The end of the Cold War was expected to bring eternal peace; the peace dividend was squandered on expanding the welfare state.  In his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, Samuel Huntington warned of Islam's bloody borders.  September 11 duly came along a scant five years later.  Those suicide missions were motivated by a hatred for the very idea of the United States.

We have since learned that a high proportion of Islam's adherents are affronted by the existence of non-Muslims.  The fact that many non-Muslims live happy, fulfilling lives at a much higher standard of living makes them even more enraged.  We have also learned more about the Islamic religion than we really want to know in an ideal world.  There is a continuous stream of books and articles pointing out the deficiencies of that religion.  Not that our political leaders have taken any notice of those books and articles; Muslim immigrants continue to be allowed in for no good reason.  In the case of Angela Merkel, the intent is malicious.  She knows exactly what she is doing.

Samuel Huntington identified eight civilizations extant on the planet: ourselves, Sinic, Japanese, Hindu, Orthodox, Latin American, African, and Islamic.  It has become increasingly apparent that another civilization, besides the Muslims, also wants to rule the world.  It turns out that this other civilization wants to rule the world for the same reasons why the Muslims do: the existence of peoples it doesn't control is an affront to it.

There have been books and articles over the years warning of China's belligerence.  A good example is Robert Kaplan's article in The Atlantic entitled "How We Would Fight China," from 2005.  Mr Kaplan's summary nails the situation: "The Middle East is just a blip.  The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century.  And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was."  My contributions to the oeuvre include a book and articles here on American Thinker.

The pace of such articles has picked up, and it seems that not a day passes without an examination of some aspect of the coming war with China.  But why do the Chinese feel the need to disturb the peace of the world?  Why are they happily setting out to kill millions?  If you don't find that last statement credible, consider this map published in China's Global Times in 2013:

The black dots are target cities, and the colors show the intensity of the fallout plumes.  From that article, "Because the Midwest states of the U.S. are sparsely populated, in order to increase the lethality, nuclear attacks should mainly target the key cities on the West Coast of the United States, such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego."  No mention of a military or strategic rationale for their targeting choices – they just want to kill people for the sake of it.  In his Springfield address, Lincoln said an enemy "could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years."  That may still be true, but these days, the enemy will pollute the Ohio with a lot of radioactive fallout while he makes the attempt.

That raises the question: why would killing foreigners give the Chinese such happiness, so much joy in the anticipation of it?  The best explanation of what is motivating China comes from a book by Steven Mosher, just published by Regnery: Bully of Asia.  Like the Muslims, the Chinese find the existence of people who are not under their control an affront.  This attitude had its origins in a five-hundred-year period of warfare up to the founding of the first state that encompassed all China in 221 B.C.  The biggest lesson that the Chinese learned from that 500 years of warfare is that states can't peacefully coexist.  The mere existence of another state might mean that that same state will prevail against you in war.  The solution is a fight to the death as soon as you can mount the campaign with a chance of success.  The Chinese expression for this is "you die; I live."

Just as the Muslims divide the world into the ummah and kafirs, the Chinese divide the world into two camps: China and those countries that don't yet acquiesce to China's direction and acknowledge China's superiority and are thus enemies and potential enemies.  Just as Islamic hardliners won't be happy until the whole world is converted to their religion, China won't be happy until it rules the world.

The Muslim threat to civilization can be contained by simply not having anything to do with Muslims.  President Trump's travel ban, one week into his administration and instigated by "Sloppy Steve" Bannon, was the first step in that direction.  Thwarting China is more problematic but is necessary if our children are to have an enjoyable future.  We can start by ceasing to give aid and comfort to this implacable enemy, starting with tariffs using North Korea as the justified cause.

David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.