“We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power the world has witnessed,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said earlier this month. China is undertaking a full-court press to rewrite the post-World War II democratic international order. So long as U.S. strategy remains in disarray and our politicians snipe at each other rather than unite against a common adversary, Beijing may succeed.

China’s rise was not preordained. When historians consider how communist China managed to sprint past the U.S. militarily, if not economically, they will trace the question back to the Nixon administration. At the time, China was in the midst of its Cultural Revolution, in which Mao Zedong’s ideologues killed up to 20 million of their own countrymen. China was isolated internationally as the United Nations and most of the world continued to recognize the Republic of China who had fled to Taiwan against the backdrop of Mao’s takeover of the mainland.