The Pentagon’s recent decision to downgrade China as America’s primary threat arrives at a strange moment. As officials refine their rhetoric in Washington, Chinese operatives continue to map the nation’s nervous system: power grids, water plants, phone networks, hospitals, and railways.

It’s a sustained and serious threat, and it receives far less attention than it should.

Over the past decade, Chinese hackers have siphoned off personal data from tens of millions of Americans. Medical files, financial records, home addresses — all collected, catalogued, and stored. That alone should have forced a national reckoning. Instead, it passed through the news cycle and was quickly forgotten.

Attribution takes months, while damage compounds each day.

Yet data theft is only the tip of the iceberg. The deeper issue is placement. These intrusions bypass the marketplace for secrets to exploit their military application, learning how our systems work and where they fail. Which switches feed electricity to entire cities. Which valves deliver clean water to millions of homes. Which servers keep emergency rooms alive. Which signals move trains and manage traffic. China has built a strategic database that confers massive leverage.

And lest we think only our machines and infrastructure are at risk, there’s also a biological dimension, one that could eclipse every national security threat since Pearl Harbor. Chinese-linked research laboratories operating on American soil pose a risk that few have fully assessed. Cyberattacks leave traces. Biological threats move differently. A lab accident or deliberate release could devastate crops, overwhelm health care facilities, and unleash panic long before a cause is identified. For those who think this is exaggerated, 2025 alone saw multiple cases of Chinese nationals caught attempting to bring dangerous biological materials into America.

Disease can be even harder to trace, track, and cordon off than viruses online. A fungus in Iowa cornfields looks like blight. A respiratory illness appears to be a bad flu season. Ambiguity chews up precious time. Attribution takes months, while damage compounds each day. Farmers lose harvests without knowing they are under attack. Hospitals overflow with what only seems natural. Supply chains creak. Prices rise. And the central question — was this intentional? — remains an unsolved puzzle, delaying or paralyzing any coordinated response.

RELATED: Another secret Chinese biolab found on US soil?

Aaron Hawkins/Getty Images

This is a conflict without uniforms or airstrikes. No invasions, nor any other moment when peace visibly becomes war, give us the tipoff. In its place, a steady erosion, deniable and extremely effective.

The timing could hardly be worse. America is more divided than it has been in generations. The left despises the right, and the right returns the favor. Such division is fertile ground for hostile actors. Disorder takes hold where common ground has disappeared.

In a divided country, mixed messaging carries real risks. Yet America’s approach to China has become strangely contradictory. Officials warn allies about the risks of economic dependence on Beijing. Those warnings are sensible; strategic reliance carries costs. But downgrading China’s threat at home while cautioning others abroad creates confusion. Are the warnings sincere or symbolic? This is a vital question that requires a clear, concrete answer. Without it, fatalism and a false sense of security quickly set in.

America may no longer rank China as its top threat, but the country’s Communist Party would gladly see its chief rival brought to its knees. And in the modern age, that doesn’t require armies. A blackout can plunge millions into darkness without a single soldier crossing a border. A telecommunications failure can paralyze emergency services. A poisoned water system can force evacuations and put tens of thousands of lives at risk. A hospital network crash can replace treatment with trauma. A pathogen released in farm country can wipe out an entire season’s yield, kill livestock, and leave farmers on the edge of ruin.

Each episode chips away at government capacity without crossing the line that would trigger traditional retaliation.

To be clear, a steady stream of individually minor incidents have already accumulated, testing the edges, building the dataset. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 showed how a single breach could ignite fuel shortages and consumer panic. Now imagine disruptions across several sectors at once. Not criminal mischief, but coordinated pressure from a sophisticated state actor with cyber reach and biological presence inside American borders.

The answer is neither despair nor denial but preparation. America must develop critical infrastructure through sustained investment, tighter cooperation between public and private sectors, a trained workforce, and systems designed to absorb shocks. It must also establish firm oversight of biological research, especially when foreign entities are involved, and build early-warning networks for agricultural and health threats.

It’s a question of priorities. Civilian life shouldn’t be our weakest link. Power grids, water systems, hospitals, food supply, and transportation deserve the same strategic focus as aircraft carriers and missile shields. Infrastructure security, including biosecurity, shouldn’t be a political football or a budget afterthought. It should be the base that supports everything else.

The issue isn’t whether China poses a serious threat. The answer couldn’t be clearer. The issue is whether America will act before vague vulnerabilities become lurid disasters. There is still time to secure essential systems and reduce exposure across all domains. But the clock is ticking, and Beijing is plotting. America remains a superpower. It still stands tall, but China is working toward a moment when only one giant casts a shadow.

​Tech 

Christians are being told by anti-ICE pastors like Ben Cremer that putting America first is unbiblical, that enforcing borders violates Scripture, and that letting Christian beliefs inform public policy is “Christian nationalism.”

And according to BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey, none of that is true.

“We hear a lot from people like Ben Cremer that putting your country first is wrong, or allowing your Christian conservative views to inform how you vote, that that’s wrong,” Stuckey explains.

And eight months ago, Cremer posted, “Myth #1: Immigrants are a drain on our country.”

“What I’m most interested in is not that he’s saying that that’s a myth, but his response to that,” she comments, before reading Cremer’s response.

“The Bible never defines a person’s worth by their economic output. In fact, it warns us not to favor the rich over the poor (James 2:1-7). God’s kingdom is built not on cost-benefit analysis but on belovedness. The call to welcome the stranger (Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 10:19) is rooted in who God is — not in what the stranger can offer us,” Cremer wrote.

“He is conflating the kingdom of God with America. … We’re not talking about God’s kingdom. We’re talking about the United States. So, actually, in him saying that Christian nationalists are trying to enforce some theocracy by allowing the law to be informed by what we believe, he is actually the one that is conflating our spiritual obligation to the poor in the spiritual kingdom of heaven with America here today,” Stuckey responds.

Stuckey also points out that the government was instituted by God, pointing to Romans 13:2-4, which explains that “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad,” and that the authority figure is “God’s servant for your good.”

“It was his idea. Law and law enforcement were God’s idea. Now, this right here is why it is so important to elect politicians that define good and evil how God defines them,” Stuckey says.

Cremer has also written in a post on his Instagram that “Christian Nationalism looks like hearing God say ‘I will pour out my spirit on all people’ in Acts 2 where all nations, languages, and tribes were present then protesting by saying ‘America first!’”

“There’s an irony in this accusation. Progressives, as I noted earlier, consistently conflate America and the church, which is the very thing they accuse Christian nationalists of doing,” Stuckey says.

“The truth is, hot take, we do not see the importance of ethnic diversity within nations or local churches anywhere in Scripture,” she continues. “Nowhere.”

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Sharing, Upload, Video phone, Video, Camera phone, Free, Youtube.com, Relatable with allie beth stuckey, Relatable, Allie beth stuckey, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Anti-ice, Pastor, Pastor ben cremer, Open borders, Immigration, Christian nationalism, Christian nationalism claim 

No matter how innocent a video game may seem, there’s usually some political agenda hidden for your kids to find — and Minecraft is no different.

“Minecraft just announced ‘Lessons in Good Trouble’ … DLC downloadable content for Black History Month,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales explains. “And so they said that they wanted to inspire their young players to change the world.”

In a post on X, the company wrote, “Want to change the world IRL? Start in Minecraft. In the free Good Trouble DLC, explore global civil rights movements, meet change-makers, and learn how to stand up, speak out, and build a better world.”

“You just don’t have to inject politics. Like, I’m not asking for my player to wear a MAGA hat. I’m just saying, like, can we just have one escape for our kids that is not taken over by left-wing indoctrinators? Can we just have one outlet?” Gonzales asks.

In the trailer for the game, Minecraft shows players walking with civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks and holding up protest signs.

The Good Trouble game has eight lessons that include India’s independence movement, U.S. civil rights, women’s suffrage, Black Lives Matter, South Africa and apartheid, working toward quality education for girls, understanding the identity of Martin Luther King Jr., and a lesson called “The I in Identity.”

“The I in Identity” includes key terms like race, ethnicity, gender, and social construct.

“Remember they said it’s free actually. They knew no one’s going to pay for this s**t, it’s not actually something we care to make money off of. We’re just trying to indoctrinate them,” Gonzales says.

And it’s not just Minecraft.

“Roblox is terrible. Don’t let your kids on it … they’re doing it within the game … they are now having virtual anti-ICE protests in Roblox,” Gonzales says, pointing out that last summer, Roblox was heavily pushing protests where the protesters were carrying Mexican flags.

“You can’t teach your kid patriotism anymore. You got to teach them how to riot in the streets,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Camera phone, Free, Sharing, Upload, Video, Video phone, Youtube.com, Sara gonzales unfiltered, Sara gonzales, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Minecraft, Conservative, Woke video games, Woke games, Lessons in good trouble, Ice protests, Protesting, Roblox, Minecraft goes woke