A good week for a good nation.

At RealClearPolitics.com on Thursday, Ben Shapiro made a brilliant point. It’s one you won’t see made anywhere in the “mainstream media.” (Will someone please explain to me why we keep using that term?)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: “How are these people “mainstream?”

In his article, Shapiro observes that in the same week the United States has waged war in Iran with precision, technological prowess and profound impact in a way that, as he says, “…looks like something written for a Hollywood script;” while also sending human beings into space farther from Earth than ever in the 65-year history of human spaceflight (which, as it happens, we will mark on Sunday, April 12).

In both cases, the United States made it look easy. In both cases, it’s anything but.

This, says Shapiro, is what a superpower looks like. He’s right.

On the Iran war front, the United States has clearly demonstrated a capacity to deliver offensive force with surgical precision and devastating consequence. We have shown that enemy forces and their malign leaders can be precisely tracked and eliminated. In this conflict, Iran had at its disposal air defense systems provided by Russia and China that are the very best non-U.S. defense systems in the world. Yet they proved nearly worthless when put to the test against the forces of the United States.

Such capability facilitates maximum military advantage with minimum impact on civilian lives. Don’t think that Putin and Xi haven’t noticed. They have.

America’s current military capability again illustrates something I have said for decades.

No nation in history has ever amassed more power and yet been so restrained in its use.

The United States if it chose to do so could dominate the world. That is precisely what powerful nation states have done for most of human history. But not so this country.

In its 250-year history, for all its admitted faults, imperfections and missteps, the United States to an astonishing degree has eschewed empire and conquest and has instead limited its use of its military power to the defense of peace.

And that bring us to the Artemis II circumlunar mission – the first manned lunar mission since Apollo 17 in December 1972. As I write this, the spacecraft with its four astronauts is on its way to a Pacific Ocean splashdown a little after seven o’clock Friday evening Texas time. Assuming a safe splashdown, the mission has been a massive success. The Orion spacecraft has been very nearly flawless. (The only real anomaly was in connection with the on-board toilet.)

In the 1960s, the race to the moon was between the United States, a nation rooted in individual liberty, and the Soviet Union, a nation rooted in authoritarianism and oppression. The U.S. won that race and the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. National prestige can shape a nation’s destiny.

Today, China replaces the Soviets in what is essentially the same contest. National prestige is again on the line and again plays the same role.

So, with all that in mind, Ben Shapiro is right. America has had a good week.