Another problem concerns how 500,000 gallons of briny water used to extract lithium can be safely released into nature. Researchers and reporters have found that this altered water can easily kill a variety of wildlife and fish. Indeed, if consistency is a guideline, those opposed to fracking for oil should raise similar opposition to lithium extraction. A third problem is the simple availability of freshwater. States in the Southwest are facing drastic depletion of freshwater from the Colorado River and Lake Meade. Water rationing might soon be a reality. Should we speculate on sending water from the Great Lakes or our Maryland reservoirs to the millions of citizens who chose to live in the desert? Imagine choosing between directing 500,000 gallons of freshwater to nourish crops, animals, and fellow citizens or to lithium deposits to energize electric vehicles. In this light, we might be faced with a Devil’s bargain: Smartphones and electric cars or our mountains, rivers, and native creatures? This dilemma has caught environmentalists in a strange paradox. While they support the goal of electric vehicles, they cannot abide by the side effects generated by lithium excavation. No wonder environmentalist Guillermo Gonzalize remarks, “This (lithium) isn’t a green solution. It’s not a solution at all.” In this light, despite good intentions, it remains dubious that the electric car is a panacea. It is also not clear how humanity’s incessant demand for more energy to support our endless needs and wishes will be addressed by scientists.

Lithium has been coined “white gold” for a good reason. It quickly replaces the “black gold” of oil as a centerpiece for new energy sources. Lithium is an essential element to smartphones and batteries for electric cars. Is it a panacea to relieve us from the carbon footprints of gasoline-driven autos and trucks, thus protecting the environment from fossil fuels? Unlike lead batteries, lithium-based batteries are light and long-lasting. They are less susceptible to extreme temperatures and easily recharged. According to advocates, electric cars present a realistic dream to reverse the threatening trends of human-induced global warming. However, there are considerable drawbacks to this dream. Lithium is not easily obtained. According to a 2020 study by the Institute for Energy Research, it can take 500,000 gallons of water to extract a metric ton of lithium from the earth. While much of this extraction is done in other countries, especially in China and South America, soon the United States will need to decide how to extract lithium within its own borders to establish independence. Another reliance on foreign sources for our energy, such as the OPEC oil debacles in earlier decades, could be disastrous. This problem leads to controversies over where to obtain lithium from our lands. So far, the areas with the most potential are protected under designation as natural wonders or national parks that deserve protection. For example, places such as the Panamint valley in the western part of Death Valley hold rich deposits of “white gold.” If permitted, companies would need to build major roads that could threaten the pristine and remarkably eerie aspects of Death Valley.

It is China who has launched a Cold War against us. Consider the overwhelming evidence. China deliberately concealed the outbreak, origin and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused millions of deaths. China is militarizing the South China Sea, including three airfields and over 60 outposts capable of supporting military operations in the Spratly Islands. Violating the norms of freedom of navigation, China has deliberately blocked oil exploration by other countries and interfered with international trade. Having declared it would build the world’s strongest military by midcentury, China is modernizing its armed forces with hypersonic missiles, two new aircraft carriers and the world’s fastest-growing arsenal of nuclear bombs. Falsely claiming Taiwan as a “breakaway province,” China menacingly deploys its warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and conducts combat readiness drills designed to be prepared for an invasion by 2027. Allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship and projecting power in the Middle East to secure oil and natural gas imports, China also preposterously claims to be a “near-Arctic state” with plans for a “Polar Silk Road.” China operates Confucius Institutes, billed as cultural outreach posts, and dozens of “police stations” in the U.S. and Canada that, in reality, are used for surveillance of dissidents, propaganda and spying operations. The People’s Liberation Army is also weaponizing space, which it uses to augment its military, intelligence and economic power. The Biden administration should not hesitate to lay the blame for this century’s Cold War squarely on Beijing.

Barack Obama promised “hope and change.” President Biden might outdo him by precipitating a “new world order.” That’s how international observers are labeling an emerging power bloc aiming for global domination. It is not American-made, but the work of China and Russia. If the two axial powers have their way, the United States will not be head of the table. In March, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Moscow. The leaders of the world’s largest nations are said to have cemented an Asia-centric alliance meant to overtake the West as the world’s gravitational center. “Now there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years,” Mr. Xi reportedly told his Russian counterpart as he left. “When we are together, we drive these changes.” The consequences of “these changes” lie in the future, but there is little doubt about their causes. Mr. Biden’s bobbled foreign policy sent Mr. Putin a clear sign of American decline and a “go” for Russia’s Ukraine onslaught in 2022. Mr. Biden’s hesitation in confronting China over its culpability in the Wuhan virus-caused deaths of 1.1 million Americans could serve only to apprise Mr. Xi of the U.S. president’s infirmity. A recent Pew Research Center survey of young people ages 18 to 29 in Britain, France and Germany found majorities judging the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as handled “poorly,” and that “the U.S. is seen as the ‘world’s policeman’ with a self-interested history of interventionism that is disappointing to Western allies.” As President Biden bobbles, China and Russia appear intent on erecting a “new world order” that, sadly, has no place for America.

Clearly, the U.S.-South Korea alliance has been fulfilling its promises. Yet unique ways to broaden the partnership remain untapped. It is in the clear interest of both Washington and Seoul to elevate their partnership to the next level through greater strategic clarity and practical engagement. The April 26 state visit is a perfect opportunity to get the ball rolling. For example, strategic and timely opportunities abound for South Korea to strengthen ties with NATO, facilitated by the United States. It’s certainly in the interest of Washington to foster greater interaction and cooperation between its vital Indo-Pacific partners and its key trans-Atlantic allies. To this end, U.S. officials should start advocating for Mr. Yoon to be invited to the July 11-12 NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. South Korea - and our European allies - would also benefit from Seoul developing a closer relationship with countries in central and eastern Europe. The Three Seas Initiative, or 3SI, would be a practical avenue for greater economic cooperation and infrastructure development. Launched in 2016, the 3SI seeks to develop a north-south, east-west commercial corridor linking 12 European Union countries around and between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas. South Korea could be a huge help to the efforts of the U.S. and the 3SI countries to put the connectivity initiative into further operation. South Korea has become one of the world’s leading free market democracies. Recognizing that, it’s high time for Washington to push to give Seoul a seat in the Group of 7. Seoul certainly satisfies the membership criteria. With Russia and China increasingly threatening the world’s free market democracies, it’s only prudent to bring another hand on board the G-7.

Many Cubans believed Castro would establish a democracy and restore civil liberties. Fidel in 1959 expressed his intention to hold elections, while saying Marxism had no place in Cuba. That promise was broken with mass executions, suspension of the constitution for the “transition” and the subsequent takeover of businesses, the media, schools and church. By 1961, the Castro regime controlled almost every aspect of Cuban life, and Fidel declared himself a Marxist-Leninist, dismissing elections as unnecessary. A time of the indoctrination of Castro propaganda followed. The eavesdropping devices were used to monitor citizen conversations. “Ideological report cards” were also used to blackmail children, making advancement in school impossible without showing support for the regime. Those who didn’t fit in were sent to dreaded UMAP work camps, an idea fostered by Che Guevara, who personally targeted religious youth, rockers and homosexuals. There was the armed resistance to Castro, and how those captured were punished. The New York Times reported “Cuban show trials” in Havana’s Sports City Stadium where Batista aides were “court-martialed” as “war criminals” before a “frenzied crowd” of 18,000 jeering people. Firing squads executed people in the fashion of “revolutionary justice” and “torture cells” were so small a prisoner could barely move. The Cuban Revolution illuminates the political design of how communist revolutions erode freedom - an important lesson for all, especially in today’s global political climate.

While Muslims in the West demand tolerance, Christians rarely get it under Islam. In Egypt, Coptic churches are bombed, congregants shot, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert. What will a world dominated by Islam look like? Even in the West, many Muslims want to live under Islamic law (Sharia), where adulterers are stoned to death and converts to other faiths are murdered. We’re told, in almost ritualistic fashion, that Islam is the “religion of peace.” And yet, worldwide, 8% of Muslims say suicide bombings are “sometimes” or “often” justified in the name of Islam. That 8% may not seem like much, but it means more than 100 million condone coldblooded murder to defend perceived attacks on Islam. Different religions take criticism differently. Insult a Christian and he’ll pray for you. Insult a Jew and he’ll write a letter to the editor of The New York Times. Insult some Muslims and it’s “jihad, jihad!” In “The Clash of Civilizations” (1996), Samuel Huntington wrote: “Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem of the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” In the intervening quarter-century, the power and influence of Islam have grown considerably. Muslim immigration to Europe has increased from a trickle to a flood. For the past millennium, Western civilization was synonymous with Christianity. The Christian West may soon be but a memory.

Most in the West failed to grasp an ominous reality: Sometime in this century, more people around the world will celebrate Ramadan than Christmas. Not a happy prospect. There are now 2.2 billion Christians in the world. Islam is on its heels with 1.97 billion. But due to a higher Muslim fertility rate, Pew Research projects that sometime around 2075, Islam will be the world’s dominant religion. Overall, the European fertility rate is 1.49, well below the replacement level of 2.1. Europe lost 1.1 million people last year. That’s the first rumbling of a coming earthquake. The fertility rate for European Muslims is 2.54. You don’t need to be a statistician to see which way the demographic winds are blowing. It’s estimated that by 2085, 13 European countries will have Muslim majorities - this in a continent once known as Christendom. Christians are writing their own obituary by failing to heed the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. In France, 40% do not believe in God. For the first time, Christians are a minority of the population of England and Wales - 46.2%, while 37% say they have no religion. In the United States, a third of Generation Z describe themselves as not affiliated with any denomination. In America, Christianity is on a steady decline - from 91% as recently as 1976 to 73.7% in 2016 to 64% in 2022. The process has been aided by the culture (Hollywood in particular), which rarely misses an opportunity to bash Christianity. Progressives have done their best to drive religion from the public square. Elsewhere, Christianity has fared no better. It’s almost disappeared from the land of Jesus’ birth.

Today, a new axis has emerged. We might call it the Axis of Tyrannies. It formed a year ago when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement stating that henceforth there would be “no limits to Sino-Russian cooperation -no forbidden zones.” The other major tyrant collaborating around this axis is Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - still evil after all these years. These tyrants all subscribe to an authoritarian and collectivist vision of society. All are irrevocably hostile to America and, beyond that, to Enlightenment values of individual rights and democratic governance. Modern tyrants, like ancient tyrants, wage war to win glory. But modern tyrants also have an ideological mission. They require the submergence of the individual in the collective through the progressive transformation of human nature. That is why Mussolini, a fascist dictator, praised communist dictator Vladimir Lenin as a “sculptor of men.” For Mr. Putin, the goal is the “new world” of a Eurasianist empire; for Mr. Xi, the ceaseless extension of his totalitarian “social credit” blueprint and the replacement of the American-led liberal international order with one that is illiberal and whose rules are made in Beijing; for Mr. Khamenei, the restoration of a powerful new Islamic empire. All three Axis regimes are enduring difficulties, none more serious than in Iran, where the Khamenei dictatorship has been beset not just by an unprecedented demand for rights - women’s rights in particular - but by opposition to clerical rule. Unlike elected leaders, tyrants seldom go into a comfortable retirement. Of course, that only makes them more determined and indeed desperate to prevail.

The declaration recommends targeting shots to vulnerable people (older adults and those with other health conditions) and achieving herd immunity by allowing the healthy and young to get COVID-19 as they would any other virus. For this medically sound advice, the Barrington signers were slandered and canceled. Had the Barrington declaration been heeded, the pandemic may have ended far sooner, with many deaths avoided, including those from adverse reactions to the shots. We’ve also learned that researchers never believed the vaccines would stop the COVID-19 outbreak, just provide “early partial epidemic control.” Remember, the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson&Johnson shots are experimental. They all got emergency authorization without long-term impact studies. Yet Dr. Fauci aggressively pushed the zero-COVID narrative that natural immunity was a myth and that millions would die if we did not all get the shots. This led to school closings and unconstitutional and destructive mandates. The vaccines have been a huge success for some. Pfizer and Moderna have racked up tens of billions of dollars. The other big winner is China, which lied about the virus and let it travel all over the world. Meanwhile, China monopolized access to pandemic equipment. Speaking of masks, a meta-analysis published in the Cochrane Review on Jan. 30 concluded that masks make little to no difference in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 and other viruses. The ruling elites and their media misled us about everything from the virus’s origin to the efficacy of masks, vaccines, lockdowns.