IN ADDITION TO “HOW NOT TO BE SEEN,” THAT IS: What the Chinese learned from America’s raid on Venezuela.

To be sure, what happened Jan. 3 in Caracas was important to the Western Hemisphere. I don’t want to minimize the importance of knocking over a neighborhood bully in Venezuela, but the most important part of the story may be that the U.S. military, as it usually does, demonstrated that it is superior in weaponry and skill to any other force on the planet. Communist China’s weapons systems had a real-world test, and it was a disaster.

That has to be giving the crew in Beijing, which would like to be global bullies, nightmares.

The simple reality is that the communists in China have not been involved in a legitimate shooting war in 75 years. They have had no real way to test and improve their weapons under battlefield conditions. Every single one of their weapons systems is essentially undergoing a beta test the first time they are used in combat.

Anything that erodes Beijing’s confidence in its own weapons and soldiers and increases its sense of discomfort about invading Taiwan (or anywhere, really) is a good thing. In the big scheme of things, the attack in Caracas may have saved Taiwan and potentially the thousands (or millions) of lives that would have been lost in the course of a war in the Pacific.

Whatever else you might think of President Trump’s adventure in Venezuela, you should consider the very real possibility that it deterred or delayed the very worst impulses of the communists in Beijing.

“Peace through strength” requires the occasional demonstration.