology across the Pacific to empower the Beijing regime. An epic blunder in grand strategy.

Trade is at the heart of the appeasement narrative. Economic interdependence was the core of the post-Cold War euphoria; the way to keep even militant regimes like the PRC in hand. This idea comes from the classical economists of the early 19th century who tried to proclaim a similar new world order after the decades of war sparked by the French Revolution and Napoleon. Foremost among these liberal philosophers was Richard Cobden. His most famous claim was that commerce was “the grand panacea” that would remove “the motive for large and mighty empires, for gigantic armies and great fleets would die away.” It is Cobden’s naïveté that sets the real “trap” that national leaders should avoid but have too often fallen for from the advice of academic and business factions. The French economist Frederic Bastiat added that “Free trade means harmony of interests and peace between nations.” Actual history shows the contrary as control of productive assets and resources is what fuels ambition.

It is this “Cobden Trap” that should be the center of study. The thirty or more business executives President Trump took with him to China has raised concerns that a “transactional” President may forget the essentials of grand strategy which require that the U.S. back away from economic interdependence with a China that uses its control of critical minerals and industrial supply-chains as leverage to shift the balance of power in its favor, and enhances its control by stealing technology on a massive scale.

A Chinese attack on Taiwan would be the last step in a march of aggression leading to a major war. Global Times, the CCP’s main propaganda outlet, hailed Trump’s post-Xi interview with Fox News where he supposedly weakened U.S. support for Taiwan saying he doesn’t want “the U.S. to travel 9500 miles to fight a war.” But the way to prevent such a war is by deterrence, not appeasement. I have visited Taiwan several times. It is a magnificent island filled with great people who have earned their freedom. Thucydides argued that interests override morality in human nature leading to the horrors of war. But in the case of Taiwan, the strategic interests of the U.S. and its Asian allies (especially Japan) are reinforced by the moral case for Taiwan’s continued independence which it has had on a de facto basis for three generations.

The National Security Strategy, issued last November, should keep us on track. It states, “We want the world’s most robust industrial base. American national power depends on a strong industrial sector capable of meeting both peacetime and wartime production demands. That requires not only direct defense industrial production capacity but also defense-related production capacity. Cultivating American industrial strength must become the highest priority of national economic policy… We want to remain the world’s most scientifically and technologically advanced and innovative country, and to build on these strengths. And we want to protect our intellectual property from foreign theft.” These objectives cannot be met unless we break the Chinese economic grip and translate our economic strength into military power to counter Beijing’s buildup.

The good news from Allison’s work is that in most cases, the “ruling” power has been able to turn back challengers by drawing on its deeper reserves of strength. This is also true in those cases which did not result in war. Allison counts the Cold War as a success because it did not turn hot. Yet, appeasement had nothing to do with its outcome. U.S. strategy was based on containing the Soviet Union to hobble its economic development. Controls blocked technology transfers. There were “hot spots” where covert actions, proxy wars, shows of force, arms races and the support of dissidents and insurgents were used. In the end, the stronger power won. The Soviets collapsed both at home and abroad when President Ronald Reagan gave them a push.

Vladimir Putin pursues a revanchist policy, his smaller Russia is even more underdeveloped, inferior not only to the U.S. but to the EU. Indeed, the U.S.-led global alliance system unites over half of the world economy under the western banner. The challengers, whether in Beijing, Moscow or Tehran, do not have the power to prevail against such a strong coalition of advanced nations — unless Western leaders listen to defeatists like Allison. Which is why Xi wants to promote his views.

William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for several Washington think tanks and on the staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications including for the Army War College, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the National Defense University, among others. 

California’s aggressive push for a $20 fast-food minimum wage was sold as a moral victory for workers, a bold stand against corporate greed that would lift families without consequence. Yet the reality unfolding at Carl’s Jr. locations across the state tells a different story—one of shuttered opportunities, fleeing staff, and franchise operators driven to bankruptcy. What began as political virtue-signaling has delivered economic pain that no amount of union rhetoric can disguise.

Friendly Franchisees Corporation, a major operator running dozens of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, filed for Chapter 11 protection last month, citing the wage mandate as a primary driver of its financial collapse. The chain has already trimmed its California presence from 613 stores in 2023 to 588 in 2025. Sales are down, labor costs are soaring, and workers report fearing for their safety amid rising violence.

This is not progress. It is the predictable fallout of ignoring basic economics in favor of feel-good policy.

The Wage Hike That Was Never About Workers Alone

California lawmakers and union allies celebrated the 2024 $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers as a necessary response to the state’s crushing cost of living. Yet even as some employees saw higher paychecks, the policy’s hidden costs mounted. Franchise operators like Harshad Dharod, CEO of the affected entity, stated plainly in court filings that the wage increase “materially increased operating expenses.” Despite millions in revenue, the math no longer worked.

Rising prices at the counter have deterred customers already tightening belts amid inflation. National data showed a 4 percent drop in Carl’s Jr. consumer spending in 2025. Competition intensified while corporate marketing faltered.

The result? Locations struggling to stay open, hours cut, and innovation stalled. Government cannot simply decree higher wages and expect businesses to absorb the blow without consequences for jobs, service, and viability.

Violence in the Workplace Compounds the Crisis

Labor costs form only part of the story. Workers at Carl’s Jr. have walked out, organized by the California Fast Food Workers Union, citing chronic understaffing, inadequate supplies, and rampant safety threats. Union statements describe daily aggression—customers yelling, throwing food, and worse. One alleged incident involved a man threatening an employee with a frying basket before punching her. Another reported cash stolen directly from a worker’s hand.

“We live in fear just walking to work from the parking lot,” the union declared. “Nearly every day we’re subjected to aggressive and violent behavior.”

These are not abstract complaints. Employees describe humiliating conditions, broken equipment, and retaliation for speaking up. The very policy meant to empower workers has coincided with environments that drive them away. When businesses operate on thinner margins, corners get cut—security, training, staffing—and the human cost lands hardest on those at the front counter.

Policy by Wishful Thinking Meets Fiscal Reality

Supporters of the wage mandate point to studies claiming limited job losses and modest price increases. Yet the Carl’s Jr. case, alongside similar strains across the sector, exposes the fragility. Thin-margin operators in high-crime areas face a perfect storm.

Reduced marketing, executive churn, and lack of franchisor innovation compound state-imposed burdens. Jonathan Turley captured the dynamic sharply: “California’s war on basic economics continues to rack up losses.”

Rhetorical questions abound for policymakers in Sacramento. If higher mandated wages truly help workers, why are franchisees declaring bankruptcy while pleading for cash to meet payroll? Why do employees report fearing shifts more than ever?

The state’s experiment ignored incentives: businesses respond to costs by raising prices, cutting hours, automating, or exiting. California’s reputation as hostile to enterprise grows, pushing opportunity elsewhere.

When Good Intentions Destroy Livelihoods

This saga exposes a deeper truth about governance that elevates compassion signaling over sustainable outcomes. Families relying on these jobs watch as locations shrink and instability rises.

The biblical warning in James 5:4 rings with fresh relevance amid withheld wages and broken promises in the workplace: “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.”

California’s leaders chose coercion over cooperation. The result is fewer restaurants, anxious workers, and struggling operators. True compassion requires policies that recognize human nature, economic limits, and the dignity of honest work—not mandates that erode the enterprises providing it.

Carl’s Jr.’s struggles should serve as a cautionary tale for every state tempted to follow California’s lead. Ignoring supply and demand does not elevate the working class. It burdens them with scarcity, fear, and fewer doors of opportunity. Until leaders acknowledge this, more iconic chains and hardworking Americans will pay the price.

Europe is the ‘jungle’ now. No garden left to speak of.

J.B. Shurk | May 20, 2026

Josep Borrell is a Spanish socialist who held several high-ranking positions in the European Union.  Until 2024, he was a vice-president of the European Commission and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy.  In that capacity, he ran Europe’s External Action Service, which is the diplomatic body that executes Europe’s foreign policy decisions around the world.  He remains a man with a great deal of influence over European perspectives.

In 2022, Borrell created a bit of an international incident when he described Europe as a “garden” and the rest of the world as a “jungle.”  “We have built a garden,” he told aspiring European diplomats in Bruges, Belgium.  “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle.  The jungle could invade the garden.  The gardeners should take care of it.”  

As the head of the European Defense Agency, Borrell’s comments made strategic sense.  As he said in that same speech, “The jungle has a strong growth capacity…Walls will never be high enough to protect the garden.  The gardeners have to go to the jungle, Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world.  Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.”  

Borrell’s speech came seven years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open her country’s borders to millions of Islamic immigrants.  Originally touted as a humanitarian policy designed to temporarily shelter refugees from war-torn Syria, Germany’s generous welfare programs quickly became a magnet for young men across the Middle East and North Africa.  When Merkel declared on August 31, 2015, “We can do this,” she initiated an all-of-society “welcome culture” that quickly produced a full-blown migrant crisis for the whole continent.  Over ten years later, the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe has transformed school demographics and local politics, unleashed an explosion in sex crimes and anti-European violence, strained Europe’s hospital services and social safety nets, and exacerbated government debt.  

Speaking after the “jungle” had already successfully invaded Europe’s “garden,” Borrell knew there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle.  Merkel’s fateful decision to “welcome” Middle Easterners to Europe transformed cities and towns across Europe into the Middle East.  Borrell also knew that the European Union’s patchwork defense agency did not have the requisite military and espionage assets to effectively protect the continent.  So he tried to fashion his corps of young diplomats into a network of information and persuasion agents who could do Europe’s bidding around the world. 

Borrell’s message got lost in the ensuing international kerfuffle over his “garden” / “jungle” division of the world.  From Russia to Canada, Africa to Southeast Asia, every self-described “foreign policy expert” took umbrage at Borrell’s bluntness.  Perpetually offended virtue-signalers hadn’t gotten so worked-up since President Trump had called Haiti a “shithole country” four years earlier.  Just as Conan O’Brien felt compelled to white-knight for Haiti’s dystopian, cannibal gangland by visiting a heavily guarded resort in the Caribbean country and recklessly encouraging vacationers to join him, legions of politically correct snobs from around the planet recorded social media videos from their country estates in which they turned tsk-tsk-ing into a veritable lingua franca for the vicariously aggrieved. 

All the “very best people” denounced Borrell for promoting a scarcely disguised restoration of European imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and genocide.  Young international students enjoying university scholarships and living in Europe for free made sure to remind Borrell that “diversity is our strength.”  Borrell’s socialist comrades beat him over the head with Europe’s prime directive: multiculturalism über alles.  Mohammadbagher Forough, a random research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, publicly reprimanded Europe’s foreign minister thusly: “This kind of comment puts a serious dent in the enterprise of European strategic autonomy.  It upsets, at the most profound level, countries in the rest of the world, because of the history of colonialism.”  

In other words, Europe’s “ruling class” and auxiliary straphangers condemned Borrell for daring to defend the beneficiaries of Western civilization.  He was encouraged by threat of high-culture social banishment to follow Chancellor Merkel’s example in supplicating before the migrant hordes.  The message was clear: Europe’s minister of defense cannot properly “defend” Europe unless he allows non-Europeans to take over the continent.  It was further proof that Europe is irreparably lost.

Since his departure from the European Union’s foreign policy perch at the end of 2024, Borrell has spent most of his time in public lambasting President Trump’s global leadership.  A staunch supporter of Ukraine who once threatened to “annihilate” the Russian army, Borrell has frequently defended the honor of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by claiming that Ukraine’s holdover president is leading “the resistance” and “deserves respect.”  After President Trump described Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections,” Borrell called the “accusation” the “height of dishonesty.”  When President Trump and Vice President Vance took offense to Zelenskyy’s sense of entitlement and disregard for American taxpayers who have paid the salaries and pensions of Ukraine’s government workforce, Borrell screamed on X, “Trump and Vance have put on a disgraceful show.  I am ashamed of that behavior.”  

In response to Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last year during which the vice president excoriated Europe’s crackdown on free speech and political dissent, Borrell lectured his erstwhile colleagues: “This is a declaration of political war against the European Union.”  Going further, Europe’s former defense minister declared, “Europe must stop pretending that Trump is not an adversary and assert its technological, security, and political sovereignty with clarity and strength.”

As much as I find Borrell’s socialist-globalist politics abhorrent, I respect his impulse to defend his fellow Europeans.  The problem is that the European Union is a governmental monstrosity — bureaucratically lethargic, ideologically suffocating, foolishly regulatory, unmoored from its stated principles, opposed to public debate, enamored with its empires’ past glories, and increasingly oppressive.  Eurocrats such as Borrell believed they could reconstitute European centrality in the world by constructing a “rules-based international order” and forcing every other nation in the world to bend to Europe’s will.  Brussels has long desired to rule the world through rule-making. 

It turns out that depending on the United States for security, the Russian Federation for energy, and communist China for critical imports is not a blueprint for European strength.  To his credit, Borrell understands Europe’s dilemma.  He knows that the European Union “was not designed for the world in which we live today.”  Forced to watch President Trump remake the world without showing any deference to Europe’s globalist prerogatives, Borrell openly laments, “We are not very relevant to international politics.”  

Can you imagine how difficult of an admission that is for Borrell to make?  He has been weaned on the notion of European superiority all his life.  Even as parts of the European continent careen toward civil war, Borrell still believes that Europe is the world’s idyllic “garden” and everywhere else remains wild “jungle.”  From Borrell’s perspective, not only is Haiti a “shithole country” but also the United States is, too.  

Borrell finally realizes, however, that Europe survives only because the rest of the world permits it to endure.  When you depend upon the United States, Japan, India, China, Russia, and the Middle East to produce everything that Europe’s dying empire needs, then you have no leverage or real power in the world.  European imperialism is dead because Europe has no armies or navies to enforce its “rules-based” edicts.  European imperialism is dead because sane nations refuse to impoverish themselves in the name of carbon credit tyranny.  European imperialism is dead because Europe opened its doors to an Islamic invasion. 

Europe is the “jungle.”  The “garden” is gone.  European hubris sealed its fate.

American Thinker

Climate hysteria, which was always about power and money, finally seems to have peaked, and President Trump helped lead the way.

H. Sterling Burnett | May 19, 2026

There has been a huge shift within the public and private sectors on climate change as it has dawned on governments and companies that the United States, under President Donald Trump, will no longer be a patsy to a cabal of international elites who seek to impose costly climate restrictions upon American businesses and international climate boondoggles upon nations.

Trump’s actions are draining the climate swamp of resources, supporters, spirit, and momentum. These include defunding climate boondoggles across federal agencies, pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, withdrawing the United States from dozens of climate-monitoring and wealth-transfer organizations (most importantly the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), and rescinding the greenhouse gas endangerment finding.

With America no longer playing the fool, public and private entities are withdrawing from or reducing their climate commitments and reembracing fossil fuels. Of course, this would not happen if they really believed the hype that the world faces a pending climate catastrophe that can be stopped exclusively by eschewing fossil fuels. They are tacitly admitting Trump is right and climate change is a scam/hoax.

Examples of the rapid decline of the climate alarmism narrative are all around us. For example, the UN IPCC recently held its 64th meeting of the science committee, at which it failed to set a date for the production of the next IPCC Assessment report. It’s not just that they can’t agree on who will write the report or what its scope will be, they can’t even decide on a deadline for when to produce and publish it.

At an international meeting in Colombia this April, 60 countries agreed on the need to phase out fossil fuels — sounds like a big move forward until one realizes that is less than a third of the countries (more than 200) that had previously agreed to timelines for emission reductions in the Paris climate agreement. Importantly, none of the world’s top emitters signed on. China, the United States, India, Russia, and 140 other countries didn’t bother joining Colombia’s anti-fossil fuel crusade. That’s a step backward, not forward, as the media tried to portray it.

In another blow to the climate scam, researchers warned in an article in The Lancet, one of the preeminent medical journals, that the European Union was truncating the reach and scope of its emission-reporting requirements. The proposed regulatory change would exempt an estimated 80 percent of organizations previously bound by law to report emissions and work toward reductions from doing so.

Then there is the case of Germany, where grim electoral prospects seem to be forcing the government to end its enforced adoption of certain green technologies and fuels.

“In a shock move, the German government will allow citizens to use oil and gas to heat their homes again, even though this might increase global temperatures by a thousandth of a degree in 80 years time,” reports Jo Nova. “The government or rather, the taxpayers, will still be forced to subsidize 30 to 70% of the cost of a new heat pump, but won’t actually fine anyone or put them in jail if they buy an oil or gas heater.”

Moving on to the private sector, industries are quickly abandoning their emission-reduction targets. Shortly after Trump was elected but before he took office, 

hundreds of banks and other companies began abandoning various UN-sanctioned or -endorsed climate groups, which set reporting requirements for carbon dioxide emissions and goals for emission reductions. By early in 2025, big tech companies, fearing a lack of energy for their AI data centers, began to embrace nuclear power, natural gas, and to a lesser extent even coal in some locations. They want whatever is needed to power the burgeoning AI industry and their tech reliably, climate concerns be damned.

More recently, 18 major automobile manufacturers, including major brands like Ford, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, dramatically scaled back their electric vehicle goals, in some cases abandoning entire lines of electric vehicles and programs entirely. Demand for electric vehicles flattened in 2025, only to take “a dive off a cliff after federal tax credits phased out at the end of September,” as Autoblog reports.

And it’s not just car companies. Bloomberg NEF reports that oil companies, which never should have jumped on the suicidal climate-alarmism bandwagon in the first place, are also reducing their emission-reduction goals, with the world’s largest oil and gas companies cutting spending on low-carbon technologies by more than a third over the past year, to $25.7 billion from more than $38 billion in 2024. It’s the first time in eight years their spending on climate change has decreased.

The power sector is not immune to the gravitational pull of Trump’s common sense climate agenda, either. Environment America has reported that as of March, 8.1 GW of coal capacity, consisting of 33 fossil fuel generating units across 15 power plants, that had been scheduled for closure by the end 2025, have been kept online to maintain grid reliability and power AI expansion. Most recently, the two largest coal power plants in Pennsylvania agreed to stay in operation through 2032, four years beyond their planned retirement date, specifically to ensure grid stability in the face of growing AI data center demand. Even Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, approved the plan to keep the plants open.

Climate change just isn’t the political or economic draw it once was, which is a good thing. Now the world’s companies and governments can get back to their real jobs of protecting individual rights and advancing economic prosperity for the poor and rich alike. Thank you, President Trump!

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hsburnett@heartland.org) is director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization based in Illinois.

In my last post, I evaluated the tradition that the apostle Thomas ministered in India. While the evidence for Thomas in India is not as strong as for Peter and Paul in Rome, it is at least probable that he founded the church in India. But did Thomas die as a martyr?

THE ACTS OF THOMAS

The Acts of Thomas (c. AD 200-220) is the earliest literary account of the martyrdom of Thomas in India. It begins with the apostles in Jerusalem dividing up the world for missions. According to lot, Thomas was assigned to go to India, but he reluctantly objected, even though Jesus appears to him at night. Shortly thereafter a merchant named Abban came from India looking for a carpenter to work for king Gondophares. Jesus offers to sell him Thomas as a slave, and this time Thomas enthusiastically agrees. Once he arrives in the city, Gondophares assigns Thomas to build him a palace outside the city gates. Thomas agrees, but instead of using the money to build the palace, he gives it away to the poor and afflicted. Gondophares, furious when he heard how Thomas used the money, casts him in prison, contemplating how he would kill him. That very night the king’s brother Gad died and was taken by an angel to see the palace Thomas had built in heaven. Gad was allowed to return to life the next day and tell his brother all he had seen. As a result, both Gondophares and Gad sought the forgiveness of Thomas, and decide also to follow the Lord. Thomas travels to another land, and after preaching, casting out demons, and performing miracles, he is eventually thrown in prison by king Misdaeus (Mizdai). Thomas prays as he is escorted to his death by four guards who kill him with spears.

Scholars either consider this account entirely fictional, or believe that there is a historical core beneath the legendary embellishment. Western scholars tend to assume its legendary nature rather than argue for it.

Nevertheless, it would be premature—simply because it was written in the early third century, at least two to three generations removed from the events—to dismiss the Acts of Thomas as lacking any historical value. While earlier sources are certainly preferred, later sources often provide valuable historical information. A helpful example comes from comparing the Acts of Thomas with the writings of Plutarch. In his Lives, Plutarch wrote over sixty biographies, fifty of which have survived. For several subjects in the Lives, Plutarch is treated as seriously as with earlier sources. He is the main source for a number of ancient figures, many of whom lived hundreds of years before his writing (e.g., Pelopidas, Timoleon, Dion, Eumenes, Agis, Cleomenes).

THE GENRE OF THE ACTS OF THOMAS

Understanding the genre of the Acts is important in determining its historicity. Christine Thomas has suggested that the various Acts of this period, and other similar novels, are best categorized as historical fiction.[1] The mere fact that the Acts of Thomas contains known historical figures such as Thomas, Gondophares, Gad, and possibly even Habban and Xanthippe, Mazdai, and the city of Andrapolis, indicates that it is not entirely divorced from a historical memory. Rather than inventing a narrative for the apostle, the authors of the Acts would elaborate upon a known historical tradition.

Kurikilamkatt asks an important question: “If the story did not have a historical background and if the readers of the book knew Thomas had gone to some places other than those mentioned in the Ath [Acts of Thomas], how could the author of the Ath believe that any credibility would be given to his story?”[2] Later tradition, as well as the lack of any competing tradition for his journeys and fate, helps confirm this conclusion.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONFIRMATION

The most significant find convincing many scholars of the historical core of Acts of Thomas was the discovery in 1834 of a collection of ancient coins in the Kabul Valley of Afghanistan. Ancient coins often provide similar information as modern coins, including the names of various rulers and kings. Among the many forgotten kings whose images christened these coins, was the name “Gondophares” in a variety of spellings including “Gundaphar,” “Gundaphara,” “Gondophernes” and “Gondapharasa.” Many other coins were soon found in different regions confirming the existence of Gondophares and his family as well. Additionally, ruins have been discovered that many consider his former palace. Some other clues have been found that lend some credibility to the possibility of a historical core behind the Acts of Thomas.[3]

Subsequent research dated the coins to the first century AD. More specific dating became possible with the discovery of a stone tablet among the ruins of a Buddhist city near Peshawar that contained six lines of text in an Indo-Bactrian language. Moffett concludes, “Deciphered, the inscription not only named King Gundaphar, it dated him squarely in the early first century A.D., making him a contemporary of the apostle Thomas just as the maligned Acts of Thomas had described him.”[4]

In addition to the written tradition of the death of Thomas in The Acts of Thomas, there is an oral tradition found among the St. Thomas Christians.

ST. THOMAS CHRISTIANS

Perhaps the most accurate rendition of the tradition surrounding Thomas in southern India is told by The St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India:

According to Indian tradition, St. Thomas came by sea, and first landed at Cranganore about the year 52 A.D.; converted high case Hindu families in Cranganore, Palayur, Quilon and some other places; visited the Coromandel coast, making conversions; crossed over to China and preached the Gospel; returned to India and organized the Christians of Malabar under some guides (priests) from among the leading families he had converted, and erected a few public places of worship. Then he moved to the Coromandel, and suffered martyrdom on or near the Little Mount. His body was brought to the town of Mylapore and was buried in a holy shrine he had built. Christians, goes the tradition, from Malabar, the Near East and even from China used to go on pilgrimage to Mylapore and venerate the tomb.[5]

Rather than being preserved in written text, the tradition of the St. Thomas Christians has been transmitted through songs, stories, legends, customs, and celebrations of the people. These various forms of oral tradition were how Indians at this time recorded their history. The St. Thomas Christians are utterly convinced that their heritage traces back to the apostle Thomas himself, including introduction of the Syriac or Chaldaic (East Syriac) language. The community has preserved many ancient antiquities that testify to their traditions. Some of the names of the converts of Thomas have been preserved as part of this tradition and are still remembered today in Kerala. When the Portuguese landed in Malabar around 1500, they found an indigenous community of Christians who had already held for centuries that Thomas was their founder. Like the tradition contained in the Acts of Thomas, the southern tradition contains numerous legends, exaggerations, and conflicting episodes. But the core of the tradition remains: that Thomas travelled to southern India, preached to the people, established a community, and was martyred and buried at Mylapore.

Indian scholar Benedict Vadakkekara provides five supporting reasons for the credibility of the St. Thomas tradition.[6] First, the mere existence of a community claiming apostolic roots speaks to the genuineness of the tradition. There must have been some significant reason, says Vadakkekara, for why the Indian Christians chose Thomas. Second, the St. Thomas Christians are unique in claiming Thomas as their founding apostle. The lack of competing traditions is a sign of the reliability of the St. Thomas tradition. Third, the community has passed down the tradition with consistency. Marco Polo notes (1288- 1298) the pilgrimages that Christians were making to the tomb of the apostle Thomas at Mylapore. Fourth, the tradition has been unanimous amongst both Christians and non- Christians sources. There have been some denominational splits among the St. Thomas Christians, but they unanimously share the conviction that their community has apostolic roots. Fifth, while there are undeniable embellishments, the tradition has retained its pristine simplicity.

CONCLUSION

Issues surrounding the travels and fate of Thomas go far beyond the scope of this article. If you want to analyze further factors in detail, and even consider some important objections, check out my book The Fate of the Apostles.

The evidence for the martyrdom of Thomas is certainly not as strong as for Peter, Paul, and both James. But when all the facts are considered, my research and analysis brings me to the conclusions that the martyrdom of Thomas in India seems at least more probable than not.

Regardless, we do know that Thomas (like the other apostles) willingly suffered for his faith, which shows the depth of his convictions. Thomas was not a liar. He really believed Jesus rose from the grave and was willing to suffer and die for that conviction.

Sean McDowell

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stood in front of a progressive conference on Tuesday and said exactly what Democrats think about the tens of millions of Americans who voted for President Trump.

He wants to break them.

VIDEO AT LINK……………..

He said Democrats had to beat them at the ballot box, then break their spirit.

The remarks came during the 2026 CAP IDEAS Conference, hosted by the Center for American Progress and streamed online via Zoom.

Jeffries, who would become Speaker of the House if Democrats retake the majority in November, used his session to frame the midterm election as an existential fight between his party and the Americans he labels “MAGA extremists.”

Fox News reported on the remarks and the swift backlash they generated.

While speaking at a progressive conference on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called for Democrats to defeat “MAGA extremists” electorally and also “break their spirit.”

Jeffries, who stands to gain the House speaker’s gavel if Democrats take the majority in the midterm election, said that “part of how we as House Democrats view this moment, either MAGA extremists are going to break the country, or we’re going to break them, and our goal is to break them.”

During the panel, Jeffries assured, “As a guarantee, we are taking back control of the United States House of Representatives in November.”

“We will defeat them,” he continued. “We have to beat them electorally, and then we have to break their spirit, because of the extremism that’s being unleashed on the American people, that’s completely and totally unacceptable.”

The backlash moved fast. Edgar Barrios, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, said Jeffries wanted to “BREAK the spirit” of 77 million Americans and described it as the way Democrats talk about people who disagree with them.

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters added that the majority of Americans voted for President Trump in 2024 and said Democrats want to break those who did.

Senator Mike Lee posted that Jeffries wants to “break” Trump voters and asked what the remark even means.

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries for comment.

Read those words again carefully.

He said defeat them, then break their spirit. That is a man describing how he wants to crush the political will of 77 million Americans who exercised their right to vote.

The Center for American Progress billed the conference as its signature annual gathering of center-left leaders and policy figures.

The Center for American Progress listed the May 19 gathering as the 2026 CAP IDEAS Conference, describing it as the organization’s signature event and saying it convenes “the big thinkers and doers on the center-left” for a day of policy discussion.

The agenda placed House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a session titled “A Look Ahead at the 120th Congress” from 10:43 AM to 11:05 AM EDT.

CAP described the session this way: “House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries will lay out what a new majority would do on day one and beyond. Moderated by John Podesta.”

The same agenda listed other Democratic and center-left figures, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Raphael Warnock, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and several MS NOW hosts or contributors serving as moderators.

MS NOW was listed by CAP as the official media partner for the event.

This was a prepared appearance by the House Democratic Leader, sitting on a panel moderated by John Podesta, at the progressive establishment’s premier policy conference.

Jeffries used that stage to lay out the party’s mission against MAGA.

Republicans responded immediately.

Edgar Barrios, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, wrote on X: “Hakeem Jeffries says he wants to ‘BREAK the spirit’ of 77 million AMERICANS. This is how Democrats talk about people who don’t agree with them: violently.”

RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said: “The majority of Americans voted for President Trump in 2024. Democrats want to break those who did.”

Senator Mike Lee posted the clip and asked the obvious question.

What does it mean? It means exactly what it sounds like.

It means lawfare, investigations, social media censorship, corporate pressure campaigns, and every other tool Democrats have deployed against Trump supporters since 2016. It means making it so painful to support the MAGA agenda that regular Americans give up and stop fighting.

Grabien posted the clip and confirmed the full context of the remarks.

Grabien posted a clip page dated May 19, 2026, identifying the source as the Center for American Progress and the original recording as the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference.

The page headline summarized the moment this way: “Hakeem Jeffries: ‘Either MAGA Extremists Are Going to Break the Country, or We Are Going to Break Them, and Our Goal Is to Break Them.’”

The visible transcript on the page includes Jeffries saying that House Democrats view the moment as one where MAGA extremists are going to break the country or Democrats are going to break them.

It also includes the follow-up line that Democrats have to beat them electorally and then break their spirit because of what Jeffries called extremism being unleashed on the American people.

The clip page ties the remarks back to the same CAP IDEAS Conference session where Jeffries was asked to describe how House Democrats view the political moment.

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries for comment. As of publication, there was no response.

This is how the Democratic Party’s top House leader talks about you when he thinks his audience is friendly.

He does not see political opponents. He sees a spirit that needs to be broken.

Voters who support President Trump should take Jeffries at his word and answer the only way that counts: at the ballot box in November.

7:43:32 AM by Red Badger

The California Post has obtained a video purportedly showing the San Diego mosque shooters carrying out their deadly attack.

The footage, reviewed by the Daily Caller, appears to show the shooting suspects, 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Velasquez, preparing to enter the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. The California Post refers to Caleb’s surname as “Velasquez,” though outlets such as The New York Times and ABC30 News refer to his surname as “Vazquez.” The Daily Caller was unable to verify the correct spelling of the suspect’s surname.

The suspects appear to be wearing camouflage-print outfits and vests with “Black Sun” patches, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany. Words written in white are scrawled on the firearms. A swastika is visibly drawn on one of the guns. (RELATED: Mosque Shooter Identified As Apparent Neo-Nazi With Hispanic Name)

A clip from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting obtained by the Daily Caller. A screenshot of one of the gunman’s weapons from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting, obtained by the Daily Caller.

The men enter the Islamic Center and allegedly fire repeatedly. At one point, the men seem to be standing over a body lying in a pool of blood. Three people died in the shooting, The California Post reported, citing San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl.

A clip from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting obtained by the Daily Caller. A screenshot of a gunman entering a building from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting, obtained by the Daily Caller.

The men reenter their vehicle and flee the scene. After driving away, the video shows the suspects’ faces.

A clip from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting obtained by the Daily Caller. From the video allegedly showing the San Diego mosque shooting, screenshot obtained by the Daily Caller.

A clip from the alleged video of the San Diego mosque shooting obtained by the Daily Caller. From the video allegedly showing the San Diego mosque shooting, screenshot obtained by the Daily Caller.

The video eventually shows what appears to be Clark sitting in the driver’s seat, holding a pistol. He seems to be bleeding from his mouth. He shoots something off camera. The California Post speculates this is the moment Clark shot his accomplice. The suspect then shoots himself in the head, slumping over.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims the shooters met online and left behind a “manifesto,” according to Komo News.

“They didn’t discriminate on who they hated,” said Mark Remily, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office.

The FBI reportedly believes the suspects shared a “broad hatred” of various races and religions.

A 75-page manifesto circulating online purports to be written by “Caleb” and Clark. It is unknown whether this is the manifesto referenced by the FBI.

The manifesto reads: “Everyone has their own idea of who is to blame for all the wrong in the world, they will say its the government, the elite, the rich, the politicians, the 1%, the left, the right, the capitalists, the communists, the illuminati, the f*gs and trannies, the immigrants, and many more. All of them can be traced back to be or be caused by one group, the jews.”

“IT’S THE JEWS,” the portion of the manifesto attributed to “Caleb” reads.

“After the Jew the most evil creature in this world is the woman,” the manifesto continues later. The text also refers to Muslims as the “Bioweapons of the [Jewish slur].”

“Let me preface this by saying I don’t hate Muslims, at least not really. What I do hate is the religion of Islam itself and what I hate more than that is seeing them here, invading my country,” it reads.

Another section is titled “F**gots and Trannies.”

“What do I think of them? Not much … For the trannies, you disgust me. You are nothing short of completely deranged and mentally ill, trying to force your delusion to become our reality.”

A paragraph from the portion of the manifesto attributed to Clark claims Muslims “must be isolated and exterminated.”

“If we are to move forward as a society, race, and species, we have to get rid of this pest. They masquerade as ‘human’ while all they do is take up space and resources, while contributing nothing to our society. The Muslims are violent and like to prey on women and children. The [Jewish slur] aren’t as violent, upfront, of course, but they still like to prey on our children and ruin us for their own benefit.”

Another part begins: “The green pastures, the lush forests, the rolling hills, and the high mountains.”

“They will all be destroyed by the greed of humanity,” the manifesto reads. The document calls for the mass-murder of various groups, using racial and ethnic slurs.

The Clark section also contains a question and answer segment.

In response to the question, “What do you want,” the text reads, “I want to burn this earth down and rebuild it into a new and better society.”

In response to, “Do you personally hate these people,” the text reads, “Yes.”

The Daily Caller has reached out to the FBI, but has yet to hear back as of publication.

The Daily Caller

Donald Trump was for the Iran war before he was against it. His latest post on social media about the conflict indicated that he is once more calling off a sweeping military action, this time at the behest of his Gulf allies who are apparently quaking at the thought of a renewed conflict. Trump’s initial sentence was quite a mouthful:

I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was scheduled for tomorrow, in that serious negotiations are now taking place, and that, in their opinion, as Great Leaders and Allies, a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond.

Its import seems clear enough: Trump is going wobbly. Small wonder. Trump thought he was getting a Venezuela 2.0. Instead, Iran has played Ronda Rousey to his Gina Carano. Iranian General Abdolrahim Mousavi Abdollahi, commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, told Trump that Iran is “more prepared and powerful than ever.” He added that it would respond to a fresh attack “swiftly, decisively, and with overwhelming force.”

If leaked American intelligence reports are anything to go by, the general isn’t whistling Dixie. Those reports indicate that Tehran has reconstituted much of its missile force. So much for Trump’s repeated claims that Iran’s military has been laid waste.

Here’s hoping that Trump’s palpable hesitation about a renewed bombing of Iran prompts him to seek a genuine modus vivendi with the country, one that will require him to abandon the demand that it surrender its entire stash of enriched uranium. Containment of Iran should be his goal. It has always seemed strange that a president who could play kissy-face with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un would deny himself the opportunity to reach a peace deal with Iran.

Yes, the regime is an odious one, but there’s no indication that it’s going anywhere. If anything, Trump’s ill-conceived military campaign appears to have bolstered the mullahs as they exercise the right of usufruct over the Straits of Hormuz. Should the war continue much longer, it will torpedo, not Iran’s military, but the world economy.

Trump, in other words, has good reason to seek an exit posthaste. For one thing, his poll numbers could hardly be more dismal. He can enforce discipline against the likes of Senator Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary, and Congressman Tom Massie, who appears about to lose his, but Trump’s wider unpopularity threatens the fortunes of the Republican party itself (though whether this is of acute concern to him is another matter).

According to a New York Times/Siena poll a mere 30 percent of Americans approve of the decision to go to war with Iran while 64 percent disapprove. Overall, his approval rating stands at 37 percent.

Then there is the economy. Here, too, Trump is cratering. Inflation is headed towards 5 percent. Trump plans to swear in Kevin Warsh as the new head of the Federal Reserve at the White House, a break from tradition. Trump wants Warsh to serve as his faithful retainer at the Fed rather than an independent steward of America’s finances.

But how Warsh, a lifelong inflation hawk, can accede to Trump’s incessant demands for swift and sweeping interest rate reductions at a moment of soaring prices is as murky as the UFO files that the government has been releasing.

The truth is that for all his bluster about ushering in a new golden age, it has been back to the future under Trump. Back to the high gas prices of the Biden administration. Back to soaring inflation. And back to a president who, more often than not, has trouble remaining awake to perform the most elementary of his duties.

U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., has had a lower profile than other Democrats, but now is a contender to be Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate. That higher profile is coming with more scrutiny of her past positions, including her positions on Cuba.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said if Bass becomes vice president she “will be the highest-ranking Castro sympathizer in the history of the United States government.” Democrats who represent large exile communities in south Florida have raised concerns, too.

Bass rejected Rubio’s characterization and called the Castro regime “brutal.”

“Well, one, I don’t consider myself a Castro sympathizer,” she said on Meet the Press recently. “Number two, my position on Cuba is really no different than the position of the Obama administration.”

Bass’ record on Cuba has raised questions about whether it will torpedo her chances to help Biden in Florida, a state with exiles who fled repressive regimes, including Cuba and Venezuela. In 2018, Florida Republicans attacked Democrats repeatedly as socialists and ultimately won those races by tiny margins.

Her critics point to three things about Bass and Cuba: her visits to the island as a young person in the 1970s, her comments on Fidel Castro’s death in 2016, and her overall policy positions on Cuba.

We found that Bass supported former President Barack Obama’s re-engagement policy on Cuba. She has walked back her comments on Castro’s death, and she has said that her early visits there need context.

Bass as an elected official

Bass won her election for the California state assembly in 2004. She visited Cuba while in the state assembly and a few times after joining Congress in 2011. She traveled with the Center for Democracy in the Americas in 2011 to visit American political prisoner Alan Gross and with MEDICC to look at diabetes medication, her office said.

In a TV interview in August 2015, Bass, who had worked in the past as a physician assistant, spoke about her desire to test medications from Cuba used to help diabetics and about business opportunities in Cuba.

“Why wouldn’t we have a relationship with an island 90 miles off our coast with a population about the size of L.A. County — not exactly a threat?” she said.

During Obama’s second term, Obama called for normalizing relations and making it easier for Americans to travel there. Biden has said that he would return to Obama’s Cuba policy.

“In large part, I would go back,” Biden told CBS4′s Jim DeFede. “I’d still insist they keep the commitments they said they would make when we, in fact, set the policy in place.”

Bass repeatedly praised Obama’s policies to re-engage with Cuba. In 2014, she said she hoped it would lead to a “free flow of ideas and trade, including a new avenue for agricultural businesses in California” and provide opportunities to “test and share medical breakthroughs.”

Bass traveled with Secretary of State John Kerry to Havana in 2015 when the American flag was raised at the U.S. embassy.

She also traveled with Obama in March 2016 on his visit to Cuba when Obama met with Raul Castro and spoke to the Cuban people. During that visit, Bass tweeted a photo of herself from her 1973 visit to Cuba.

“#ThrowbackThursday to my first visit to #Cuba in 1973. Never imagined I would one day return with @POTUS!”

Bass visits to Cuba in the 1970s

Bass first visited Cuba in 1973 when she was 19 years old. The Atlantic magazine reported that she traveled as part of the Venceremos Brigade, a program jointly organized by the Castro government and the Students for a Democratic Society, a U.S. group. The Brigade organized trips for left-leaning Americans to Cuba.

“We built houses during the day,” Bass said, “and then we had what they called cultural activities and we called parties. There was great music, rum, dancing. And we toured the country.” She said she went to hear Castro speak and found him “charismatic,” although she couldn’t understand what he said.

Bass, who is now chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told The Atlantic that she saw a connection between Black Cubans and Black Americans, but knew that Cubans didn’t have the same freedom to protest.

“I didn’t have any illusions that the people in Cuba had the same freedoms I did. I came home and was protesting everything; I knew that the Cuban people didn’t have the ability to do that,” she told The Atlantic.

Bass was in Cuba eight times in the 1970s and saw Castro speak multiple times.

There have been allegations that Cuban intelligence was connected to the Brigade and that the Cuban military gave weapons training to the group. But Bass told The Atlantic that she was never involved in anything like that and never used a gun there. She was taught how to use a gun for target practice during a Brigade campaign trip in California and later learned the person was an undercover police officer.

What Bass said when Castro died

Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008 and handed over power to his brother Raul. When Fidel Castro died in November 2016, Bass released a statement:

“As Cuba begins nine days of mourning, I wish to express my condolences to the Cuban people and the family of Fidel Castro. The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba. I hope together, our two nations will continue on the new path of support and collaboration with one another, and continue in the new direction of diplomacy.”

The phrase “Comandante en Jefe” translates to commander in chief. The phrase was used by Castro to refer to himself in an effort to give him legitimacy, and it was used by the Cuban government. Using the title can be considered the equivalent of calling a dictator by his chosen title, said Sebastián A. Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

Using that title would anger and offend exiles, said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster in Miami.

“For the Cuban exile community it is akin to giving Hitler the deference of ‘Fuhrer’ to an audience of Holocaust survivors,” Amandi said. “The title was never ordained by the Cuban people; it was self-appointed by Castro himself without validation by any type of popular election.”

Bass told The Atlantic and MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press and Chris Wallace on Fox News that she used the wrong words.

“I was expressing condolences to the Cuban people, to the people in Cuba, not Cubans around the world. I don’t think that is a toxic expression in California,” she said on Meet the Press. “But let me just say, Chuck, lesson learned. Wouldn’t do that again. Talked immediately to my colleagues from Florida and realized that that was something that just shouldn’t have been said.”

But that explanation is still problematic, said Amandi.

“Why offer condolences to oppressed Cuban people after the demise of their oppressor, jailer torturer and, in many instances, murderer?”

America has repeatedly been declared a dying empire, yet every rival—from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union to China—has ultimately fallen short of US power and resilience.

By Victor Davis Hanson

May 19, 2026

America: The Real Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
America has repeatedly been declared a dying empire, yet every rival—from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union to China—has ultimately fallen short of US power and resilience.

By Victor Davis Hanson

May 19, 2026

e Right alike, especially among the hate-Trump crowd—is that the communist colossus will be forever ascendant, with continued astonishing levels of food production, ship construction, and industrial output. In this pessimistic view, China will soon replace America as the world’s predominant power. We are, supposedly, like an exhausted British Empire circa 1945, and China is the new version of the postwar American powerhouse.

Yet even Beijing’s miraculous 30-year leap out of poverty into first-world affluence and Westernized power is hardly the same as parity with the US. In truth, Trump held almost all the cards at the current summit and will do so again when Xi Jinping visits the US this autumn. According to nearly every historical measure of power, the US leads China by sizable margins—in wealth, economic output, fuel, food, and military strength.

China has roughly four times the population of the US, but produces only about 60 percent of our total GDP. A crude way of looking at this asymmetry is that one US citizen accounts for 40 percent more goods and services than his four Chinese counterparts. Americans enjoy a per capita GDP (roughly $95,000) over six times higher than China’s (roughly $15,000).

We are the largest oil and gas producer and exporter in history; China must import 11 to 12 million barrels of oil every day. The US is also the greatest food exporter in history; China, for all its miraculous increases in agricultural productivity, still must import 30–40 percent of its food, a number that keeps rising as China becomes more affluent and more diverse in its food consumption.

The US still spends almost three times as much on defense. Its nuclear forces are roughly six times larger, and its 11 carrier strike groups are nearly four times more numerous than China’s three conventionally powered carriers. The US has more than 100 years of experience in carrier warfare; China has less than 15 years.

American universities’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics departments dominate global rankings. In terms of market capitalization, eight US companies are in the world’s top ten. American companies, along with NASA, have regained prior American primacy in space exploration. In new frontiers such as robotics, drones, artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, cryptocurrencies, and bioengineering, a once sluggish US has woken up, rebounded, and is reasserting its preeminence.

True, the US fertility rate is down to 1.7. But China’s is 1.0, and its population is rapidly shrinking and aging.

But most importantly, China is an autocracy. It is superficially efficient, but its technology is ultimately derived from the free and wide-open atmosphere of the West and of the US in particular. There are usually around 300,000 Chinese students here in the US—and they are not art history majors, but sent here to master and appropriate US scientific expertise and then return home to clone it.

China has spent over $4 trillion in the last decade on its Belt and Road, mercantile, and imperialist agendas and on its military-industrial complex. Yet recently, its effort to pull Latin America away from the US has been failing miserably. China lost its client, Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela, and, with his arrest, Venezuela’s discounted oil imports. Its insidious effort to control the Panama Canal was aborted by Trump.

For now, China has also lost its discounted oil from Iran. If, in the months ahead, the Iranian theocracy falls, China will have no presence in the oil-rich Middle East, even as its appetite for oil grows exponentially. In terms of China’s stranglehold on rare-earth minerals, a once sleepy US is planning its own huge new mines in mad dash fashion everywhere from Greenland to California, Utah, and Wyoming.

The latest Chinese air defenses have failed miserably in Iran in 2025–26. But US naval and air power—both weapons and personnel—performed brilliantly against Iran.

Geostrategically, the US enjoys two vast oceans off its coast and, despite tensions, considers Canada and Mexico allies. Both are dependent on the US economy and ultimately the American military for their defense. And North America may be the most natural-resource-rich continent in the world. China, by contrast, shares a border with nuclear-armed arch-rival India and an always unpredictable nuclear Russia—not to mention volatile, nuclear North Korea. Besides these, China, which suppresses 12 million Uyghur Muslims, has five Muslim neighbors. The US and its European NATO partners often bicker, but again, China’s North Korean “ally” is a nuclear global pariah.

Critics claim the Iran war plays into China’s hands, but they rarely convincingly explain how or why Beijing is stronger than before the war started. Its trading partner and oil supplier, Iran, is in shambles and now fires on Chinese tankers seeking oil in the Gulf. Israel and the US allies in the Gulf are ascendant, and in the years to come, they will remember that China was an enabler of their shared archenemy Iran.

If there is peace soon in Ukraine, Russia will likely seek to triangulate with the US against China and vice versa, as in the old days of Henry Kissinger’s great-game balancing act (“China will be no friendlier to Russia than to the US, and Russia no friendlier to China than to the US”).

China is about as popular in the Pacific as was the hated Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of World War II. It takes some effort to alienate formerly anti-American nations like Vietnam and the Philippines and drive them into the US sphere of influence. In truth, China has legitimate worries about its neighborhood, since it is surrounded by its own “ring of fire,” nations that are far more potent and dangerous than the motley crew of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis that Iran once used to encircle Israel. Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam are all rearming, seeking closer military relations with the US, and forming a loose alliance against what they see as their common existential enemy China.

As far as leverage goes, tomorrow the US could deny visas and green cards to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students and technicians, effectively aborting China’s fifty-year effort to absorb and replicate US technology.

Tomorrow, Trump could announce that he seeks “parity” and “equity” with China in a spirit of “friendship” as he announces that the number of Chinese nationals in the US from now on will match the number of their US counterparts residing in China. China can buy as much US farmland as Americans can buy Chinese farmland. Chinese can buy property as close to US bases as Americans can purchase land near Chinese bases.

Finally, the Ukraine and Iran wars have taught the world that cheap drones can sometimes nullify missile defenses and are nearly as effective as $100 million combat aircraft and $4 million missiles. The US is now rapidly incorporating the data from these two wars and will soon deploy a vast fleet of its own air, surface, and submarine drones.

The idea of a third of a million Chinese troops steaming across the 110-mile Taiwan Strait to land on the beaches of Taiwan, while fighting, in transit, and on arrival, thousands of drones, is not an appealing invasion scenario.

True, America can be sluggish, insular, complacent, and naïve.

But historically, its innately resilient free people, singular constitutional government, robust federalism, and free-market economy eventually wake up to the next rising threat—if often just in the nick of time. In the 1930s, a disarmed America, mired in depression, was told that fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and militarist Japan were the paradigms of the future, armed to the teeth, fielding millions of goose-stepping, scary soldiers, and engaging in massive rearmament.

When war broke out in 1939, the US Army ranked 19th in size worldwide. Was it hopeless? No. By war’s end in August 1945, Nazism, fascism, and Japanese militarism were in ruins, and the US fleet and economy were larger than those of all the war’s belligerents combined.

A communist Russia on the move, we were told, starting in the late 1940s, would destroy the US. And indeed, the Red Army loomed huge, and thousands of Russian nuclear missiles were eventually pointed at the US.

The Soviet Union, we were further warned, was taking over the globe, as an unstoppable communism seemed to spread unchecked through Latin America, Africa, and Asia to our doorstep in Cuba. But after the crackup of the Soviet Empire, Russia’s GDP today is pathetically one-thirteenth the size of the US economy, and it has become a shrinking, aging, and unhealthy society.

Next, Japan, Inc. was also supposed to bury us in the 1980s, as confident, rich Japanese investors bought up the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Course, Rockefeller Center, and Columbia Pictures. We were told Honda and Toyota were light-years ahead of the soon-to-go-bankrupt Ford and GM. Today, Japan remains mired in deflation, and US corporations dwarf their Japanese counterparts.

Then, at the beginning of the millennium, it was the European Union’s turn to be the next supposed wave of the future, with America once more relegated to the past. When the US in 2008 was mired in the Iraq War, short of oil, and faced with soaring gas prices, the dollar fell, and the euro rose to $1.60. Soon, President Barack Obama would lecture Americans that we were no more an exceptional nation than Greece or the United Kingdom. “Lead from behind” became his new declinist mantra, and “apology tours” the way of the future.

Yet now the energy-short Europeans import American natural gas, and in early 2025, the euro fell to about $1 before rising later in the year. Moreover, the Iran war revealed the European Union as militarily weak and energy-short, with vast numbers of unassimilated and often hostile illegal aliens, suicidal green policies, and a shrinking and aging population—and as reliant upon the US economy and military for its continued prosperity and security.

The latest supposed Chinese existential threat is not to be assessed by how fast and impressively the nation rose from its own prior weakness, poverty, and irrelevance. What matters instead is to what degree its innate system ensures that such ascendance will be permanently continued and whether its political system, food and fuel capacity, military, and scientific community are on par with those of America’s.

And so far, in these regards, China, like all the other rivals of the last hundred years, has not come close.