THE EVIL EMPIRE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

"Ronald Reagan first condemned the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando Florida on March 8, 1983.

Publicly naming the explicit nature of Soviet imperialism provided the necessary focus for those of us working on a strategy to rid the world of it - a strategy the press called the Reagan Doctrine. Less than eight years after President Reagan spoke those immortal words, the Soviet Union was no more.

Ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is determined to resurrect this evil empire with oil billions, gangster capitalism, and Russian thuggery. But Russia is dying demographically and by 2015 half the Russian Army will be Moslem. By 2020 or maybe before, the eastern half of Russian Siberia will be Chinese Siberia.

Russia has no future beyond ephemerally high oil prices. Once they crash, so does Russia.

So is there an heir to the title of Evil Empire in this new century? Yes. It is China.

One principal reason is that the internal structure of the former Soviet Union and China are the same. One benefit of the Beijing Olympics is to make that blindingly clear. "

- Dr. Jack Wheeler