What this Article is About?
This article explains that U.S. global leadership comes from its vision, influence, and ability to act internationally. It says China may grow economically but lacks a unifying ideology that inspires beyond its borders. In contrast, Islamic civilization once combined belief and power to shape regions. Despite current challenges, the article suggests this heritage could support a future resurgence and renewed influence.
To be a superpower requires more than economic weight or military scale. It demands three things: a universal ideology that legitimizes global action, a strategic imperative to shape foreign regions, and the military will to act beyond one’s borders. The United States possesses all three. China, despite its rise, does not, and Islam still does.
For over a century, the American project has fused liberal values with global strategy. Whether fighting communism, terrorism, or authoritarianism, Washington has justified interventions-from Vietnam to Iraq-not simply on the grounds of national interest, but as moral imperatives. That ideological mission has been matched by an unrivalled military footprint and a demonstrated willingness to fight, often far from home, to uphold its vision of order.
China, by contrast, lacks a globalizing creed. Its slogans-“win-win cooperation,” “non-interference”-lack ideological depth and fail to inspire loyalty beyond transactional relationships. Its Belt and Road Initiative builds infrastructure, not belief. Its military remains untested, its foreign policy cautious. China postures in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea but stops short of decisive action. Without an animating vision or demonstrated resolve, Beijing cannot yet claim true superpower status.
By contrast, Islamic civilization-often overlooked in contemporary analyses-has historically met all three criteria. Early Muslim empires expanded rapidly not for territory alone, but through a unifying religious and legal worldview. Within decades, the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates had reshaped the political map from Persia to Spain. The Ottoman Empire later embodied this strategic and ideological ambition, conquering Constantinople in 1453, pressing deep into Europe, and positioning itself as the political authority. The conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate (1517) brought the holy cities of Mecca and Medina under Ottoman control, cementing political leadership by Islamic governance. The naval campaign at Lepanto (1571), though ending in defeat, revealed an Ottoman vision for Mediterranean dominance for Islam and a willingness to confront European coalitions head-on.
Where China hesitates and the West fractures, Islam retains a dormant civilizational coherence and an enduring sense of purpose. Once politically reawakened it could again project power, justice and leadership on a global scale.
Today, the broken and weak descendants of the Islamic civilization, the Arab kingdoms and the Turkish Republic can’t even stop the slaughter in Palestine…
The future is written in the past….
