As we start to pursue our second 250th era, this would be a good time to recognize that energy security is national security. Securing energy abundance through nuclear fusion will be a strategic precondition for global leadership in the coming decades. (Image source: OpenAI)

The fireworks have faded. The paradegoers have gone home. The red, white and blue bunting will be taken down by the end of the month.

The 250th anniversary of our nation's founding has come and gone. What now?

This historic milestone should not be viewed as a celebration to conclude by July 5th but as the opening of a national conversation about what America intends to become in the decades and centuries to come. But make no mistake: that future will be determined, in part, by energy.

Every American era has been an energy story. Water wheels powered the first mills of the young republic. Coal fueled the railroads and factories of the Gilded Age. Oil powered America's twentieth-century dominance. Electrification transformed daily life for millions of Americans, and our reliable energy grid became the invisible force behind our nation's extraordinary quality of life.

If our Declaration of Independence created a nation of inventors and innovators, it was energy that gave those forces the means to succeed.

To secure the future, we need to recognize that the demand for electricity will continue to increase exponentially. Stopgap responses will include fossil fuel turbines and nuclear fission reactors, but that will not be the long-term solution.

It will be fusion power that will secure America's future for the next 250 years, provided we do not allow ourselves to come in second in the race to create commercially viable fusion technology.

China knows what is at stake. It is investing billions to create a leadership role. Just recently, one Chinese research company confirmed the completion of a sophisticated magnet that could contain a fusion reaction. It is considered a major milestone for China's efforts to own the future of energy and the 21st century.

As we start to pursue our second 250th era, this would be a good time to recognize that energy security is national security. Securing energy abundance through nuclear fusion will be a strategic precondition for global leadership in the coming decades. As the light of the holiday fireworks fades, let us now look for the power that needs to come from American fusion reactors.

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.