Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America (42 page)

SHAPING A PRO-WESTERN, PRO-DEMOCRATIC MESSAGE

For decades, it was the United States that acted as its own best commercial for democracy, with high living standards and individual freedom unknown to most of the world. And we had a government and a popular culture that championed these virtues. By contrast, the Communist Bloc was staid, gloomy, and authoritarian; its economy was stagnant, its people depressed, and its government propaganda organs transparently dishonest and unsophisticated.

Today, that’s all changed. Both Moscow and Beijing have caught up in the communications game, and they have become skilled in disseminating a new and highly effective conservative message. Ukrainian or Georgian patriots, instinctively anti-Russian, turn anti-American instead when the Kremlin’s propaganda machine tells them that their national grid will be owned by Turks or their military run by gays if they sign on to Western globalism. Russian propaganda has been decisive in Ukraine, where pro-Russian militias are egged on by the insistence of the Kremlin-controlled media that the government in Kiev is fascist, anti-Semitic, and intent on repressing Ukraine’s sizeable Russian-speaking population.
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China’s already-infamous Document No. 9, as mentioned in the previous chapter, enumerates “seven subversive currents” that party cadres must reject—among them “Western constitutional democracy,” “neo-liberalism,” and “universal values” such as human rights and media freedom.
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Meanwhile, Western media spin from one crisis to the next—from Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA snooping to events in Syria or Egypt, with nothing resembling a national consensus or common framework of understanding. Indeed,
the Axis itself can hijack Western media cycles in order to cover up their machinations. For example, Snowden’s revelations came on the heels of widespread reports of Chinese cyber attacks against Western companies.

Shocking though this may sound to the liberal mindset, the U.S. must revamp its propaganda voice to the levels of the Cold War. The fact is, we are in a full-blown Cold War, but we are the only ones not fully engaged. We prevailed against Communism not merely because President Reagan outspent the Soviets in defense or because our pop culture became universal, but because we sent a coherent message abroad about our ideas and their benefits. We did this by exporting entertainment, as we do now, but also by openly using organs of propaganda—Radio Liberty and the like—to get our point across. We took other countries and their ideas seriously enough to argue with them on matters of substance. Today, we lack a coherent message and seem nearly paralyzed by indecision and self-doubt. But the power of our pop culture to convert people to the American way has had its full effect; history is now at the next stage. Millions around the world have fully absorbed the principles of consumerism and entertainment. They look to America for the next step in ideas. They have evolved economically to a stage where they are asking serious questions about what comes next, including questions about our claims to global leadership. We no longer have the powerful official-broadcast platforms that we once had for engaging in that debate.

Consider it from a different angle: If the U.S. could openly broadcast debates about non-Islamist forms of Islam to Muslims around the world, in the appropriate languages, no doubt they would be greeted with great hostility at first—as similar messages were greeted by the Communist countries. But over time, the opening of debate had its effect on the Cold War. Let us apply this principle again, openly, formally, around the world and disseminate unashamed propaganda for
the ideas we espouse. Some form of official or semi-official government media organ, along the lines of Radio Free Europe but built to have the reach and sophistication of the new communications age, is needed here.

We need this much more robust voice not only to tout our own virtues but also to highlight the many depredations on the other side. When Hillary Clinton or John Kerry denounces Axis conduct at various public forums, much of the world literally doesn’t see or hear it. In many countries, media outlets remain either state-controlled or controlled by oligarchs friendly to the state, and many governing regimes do not wish to alienate the Axis. Their publics don’t hear about Moscow’s machinations or China’s exploitation of African resources or the inhumane conditions in Chinese mines abroad. Thousands demonstrate against U.S. corporations that are exploiting natural resources in foreign lands, but no such demonstrations erupt against Chinese companies. In no Arab countries have we seen mass demonstrations against Moscow’s support for Assad. It is time to hold the Axis nations publicly accountable, on a global scale, for their outrageous conduct.

THE POWER WE HOLD OURSELVES

Ultimately, the battle begins at home—in awakening the hearts and minds of Americans. We believe the threat is equal in scope and complexity (if not in imminent danger) to what we faced during the Soviet era. We propose a federal response modeled on the War on Terror, starting with a task force to deal specifically with the Axis threat. Taskforce members should have cabinet-level access and work closely with Russian and Chinese policy experts. In the manner of the Department of Homeland Security, the Axis task force should coordinate expert contributions in a holistic approach, from intelligence gathering and military planning to diplomacy and propaganda.

When President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire, he was loudly ridiculed for his brashness. When President George W. Bush spoke of the Axis of Evil, he, too, was roundly mocked. Bush promptly gave comfort to his critics by blundering unprepared into two wars. Sadly, we are now loath to identify enemy states explicitly as enemies, except perhaps North Korea. The fraying of borders, the globalization of money and citizenship, and the diffusion of national identity make it increasingly difficult to draw clear lines between us and them, especially since the Bush Doctrine of being either for us or against us caused such confusion. Nevertheless, no country can survive for long without a clear definition of friends and opponents. This is not a form of simplistic, know-nothing yahooism. This is how states have conducted their business from the beginning of civilization. We have come to the point where any such explicit iteration is met with protest from some vocal corner of our fragmented societies.

Here, then, is a modest proposal: The U.S. should officially and publicly tabulate a hierarchy of foreign states from the friendliest to the least friendly. Something comparable already exists in the form of NATO and the EU: Those blocs of allies show the world, in the clearest way, who’s in and who’s not. But there is no demonstrable way for countries outside these well-known alliances to position themselves advantageously, although most-favored-nation treatment, whereby countries agree to reciprocal bilateral relations, is a minor gesture in that direction. We can imagine, say, three categories, with the EU states and Great Britain, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and Australia in the top division—all are NATO or “major non-NATO” allies. Intensifying our cooperation with them and making these alliances more explicit will reassure our partners. Middling countries such as Georgia, Mexico, and certain Middle Eastern countries might occupy a middle division, and so on down. Privileges such as immigration and trade quotas, student visas, investment facilitation, family unification, and
numerous other considerations would ride on such positioning. Those countries that allow Axis power to dominate their affairs would be clearly identified; they would suffer economically and otherwise, and their citizens would know why. It is time to get serious about favoring our allies and punishing our adversaries, who have, for some time now, been punishing us with near impunity. During the Cold War, such differentiations existed concretely; every state knew the consequences of its actions. Such simple categorical distinctions may not be achievable in our multipolar world, but the effort to make them so would be clarifying for national security and strategic rigor.

It bears repeating: We are in a new Cold War, and we are the only ones not fighting.

CONCLUSION

Why America Must Wake Up

“What we have been witnessing in Ukraine, with protests that began in November and have gained a volatile intensity in recent days, is the first geopolitical revolution of the 21st century.”

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MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI, FORMER PRESIDENT OF GEORGIA
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W
hen we started writing this book, our first concern was to raise the alarm about the threat Russia and China posed to the West and to the well-being of the world at large. It was a matter of heightening awareness about an enormous challenge that had escaped the notice of most Americans. But in the interim, the problem we sought to bring to greater attention brought notice to itself, as developments around the world made Russia and China’s behavior page-one international news, nearly every day. The world watched in horror as an intransigent Moscow blocked U.S. and European efforts to forestall the carnage in Syria for years. The West had to face the prospect of a kind of world war if it dared to intervene in Syria, with the Axis backing a bloc of powers—from the mullahs in Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon—that thwarted all attempts to remove Bashar al-Assad.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine was backed by similar threats to escalate tensions with the West if it dared to intervene. Ukrainians found themselves effectively abandoned by the West and left to Moscow’s mercies. Saying little, as always, the Chinese ran diplomatic
interference at the United Nations, joining with Moscow to thwart a Security Council resolution upholding Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The Edward Snowden affair became an international sensation, with Russia and China playing leading roles. And it became impossible to ignore massive cyber hacking by both countries directed against the United States and other Western nations and their businesses.

So today, many Americans are probably more aware than they were a year ago about the role Russia and China are playing around the world to counter American influence. But the full dimensions of the Axis challenge are still not well known. Here is what Americans need to understand.

The United States is a nation in crisis. Ongoing partisan warfare has left our government nearly impotent in its effort to address our most pressing domestic and foreign-policy needs. While we are hobbled, Russia and China are resurgent on the international stage. Thinking on the challenges each Axis nation presents, we can reach some broad conclusions. First, America’s influence around the world is receding: our military and diplomatic power; our political influence; economic might; and, perhaps most dangerously, the power and appeal of our ideas. Second, in these same areas, the influence of Russia and China is increasing. To be sure, there are huge differences between Russia and China in terms of their economic strength and position, their prospects for the future, and their place in the global political economy. But as we have tried to show, the similarities and shared interests are far more important than the differences.

Russia and China are increasingly expansionist, whatever the short-term weaknesses of their economies. Beyond its incursions into Ukraine, Russia is gaining power in parts of the former Soviet Union, through the Customs Union and its expanded successor, the proposed Eurasian Union, an alternative to the European Union. Russian influence is also growing in Central Asia. China is becoming
more economically dominant in the South and East China Sea and in Asia generally.

Both Russia and China have increased their military budgets substantially while the United States is dramatically scaling back its military expenditures. Whether in spite of or because of their recently troubled economies, Russia and China have become increasingly nationalistic and aggressive, while America, worn down by a decade-plus of wars, has become inner-directed, even isolationist. Russia and China are pursuing systematic plans to upgrade their militaries and expand their conventional forces; the United States is slashing its defense budget and reducing the size of its conventional forces. Moreover, under President Obama’s often rudderless leadership, the United States not only lacks a clear strategy but also has been forced to implement a series of additional automatic cuts, mandated by the budget sequester, that experts across the board—including the last two defense secretaries, Republican Robert Gates and Democrat Leon Panetta—agree will be profoundly damaging.

The same story is playing out in the nuclear area. Again, we see the United States reducing its arsenal sharply—and President Obama contemplates doing so even more dramatically—while the Russians and Chinese have, if anything, taken advantage of arms-control agreements and their own technological advances to upgrade their arsenals and expand their capabilities. The U.S. retreat from the nuclear playing field is not just apparent in offensive capabilities; the American missile-defense shield that protects both our homeland and our European allies is gravely deficient as well, as we have described. And our allies don’t even buy missile-defense technology from us anymore: Turkey, a NATO member, purchased its $3 billion missile-defense system from Beijing.
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Recent reports of Chinese hackers stealing drone technology to use for offensive weapons and also to globally export underscore the
degree to which cyber crime remains a huge challenge—especially from China, but also from Russia. Despite our apparent success in disabling the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz through the Stuxnet virus, the U.S. shows no sign of having formulated an effective policy that would discourage the Chinese (and the Russians, to some extent) from their huge and ongoing cyber war against us. Put another way, our cyber defenses are not nearly as sophisticated or broad-ranging as the NSA’s capabilities for monitoring and collecting data on our own citizens.

Economically, America’s decades-long advantage is wearing away. Experts predict that sometime in the next decade, China’s economy will surpass ours as the world’s largest; some suggest that China will take the lead as early as 2016. Domestically, the American economy shows signs of recovery, although it has been a largely jobless recovery thus far. We might be saved yet by an energy boom from horizontal drilling: We must continue production of domestic oil and energy sources, in particular through fracking, which in a short time has brought tremendous hope to the U.S. economy and begun to transform the global energy market (much to Russia’s detriment, if trends hold). An all-out commitment to fracking is critical if we are to break the hold of foreign oil on our domestic economy and compete with Russia and especially China.

American economic success overseas pales beside the influence the Chinese have been able to gain in the last decade. China has put its incredible cash power to work around the world, with Chinese companies investing directly in myriad foreign entities. Whether pursuing private equity in Western companies or investing in Africa’s vast natural-resources boom, China is energetically buying into other nations’ economies and taking a share in future development. The Russians, while no match for the economically mighty Chinese, have also pursued their interests with renewed vigor, especially as their gas
dominance is threatened by American fracking and other challenges. The Russians have been applying bare-knuckled political pressure to persuade their former Soviet neighbors to join the Customs Union rather than the EU, as many have been contemplating. These efforts have already borne fruit with Armenia, which was set to join the EU; when Russia started to sell arms to Azerbaijan, Armenia’s bitter enemy, Armenia reversed course and sided with the Russians. Moscow is bullying Moldova and Ukraine in similar fashion and has apparently proved successful in the latter case.

And there’s still more. Rogue nations such as Syria, Iran, and North Korea, and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah all have directly benefited from the patronage—both direct and indirect—of the Russians and the Chinese. Much of the assistance is covert or indirect, but it is also the case that increasingly, Iran and North Korea have expanded their nuclear programs with the economic and arguably the technological assistance of the Russians and Chinese. There is room for disagreement about the precise degree to which the Russians have aided the Iranians; and the Chinese, the North Koreans. We will probably never uncover all the facts. But we’ve learned enough to point unmistakably to deep-seated ties and substantial, critical support. Moreover, Russian and Chinese intentions in this area are evident in both nations’ intransigence at the UN and elsewhere when they’re asked to rein in the behavior of their rogue allies.

As this book went to press, it had become clear to most observers that American influence in the Middle East has declined precipitously. Russia is rebuilding its influence there to levels not seen since the height of the Cold War. We cannot directly blame the Russians for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, but it’s crucial to understand that Russian patronage of Syria—from steadfast political support for Assad to economic and military assistance—made it possible for the dictator to use chemical weapons and then to engage in a negotiating
process that prevented a U.S. strike against Syria. Assad has an excellent chance of staying in power indefinitely, despite the so-called red line that President Obama drew in August 2012. The president’s stupefying walk-back from that red line, as well as his retreat from his earlier public position that Assad had to go, have sent an unmistakable message of American weakness to our foes. We spy on our own and spy on foreign leaders with impunity but have been far less successful influencing events positively and proactively in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. In fact, our impotence has been obvious, apparent, and clear for a number of years now even to our allies; countries such as Saudi Arabia and Japan increasingly pursue their own policies and interests with much less deference to American interests and concerns. Indeed, Egypt has now recently moved closer to Russia politically and economically. Even Israel, our oldest ally in the Middle East, has increasingly demonstrated its independence, with its leaders distancing themselves from Secretary of State John Kerry and making energy deals with India and other countries—deals the U.S. views with suspicion and concern.

We wrote this book as a warning about the threat America faces. Others have made many of these individual arguments elsewhere. But as we examined each of the disparate issues we have joined together here, it became clear to us that American influence across the board is waning, while the Russians and Chinese have grown economically, politically, and militarily more formidable. Beyond the discouraging trend in all these areas is a less tangible but more fundamental sign of American retreat: the decline in the power and appeal of the American idea. We do not defend and argue for the principles of freedom, liberty, and democracy as we once did. As a result, these ideals lack a global champion in an era of great social and economic dislocation, political violence, and technological change. In the meantime, the Chinese and Russians have put forward compelling alternative models—authoritarian,
nationalistic, antidemocratic, and socially conservative—that have resonated with millions. They also challenge the American role in the world. Putin calls loudly for “non-interference” and state sovereignty, while the Chinese amorally push a promise of never-ending economic growth and consumerism as a justification for their authoritarian rule and human-rights abuses. The United States, meanwhile, largely stays silent, conceding the rhetorical and even moral high ground to these despotic, antidemocratic regimes.

In the previous chapter, we outlined a number of key recommendations: Advance American principles of freedom and liberty; support free trade around the world; recommit ourselves to a defense budget suited to the challenges we face; reach consensus on the need for a more robust global presence; reverse the tendency toward a restricted and limited nuclear arsenal; do everything within our power to counter conventional and unconventional use of technology by our adversaries. If we do not take these steps, we will face a grimmer and more challenging future.

Others around the world see the same stakes. Writing about the bloody confrontations between police and citizens in the streets of Kiev in Ukraine, Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia, called the impending struggle nothing less than “the first geopolitical revolution of the 21st century.” What he meant was that the two sides in Kiev (those who supported “independent, Western democracy” versus those who backed “Vladimir Putin’s Russia”) were waging a battle relevant to the rest of the world: a conflict between Western-oriented democracy and a reinvigorated authoritarianism. If the protesters were defeated, it would mean “a huge rollback of European influence and values,” Saakashvili wrote. “The credibility of the U.S., already eroding in the region, would vanish. Mr. Putin knows it. Brave citizens of Ukraine know it.”
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We wish we could say that we’re optimistic about what the future holds, at least under our present leadership. As believers in American
exceptionalism, it is hard for us not to be hopeful, even now. But we believe that it’s more prudent to conclude with a warning than with a Pollyannaish assurance that everything will be OK, especially because the future prospects, at least in the short term, are not encouraging. We hope these arguments will serve as a wake-up call for Americans—and especially for America’s somnambulistic, negligent political leaders.

While our weaknesses have many causes, from economic malaise to international developments over which we have limited control, our struggle is fundamentally about how we see ourselves. As a nation, we have lost the shared conviction that the American way is worth celebrating and defending, that democracy is the best form of government, and that America is rightly engaged with the world in defense of others who share these convictions. We must articulate this uniquely American vision again, both for our own sake and for the benefit of those around the world who look to America for leadership. Standing up to Russia and China and countering the corrosive impact of their antidemocratic message is central to regaining our national strength—and vital to the peace and security of the world.