China, Russia, Iran pose rising threats to US, free world

Decades-long divides between China and Taiwan, Russia and Ukraine, and Iran and Israel are capturing the world’s attention as tensions mount in each of the three distinct areas of the world. Experts spoke to The Epoch Times about the role of the United States in each potential conflict area.

David Wurmser, a senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy, a Washington-based think tank said, “it’s inescapable that the United States is in a period where there’s significant domestic exhaustion with foreign policy, partly because of the internal consumption of the country’s own upheavals, both culturally and ideationally.”

He said it is important to recognize that “the country is not in the place it was during the Cold War, when the nation fundamentally and profoundly understood that every aspect of its way of life was tied to freedom in the world.”

At this time, “it was a vital national interest to aggressively defend freedom in as broad and as robust a way as possible, everywhere possible,” Wurmser said.

“The world has not changed,” he said, adding that there are still serious threats to freedom represented by various nations around the world. These include, but are not limited to, the Chinese regime’s embrace of communism and heightened interest in seizing Taiwan, Russia’s designs against Ukraine, and Iran’s modern Islamic theocracy and its desire to annihilate Israel.

Wurmser is convinced each of these poses a “fundamental and profound threat” to the free world’s way of life. “The United States cannot enjoy the luxury of being an isolationist or being hands-off on any foreign policy or foreign military action, today.”

“The world is in need of a much more present America,” he said. “It is past time to establish a seriousness internationally that the United States is returning to the international scene.”

There are nations under persistent threat, and they are looking to the United States to be the champion of freedom, Wurmser said. “The United States must start exacting a price on its enemies and send a signal that we can make life miserable for each of them in some way or another.”

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