Communists and Fascists Made America Great

America owes a great debt to communists and fascists. Not because they gave us ideology and technology, but because the competition (and armed conflict) with them made us sharpen our own ideology and develop technology superior to theirs. One of the great tragic ironies of international conflict (specifically war) is that more than anything else, this force has single-handedly led to more human advances than any other.

In the very beginning of human history, it was conflict that drove early peoples to band together to protect themselves from external threats, creating the first political constructs that eventually evolved into the modern concepts of political economy. The technological underpinnings of our world today - the jet engine (from WWII missiles and airplanes), the computer (WWII code breaking), nuclear energy (WWII), the Internet (decentralizing government infrastructure to hedge against Cold War nuclear strikes), satellites (Cold War space race), even our existence as the world's beacon for liberty and freedom (the original 13 colonies uniting to defend liberty from imperial oppression) - can be traced back to conflict and war.

While it was a terrifying time through which to live, the Cold War focused our national priorities and provided the incentive to be the best. To contain communism, we had to have a robust economy to pay for the effort, technological superiority and the scientists to develop it in order to maintain the military and intelligence superiority, and a political model of freedom that was more alluring than the socialist state.

As the threat from the Soviet Union began to slowly dissolve in the 1980s and then after its collapse in the 1990s, we became adrift. We became a nation obsessed with the trivial and superficial, lacking a greater purpose than indulgence and self-absorption, as so painfully illustrated in the political leaders we chose. As such, we became soft - no longer were the Soviets inspiring us to aggressively push ourselves in education, science, engineering, and third world development. No longer were we graduating the world's best scientists and engineers from the world's best schools; we instead graduated reams of lawyers and business majors who had designs only on making money, not making history. Instead of the space race, we had the Dow Jones race.

No, the job of intellectual innovation and excellence has fallen to the countries that remain hungry to the best, like China and India. Those countries have their motivation - a target upon which to train their sights and focus their energies - the US. Ironically, it is our technology enabling them to compete with us without having to cross any borders.

We need an economic and military rival to energize and focus our collective conscience and keep us from falling into complacency - if nothing else, Americans understand competition is a good thing. China is worthy competitor.

China's barely concealed ambition is to overtake the US in terms of military, economic, and geopolitical power. The Bush Administration showed encouraging signs indicating they understood this when they first took office. Unfortunately, our government has become completely blind to anything not related to the war on terror. Contrary to the leaders' assertions, Islamist goons are not an existential threat to our way of life. The overwhelming majority of the world rejects their vision of society, their infrastructure is steadily being dismantled and destroyed, and they are severely overmatched in intelligence, technology, funding, and sheer numbers. They are definitely a lethal, painful, and expensive nuisance, but not a mortal threat.

The China threat cannot be overcome so easily - they have four times as many people (the plurality of the world's population, to put Osama's thugs in perspective) and thanks our aforementioned nearsighted political leadership in the 90s, our very own advanced military, civilian, and nuclear technology. China is not going any where and will not rest until they accomplish their goal of toppling us as the world's dominant superpower.

There is no question that when we Americans, uniquely free in our western model of liberty and with all the advantages we possess, are focused on a collective goal, there is nothing which we cannot accomplish. We cannot triumph, however, if we do not even realize the competition is taking place until it is too late.

We can win the war on terror while protecting our benign global hegemony from the China threat - we just have to be asked.