American Thought Leaders - Here’s How America Can Win the New Cold War: Matthew Kreonig and Dan Negrea

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

When Ronald Reagan was a presidential candidate, he was asked about his strategy for the Cold War. He had a simple answer: “We win, and they lose.”Former President Reagan was crystal clear about the Soviet Union and its intentions, but today, few seem to understand the Chinese Communist Party’s true intentions towards America.“We Win, They Lose” is the title of a new book by Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negrea, both working with the Atlantic Council. They outline what a Reaganesque foreign policy—updated for today—would look like.Mr. Kroenig is vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and Mr. Negrea is senior director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

When Ronald Reagan was asked about his strategy for the Cold War, he had a simple answer. We win, they lose. Reagan was crystal clear about the Soviet Union and its intentions. But today, few people understand the Chinese Communist Party is waging a no-holds-barred people's war on America. We need to design a strategy to respond to their actions in this new Cold War and win this new Cold War.

China is making a lot of inroads in the global south, in large part because it's so affordable. We Win, They Lose is the title of a new book by Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negreha, both working with the Atlantic Council. They outline what such a Reagan-esque foreign policy, updated for today, would look like. Kroenig is Vice President and Senior Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and Negreha is Senior Director of the Freedom and Prosperity Center. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Dan Negreha, Matt Kroenig, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. It's great to be here. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having us. So the title of your book, We Win, They Lose, I think even that today is a kind of a controversial statement. It seems so absolutist, right? Of course, this is how Reagan framed his foreign policy towards the Soviet Union back in the day. But how can you justify that kind of an approach today? As you point out, that was Reagan's statement. He was asked what is his strategy for the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and he said it's simple. Some might say it's simplistic, but it's we win, they lose.

And he followed that clear strategic vision and Some might say it's simplistic, but it's we win, they lose. And he followed that clear strategic vision and through that won the first Cold War. Now we're in a new Cold War with communist China. People are trying to figure out what the strategy is. The Biden administration says that its strategy is to responsibly manage the competition. And Dan and I didn't think that seemed quite right. What is the goal for our competition with China? And so we looked back to Reagan's model and said, no, the goal again today should be that we win and they lose. And how we can justify it, I think it's pretty simple.

Do the American people, does the rest of the world benefit from having the United States and our democratic allies leading the international system? Or would we be better off with a genocidal nuclear-armed communist dictatorship running the world? And I think the answer to that is pretty clear. So that's how we justify it. And you're right, Jan. The title is strong and maybe even provocative. But I think we are in sobering times. Robert Gates, a very distinguished public servant, he served in both Republican and Democrat administrations, and he also is a distinguished civil servant.

He said this is the most dangerous international environment in decades, and perhaps ever. And other people have raised this point also. This is not a time for half measures. We need clarity. So the criticism that might be thrown at you immediately, right, is that this would be, and I'll use this term very kind of glibly, I guess, that this is sort of a neocon approach, which is an approach that has been given that what you're advocating for is a Reagan-Trump foreign policy fusion, as I understand it.

What you're advocating for is something more like a neocon approach. Well, I think it's the opposite. The neocon view of the world was that America should go out and borrow a phrase from the early days of the republic, looking for dragons to slay, finding dictatorships, and causing change in those countries to promote freedom by force of arms, forcing countries to go into a certain direction. What we make very clear in our book is that our policies in

response to the aggressive actions of what we call the new axis of evil, which is China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which are countries that are not only revisionist but also expansionist. They're not only proposing theories and staying within their borders, but they are invading foreign countries or threatening to invade foreign countries or causing harm to the vital national interests of the United States. And in response to their actions, the United States, and as leader of the free world working with other freedom-loving countries, we need to design a strategy to

respond to their actions in this new Cold War and win this new Cold War. But it is not us initiating the conflict. It's a conflict that came to us that we just simply cannot ignore or avoid. If I could add to that, a central argument of the book is this idea of a Trump-Reagan fusion in conservative foreign policy. How do you take the traditional principles of Reaganism and update them for the Trump era. And we point out that actually Reagan and Trump had a lot in common, both as individuals

and in terms of policies. And one of those things is peace through strength, the idea that the United States should be so strong that other adversaries don't mess with us. If they do mess with us, we're willing to punch back hard. But that they were skeptical, I think, of drawn-out nation-building campaigns militarily that we associate with the George W. Bush administration. They're also skeptical, I think, of what they would see as too timid and weak an approach from Democrats and from the Biden administration.

So I'd say it's not a neocon approach. I agree with Dan. It's the opposite. It's kind of skipping over the W. Bush administration and arguing that actually Trump has a lot more in common with is a radical break from Reagan, who was a free trader. And we point out in the book that actually Reagan also used protectionist policies, tariffs against the Japanese and others, but with the purpose of bringing about free trade. And that's exactly what Trump was doing. He wasn't putting in place tariffs for their own sake.

He was putting in place tariffs against countries, China, but also others that were cheating on the global trading system and trying to bring about freer trade. He was very clear about that, trying to get a better deal for the American people. And he pursued trade negotiations and even had two successful trade agreements updated, the KORUS agreement with South Korea and then the new U.S.-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement. So I think that's the purpose. It's to get to free and fair trade, not protectionism for its own sake. Dan, I can't help but have noticed as we were getting to know each other that you're actually a defector from a communist regime yourself. And that has clearly informed a lot of your thinking.

So I want to get you to take a moment just to tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up in America and how that informs your perspective. So I was born in communist Romania, and I lived there until I was 24 years old. I got my graduate degree when I was 22 and worked for two years in the Ministry of Finance of Romania, working on relations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And I came to Washington as part of the Romanian delegation to the annual meetings, and I asked for

political asylum. And in one of those turns of fate that we can call only in America, 40 years later, while working at the Department of State, I was again a member of the delegation to the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, but this time part of the US delegation. But in a very important way, I'm influenced in how I look at the world by my experience under communists, which is just recognize the mindset of communism, which is expansionist, which is looking

to create a world dominated by the authoritarians in power in those countries. And also the realization that there is evil. Not that all countries are fine and there are misunderstandings. If we only sat down and had a nice conversation, we'd sort things out. There is evil.

I experienced that. I knew what regimes with a totalitarian mindset and an expansionist point of view can do. But what prompted you to leave at that moment so many years ago? Well, there was a time when I had hope that the Romanian communism would evolve in the direction of Yugoslavia, which was a communist country and independent from the Soviet Union in its foreign policy, the way Romania was also, but that allowed an

element of free enterprise and some freedoms. But then the dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, went to China. And he saw the cult of personality under Mao and said, this is a great thing. I think I'll imitate it in Romania, which he did. Which didn't go well with the Romanian people, and he was toppled and shot. But other than that, it was a successful regime.

You focus in this book on something that I'm quite passionate about, which is American exceptionalism. And there's frankly a lot of questions out there right now, and I think quite legitimate questions, like has American exceptionalism really stood the test of time? Does it still exist today? Should America be the leader of the free world? That fits into that question. You saw something in America then. Do you still see that today? So it's not only that I see this as still very much alive, because you may say I have the passion of a convert or I may be biased, which I most certainly am. But the millions and millions and millions of illegal

immigrants into this country who cross deserts and jungles and rivers, and they risk death and rape on the way of coming here, but they still dream of coming to America, which is still the beacon of freedom, still the land of the free, the country of exception. So it is very much alive. And I see no change in that in the future. But I'm sure Matt can give a much more learned answer to

American exceptionalism. MATTHEW HENDERSHOT- Well, I can give some stats. I think if you just look at the data, you see that the United States is exceptional. It's the most just look at the data, you see that the United States is exceptional. It's the most powerful country in the world by far still economically, militarily, and other measures. And then after World War II, the system that the United States created globally, kind of the U.S.-led system, has been remarkable in terms of the results. Zero great power wars in 70 years,

average standard of living in the United States and internationally five times today what it was in 1945. In 1945, there were only 12 democracies on earth. Now there are almost 100 democratic countries on earth. So this period of U.S. leadership has made the world safer, richer, and freer. It's essentially the best system ever invented for running global affairs. And to the critics, I guess I'd say, what is the better system? Would it have been better if Nazi Germany won World War II? Would it have been better if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War? Would it be better if communist China dominated the world today? And I think the answer to all of those questions is clearly no. So then where does this skepticism of American exceptionalism come from?

And I think it's that, especially on the left, but not only, people have some kind of ideal standard in mind. And the United States is not living up to this utopia, and so they criticize it. But I think that's unfair. I think you have to look at what are the historical alternatives, what are the plausible alternatives today. And clearly there is no better system than one where the United States does play an important leadership role. If I may add something.

America has an empire by invitation. Countries want America to come and be involved. There is this comedy in the 1950s called The Mouse That Roared about this little country in Europe that was about to go bankrupt. And the solution that they found was this, let's declare war on the United States. Because after we surrender, they will come and they will

be so generous with the country that they defeated because look what they did with Germany and with Japan. So this is a great thing. If you look at the behavior, not just of these millions of people who are putting their lives at risk to come to America, but even governments. Look at European governments.

The greatest terror in European chancellories these days is that America may withdraw from Europe. They created the European Union. They said, the purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in. Not just people, but countries want America present. In developed countries and in developing countries, they know that American enterprises coming there create

development by using local labor forces and introducing higher standards and bringing economic growth. You guys use an interesting term that I hadn't really been familiar with. But it's captured my imagination. There's America first, and then there's blame America first. Well, I think the United States does have real problems, for sure, and American exceptionalism isn't to say the United States is perfect. We have a lot of problems domestically, fentanyl overdoses,

a lot of problems internationally. But I think one of the things that is different about the United States is our ability for self-correction. We had this strategy of engaging China for many decades. It probably took us too long to recognize it. But by 2017, the Trump administration did recognize this isn't working. We need a new approach. Instead of engaging China, it's time to compete with China. So to maybe quote Winston Churchill, the United States always does the right thing after trying everything else. So we do make mistakes, but I think our ability to self-correct is superior to any other country on earth. So I want to talk about this most dangerous situation, like Robert Gates said,

that we live in this most dangerous international situation in quite some time. Presumably, you agree with that. And if you could justify that for me, explain to me why you think that. So I was talking to Matt about this, actually, this morning. We started working on this book in 2021. I mean, shortly after I left the Trump administration and joined Matt at the Atlantic Council. And we put in the title

that we are in a new Cold War. Who are we facing in this new Cold War. We coined the term new axis of evil. That includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. At that time, we were a little bit avant garde with this term. We are now in an environment in which someone respected, like John McMaster, who was national security advisor in the Trump administration, said we are on the cusp of the Third World War.

There are people who are talking about how this environment reminds them of the 1930s, where disparate conflicts in different parts of the world by different powers actually ended up in a global conflagration. What is becoming clearer to people since we sent the book to the publisher in October after the massacre in Israel. And as it became very clear how Iran and North Korea are helping Russia, how Russia and China are supporting Iran, how the Houthis are stopping ships, are attacking ships, from all kinds of countries, but not from all kinds

of countries, but not from Russia and China. It's becoming clear that between the countries of the new acts of evil, there is coordination, and that they are together a threat to the peace of the world. I would just add to that, I agree, and also point out that China is the most capable adversary the United States has ever faced. If you just look at their share of global GDP, they're more capable than the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany ever were. So if this were just the U.S. and China, I think there'd be a case to be made that this is the most

dangerous period we've ever faced. But as Dan points out, it's not just China. It's also Russia, Iran, North Korea. We have a major war in Europe right now, a major war in the Middle East. We may be on the verge of a major war in the Indo-Pacific. China's building a military to go to war with the United States. Xi has been very clear that the military option is on the table to take Taiwan. And so needing to be able to deter and, God forbid, defeat multiple nuclear-armed autocratic adversaries at the same time is essentially the national security situation we face right now. And so it's very, very dangerous indeed. You know, I definitely want to touch on Taiwan and its both in the region and its implications of an attack or a blockade like we saw the war games around just very recently.

I'd like to discuss that. The thing I want to discuss before that is a big difference between the Soviet Union back in Reagan's time and China today, is the deep interconnectivity into the global economy. I believe that this was a very intentional play by the Chinese communists to create this situation where if you hurt us, everybody suffers dramatically. So you're going to have to let us continue with our project to dominate by 2049. It's a very difficult situation to extricate the U.S. and other Western countries from some of these relationships. And even in cases where there's profound national security implications, like medical precursors would be a great example. The Trump administration tried to tackle that, I think four years ago, probably.

Didn't happen, and partially because of intense lobbying against it by pharmaceutical companies. Well, it's an interesting question, right? So maybe if I could get you to comment on that. Some people question, is Cold War really the right term? Because they say it's not exactly like the first Cold War, because we're more interdependent with China. But we think it is the right term, because it is a

long-term confrontation between the United States and an autocratic rival for the future of global leadership. So just like World War I is not exactly like World War II, they were both world wars. Similarly, I think these are both cold wars, even though they're not exactly the same. And so, yes, the interdependence is one difference, but that's starting to change. The United States is putting in place these decoupling policies that started under Trump and are being continued under Biden. And you're right that there are areas where we haven't made progress, but there are other areas where we have made progress, including a bill signed by President Biden just a few weeks ago

to ban TikTok. I think there are other evidence of progress as well. And it's also not one-sided. China is decoupling from us. And as you know, they have this dual circulation policy of essentially trying to make themselves invulnerable to the rest of the world, but making the rest of the world dependent on them. And so it's playing out slowly, but I suspect that we will see trade and investment patterns start to follow geopolitical lines, like they did during the Cold War, that as American and Western companies move out of China, move into friendly companies as China pursues this dual circulation strategy, I think the interdependence will lessen

and become less of a major challenge than it has been recently. I agree with everything Matt said. It's a situation in which China puts out documents that are for everybody available to read, where they say in the early 2000s that they want to encourage indigenous innovation. Then they came out with a public document made in China 2025 where they say our policy is to build domestic champions who are going to replace foreign companies in China and abroad, dominate the world economy eventually. So that's their policy.

Now, we didn't take it seriously enough, but the war in Ukraine was such a shock to the whole international system, and it's becoming also clear that China is supporting Russia in this. So war is no longer something that is inconceivable between the United States and China. I remember I came from Wall Street to serve in the State Department. I remember I was working in policy planning, and I picked

up a document from the Congressional Research Service. And I was reading there, and I spilled my coffee all of a sudden, they said we need to, and this was in 2018, 2017, 2018, we need to make sure that in case of war, materials that are essential for national security services are not dependent on countries that may be adversaries. It's a simple concept. And the behavior that we see from China, from Russia, from Iran, from North Korea, is sobering. So I think the interdependence, you are correct, it exists.

I mean, even for military equipment, there is too much dependence on things coming from China. So I think this is an irreversible trend, that the interdependence is going to become less and less. And as Matt said, the Chinese are doing the same thing. They recognize their dependence. Right. Yeah, no, exactly.

Like they're decoupling on their own terms, which is not, you know, a lot of people don't know about this concept of comprehensive national power that China employs, where they rate every country against themselves. And as long as they're going up or others are going down, things are good. But when I first started researching this, I realized they don't believe in win-win. They do believe in it. And what they mean is China wins twice. Okay. Well, right. It's interesting. I mean, you said it's such a simple concept. Why would you manufacture things in China that, you know, have national security implications? It seems kind of crazy. But yet, here we are today, right, where, you know, I've had, you've had Tommy Waller on the show

talking about these giant transformers that are, as far as I know, only manufactured in China now, that are important components of the US grid. You can imagine what happens if the grid goes down. Well, there is this whole conversation with cranes in ports. The cranes that we use, apparently 70%, 80% come from China.

Well, there is the electronic components, the artificial intelligence components. They're updated. You get updates, and they're coming from Beijing. They're connected. What if they're instructed. You get updates, and they're coming from Beijing. They're connected. What if they're instructed not to work anymore? Or if we have electronic vehicles, again, what they are all instructed to stop at some point.

I mean, I worked at the State Department. There is a company called Nuketec that manufactures the equipment. When you go through the airport, they check if you have weapons. For a few days in a certain country, they allow people to pass with weapons because some terrorists are going. These are just intolerable things if we want to be prudent.

And so Dan and I don't just admire the problem, though. We lay out a strategy for tackling that, and we propose a selective decoupling strategy. And what we say is there are essentially three categories. There are the categories that we've just been discussing where there are sensitive national security concerns, and there we argue we do need a hard decoupling and stop trade and investment with China altogether and get our allies to do that as well. Second, there's a category where it's not sensitive national security, but China's cheating,

and we need to level the playing field with tariffs and other measures. And then third and finally, we argue there are other areas where it's fine if basically free exchange continues to take place. If China wants to buy American soybeans, if Americans want to buy cheap made-in-China T-shirts, that's fine. It's really the sensitive national security matters where we need to focus. There's a reason that Huawei is in so many different countries, right? It has a national security priority of becoming the telecom provider, therefore providing ample opportunity

for espionage and also obviously control, right, if and when needed. Yeah, that's right. And the reason China's dominating is, as you point out, this is part of China's strategy. And they realize the United States gains enormous intelligence benefit from the fact that we controlled the kind of communications infrastructure of the 20th century. And so they want to control the communications infrastructure of the 20th century, and so they want to control the communications infrastructure of the 21st century. Fortunately, the United States and its allies have, for the most part, done a good job of banning Huawei, especially when it comes to 5G and other systems. But China is making a lot of inroads in the global south, in large part because it's so affordable. But this does pose a potential problem.

If China controls the digital infrastructure of the 21st century in Latin America, Africa, what does that mean for their geopolitical alignment? What does that mean for the future of democracy in those countries? And so we do talk in the book about ways that the United States can provide alternatives, the United States and its allies.

Because you go to these countries and you point out the national security concerns and the intelligence concerns, and often they say, okay, we get it, but what's the alternative? It's cheap. We're developing countries. And so we talk about some strategies in the book for the United States and its allies to incentivize the private sector to provide alternatives to Huawei and these other unfair, cheap, subsidized technologies that China is flooding, using to flood the global market. Now, we win, they lose is actually the Chinese Communist Party strategy as well, isn't it?

Yeah. We are in a serious conflict contest. We don't like the term competition. And by the way, a general disclaimer, Matt and I both work at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan institution, but we wrote a partisan book. Actually, let me jump in on that a little bit, because the Atlantic Council has been around forever. And one of the things in our discussions I've learned is that unlike, let's say, Heritage, which has this one-voice approach, Atlantic Council isn't like that.

So you have to provide your disclaimer. You might have Atlantic Council fellows or directors that have geometrically opposed positions to yours. Is that right? I wouldn't expect that. I would expect them to all be for freedom. It's an American institution, and I don't expect any diametrical points of view.

But some of our colleagues may be coming out in favor of policies that are supported by the Democratic Party more. But what we point out is that what is sort of the quick formulation of the Biden administration's approach to relations with China is a mixture, they say, both President Biden and Secretary Blinken, a mixture of cooperation, competition, and confrontation. And what Matt and I say, they got it one third right about the confrontation part. There is really not much cooperation because on the things that, the argument that we hear from the Biden administration is we have to cooperate with them on transnational things that are essential for humanity, like climate change and health.

Well, on climate change, they're the greatest polluters. They're still building coal plants when we are not. Our CO2 emissions are going down, theirs are going up. And on health, there was no cooperation in finding the origins of COVID. And when the Australians proposed that they started a trade war, they retaliated against Australian export for years, and it cost them billions for that. So we don't find much cooperation.

And in terms of competition, it's not a fair competition. It's not like track where we are each on our lane or a tennis game with a referee and we stay on. There is lying, stealing, and cheating going on. It's a serious contest that we have with diametrically different views of what the world will look like and how countries relate to each other. Maybe I'll just add a point on the Atlantic Council. So it is a nonpartisan institution. So the mission statement is shaping the global future

together. So I think that's something that every employee agrees on. But otherwise, individual scholars, centers, program directors have their own views. And so there are a lot of different opinions on different policy issues at the council. So I suspect there are some colleagues at the Atlanta Council who would disagree with some of the arguments in our book, but that's okay. We're a big organization. A lot of big organizations have people who disagree with each other on certain issues? I want to come back to this idea of,

I guess ultimately it's American exceptionalism. I really do feel like a lot of Americans today are kind of demoralized. Whether, frankly, left and right, I think this is a bipartisan issue, actually. And don't, maybe just haven't, don't believe America is this force for good in the world anymore. Or maybe a good way to go would be to decline or to, you know, recede a little bit, right? Too much adventurism, too much of this, you know, of this nation building, this kind of stuff.

We really got to step away from those foreign wars. You look at what happened in Afghanistan after all that effort, all that so-called blood and treasure, and the Taliban is in charge. These are very real questions, and it is a new time. The global order, as it's discussed, is a very different one. In our book, Matt and I present three. It's a book on foreign affairs.

And we make the argument that the Republican Party is not so divided as many believe that it is between the Reagan and the Trump wings. And that the three things on which there is consensus, clear consensus, firm consensus. It's peaceful strength, moving from free trade or recognizing that we need fair trade and not dream about free trade, and American exceptionalism. So an interesting question would be, what's the place of American exceptionalism in a foreign policy book? And it has a crucially important place, and your

question touches on that, which is peace of strength addresses the critically important element of military strength to preserve, to safeguard the national security of the United States. The fair trade part deals with the economic strength. Economic security is national security. American exceptionalism is the strength of ideas that inspire people. And if we don't believe at home in American exceptionalism, we are not as strong as we could be in facing our external adversaries. How can we ask our young men and women in uniform to put their life at risk to defend America

if America is described as racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and on and on and on and on? All the blame America first themes. In the book, we talk about the difference between progressive and conservative views of the world in general. And the progressives tend to dwell on the faults of America to the detriment of having a balanced view and recognizing that the qualities of America and the positive contribution of America

and of American principles for the freedom and prosperity of the American people of the world far exceed the faults. So this is why we have American exception. It was one of the three key principles on which we are building everything else. And it needs to start with recognizing it at home and promoting it at home.

I agree. And I'd add, we do see on the data, we cite data, 69% of Republicans agree with the statement that the United States is the greatest country in the world. Only like 30% of Democrats agree with that. So empirically, we see that conservatives are stronger supporters of American exceptionalism than progressives. And then you mentioned Afghanistan. Wouldn't it be better if we just came home? And I think the answer is no. And I think the people who focus on Iraq and Afghanistan or other mistakes,

and there have been mistakes in U.S. foreign policy, focus on the mistakes but miss the bigger picture that I talked about before, about how the United States has shaped a world that's safer, richer, and freer for the American people over the past several decades. And would we be better if we came home? We tried that. That was Obama's policy. He thought the United States was overextended because of Iraq and Afghanistan were going

to play a smaller role in the world. He thought this would encourage other countries to step up. Instead, what we saw is that evil adversaries filled the vacuum. Russia invaded Ukraine for the first time because Putin knew he could get away with it. China started taking territory from our allies in the South China Sea with their island-building campaign because they knew they could get away with it. Obama pulled troops out of the Middle East. ISIS rose up and started beheading Americans.

And so I think we see that when the United States withdraws, again, goodness doesn't fill the vacuum, evil does. And so that's why we need an engaged United States in the world to secure the interest of the American people. And that's different than this nation, again, so-called nation-building approach. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think Trump really illustrated this with his piece through strength approach. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think Trump really illustrated this with his piece through strength approach. So Iran kills an American, Trump hits back hard and kills Soleimani, a top Iranian general. But he didn't invade the country, send in 100,000 troops, stay for 20 years and say he's going to turn it into a democracy. So I think that's the difference of being strong, hitting back when your adversaries

challenge you, but not get caught into these kind of nation building campaigns and using military force for things that military force isn't really a good tool to address. As we finish up, maybe I'll just ask each of you to give me a kind of a concluding thought here. I'll recommend reading the book because I do think you both synthesized a whole bunch of thought. You know, I'm greatly appreciative of that. Any final thought, Dan? Well, since you mentioned that I come from Romania and I have both a perspective as an American, but also a view of where we are and where we are going, also from a perspective.

I have absolutely no doubt that the United States, and led by the United States, the free world, will prevail in this new Cold War, just like we prevailed against tyranny in the First World War, in the Second World War, and in the First Cold War, because all autocracies are inefficient. And the ones we are facing today are just as inefficient and in some ways even more inefficient and as brittle as past ones and maybe more brittle. So in terms of the win-win, they lose, I'm very, very

optimistic that we'll win. It will require effort, a strong sense of purpose, and courage, but we will prevail. I think there were other times in US history where we were also pessimistic. There were periods during the Cold War, the 1970s, the Jimmy Carter malaise, where many people thought the Soviet Union was going to overtake the United States. And the best we could do was to have detente with the Soviet Union,

to lock it in with a series of arms control agreements. There were periods in the 1980s where people thought, no, it's Japan. Japan is going to overtake the United States. Reagan didn't buy either of those. He took on Japan, and trade negotiations took on the Soviet Union and prevailed. And so I think just like in that period, this is maybe a time for some pessimism. I understand why people feel that. We are in a very dangerous environment.

China is the greatest adversary we've ever faced. But I think just like Reagan looked at that situation and said, no, we can do this, I think this is a time to look at the situation and say, yes, it's challenging, but we can do this. And in our book, we try to lay out a blueprint for how we can do that. So I'd encourage your readers to get the book. It's available on Amazon. And let's go out together and win the new Cold War. Well, Matt Kroenig, Dan Negre, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Great. Thank you so much for having us. Our pleasure. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you all for joining Matt Kroenig, Dan Negrea, and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.