In response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s friendly visit to Taiwan, Chinese warships have surrounded the country. China’s People’s Liberation Army continues testing missiles and practicing attack maneuvers, raising the prospect of World War III.

Meanwhile, the United States wallows in weakness. It is time we get serious, with no time to waste, to avoid a war with China we would be hard-pressed to win.

Blame the pandemic, blame George Floyd’s murder and the summer of violence, blame the attempted insurrection or blame whatever. A perfect storm of circumstances has American culture in a state of discordant decline that weakens our military.

We have gone soft on crime, legalized drugs, paid able-bodied adults to avoid work, forgiven rent and mortgage obligations, and embraced multiple other policies and mores that justify laziness, apathy and sloth.

An internal Defense Department survey obtained by NBC News finds 57% of young adults fear military service would cause them emotional or psychological damage, with 50% fearing physical harm. We can thank the selfless World War II generation for our comfortable lives.

The Pentagon exacerbates opposition to serving by continuing divisive mandates and instructions on service personnel that politicize race, gender, sexual orientation and other factors that have nothing to do with defending a country. We hear from young veterans, enlistees and officers about a crisis of low morale.

These factors and more combine to make us increasingly unfit to defend our country and allies.

“The pool of those eligible to join the military continues to shrink, with more young men and women than ever disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records,” explains an NBC report that sources Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and other military leaders.

The dearth of eligible recruits correlates with a shrinking pool of qualified Americans willing to serve, in part because of controversial COVID vaccine mandates and increasing awareness of woke indoctrination agendas.

Military leaders are scrambling to reverse an enlistment rate they haven’t seen since the year after ending the Vietnam War draft. All branches are 40% below recruitment minimums.

Amid this weakening, the Biden administration fiddles with Space Command after then-President Donald Trump gave the politicized and dangerous order to move it from Colorado to Alabama. Given the state of world affairs, Space Command composes a core component of our ability to dissuade or quell Chinese aggression. It must reach optimal performance immediately right where it sits.

Instead, the command awaits another political decision. In a recent letter to U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he plans to make a final basing decision “in the fall of 2022” — after an election that could unseat Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and flip control of the Senate.

An article in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal — titled “The Coming War Over Taiwan” — exposes the need to defend our assets in space.

China’s “war plan could well involve … strikes on the satellite communications that underpin the American way of war.”

A communist invasion of Taiwan would cripple the United States, which depends on Taiwan for more than 90% of semiconductors essential to phones, cars, trucks, tractors, the electrical grid, most of our military’s physical assets and more.

“The global economy cannot function without chips that are made in either Taiwan or China,” wrote economist Carl Weinberg in a report by High-Frequency Economics.

Our military has no more time for identity victimhood manufactured by faux academicians. Maybe we can’t afford military mandates for vaccines of questionable efficacy. If potential recruits can’t pass drug tests, let’s stop legalizing and encouraging drug abuse. Let’s make the need for work or military service essential for young, able-bodied adults to advance and live in comfort.

The United States and its allies must avoid an unthinkable war with China. The authoritarian regime seizes on weakness and has never had a stronger, more sophisticated military — thanks in part to stolen American technology.

China’s new aggression should be the top concern of our government and the people it serves. It is time to get strong again and focus on defending ourselves and our most critical allies. Our freedom, prosperity and way of life depend on it.

The Gazette Editorial Board