April 29, 2024 • 28 mins
As Washington confronts increasing belligerence from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, does the West face the start of a new “cold war”? How should policymakers define victory? And what would a second Trump administration mean for the confrontation? In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with Dan Negrea, the Senior Director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center at the Atlantic Council and coauthor with Matthew Kroenig of the new book We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War. From 2019 to 2021, Negrea was the State Department’s Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs. He previously served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning office between 2018 and 2019, where he was responsible for the economic portfolio.
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(00:00):
Hi, I'm Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the National Interest, and it is my pleasure today to host
(00:29):
Dan Negrea, a former member of the State Department policy planning staff during the Trump administration,
a seasoned businessman, and the co-author of an important new book that I understand is
widely being widely read on Capitol Hill. It is called We Win, They Lose. Dan co-authored
(00:52):
it with Matthew Kroenig of Georgetown University and the Atlantic Council, and that is going
to be the casus belli of our In the National Interest podcast today. Dan and Matt note
in the introduction to their book that in 1977, then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan
(01:13):
was discussing foreign affairs with his advisors. They were giving him all kinds of convoluted
explanations of how we should deal with the Soviet Union and the Cold War. And Reagan,
I think, grinned and said, guys, my idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is
simple and some would say simplistic. It's this we win and they lose. You couldn't have
(01:37):
a more succinct statement from the Gipper. And in fact, Ronald Reagan did win the Cold
War when his successor, George H.W. Bush, took office as former vice president. The
Soviet Union experienced a series of upheavals in 1989 as Eastern Europe broke away from
the Soviet Union. And it ended in the actual demise of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.
(02:04):
Today I want to talk about why Dan thinks that this dictum of Reagan's is valid today.
Dan, what does it imply for American foreign policy to say we win, they lose?
Jacob, thank you very much for having me on your podcast. Let me start with two opening
(02:27):
statements, disclosures. Number one, Matt Kroenig and I are both senior directors of
separate centers at the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization,
but Matt and I wrote a partisan book. But the points of view that we represent in the
book and what I will represent on this podcast are our own and not those necessarily of the
(02:52):
Atlantic Council. The other disclosure is that I'm a huge admirer of the national interest
of the publication. I've been honored to publish many times there and also a big, big, big
fan of Jacob Heilbrunn personally, whose scholarship and erudition I admire very much. Now to your
question, what does it mean to win? Let me start by also reading for the mentioning for
(03:21):
the listeners, the subtitle of the book. The title is we, when they lose, the subtitle is
Republican foreign policy and the new Cold War. A key premise in the analysis that we
presented the book is that we are in the Cold War. Not everybody accepts this premise, but
we, it is critical in our analysis and in the policy solutions that we offer to accept
(03:48):
this premise. Related to this premise is the idea that there is, that the adversary that
the United States and the free world in general have in this Cold War is a new axis of evil.
Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. And then the question that you pose is of course expected
(04:09):
nothing of you, but to start with the crux of the argument. What does it mean to win?
And we have several passages in two parts of the book, but we had the great fortune
to have and honor to have the foreword written by former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,
(04:29):
who summarized our definition of winning in two words, either incapacitation or capitulation
of the Chinese Communist Party. And what does it mean? It means that we, we most certainly
don't want a hot war. We want this Cold War to result in an end state where the Chinese
Communist Party either gives up in its attempt, attempts to threaten and harm vital interests
(04:59):
of the United States, either gives up or is incapable to hurt them. So that's winning
the Cold War where they cannot threaten or harm vital interests of the United States.
How would you define those? What are the vital interests and what are the tertiary ones for
you?
Yeah. So in the book we list eight interests of the United States. We define the first
(05:25):
six as being vital and the last two as being important, but not vital. For vital interests,
you go to war to defend them. For important interests, you make efforts in that direction,
but you don't go to war for them. So let me start with the number seven and number eight.
(05:48):
Number seven is economic relations. We want, we want fair trade. We oppose the lying, stealing
and cheating, which is how the Chinese carry their international trade relations, economic
relations in general. And number eight is promoting democracy. So we disagree with the
(06:10):
neocon view of the world that we should use military force to spread democracy. Now what
are the, what are the interests for which, which are, which are vital? Number one, defending
the territory of the United States. Number two, defending US citizens who are overseas.
Number three, not allowing an adversary nation to dominate a part of the world that is vitally
(06:37):
interested in the United States, defending allies of the United States, the spread of
the nuclear weapons, threat of use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and
terrorists.
Now, Dan, my friend Elbridge Colby, a good friend, just like you, argues that American
(06:58):
foreign policy right now has got it all wrong. We should not have sent this massive aid bill
to Ukraine. Instead, we should pursue an Asia first policy. Do you agree or disagree?
He's partially right, but mostly wrong. He's, he's partially right. Rich is a thoughtful
(07:19):
man in general, but I would, the way Matt Kroenig and I define this is, this issue is
Asia first, but not only. It is wrong to assume that the United States has no vital national
interests in Europe or the Middle East. The United States went into two, two world wars
(07:46):
in Europe. It is just looking at the map. We cannot allow adversarial powers to dominate
the Eurasian landmass. Russia, if Russia were to occupy and absorb Ukraine, it would then
(08:07):
next occupy and absorb Belarus and then Moldova. The capability of Russia to threaten American
interests would be very significantly increased Ukraine. They have people, they have an industry,
they have economic resources in, in grains and so on. Russia is, is the only important
(08:33):
ally of, of China and we cannot have Russia succeeds in its plans in Europe and we cannot
allow Iran to dominate and spread terror in the Middle East. So we don't agree with bridge
that we can abandon Europe and the Middle East.
(08:55):
And let's talk about the elephant in the room. One Donald J. Trump who may be stuck in a
New York courtroom, but whose shadow rooms large both over domestic and foreign policy.
It wasn't until Trump gave his tacit sanction to the Ukraine aid bill that speaker Mike
Johnson felt comfortable moving ahead. However, there are still remain rumblings in the house
(09:18):
GOP and Max Boot in a column that came out this morning warns despite the Ukraine aid
vote, the neo isolationist threat still looms. He points out that narrow majorities of Republicans
oppose the bill in the house and in the first Senate vote in February, though a clear majority
(09:39):
of Senate Republicans approved the house bill last week when its passage was a foregone
conclusion. Things might've worked out differently if house speaker Mike Johnson had not discovered
his inner Arthur Vandenberg channeling the Michigan Republican Senator who turned from
pre-war isolationist into a leading supporter of the Truman doctor and the Marshall plan
and NATO in the late 1940s is Max. Right. Do we need to worry about a resurgent isolationism
(10:08):
in the GOP or is the threat exaggerated? Well, I think that I think the threat is exaggerated.
I think there are a lot of people who project their worst fears to what the second Trump
administration would be. I found a great line in an interview that secretary Pompeo gave
(10:31):
in which he said he was asked about what Trump will out of NATO, for example, will trouble
and all our alliances and so on. And he said, look, I can give you my opinion on this and
that, but probably the smartest thing I can do is point you to what Trump actually did
when he had power in the first term. There was no isolationism then. The usual exhibit
(10:57):
number one in talking about isolationism in the Trump foreign policy is to say that Trump
disparaged our NATO allies and threatened to pull out of NATO. What Trump really did
was try to scare them straight to point out that the European NATO allies of the United
(11:24):
States are just not carrying the weight and insisted with what I like to call New York
clarity or New York emphasis during very clear language that they need to do significantly
more. And as a result of that hundreds of billions of additional defense spending by
(11:46):
European countries have actually strengthened strengthened NATO. So not only did Trump not
weaken NATO, he significantly strengthened with NATO. The relations with Japan were also
very strong. There was a new agreement with Korea, critical strategically important ally.
(12:09):
I just don't believe that a second Trump administration would abandon what is very clearly one of
America's most significant strategic assets, which is our allies.
So you see Trump is having a salubrious effect upon NATO rather than a deleterious one.
(12:29):
One of the challenges in talking to you, Jacob, is you use these big words. I usually reach
for the dictionary when I talk to you. But yes, I think it would be a salubrious effect,
a strengthening effect.
The reason I bring this up is because Trump had dinner with the Polish president Duda
shortly before he signed off on the Ukraine aid. So do you think that Poland might actually
(12:55):
emerge as a major power in NATO that eclipses the influence of even Germany, given the extent
of Polish rearmament and a booming economy?
Well, thank you for bringing up Duda. One of the most stunning things that I've noticed
in recent discussions on European defense were two related things. Number one, the totally
(13:23):
inadequate national defense authority, the authorization proposed by the Biden administration,
their defense spending is supposed to grow only by 1.6 percent, which after inflation,
which is high and rising, is actually a cut. And even more shocking, looking at their projections
(13:48):
going to the 2030s, defense spending will go to something like two and a half percent.
If we are in a cold war, these numbers, which are less than half of what the United States
spent during the Cold War, are totally inadequate. President Duda. So this is one element. The
second related element, President Duda visited President Biden in the White House and suggested
(14:15):
that European allies of NATO should not spend 2 percent, the famous 2 percent that they
all agree that in the Wales meeting, but actually looking at the Vilnius meeting of the NATO
countries where they said 2 percent should be a floor rather than a ceiling and should
(14:38):
be more like two and a half. He said should be 3 percent, which was the low end of what
European countries spent during the previous Cold War. Poland is spending 4 percent. Israel
and other country in an existential fight is spending four and a half percent. The response
of the Biden administration through the spokesman of the State Department was 3 percent is too
(15:02):
ambitious. Let's get everybody to 2 percent. It is inconceivable why they would do that.
Here is a European countries wanting to spend more for their own defense and the White House
is discouraging them. A long way of answering your question. I believe that Poland is understanding
the seriousness of the moment, the grave threat to the to the national security of the countries.
(15:30):
I think the European site and then the speech of Chancellor Schultz was good, but the actions
are not energetic and urgent enough. One issue that has become in a way both a domestic and
a foreign policy issue is the influx of migrants from central and South America to the United
(15:55):
States through Mexico. Do you espouse measures in your book to combat this and to secure
the southern border? Excellent question, Jacob. In a lot of discussions that I've had with this
book, people don't bring up immigration. And it surprises me because it is a national security
(16:16):
threat. And again, the subtitle of the book talks about a new Cold War. Either we are in a Cold War
or we are not in a Cold War. If we are in the Cold War, the idea that literally millions of people
from all over the world are coming and without proper security vetting are released in the United
(16:39):
States is irresponsible. It's just irresponsible. Only nine terrorists caused the deaths of three
thousand Americans at 9-11. Look at what terrorists are doing with the massacre of Israelis
October 7. The Hamas terrorists. Look at what terrorists did in Moscow, which is a police
(17:00):
state. The fact that they managed to get there and kill 144. It is inconceivable that we let millions
come in that are known illegals. Then there are there are known gotaways, meaning people that they
see the border patrols see entering, but they don't have any interaction. Those are estimated
(17:20):
to be two millions. The other are estimated to be eight million. And then they are. And this is
channeling my inner Donald Rumsfeld. The unknown gotaways, which we can estimate are in the hundreds
of thousands. And even more shocking are the number of Chinese citizens of military age entering the
(17:40):
United States in the first year of the Biden administration. There were 260. The second fiscal
year that goes to October, there were 27000. And since October of last year, there are over
20,000. Try to imagine during the previous Cold War, Soviet citizens of military age entering the
(18:00):
United States by the tens of thousands. Unverified. It's extraordinary.
And with all the talk about the Cold War in your book, which I remember vividly, I can't resist
mentioning that about 10 or 12 years ago, I did a symposium in the national interest long before I
(18:21):
knew you. Otherwise, I would have included you, of course. And one of the contributors was a British
gentleman named Ferdinand Mount, who's a well former editor of the Times Literary Supplement,
very distinguished author. And I had sort of breezily put in the question. I said, now that
(18:43):
the Cold War is over, you know, which direction should America in the West head in? And Mount
memorably replied, it is news to me that the Cold War is over. No one seems to have told Mr. Putin.
Is this in fact your view as well that far from resuming the Cold War with China and Russia has
(19:03):
never ended? It's a very interesting question, Jacob. We do not address it in the book, but I
can give you a personal point of view. I believe that it was a reasonable bet that the United States
made in the Clinton administration, that the trend towards economic opening in the Deng Xiaoping
(19:28):
era will continue and that the economic liberalization will create a middle class that
will become wealthier and then will demand political freedom as well. And that China will
become less communist and more democratic. And it was a reasonable bet. I'm not one of those people
(19:50):
who say, oh, I saw it, it was wrong. And there was this hope, there was this term introduced at that
time, responsible stakeholder of the international community. There was a hope that China will
continue to contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world. What happened with Xi Jinping was
the Chinese Communist Party was faced with a clear choice. If the trend continued, the Chinese
(20:16):
Communist Party will become irrelevant, superfluous. They will be pushed aside. They will end up in the
ash heap of history. And then they stopped this liberalization process. They ended term limits.
They ended really the economic freedoms to a very large extent, not completely, but to a very large
(20:38):
extent. And they reversed course. And then they said, well, we always were communist, we'll remain
communist. And that these Americans are a threat because they want us to end communism, which is a
dictatorship. And we fight. The same thing happened with Russia during Yeltsin. We really, there were
(21:02):
Russian military officers at NATO. There was a partnership. They were in the NATO headquarters.
They had offices. We wanted to be partners. There was hope that they will be democratic. But then
again, they discovered that their kleptocratic and then sagocratic regime will end if they introduce
democracy and they returned. So I'm not sure I totally agree with Mr. Mount that it never ended.
(21:29):
There was maybe the way I would phrase it would be there was an armistice and a lull. And then we
returned to a situation where autocracies to stay in power have to oppose democracies because they're
an existential threat to them. The mullahs will be toppled if the Iranian people could vote.
(21:53):
Obviously, the hereditary dictatorship in North Korea and the same thing with the leadership in
Russia and China. There's a lot of truth to that, Dan. But one question that I have for you,
one question that I'd like to pose to you is maybe as a final question is the counter to your
argument is that while China may be a ruthless power intent upon expanding its influence,
(22:21):
it's not a cold war because it doesn't have the ideological mission that characterized Russia.
Communism was kind of a third Rome mentality that you had this mission to expand communism
into every nook and cranny of the globe. How would you define that in opposition to China?
(22:43):
How would you say that China is an ideological power as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War?
Yeah, it's an excellent question. And it goes to the core of the debate whether we are in a
Cold War or not. I think most certainly it is an ideological, most definitely it is an ideological
(23:04):
contest. What we say in the book is that while we define the problem, then what is the solution?
The solution is to challenge that we are in a contest with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
And what we need to use as the guiding principles are those that are coming from what we call a
(23:29):
Trump-Reagan fusion. And they are peaceful strength, free trade, I'm sorry, fair trade,
rather than free trade, but then also American exceptionalists. Matt Cronick and I believe very
strongly that it is an ideological contest between autocracy, brutal dictatorship, which is what we
(23:51):
have on the side of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea versus democracy. And in the case of America,
the sunny view of America as a shining city on the hill, American exceptionalists inspiring us.
So we believe very strongly that it is an ideological contest.
(24:13):
Dan, as you know, we often have excellent, not combative, but perhaps spirited conversations.
And before you came on to this show, you expressed the desire that listeners would know that our
views do not always mate. So I am going to ask you a final, final question. Couldn't the prudent
(24:36):
observer suggest that the measures being espoused by you and what we're hearing from the Trump
campaign about 80 percent tariffs on China, taking a more confrontational posture, couldn't we in fact
create the very dangerous scenario that we're trying to avoid? Is it wise to confront China
(25:03):
overtly as Trump is suggesting? Or do you have a different strategy in mind?
Yeah. Look, there are this is again an excellent question. The quote that you read from Reagan
was in response to Richard Allen telling him about the thought. And the view in the town was that the
(25:28):
Soviet Union was a rising power. United States was declining power. And the best we could hope for
was to manage our decline and not get hurt by by Soviet Russia. And the counter that Reagan offered
was no, actually the Soviet Union is the evil empire. We have an ideological superiority
(25:55):
over them because democracy is always superior to tyranny where the people are oppressed. They cannot
express themselves. They cannot really participate in the life of the country, whether it's economic
life or if it's political life. And we need to challenge this evil power in the world.
(26:17):
And that is the way to assure the security of the American people, the prosperity of the American
people. There is absolutely no doubt in Croninck's mind and in my mind that we are in a situation
today in which China is a revisionist and expansionist power with the aim of creating
(26:43):
an international system dominated from Beijing, where basically American citizens will have to
censor what they write, what they talk about, how they conduct their life, how they conduct
international relations by taking orders from Beijing that Russia would be able to occupy
(27:06):
neighboring countries, that Iran, for example, will succeed in mobilizing terrorists and threatening
the very existence of the Jewish state of Israel, a key ally of the United States. This is a world
in which Americans simply don't want to live. So we need to confront these powers, challenge them.
(27:31):
What we talk in the book is deterrence. We need to reestablish America's deterrence power through
peace, through strength. Dan, congratulations on your new book. Thank you for coming on the show.
And I hope that everyone listening purchase it either at their local bookseller or at Amazon.
Thank you again, Dan. Thank you very much, Jacob. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.
(28:20):
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the National Interest, and it is my pleasure today to host
(00:29):
Dan Negrea, a former member of the State Department policy planning staff during the Trump administration,
a seasoned businessman, and the co-author of an important new book that I understand is
widely being widely read on Capitol Hill. It is called We Win, They Lose. Dan co-authored
(00:52):
it with Matthew Kroenig of Georgetown University and the Atlantic Council, and that is going
to be the casus belli of our In the National Interest podcast today. Dan and Matt note
in the introduction to their book that in 1977, then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan
(01:13):
was discussing foreign affairs with his advisors. They were giving him all kinds of convoluted
explanations of how we should deal with the Soviet Union and the Cold War. And Reagan,
I think, grinned and said, guys, my idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is
simple and some would say simplistic. It's this we win and they lose. You couldn't have
(01:37):
a more succinct statement from the Gipper. And in fact, Ronald Reagan did win the Cold
War when his successor, George H.W. Bush, took office as former vice president. The
Soviet Union experienced a series of upheavals in 1989 as Eastern Europe broke away from
the Soviet Union. And it ended in the actual demise of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.
(02:04):
Today I want to talk about why Dan thinks that this dictum of Reagan's is valid today.
Dan, what does it imply for American foreign policy to say we win, they lose?
Jacob, thank you very much for having me on your podcast. Let me start with two opening
(02:27):
statements, disclosures. Number one, Matt Kroenig and I are both senior directors of
separate centers at the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization,
but Matt and I wrote a partisan book. But the points of view that we represent in the
book and what I will represent on this podcast are our own and not those necessarily of the
(02:52):
Atlantic Council. The other disclosure is that I'm a huge admirer of the national interest
of the publication. I've been honored to publish many times there and also a big, big, big
fan of Jacob Heilbrunn personally, whose scholarship and erudition I admire very much. Now to your
question, what does it mean to win? Let me start by also reading for the mentioning for
(03:21):
the listeners, the subtitle of the book. The title is we, when they lose, the subtitle is
Republican foreign policy and the new Cold War. A key premise in the analysis that we
presented the book is that we are in the Cold War. Not everybody accepts this premise, but
we, it is critical in our analysis and in the policy solutions that we offer to accept
(03:48):
this premise. Related to this premise is the idea that there is, that the adversary that
the United States and the free world in general have in this Cold War is a new axis of evil.
Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. And then the question that you pose is of course expected
(04:09):
nothing of you, but to start with the crux of the argument. What does it mean to win?
And we have several passages in two parts of the book, but we had the great fortune
to have and honor to have the foreword written by former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,
(04:29):
who summarized our definition of winning in two words, either incapacitation or capitulation
of the Chinese Communist Party. And what does it mean? It means that we, we most certainly
don't want a hot war. We want this Cold War to result in an end state where the Chinese
Communist Party either gives up in its attempt, attempts to threaten and harm vital interests
(04:59):
of the United States, either gives up or is incapable to hurt them. So that's winning
the Cold War where they cannot threaten or harm vital interests of the United States.
How would you define those? What are the vital interests and what are the tertiary ones for
you?
Yeah. So in the book we list eight interests of the United States. We define the first
(05:25):
six as being vital and the last two as being important, but not vital. For vital interests,
you go to war to defend them. For important interests, you make efforts in that direction,
but you don't go to war for them. So let me start with the number seven and number eight.
(05:48):
Number seven is economic relations. We want, we want fair trade. We oppose the lying, stealing
and cheating, which is how the Chinese carry their international trade relations, economic
relations in general. And number eight is promoting democracy. So we disagree with the
(06:10):
neocon view of the world that we should use military force to spread democracy. Now what
are the, what are the interests for which, which are, which are vital? Number one, defending
the territory of the United States. Number two, defending US citizens who are overseas.
Number three, not allowing an adversary nation to dominate a part of the world that is vitally
(06:37):
interested in the United States, defending allies of the United States, the spread of
the nuclear weapons, threat of use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and
terrorists.
Now, Dan, my friend Elbridge Colby, a good friend, just like you, argues that American
(06:58):
foreign policy right now has got it all wrong. We should not have sent this massive aid bill
to Ukraine. Instead, we should pursue an Asia first policy. Do you agree or disagree?
He's partially right, but mostly wrong. He's, he's partially right. Rich is a thoughtful
(07:19):
man in general, but I would, the way Matt Kroenig and I define this is, this issue is
Asia first, but not only. It is wrong to assume that the United States has no vital national
interests in Europe or the Middle East. The United States went into two, two world wars
(07:46):
in Europe. It is just looking at the map. We cannot allow adversarial powers to dominate
the Eurasian landmass. Russia, if Russia were to occupy and absorb Ukraine, it would then
(08:07):
next occupy and absorb Belarus and then Moldova. The capability of Russia to threaten American
interests would be very significantly increased Ukraine. They have people, they have an industry,
they have economic resources in, in grains and so on. Russia is, is the only important
(08:33):
ally of, of China and we cannot have Russia succeeds in its plans in Europe and we cannot
allow Iran to dominate and spread terror in the Middle East. So we don't agree with bridge
that we can abandon Europe and the Middle East.
(08:55):
And let's talk about the elephant in the room. One Donald J. Trump who may be stuck in a
New York courtroom, but whose shadow rooms large both over domestic and foreign policy.
It wasn't until Trump gave his tacit sanction to the Ukraine aid bill that speaker Mike
Johnson felt comfortable moving ahead. However, there are still remain rumblings in the house
(09:18):
GOP and Max Boot in a column that came out this morning warns despite the Ukraine aid
vote, the neo isolationist threat still looms. He points out that narrow majorities of Republicans
oppose the bill in the house and in the first Senate vote in February, though a clear majority
(09:39):
of Senate Republicans approved the house bill last week when its passage was a foregone
conclusion. Things might've worked out differently if house speaker Mike Johnson had not discovered
his inner Arthur Vandenberg channeling the Michigan Republican Senator who turned from
pre-war isolationist into a leading supporter of the Truman doctor and the Marshall plan
and NATO in the late 1940s is Max. Right. Do we need to worry about a resurgent isolationism
(10:08):
in the GOP or is the threat exaggerated? Well, I think that I think the threat is exaggerated.
I think there are a lot of people who project their worst fears to what the second Trump
administration would be. I found a great line in an interview that secretary Pompeo gave
(10:31):
in which he said he was asked about what Trump will out of NATO, for example, will trouble
and all our alliances and so on. And he said, look, I can give you my opinion on this and
that, but probably the smartest thing I can do is point you to what Trump actually did
when he had power in the first term. There was no isolationism then. The usual exhibit
(10:57):
number one in talking about isolationism in the Trump foreign policy is to say that Trump
disparaged our NATO allies and threatened to pull out of NATO. What Trump really did
was try to scare them straight to point out that the European NATO allies of the United
(11:24):
States are just not carrying the weight and insisted with what I like to call New York
clarity or New York emphasis during very clear language that they need to do significantly
more. And as a result of that hundreds of billions of additional defense spending by
(11:46):
European countries have actually strengthened strengthened NATO. So not only did Trump not
weaken NATO, he significantly strengthened with NATO. The relations with Japan were also
very strong. There was a new agreement with Korea, critical strategically important ally.
(12:09):
I just don't believe that a second Trump administration would abandon what is very clearly one of
America's most significant strategic assets, which is our allies.
So you see Trump is having a salubrious effect upon NATO rather than a deleterious one.
(12:29):
One of the challenges in talking to you, Jacob, is you use these big words. I usually reach
for the dictionary when I talk to you. But yes, I think it would be a salubrious effect,
a strengthening effect.
The reason I bring this up is because Trump had dinner with the Polish president Duda
shortly before he signed off on the Ukraine aid. So do you think that Poland might actually
(12:55):
emerge as a major power in NATO that eclipses the influence of even Germany, given the extent
of Polish rearmament and a booming economy?
Well, thank you for bringing up Duda. One of the most stunning things that I've noticed
in recent discussions on European defense were two related things. Number one, the totally
(13:23):
inadequate national defense authority, the authorization proposed by the Biden administration,
their defense spending is supposed to grow only by 1.6 percent, which after inflation,
which is high and rising, is actually a cut. And even more shocking, looking at their projections
(13:48):
going to the 2030s, defense spending will go to something like two and a half percent.
If we are in a cold war, these numbers, which are less than half of what the United States
spent during the Cold War, are totally inadequate. President Duda. So this is one element. The
second related element, President Duda visited President Biden in the White House and suggested
(14:15):
that European allies of NATO should not spend 2 percent, the famous 2 percent that they
all agree that in the Wales meeting, but actually looking at the Vilnius meeting of the NATO
countries where they said 2 percent should be a floor rather than a ceiling and should
(14:38):
be more like two and a half. He said should be 3 percent, which was the low end of what
European countries spent during the previous Cold War. Poland is spending 4 percent. Israel
and other country in an existential fight is spending four and a half percent. The response
of the Biden administration through the spokesman of the State Department was 3 percent is too
(15:02):
ambitious. Let's get everybody to 2 percent. It is inconceivable why they would do that.
Here is a European countries wanting to spend more for their own defense and the White House
is discouraging them. A long way of answering your question. I believe that Poland is understanding
the seriousness of the moment, the grave threat to the to the national security of the countries.
(15:30):
I think the European site and then the speech of Chancellor Schultz was good, but the actions
are not energetic and urgent enough. One issue that has become in a way both a domestic and
a foreign policy issue is the influx of migrants from central and South America to the United
(15:55):
States through Mexico. Do you espouse measures in your book to combat this and to secure
the southern border? Excellent question, Jacob. In a lot of discussions that I've had with this
book, people don't bring up immigration. And it surprises me because it is a national security
(16:16):
threat. And again, the subtitle of the book talks about a new Cold War. Either we are in a Cold War
or we are not in a Cold War. If we are in the Cold War, the idea that literally millions of people
from all over the world are coming and without proper security vetting are released in the United
(16:39):
States is irresponsible. It's just irresponsible. Only nine terrorists caused the deaths of three
thousand Americans at 9-11. Look at what terrorists are doing with the massacre of Israelis
October 7. The Hamas terrorists. Look at what terrorists did in Moscow, which is a police
(17:00):
state. The fact that they managed to get there and kill 144. It is inconceivable that we let millions
come in that are known illegals. Then there are there are known gotaways, meaning people that they
see the border patrols see entering, but they don't have any interaction. Those are estimated
(17:20):
to be two millions. The other are estimated to be eight million. And then they are. And this is
channeling my inner Donald Rumsfeld. The unknown gotaways, which we can estimate are in the hundreds
of thousands. And even more shocking are the number of Chinese citizens of military age entering the
(17:40):
United States in the first year of the Biden administration. There were 260. The second fiscal
year that goes to October, there were 27000. And since October of last year, there are over
20,000. Try to imagine during the previous Cold War, Soviet citizens of military age entering the
(18:00):
United States by the tens of thousands. Unverified. It's extraordinary.
And with all the talk about the Cold War in your book, which I remember vividly, I can't resist
mentioning that about 10 or 12 years ago, I did a symposium in the national interest long before I
(18:21):
knew you. Otherwise, I would have included you, of course. And one of the contributors was a British
gentleman named Ferdinand Mount, who's a well former editor of the Times Literary Supplement,
very distinguished author. And I had sort of breezily put in the question. I said, now that
(18:43):
the Cold War is over, you know, which direction should America in the West head in? And Mount
memorably replied, it is news to me that the Cold War is over. No one seems to have told Mr. Putin.
Is this in fact your view as well that far from resuming the Cold War with China and Russia has
(19:03):
never ended? It's a very interesting question, Jacob. We do not address it in the book, but I
can give you a personal point of view. I believe that it was a reasonable bet that the United States
made in the Clinton administration, that the trend towards economic opening in the Deng Xiaoping
(19:28):
era will continue and that the economic liberalization will create a middle class that
will become wealthier and then will demand political freedom as well. And that China will
become less communist and more democratic. And it was a reasonable bet. I'm not one of those people
(19:50):
who say, oh, I saw it, it was wrong. And there was this hope, there was this term introduced at that
time, responsible stakeholder of the international community. There was a hope that China will
continue to contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world. What happened with Xi Jinping was
the Chinese Communist Party was faced with a clear choice. If the trend continued, the Chinese
(20:16):
Communist Party will become irrelevant, superfluous. They will be pushed aside. They will end up in the
ash heap of history. And then they stopped this liberalization process. They ended term limits.
They ended really the economic freedoms to a very large extent, not completely, but to a very large
(20:38):
extent. And they reversed course. And then they said, well, we always were communist, we'll remain
communist. And that these Americans are a threat because they want us to end communism, which is a
dictatorship. And we fight. The same thing happened with Russia during Yeltsin. We really, there were
(21:02):
Russian military officers at NATO. There was a partnership. They were in the NATO headquarters.
They had offices. We wanted to be partners. There was hope that they will be democratic. But then
again, they discovered that their kleptocratic and then sagocratic regime will end if they introduce
democracy and they returned. So I'm not sure I totally agree with Mr. Mount that it never ended.
(21:29):
There was maybe the way I would phrase it would be there was an armistice and a lull. And then we
returned to a situation where autocracies to stay in power have to oppose democracies because they're
an existential threat to them. The mullahs will be toppled if the Iranian people could vote.
(21:53):
Obviously, the hereditary dictatorship in North Korea and the same thing with the leadership in
Russia and China. There's a lot of truth to that, Dan. But one question that I have for you,
one question that I'd like to pose to you is maybe as a final question is the counter to your
argument is that while China may be a ruthless power intent upon expanding its influence,
(22:21):
it's not a cold war because it doesn't have the ideological mission that characterized Russia.
Communism was kind of a third Rome mentality that you had this mission to expand communism
into every nook and cranny of the globe. How would you define that in opposition to China?
(22:43):
How would you say that China is an ideological power as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War?
Yeah, it's an excellent question. And it goes to the core of the debate whether we are in a
Cold War or not. I think most certainly it is an ideological, most definitely it is an ideological
(23:04):
contest. What we say in the book is that while we define the problem, then what is the solution?
The solution is to challenge that we are in a contest with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
And what we need to use as the guiding principles are those that are coming from what we call a
(23:29):
Trump-Reagan fusion. And they are peaceful strength, free trade, I'm sorry, fair trade,
rather than free trade, but then also American exceptionalists. Matt Cronick and I believe very
strongly that it is an ideological contest between autocracy, brutal dictatorship, which is what we
(23:51):
have on the side of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea versus democracy. And in the case of America,
the sunny view of America as a shining city on the hill, American exceptionalists inspiring us.
So we believe very strongly that it is an ideological contest.
(24:13):
Dan, as you know, we often have excellent, not combative, but perhaps spirited conversations.
And before you came on to this show, you expressed the desire that listeners would know that our
views do not always mate. So I am going to ask you a final, final question. Couldn't the prudent
(24:36):
observer suggest that the measures being espoused by you and what we're hearing from the Trump
campaign about 80 percent tariffs on China, taking a more confrontational posture, couldn't we in fact
create the very dangerous scenario that we're trying to avoid? Is it wise to confront China
(25:03):
overtly as Trump is suggesting? Or do you have a different strategy in mind?
Yeah. Look, there are this is again an excellent question. The quote that you read from Reagan
was in response to Richard Allen telling him about the thought. And the view in the town was that the
(25:28):
Soviet Union was a rising power. United States was declining power. And the best we could hope for
was to manage our decline and not get hurt by by Soviet Russia. And the counter that Reagan offered
was no, actually the Soviet Union is the evil empire. We have an ideological superiority
(25:55):
over them because democracy is always superior to tyranny where the people are oppressed. They cannot
express themselves. They cannot really participate in the life of the country, whether it's economic
life or if it's political life. And we need to challenge this evil power in the world.
(26:17):
And that is the way to assure the security of the American people, the prosperity of the American
people. There is absolutely no doubt in Croninck's mind and in my mind that we are in a situation
today in which China is a revisionist and expansionist power with the aim of creating
(26:43):
an international system dominated from Beijing, where basically American citizens will have to
censor what they write, what they talk about, how they conduct their life, how they conduct
international relations by taking orders from Beijing that Russia would be able to occupy
(27:06):
neighboring countries, that Iran, for example, will succeed in mobilizing terrorists and threatening
the very existence of the Jewish state of Israel, a key ally of the United States. This is a world
in which Americans simply don't want to live. So we need to confront these powers, challenge them.
(27:31):
What we talk in the book is deterrence. We need to reestablish America's deterrence power through
peace, through strength. Dan, congratulations on your new book. Thank you for coming on the show.
And I hope that everyone listening purchase it either at their local bookseller or at Amazon.
Thank you again, Dan. Thank you very much, Jacob. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.
(28:20):
Thank you.
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