From the 1930s through 1945 it was reasonable to regard Germany or Japan as the greatest threat to the West and the United States; or even to so regard the Soviet Union, which among other evil deeds did so much to help Mao and the Chinese Communist Party come to power in China.
Throughout the period of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was often regarded as the greatest threat. Starting on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers fell, there was reason to believe that Islamism was the greatest threat.
Tom Rogan argues, contra Tulsi Gabbard, that today the Chinese Communist Party “poses a greater threat than Islamism” and is in fact “the single greatest national security threat to the United States” (Washington Examiner, December 25, 2025).
It’s absolutely true that extremist Islamist ideology threatens American security. Because America stands anathema to the theological authoritarianism that defines Salafi-jihadists or followers of Iran’s Khomeinist ideology, it will always serve as a focal point for their hostility, other motivating factors notwithstanding.
In the end, however, the ultimate measure of a threat isn’t simply its ambition, but rather its means of effecting that ambition. On that metric, China quite obviously poses the preeminent threat to America’s freedom and security.
This isn’t to say that jihadist groups don’t pose a significant threat. They do. But in 2025, that threat exists primarily in inspiring limited acts of terrorism by people who already live on U.S. soil….
The possibility of Chinese communist dominion over the American way of life, however, is quite serious…. Xi wants to displace an American-led international order built around democratic sovereignty, relatively free trade, and individual freedom with a feudal-mercantilist order in which access to prosperity and peace are dependent upon obedience to Beijing….
One need only look at China’s chilling effect on productions and statements from Hollywood, the NBA, and Wall Street to see how successful its strategy has been. It has led to a situation in which the largest American companies are happy to offer commentary on matters such as the Black Lives Matter protest movement, but utterly loath to even question China’s crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong and its genocide against the Uyghur people.
Rogan also notes the effect of the CCP’s influence operations on U.S. politics and leaders; a cyber threat “outmatching [that of] every other U.S. adversary combined”; and the capacities of the Chinese military, which includes “a rapidly growing nuclear weapons stockpile with 1,000 warheads likely fielded by 2030.” He could also have surveyed plenty of other categories of the CCP’s global impact.
The broad question of which government, institution, or ism represents the greatest threat to the West or to the United States need not be answered with perfect definitiveness in order to judge that a given threat is more severe, pervasive, and enduring than another. If, living in the U.S., we keep comparing the threats, we find that the People’s Republic of China tends to keep dominating the list.
