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Semafor interviewed Dmitri Alperovitch, a cyber and national security expert and cofounder and chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator. In his new book “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century,” Alperovitch argues that the US and China are in a Cold War and discusses how to prevent the worst-case scenario of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan within the next decade. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When you look at what the administration is doing, what is the biggest mistake they’re making on China with respect to preventing a Taiwan invasion?
Dmitri Alperovitch: The first thing is not admitting that we’re in a Cold War. The similarities with the first one are uncanny on every level. We’re in a global competition for supremacy, we’re in an arms race that is both conventional and military, we’re in a space race for god’s sake, we’ve got a race to secure bases in the region for us and for them, we’ve got an economic war, a spy war that actually exceeds what we had seen in the first Cold War. So, on almost every level, we have the same exact scenario playing out and by not defining it as a Cold War, you limit your set of options because you get lulled into this idea of, oh well we’re just competing and we’re not opposed to China’s rise. Well, yes, we are opposed to China’s rise because it’s a zero-sum game. Their rise means our decline and that’s not something we want to see.
So, while admitting that you have a problem is the first step and there are 11 other steps that you have to take, it is the most important step. If you admit you’re in a Cold War, you open up a whole range of options because you start asking: what is it that we’re actually trying to prevent? We’re trying to prevent and deter an invasion of Taiwan and we can do that in part through military means but also through increasing our leverage economically over China. So that means doing drastic things like shutting off their semiconductor production industry so that they’re dependent on buying chips from us. That means diversifying away from China on things like critical minerals and green tech which they’re about to dominate with EVs, batteries, wind, solar. So, it is about understanding you have this issue and putting everything through the lens of this Cold War conflict just like we did in the first Cold War.
You write in your book about your conversation with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan after predicting in December 2021 that Russia would invade Ukraine. Have you spoken to the White House about this issue?
Dmitri Alperovitch: I speak to them regularly.
What do they think about your view of there being a Cold War between the US and China?
Dmitri Alperovitch: I would say there are a lot of people who are sympathetic to that argument and they are trying to balance multiple different priorities and constituencies, but there are certainly a lot of national security-focused people in the administration that I think agree with a lot of the things that I write about in the book.
What do you think China is taking away from Russia’s war in Ukraine?
Dmitri Alperovitch: It’s fundamentally unknowable. And it’s not about China, it’s about one man: Xi Jinping, right? And no one is in his head. I’m sure even his entourage does not know what lessons, if any, he is drawing. He actually doesn’t strike me as a great learner to begin with. But one could make the argument that one of the lessons that they’re drawing is that war is really hard and unpredictable and it can go in a lot of different ways. But I had a conversation with a Pentagon official early on in the war, and I asked this very question. And he said, what I think they’re learning is that America will not fight a nuclear power. So, you could make the case on both sides.
When it comes to the debate over Ukraine aid, you hear people like Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance making the argument that the US should be focusing on China, and that the limit of our weapon supplies means that we can’t do both and that therefore we shouldn’t send more aid to Ukraine. Does he have a point at all there?
Dmitri Alperovitch: It’s nuanced. I’m in favor of supporting Ukraine, full stop. I’ve been to Ukraine, I’ve spent a lot of time with Ukrainians and a lot of the aid that we send to Ukraine is not applicable to the Taiwan scenario. Tanks, armored vehicles, even artillery, 155mm — you don’t need much of that in the Taiwan scenario. So, I’m all for sending that. Now, there is, I think, a very legitimate argument that we have very low air defense interceptor stocks. One of the huge challenges for Taiwan is that China has one of the world’s largest missile and rocket forces and they can just pummel Taiwan into the ground with those missiles and you need highly capable air defense systems. Taiwan has some indigenous capability but they’re also buying Patriots and the like. And I’m very sympathetic to the Ukrainian argument that you have literally civilians dying every day because of Russia’s bombardment. We’re also using air defense obviously in the Middle East right now to help Israel and shipping through the Red Sea, but we do have fundamental capacity issues there that are quite serious. HIMARS is a great example as well. Taiwan, when I was there meeting with senior officials last fall, they were telling me, we’ve ordered HIMARS and the delivery dates keep getting delayed in part because of Ukraine.
What do you make of President Biden’s public statements that the US would defend Taiwan? Do you see it as part of strategic ambiguity or moving away from it? And should the US move away from strategic ambiguity?
Dmitri Alperovitch: I don’t think that we should move away from strategic ambiguity today, because there’s a big question today of whether we can defend Taiwan. The worst thing you could possibly do is talk aggressively and carry a small stick — the exact reverse of Teddy Roosevelt’s speak softly and carry a large stick. I do think that him saying four times he will defend Taiwan is not an accident. You could argue once or twice is a mistake, not four times in a row. The White House of course walks it back because the policy is still strategic ambiguity. But at the end of the day this is the president’s decision and I think he is articulating his desires and I think he appreciates the importance of Taiwan and those comments are very well-received in the region — in Taiwan, in Japan, in the Philippines. I think they are straddling the line of not abandoning our ambiguity policy because the White House walks it back every time, but also sending a strong signal of where the president’s intentions are. And they’re not unnoticed in Beijing.
So you don’t think that potentially risks provoking China?
Dmitri Alperovitch: No, because the policy remains unchanged. So it is actually very creatively walking that line.
Do you worry at all about the Cold War rhetoric being too alarmist?
Dmitri Alperovitch: No, because what we’re trying to do is avoid a hot war. And look, we had the Cold War with the Soviet Union for almost 50 years and there were parts of that Cold War where the relationship was actually quite warm, in the 1970s we had a detente. Just because you’re in a Cold War does not mean you’re going to be super aggressive. It does not mean you’re not going to talk. But you need to understand that you’re in a fundamental competition with China and it is a zero-sum game at the end of the day. There’s going to be one loser and one winner and I personally want to see America win.