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Why did the United States become the world’s most powerful nation? The answer lies in its religious DNA. „Faith and Power“ tells how faith shaped America over four centuries, viewed through the analytical lens of a German observer.

Andreas Paul John guides readers from Puritan settlements to Silicon Valley megachurches, revealing how Calvinist work ethic fueled capitalism and how religious competition drove innovation. Writing from his European perspective, he shows what makes America unique: its capacity to transform moral crises into spiritual renewal—from slavery to civil rights, from manifest destiny to environmental stewardship.

This analysis combines historical rigor with personal insight, exploring figures from Billy Graham to Charlie Kirk, from indigenous spiritual leaders to prosperity preachers. John demonstrates why America remains both deeply religious and relentlessly innovative, continuing to reinvent itself through faith-driven transformation.

Essential reading for understanding not just American power, but the religious DNA that drives the world’s most influential democracy.

According to Apple, the eBook contains a good 400 pages, here is an excerpt from one chapter:

Chapter 12.2: Beyond the Culture Wars

The Arsenal of Democracy Awakens

Lost in the heated debates over transgender rights and abortion access lies Project 2025’s most substantive contribution to American governance: a comprehensive strategy for rebuilding America’s industrial capacity and confronting the challenge of Chinese economic dominance. Strip away the culture war rhetoric, and what emerges is a serious blueprint for addressing problems that even Project 2025’s critics acknowledge as real and urgent.

The document’s analysis of America’s trade deficit reads like a Warren Buffett investment memo rather than a political manifesto. „America’s record on trade—specifically American’s chronic and ever-expanding trade deficit—says that America is the globe’s biggest trade loser and a victim of unfair, unbalanced, and nonreciprocal trade,“ the authors write with mathematical precision. During Biden’s first year alone, the overall U.S. trade deficit soared by 29 percent, from $654 billion to $845 billion.

These aren’t partisan talking points—they’re economic realities that transcend political affiliation. When Project 2025 notes that automotive tariffs are 2.5 percent in the U.S., 10 percent in the European Union, and 15 percent in China, it’s identifying structural imbalances that would concern any serious economist regardless of their views on same-sex marriage.

The China Challenge: A Bipartisan Concern

Perhaps nowhere does Project 2025 demonstrate more analytical rigor than in its assessment of Chinese economic strategy. The document includes an eight-page matrix detailing „Communist China’s Categories of Economic Aggression“—from currency manipulation and intellectual property theft to forced technology transfers and „debt-trap“ financing in developing countries.

This systematic approach to Chinese economic competition reflects insights that have found support across the American political spectrum. When Project 2025 warns that „every year, more than 300,000 Communist Chinese nationals attend U.S. universities or are hired at U.S. national laboratories, innovation centers, incubators, and think tanks,“ it’s raising concerns that intelligence professionals have been voicing for years.

The document’s recommended responses are similarly concrete and actionable: expand tariffs on Chinese products, provide financial incentives for American companies to onshore production, stop China’s abuse of trade exemptions, and prohibit Chinese investment in high-technology industries. These aren’t ideological positions—they’re strategic responses to documented challenges.

More significantly, Project 2025 addresses the pharmaceutical vulnerability that COVID-19 exposed so dramatically. When China threatened to „plunge America into a mighty sea of coronavirus“ through pharmaceutical export controls, it revealed the extent of American dependence on Chinese supply chains for essential medicines. Project 2025’s call to „systematically reduce and eventually eliminate any U.S. dependence on Communist Chinese supply chains“ addresses a national security imperative that transcends partisan politics.

Rebuilding the Defense Industrial Base

The document’s chapters on defense acquisition and sustainment tackle problems that have plagued American military procurement for decades. The core insight—that bureaucratic inflexibility prevents the military from acquiring needed capabilities „at the speed of relevance“—reflects frustrations voiced by defense officials across multiple administrations.

Project 2025’s proposed solutions demonstrate sophisticated understanding of acquisition reform: enhance funding for innovation organizations rather than rigid program-specific budgets; develop „fast track“ funding for emerging technologies; require annual „Night Court“ reviews to terminate underperforming programs; strengthen multiyear procurement authorities to improve private-sector returns and reduce government overhead.

These recommendations address the fundamental challenge facing American defense procurement: how to maintain technological superiority against adversaries who can innovate and field new systems faster than the United States. The document’s call to „research and report on the acquisition processes used by America’s adversaries“ reflects intellectual honesty about learning from competitors rather than dismissing them.

The emphasis on strengthening domestic production capabilities isn’t protectionist nostalgia—it’s strategic necessity. Project 2025’s requirement that defense companies manufacture items with „100 percent domestically produced“ components and „at least 50 percent composed of domestically produced components“ addresses vulnerabilities that became painfully apparent during pandemic-related supply chain disruptions.

Fiscal Responsibility: The Uncomfortable Truths

Project 2025’s Treasury Department chapter confronts fiscal realities that most political documents prefer to ignore. The recommendation that „Treasury should make balancing the federal budget a mission-critical objective“ might sound like conservative boilerplate, but the document’s specific proposals demonstrate genuine engagement with debt dynamics.

The suggestion to „lock in current relatively low interest rates by issuing longer duration bonds, and even consider creating a 50-year treasury bill“ reflects sophisticated understanding of debt management. Most federal debt rolls over every three to four years, meaning that future rate increases could dramatically expand interest payments. The proposal to extend duration while rates remain below historical averages represents sound financial planning regardless of one’s political orientation.

More provocatively, Project 2025 calls for annual financial statements sent to American families showing their „pro-rata share of the debt based on family size.“ This transparency measure would force voters to confront the fiscal consequences of political promises—a form of democratic accountability that might prove uncomfortable for politicians of all stripes.

International Competitiveness: The Diplomatic Dimension

The document’s international finance recommendations reveal strategic thinking often absent from American foreign policy. The call for a „carrot-and-stick approach“ to international financial institutions—“increasing activity and commitment to those institutions that are willing and able to adjust“ while „zeroing out or potentially exiting those institutions that rely on U.S. capital while advancing agendas that run counter to U.S. interests“—represents hardheaded assessment of multilateral relationships.

This approach challenges the assumption that American participation in international organizations is inherently beneficial. Project 2025’s insistence that the U.S. „must insist on the hiring and support of human capital as a condition to future funding“ treats international institutions as vehicles for advancing American interests rather than ends in themselves.

The foreign military sales reforms similarly demonstrate practical understanding of alliance relationships. The decline in U.S. foreign military sales from $55.7 billion in 2018 to $34.8 billion in 2021 represents lost opportunities for both defense industrial base capacity and international interoperability. Project 2025’s recommendations to emphasize exportability in initial development and end informal congressional notification processes address bureaucratic obstacles that have made American defense systems less competitive in global markets.

The Innovation Imperative

Perhaps most impressively, Project 2025 grapples seriously with the challenge of maintaining American technological leadership. The document’s call for „a comprehensive approach to preserving U.S. technological leadership that is based on outpacing our adversaries“ acknowledges that defensive measures alone cannot sustain American competitiveness.

The recommendation to be „clear about what we need to protect“ while ensuring approaches are „tailored to various specific sectors“ reflects understanding that blanket restrictions often prove counterproductive. The emphasis on „outpacing our adversaries“ rather than simply restricting their access suggests confidence in American innovative capacity when properly directed.

This technological focus extends to specific sectors where Chinese competition has proven most effective. Project 2025’s attention to semiconductor supply chains, rare earth minerals, and artificial intelligence capabilities addresses vulnerabilities that national security professionals have identified as critical to long-term American competitiveness.

The German Observer’s Assessment

From a German perspective, these economic and security recommendations deserve serious consideration regardless of one’s views on Project 2025’s cultural agenda. Germany itself has struggled with Chinese economic influence, from Huawei’s role in telecommunications infrastructure to Chinese investment in German industrial companies. The document’s systematic approach to economic competition offers lessons for any democracy facing similar challenges.

The emphasis on rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity resonates particularly strongly in a European context where Russian energy dependence proved so strategically damaging. Project 2025’s call for supply chain resilience reflects hard-learned lessons about the risks of excessive economic interdependence with strategic competitors.

Most significantly, the document’s integration of economic and security considerations reflects a strategic mindset that European policymakers have been developing in response to Chinese economic statecraft and Russian energy weaponization. The recognition that trade policy can function as „a weapon of war“ represents a return to realism that circumstances have forced upon democratic governments worldwide.

The ultimate test of Project 2025 will not be whether Americans agree with its cultural prescriptions, but whether its economic and security recommendations prove effective in maintaining American competitiveness and democratic resilience. On these crucial measures, the document deserves evaluation based on its merits rather than its political associations. The stakes—for America and its democratic allies—are simply too high for anything less than serious engagement with serious proposals……