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How the Continent Can Prepare for American Abandonment

BY ARANCHA GONZÁLEZ LAYA, CAMILLE GRAND, KATARZYNA PISARSKA, NATHALIE TOCCI, AND GUNTRAM WOLFF

February 2, 2024

• ARANCHA GONZÁLEZ LAYA is Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po and the former Foreign Minister of Spain.

• CAMILLE GRAND is a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and an Associate Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po. From 2016 to 2022, he served as an Assistant Secretary-General of NATO.

• KATARZYNA PISARSKA is Chair of the Warsaw Security Forum, President of the European Academy of Diplomacy, and Professor at the Warsaw School of Economics.

• NATHALIE TOCCI is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, a Professor at the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute, and Europe’s Futures Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

• GUNTRAM WOLFF is Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations and a Professor at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third year, Europe has performed far better than expected. For decades after World War II, it counted on the United States to be the ultimate guarantor of its security. The continent relied on Washington to guide NATO policy, provide nuclear deterrence, and forge consensus among European countries on controversial questions such as how to resolve the 2009–12 European debt crisis. Europe continued to take the U.S. security umbrella for granted after the Cold War ended, slashing defense spending, failing to stop the Bosnian genocide in the early 1990s, and refusing to play a political role in resolving the crisis in Syria, even as it remained the region’s biggest provider of humanitarian aid. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, many anticipated that Europeans might balk at helping Kyiv. The last time Russian President Vladimir Putin marched over Ukrainian borders—annexing Crimea in 2014—Europe responded with weak sanctions and halfhearted attempts at diplomatic compromise while increasing its dependence on Russian gas.

But over the last few years, the world has seen a glimpse of a stronger Europe. European countries have sustained a united front in resisting Russia’s aggression, hosting millions of refugees, coordinating painful decoupling from Russian gas supplies, imposing strong economic sanctions and export restrictions on Russia, training Ukrainian soldiers, and inviting Ukraine to join the European Union. The $53 billion EU aid package to Ukraine that was slated for approval in February set Europe’s combined economic and military assistance to Kyiv, including its multiyear commitments, at double the amount the United States is providing. For the first time since 2007, the EU has even gathered the confidence to substantially enlarge itself. In December 2023, it extended candidate status to Georgia and launched accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine.

These steps were undergirded by a solid transatlantic relationship. But European leaders cannot count on a friendly United States. They must prepare for the possibility that, a year from now, the United States will again be led by Donald Trump. During his GOP primary campaign for president, Trump has suggested that if he is reelected in November 2024, he will negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours,” demand that Europe reimburse the United States for ammunition used in Ukraine, withdraw from the Paris climate accords, and roil the global economy by imposing a ten percent tariff on all imports. 

Last December, the U.S. Senate passed a measure making it harder for Trump to unilaterally pull the United States out of NATO. But Europeans cannot depend on smooth military collaboration with a Trump administration: Trump directs special ire toward the alliance, and when he chooses his staff, he will likely pass over seasoned bureaucrats in favor of loyalists. Putin would likely interpret even the slightest hint that Trump may not fully honor the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 as an invitation to test the robustness of the transatlantic alliance, possibly even in the Baltic states.

Well before Russia invaded Ukraine, European leaders knew they had to grow up—which meant, in part, relying less on the United States. The European debt crisis motivated the EU to more fully integrate its banking systems. In some ways, the first Trump era spurred the EU toward greater self-reliance as Trump demonstrated that his only alliance was with his own interests. The EU established a European defense fund and a more constructive relationship with NATO. During the COVID-19 pandemic, European countries tasked the EU Commission with buying vaccines, and for the first time, the commission borrowed on a large scale to fund Europe’s economic recovery.

Only after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, did the European debate—and behavior—about security change dramatically. Although Europe’s combined military and financial aid to Ukraine now exceeds that of the United States, U.S. support remains vital to Ukraine’s war effort—and to Europe’s broader security. And many longer-term consequences of Trump’s first presidency are still unfolding: peace around the world is unraveling, and authoritarian leaders are becoming bolder. Azerbaijan drove 120,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh unchecked. The rivalry between the United States and China has heated up. A chain of military coups in West Africa has ousted democratically elected presidents—as well as European peacekeepers. And thanks in part to policies instituted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—whom Trump backed—a hot war has broken out in the Middle East. 

These are European problems, too. Refugees flooding to EU borders have an enormous impact on European domestic politics. Renewed conflict in the Middle East has prompted new waves of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe as well as a heightened threat of terrorism. Even if Ukraine thwarts Russia’s ambitions to rule its territory and people, Russia will likely remain a long-term security challenge, forcing Europeans to revisit collective defense scenarios and establish a level of military readiness it has not possessed since the Cold War. 

European leaders are hoping for a second Biden presidency that would protect the transatlantic bond and give them time and support to assume greater responsibility for their turbulent continent and neighborhood. But they may not get this time and support. A second Trump term may well exacerbate the instability Europe is already struggling to manage. Europeans will respect Americans’ choice of their next president. But it is in Europe’s hands to act now and take concrete steps to bulwark its security and economy. It must also increase the EU’s power, addressing institutional weaknesses that limit the organization’s capacity to lead in a world characterized by geopolitical conflict. In short, it needs to Trump-proof its future. The continent weathered four years of a Trump presidency. But a second four years will likely be much harder to sail through.

THE USES OF ADVERSITY

Trump’s first four years in power forced European policymakers to plan around a far less consistent and engaged U.S. president, one who took a distinctively transactional view of the transatlantic relationship. European leaders have traditionally had more in common with Democratic than Republican U.S. presidents, and the transatlantic relationship took strain long before Trump took office: think of the deep rift over President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. 

But the challenges Trump posed were new. He was the first U.S. president who did not treat Europe as family. He seemed visibly more at ease with authoritarian rulers such as Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping than with democratically elected European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump did not hesitate to withdraw from the 2015 Iran deal that President Barack Obama forged together with the EU and the E3—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—nor to threaten to punish Europeans with sanctions if they abided by it. He also failed to consult with European leaders or even inform them before making major foreign policy moves, such as inking the 2020 Abraham Accords or withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria. Trump not only abandoned the United States’ plans for a trade deal with the EU. He instituted unprecedented protectionist measures that targeted European exporters.

And he sought to weaken multilateral cooperation in areas such as climate change, trade, migration, and human rights, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords—an EU priority. He undermined international organizations such as the World Health Organization and UNESCO, as well as the UN’s attempts to reach an agreement on handling migration and refugees. Trump’s actions had a galvanizing effect on Europe: the United States had played a star part in shaping the EU itself, but then the country seemed to withdraw from its lead role in supporting the rules-based international order.

Europe’s leaders realized their continent had to become more sovereign and autonomous—plainly put, more capable and responsible for world affairs. They had to step up to sustain the multilateral system. The EU, for example, increased its support for the World Health Organization. Trump’s threat to put economic sanctions on Europe sparked the continent’s leaders to strengthen the euro by further integrating their banks and financial systems and to sign trade agreements with new partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In terms of security, Trump’s attacks on Europe’s low defense spending and his threats to leave NATO pushed the EU to take steps toward establishing institutional, legal, and financial incentives for European countries to spend more on defense. The European Peace Facility, an EU mechanism to provide military assistance to other countries—which the EU has used since 2022 to provide military aid to Ukraine—was created in response to the pressure Trump put on the continent.

But other phenomena that emerged in the Trump years proved more difficult to manage—most important, his rhetorical attacks on law and order and centrist democracy. When Trump pressured Ukraine, in 2020, to damage his Democratic rival’s candidacy, he legitimized the tactic for other actors. Populist forces in Europe read off Trump’s harsh script when it came to immigration, hobbling EU efforts to enact a general policy on migration. Overall, Trump actively supported right-wing nationalists, populists, and anti-EU voices in Europe. As the EU heads into parliamentary elections in June 2024, there is a real risk that these emboldened forces will gain significant ground, shaping the EU’s future generation of leaders. Whether they do or not, Trump’s second candidacy is already encouraging nationalist figures such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. 

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Trump may well be more antagonistic to Europe and European values in a second term, dramatically increasing the risks to the continent’s security and aggravating its existing difficulties. A reelected Trump would be completely unchained from the old, pro-democracy Republican establishment. He would likely surround himself with loyal administrators who do not challenge him. Moreover, the world has grown accustomed to his outrageous statements and decisions, making individual transgressions feel less shocking and less crucial to resist.

The biggest immediate danger presented by a second Trump term is clear: Trump has already indicated he would end U.S. support for Ukraine. Although Europeans have been increasing their financial and military support to Kyiv, both bilaterally and using the EU’s toolbox, their efforts fall short of fully substituting for U.S. military assistance. In fact, the EU’s short-term military support to Ukraine constitutes only 55 percent of what the United States has offered. A scenario in which the United States completely terminates its assistance to Ukraine is not in the realm of fantasy, and it would require Europeans to more quickly and comprehensively support Ukraine.

The critical issue for the Europeans to understand is that the risk posed by a more isolationist United States goes beyond Europe’s eastern border. For decades, Europeans have tolerated significant shortfalls in their defense budgets and capabilities. This explains European countries’ limited capacity to ramp up defense industrial production to arm Ukraine and replenish stocks of ammunition and weaponry. Europeans reasonably assumed that the United States would take the lead in an emergency.

The essential contribution the United States makes to European security is no longer primarily boots (and tanks) on the ground, as it was during the Cold War, but in domains such as intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, strategic air transport, air-to-air refueling, and space observation and communication. It also offers comfort in the form of nuclear deterrence and the ability to quickly deploy a significant volume of highly trained forces if needed. In practice, the United States is currently the only NATO ally that has a truly “full force” package.

The risks a second Trump presidency poses, however, go well beyond defense and security. Under Trump, the U.S.-Chinese relationship could further deteriorate. This would put European firms that operate in both jurisdictions in a difficult position: by threatening secondary sanctions, Trump could actively force European companies to cease operations in China or pressure Europeans to block Chinese investments in Europe. Trump has promised to impose a ten percent tariff on all imports if he is reelected, and the impact of such a move—were Congress to approve it—would be acutely felt in Europe. Europe could also see its digital sovereignty affected by the reelected U.S. president. For capabilities including geolocation, satellite-based communication, cloud computing, data privacy, and AI, Europe is dependent on the United States and vulnerable to disruption.

For decades, the deepening of democracy in Europe has been tied to U.S. influence. As recently as 2021, the Biden administration stepped up to defend freedom of the press in Poland by convincing the Polish president to veto a controversial media bill that would restrict who could own local broadcasters. If he gets a second term, Trump may well seek to further weaken democratic institutions in the United States, including the Department of Justice, and foment general disdain for the rule of law. This would embolden populists and Euroskeptic parties. The first Trump presidency already taught Europeans how a U.S. president’s political support for populists can practically endanger European unity. 

THE BEST OFFENSE

Europeans want to preserve the cherished transatlantic relationship. But they need to urgently prepare for a weakened one. First, Europeans must more categorically shift their attitude toward Europe’s defense. In the immediate term, European leaders must ramp up the production and procurement of materiel to support Ukraine: Kyiv needs an estimated two million rounds of ammunition or more per year, as well as replacement artillery barrels, spare parts, and air defense systems. Europe must immediately decide whether to expand its ability to produce ammunition and other critical weapons. Some of the world’s foremost armament producers are European, and boosting their capabilities is practically and financially within reach, but it will require much more deliberate planning. 

Even if Ukraine did not have such acute immediate requirements, Europe would need to increase its weapons and ammunition production, because European armies need to reconstitute their defense supplies and address shortfalls. The speed with which European countries have deployed troops to NATO’s eastern flank since 2022 has been impressive. But to ensure those forces’ long-term effectiveness, Europeans must improve their training and logistics planning. The continent must also build up its fleet of critical strategic enablers, such as drones and satellites, and develop its cyber and airlift capabilities.

This strategy will benefit from a concrete plan similar to the one the European Commission created to successfully fast-track the development and production of COVID-19 vaccines. Currently, European countries’ budget forecasts and planning cycles often fail to offer weapons manufacturers the assurances they need to increase production. In 2022, for example, Germany established an impressive $110 billion five-year emergency fund to rebuild its armed forces. In 2023, however, the German defense minister admitted that this will not be enough money.

In 2022, European countries—both EU member states and NATO allies—spent a total of $350 billion on defense. A sustained effort by these countries to spend a minimum of two percent of their GDP on defense, or about $450 billion per year, would significantly reduce Europe’s dependence on the United States. The EU must play a stronger role as an accelerator and facilitator, using financial incentives and regulatory measures to mobilize member states and discourage unnecessary duplication of effort. Even if most defense spending remains national, the EU can use its budgetary resources for defense research and technology and to strengthen manufacturing capacity by placing joint orders to defense companies through the European Defense Agency or other collective mechanisms. It can employ the European Investment Bank and other financial tools to support this defense effort, as well as relax some fiscal and deficit constraints to favor defense investment.

All these goals require Europe to plan ahead because building defense capability takes time. Waiting to move until the U.S. election has been decided is not an option. The EU will not be able to quickly acquire the same skill in planning and commanding large-scale territorial defense operations that NATO has developed over 75 years. But Europeans can Europeanize the NATO command structure by deploying manpower and investing resources to cover for a U.S. retreat from the organization. A more European NATO might be able to adequately compensate a reduced American commitment even if the alliance loses some transatlantic backing. It would also address Trump’s recurring criticism that the United States shoulders too big a share of NATO’s tasks. And should the United States soften its commitment to provide nuclear deterrence to Europe, France and the United Kingdom—Europe’s two nuclear powers—must revisit their contribution to deterrence. All Europeans, too, will need to discuss effective policies that could prevent nuclear escalation.

RISKY BUSINESS

Because Europe is such an open economy and transatlantic trade relations run so deep, a more hostile United States can badly damage Europe. For now, the EU has no appropriate institutional framework to react to economic security risks from China—or from a more hostile United States. Economic security is mostly handled by member states, not the EU itself, and incongruent security policies on imports, exports, investments, and financial flows pose a growing threat to the European economy.

Consider digital security: the consequences of a second Trump presidency could be particularly severe in the digital space unless Europe acts now. European countries manufacture relatively little of their own cloud-computing systems, key software, and telecommunications infrastructure. They depend on both American and Chinese products. But when a European telecom operator active in several countries incorporates Chinese equipment into its infrastructure, security risks can easily spill over borders. 

In the event of heightened political confrontation between China and the United States, Trump could threaten sanctions on major telecom operators who use Chinese equipment. The EU must have a ready, forceful response teed up or the EU telecommunications market could fragment. European countries must also work to reduce their dependence on Chinese telecommunications products to prepare for a tougher line from the White House.

Europe currently sources the lion’s share of its cloud-computing capacity—essential to military operations—from the United States. If Trump is reelected, he is likely to undo recent transatlantic efforts to cooperate on data privacy. To ensure legal immunity from foreign laws, EU countries may want to follow the examples of France, Italy, and Spain in demanding that cloud-computing services be exclusively provided by firms whose headquarters and staff are located in the EU. Even before the U.S. election, the EU can move to secure cooperation with the United States on digital matters; it is important to show the country’s leaders that such transatlantic cooperation also benefits the United States. European leaders, for instance, could already begin cooperating more closely with Washington on AI governance, setting standards that limit harmful applications of AI technologies.

China is increasingly investing in European strategic infrastructure, illuminating the problem of having an integrated market without properly integrated security. In 2016, the Netherlands allowed major Chinese investments into the Rotterdam port, and in 2023, the China Ocean Shipping Company took a share in the port of Hamburg. But the EU could not formally weigh in on either the Dutch or the German decision, even though goods arriving in Rotterdam are not primarily destined for the Dutch market but make their way throughout the entire EU.

The EU, as an institution, is also weak on export restrictions and sanctions policy. The exporting of dual-use high-tech goods is often limited by individual countries, sometimes under pressure from the United States. The Dutch government’s recent decision, for instance, to limit the export of Dutch lithography machines needed to produce top-performing semiconductor chips affected the entire EU. It required Zeiss, a German company, to ensure that the components it supplies for those machines are not instead delivered directly to China, undermining the Netherlands’ export restriction, and the German government has even been debating whether German engineers who know how to develop these machines should be banned from working in China. As for sanctions, the EU has been able to pass 12 sanctions packages against Russia. But unanimity requirements make decisions slow, and enforcement remains imperfect.

Because Trump favors bilateral relations over working with the EU, it is EU oversight of economic security that must be improved, lest individual countries diverge even further on their policies. The EU needs to commit to institutional reforms—for instance, moving from requiring a unanimous vote to approve some economic-security policies to allowing their adoption with majority votes. It should also establish an economic security committee, staffed by economists and security experts from EU institutions, as well as member states, to undertake security assessments of decisions that affect the whole EU.

Protectionist policies instituted by Trump would damage the world, but they could particularly harm the EU. Europe must become more economically competitive by forging trade agreements with third markets—especially given the U.S. reluctance to define its trade policy—and deepening its single market. The EU has not sufficiently integrated its single market, particularly the financial, digital, and service sectors. More integrated banking and capital markets would provide businesses with much-needed funding and would support entrepreneurs, who too often leave the EU to get access to U.S. venture capital. Furthering the EU’s economic integration has a political purpose, too. To counter the rise of populism in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, the EU must show that more economic integration can help ordinary citizens.

LANGUAGE LESSONS

Perhaps the greatest risk Trump poses to Europe is to its values: multilateralism, care for the environment, the rule of law, and democracy itself. Through his rhetoric, Trump degrades the worth of these principles in public opinion. Europe needs to start preparing now to withstand that pressure internally, girding itself to better defend the rule of law within its borders. A potentially powerful EU instrument to protect the rule of law has existed since the 1999 Treaty of Amsterdam: a procedure outlined in Article 7 of the EU treaty that allows member states to sanction a country when it commits “a serious and persistent breach” of European values. In effect, however, this instrument has often been toothless, because other EU states must agree unanimously that a member state undermined the rule of law.

To get around this unanimity requirement, in 2021 the EU adopted a regulation allowing the European Commission to suspend certain payments from its budget if only a qualified majority of EU states found that a member state had breached EU values. The effectiveness of this regulation is currently being tested: the EU is now withholding, for instance, some COVID-19 recovery funds from Hungary after finding that the country had persistently breached the rule of law. But if the EU is serious about defending its principles, it should not shy away from considering the use of treaty provisions that suspend a member state’s voting rights in the European Council.

The EU must also promote democracy in its direct neighborhood by using the most effective tool it has: EU enlargement. Previous rounds of expansion have shown that the EU accession process itself gives the body considerable leverage to transform the governance and political culture of applicant countries. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has given the accession process new meaning and urgency. The EU should aim for another major big bang enlargement round by 2030: setting a concrete date for such an expansion would motivate some applicant countries to undertake reforms and strengthen their democracies with a view toward fulfilling the conditions to enter the EU.

Worldwide, Europe must become more outspoken and determined in defending democracy, the rule of law, and multilateralism. Europe is already a keystone to global efforts to protect the climate and defend against threats to public health; ahead of a potential Trump reelection, it needs to work hard to keep its global partners rallied behind those goals. The EU should also use its existing partnerships with advanced and developing economies more strategically. The EU’s Global Gateway Initiative could serve as the backbone for deeper trade, investment, and financial partnerships with developing countries that support international cooperation in a world characterized by U.S. isolationism and growing geopolitical rivalry. Many developing countries have long looked to the United States as an example of the dividends that democracy pays. They have also depended on Washington for material support. European leaders must step up so the world can also look to Europe.

Even if Trump does not win in November, Europe has work to do. It may simply no longer be able to rely on the United States to be a consistent partner, no matter who’s in charge. The United States is already making foreign policy moves without consulting Europe, especially in the economic sphere. President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, was also an act of protectionism. Using subsidies and domestic production requirements, it induced European firms to relocate to the United States at a cost to Europe’s economy. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have made it clear that they intend to prioritize the Indo-Pacific going forward, and circumstances may draw U.S. military efforts toward the Middle East and Asia. The partisanship that roils the U.S. Congress will likely become an increasingly difficult obstacle to a flourishing transatlantic relationship. And the worrying state of America’s democracy at home is likely to absorb more political energy than European priorities such as battling climate change.

Europe handled aspects of Trump’s first presidency surprisingly well. But it needs to grow more as wars flare and climate change accelerates. Surveys regularly show that European citizens want the EU to play a larger role in solving global challenges. In 2024, EU leaders must heed their desires by making bold, concrete moves to boost European defense, secure their countries’ economic sovereignty, and protect democratic values.

Should Trump be reelected, the risks to Europe’s unity will be substantial. Some European leaders may feel tempted to forge bilateral deals with the United States to try to guarantee their country’s security in the short term. But Europeans need to remember that Trump cannot be relied on—and that the United States cannot guarantee Europe’s security forever. Instead of gambling on national self-reliance, they should bet on a more integrated Europe.

The European Parliament election in June presents an opportunity. A business-as-usual election campaign would not do justice to the challenges that may lie ahead. Instead, political parties need to debate fundamental strategic choices and make the defense of democracy and EU institutional reform a key part of their appeals. The message the EU sends in its election campaign must be a strong counterpoint to an isolationist, antidemocratic rhetoric: Europe will be able to protect its own borders, defend human rights, help safeguard open trade, fight climate change, and champion democracy, even if the United States won’t. And the United States may, in fact, be able to look to Europe for help and inspiration if it stumbles.

America Needs a More Targeted Strategy

BY PETER E. HARRELL

January/February 2024Published on December 12, 2023

• PETER E. HARRELL is a Nonresident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council from 2021 to 2022.
  

China’s emergence as the United States’ leading rival has upended long-standing tenets of international economic policy. For decades, policymakers in Washington assumed that economic engagement would draw Beijing into the Western order while providing business opportunities for U.S. companies. Thus, the United States pressed China to open its market to U.S. investors, accepting in return that at least some types of U.S. manufacturing would move to China. And in 2001, supported by the United States, China joined the World Trade Organization.

Behind these efforts lay a larger assumption about the power of economic policy to transcend geopolitics. Not only would the establishment of a global trading regime allow goods and services to move across borders without regard to political differences or geopolitical competition, but by anchoring China in a rules-based trading system, economic engagement would also serve as a moderating force on the Chinese government and ultimately spur political change. Through the early years of this century, many in Washington assumed that this logic was prevailing: China was becoming successfully integrated into the world economy, and it was sustaining extraordinary economic growth at home. At the same time, China’s comparatively technocratic leadership in the 1990s and 2000s promoted private enterprise, and there were hopeful signs that it would allow Chinese society to gradually open up.

By the early 2010s, however, this progress had stalled. As Beijing reasserted state control of Chinese society and adopted a more confrontational policy internationally, Washington began to challenge China’s actions. Thus, successive administrations have imposed tariffs, sanctions, and other coercive economic measures in an effort to alter Chinese behavior. But these punitive steps have been no more successful than earlier economic policies in prompting economic or political reforms. Meanwhile, under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, China’s geopolitical rivalry with the United States has intensified.

Today, it is clear that Washington’s economic approach to Beijing has not worked. But the United States cannot simply return to the divided economic model that prevailed during the Cold War, an era in which the West had few economic ties to the Soviet Union and most of the nonaligned countries had little economic clout. A contemporary global economic order must address not only the West and its rivalry with China but also the rise of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and other middle-power countries that now play a significant part in global economic growth but have little interest in formally aligning with either China or the United States.

Confronted with this increasingly complex and multipolar world order, Washington must find a new approach to its international economic strategy. Rather than pursuing economic policies intended to change China, the United States should accept that the Xi regime will not change. Instead, it should actively manage the economic relationship with China in ways that can advance specific U.S. interests and respond to evolving geopolitical demands. As the Biden administration has recognized, the United States must start by reducing its reliance on China in major supply chains and ensuring that the West keeps its edge in sensitive technologies.

But to sustain its advantage in an era of intense competition with Beijing, Washington must embrace a more sophisticated economic model. It needs to tailor policies to targeted, achievable goals and use a variety of creative tools to accomplish them. It must establish new trading relationships with like-minded partners, but it must also use financial diplomacy to draw nonaligned and developing countries closer to the United States. Success will be measured not by the extent to which the United States can convince China to liberalize and embrace the U.S.-led international order but by Washington’s ability to maintain its economic leadership, strengthen alliances, and avoid catastrophic outcomes.

BEIJING UNBOWED

Over the last five decades, the United States has wielded both inducements and threats in its economic statecraft toward China. Shortly after U.S. President Richard Nixon began the process of full normalization with Beijing, in 1971, Washington bet that greater economic ties would benefit the economic and strategic interests of the United States. Opening China’s market to U.S. business, policymakers thought, would also gradually promote political reform and geopolitical moderation in Beijing. The essence of this policy was summed up in a 2005 speech by Robert Zoellick, the U.S. deputy secretary of state at the time, on China’s emergence as a “responsible stakeholder” within the global economic order. “For fifty years, our policy was to fence in the Soviet Union while its own internal contradictions undermined it,” he said. “For thirty years, our policy has been to draw out the People’s Republic of China.”

The U.S. strategy undeniably succeeded at bringing China into the world economy. By 2014, China had overtaken Canada as the United States’ largest trading partner, and by 2023, China had achieved that status with more than 120 other countries as well. China itself experienced an economic rise that was unparalleled in modern history, becoming the world’s second-largest economy in 2010 and lifting more than 800 million of its citizens above the World Bank’s poverty line.

After Xi ascended to power in 2012, however, it became apparent that Washington’s China strategy was no longer advancing U.S. economic and strategic interests. For one thing, between 1999 and 2011, expanding trade with China had cost the United States an estimated two million or more jobs, according to a prominent 2016 study by the economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson. And instead of opening its economy to U.S. imports and investment, Beijing was limiting foreign access even as it used subsidies and other policy measures to enhance its own industries at the expense of foreign competitors. In sectors where China did open its market, it often required U.S. companies to form joint ventures with local Chinese partners and to manufacture in China rather than import products and services from the United States. Even when profitable for the U.S. companies in question, these requirements tended to leave American workers on the sidelines.

By the early 2010s, China had also become much more assertive on the world stage. It had expanded its maritime claims in the South China Sea, embarked on a massive modernization of its military, and ramped up its industrial and political espionage capabilities around the world. At the same time, the Chinese government had expanded domestic repression and built a vast censorship and surveillance apparatus, contradicting Western policymakers’ assumptions that the spread of technology would result in greater individual freedom and more limits on the state. Indeed, China soon became a leading exporter of the technology of repression. In short, China’s economic transformation was making Beijing more, not less, authoritarian, giving it new resources to buttress the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power.

Starting near the end of the Obama administration, Washington tried to reverse these trends by weaponizing the economic ties it had built. In 2015, for example, the U.S. government threatened to impose sanctions against China for its rampant intellectual property theft. Three years later, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a trade war against Beijing—ultimately placing tariffs on more than 80 percent of U.S. imports from China. He also began a campaign against Huawei, the Chinese telecom company, whose 5G networks were deemed to threaten U.S. information security, and tried to ban TikTok, WeChat, and several other Chinese apps from operating in the United States. (U.S. courts ultimately blocked this plan.) Picking up where Trump left off, President Joe Biden imposed new human rights sanctions on Beijing and in late 2022 enacted sweeping restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductor equipment to China. 

Yet these coercive measures proved no more successful in changing China’s behavior than the decades of inducements that preceded them. Although Beijing offered minor trade concessions to Trump in exchange for limiting further U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, it continued to undercut the competitiveness of U.S. and other Western companies. And the Chinese government has proved similarly intransigent in the face of Biden’s pressure. U.S. bans on imports from China’s Xinjiang Province may have reduced U.S. imports made by forced Uyghur labor, and U.S. export controls on advanced chip technology may have slowed China’s ability to produce chips. But in both cases, Beijing has responded by developing other markets and expanding its own domestic investments rather than altering the policies that led to the U.S. restrictions.

MORE TOOLS, LESS RISK

As the Biden administration’s China policy has taken shape, there has been much discussion about “de-risking,” or reducing U.S. dependence on China for many important goods. On paper, the strategy provides a useful corrective to the economic policies of the past few decades. Since the 1990s, trade liberalization has given China outsize influence over certain U.S. supply chains and allowed China to use U.S. technology for its military and repressive apparatus. Aided by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and other measures, de-risking uses domestic investments, export controls, and investment screening to secure U.S. supply chains and deny China access to a handful of leading-edge technologies such as semiconductors.

But the current strategy has been deployed too narrowly. Although Washington should not seek to cut off all or even most trade with China, it needs to reduce its dependence on its rival in a number of other critical sectors. For example, the United States continues to rely on China and Chinese supply chains for widely used pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. And although the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has provided incentives to build clean energy technologies and electric vehicles in the United States, the U.S. government needs to make sure that Chinese companies are not abusing these measures by setting up U.S. factories in order to entrench Chinese control over key components. To be effective, then, de-risking must be applied to a greater variety of goods and employ a wider range of methods.

Tariffs are ripe for innovation. Rather than using them to gain leverage over Beijing, Washington should design them to promote specific U.S. strategic interests. For example, Washington could impose higher tariffs on resources and products for which the United States and its allies have developed strategic dependence on China such as critical minerals, batteries, and electric vehicle parts—not to mention China’s EVs, which have already begun to flood Western markets. The reality is that without protectionist measures, mines and green technology manufacturing facilities in the United States and partner countries often cannot compete with low-cost Chinese-owned counterparts, which receive subsidies from Beijing and are subject to few environmental regulations.

Washington also needs to better integrate tariffs with the Biden administration’s industrial policy. Take semiconductors. As the United States has put pressure on China’s advanced chip industry, China has ramped up production of older types of semiconductors that remain critical for U.S. defense, industrial, and automotive applications. The United States may need tariffs and other tools to ensure that China does not establish a monopoly on these chips. Meanwhile, Washington should cut tariffs on Chinese products, such as clothes and furniture, that raise prices for U.S. consumers while providing little strategic benefit. In the long run, a smarter policy will also require restrictions on Chinese components and Chinese companies involved in critical international supply chains, even if the final products are made in a country other than China.

Another crucial tool is technology policy. To defend its economic leadership, the United States needs to remain at the forefront of innovation in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies. Keeping that edge will require more investments at home in education, research, and manufacturing but also more limits on Beijing’s access to these technologies and the investments that support them. In addition to advanced semiconductor technology, the government should place export controls on biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and other sectors to prevent China from stealing or copying U.S. advances and then reinforcing U.S. dependence on it for vital products.

Perhaps most urgent is better oversight of the use of Chinese digital products and data-gathering technologies in the United States. Washington has few regulations governing Americans’ use of Chinese apps and software. Although the Federal Communications Commission has made progress in restricting the use of Chinese telecom network infrastructure and in banning some Chinese surveillance cameras and similar devices, the country remains vulnerable to Chinese espionage and intrusion. For example, the U.S. government continues to purchase computers from Chinese companies, despite the security risks and the fact that Beijing has largely banned U.S. computers from Chinese government agencies. When it comes to Chinese apps and software that are widely used in the United States, Congress should enable the U.S. government to conduct security audits and impose measures—bans, in exceptional cases—to protect U.S. data and give Americans confidence about the security of the apps they use. And Congress needs to enact better protections against data brokers—companies that trade in personal or corporate data—and that are currently allowed to sell sensitive personal information about U.S. citizens to buyers all over the world, including in China.

As Washington develops new regulatory tools, it must also maintain open lines of communication with Beijing. Amid an intensifying geopolitical rivalry, economics is no longer an effective ballast in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. But as U.S. economic strategy toward China shifts from trying to induce changes in the Chinese market to actively managing economic ties, there are serious risks of misunderstandings or unintentional provocation. Direct and open dialogue can reduce the chances of escalation.

NARROWER DEALS, WIDER IMPACT

In response to rising competition from China, much of the U.S. foreign policy community has urged the United States to strike new trade deals with international partners. Many policymakers have called for joining an amended Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the multilateral pact that the Obama administration helped negotiate but that the United States never ratified. Others have called for new bilateral deals with countries in regions from Africa to Europe. The theory is that by entering comprehensive trade agreements, the United States could deepen relationships and enforce regulations that check Beijing’s global influence. With strategically nonaligned countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, new trade deals could help draw them into the U.S. economic orbit. In turn, a deal with Japan or the United Kingdom could further strengthen U.S. cooperation with a core ally.

Yet the domestic implications of such trade agreements are challenging. Already, Biden’s industrial policy, including subsidies for manufacturing semiconductors and clean energy technologies, has raised tensions with existing U.S. trade commitments, and the policy is continuing to evolve. U.S. policies toward the digital economy and the technology sector are also in flux, with many domestic agencies embracing greater regulation. The rise of artificial intelligence, meanwhile, threatens to disrupt a wide variety of industries, from software design to health care, and will require new approaches to copyrighting and other forms of intellectual property protection. As a result, new trade agreements could bind the United States to rules that might conflict with evolving domestic priorities.

Instead of seeking broad accords, Washington should adopt a narrower, more targeted approach to trade by pursuing deals in sectors where interests clearly converge. One example is the critical minerals agreement that the United States has begun to negotiate with Japan and other countries, as well as the European Union: in the coming years, the United States will face a staggering increase in demand to support the clean energy transition; mineral-producing countries seek greater access to the U.S. market. In reaching a deal with these countries, Washington can also negotiate higher environmental and labor standards.

Many other sectors are ripe for dealmaking. A medical supply chain agreement with Israel and several countries in Europe could help reduce the United States’ dependence on China for crucial pharmaceutical ingredients. A deal on electronics could help companies shift manufacturing away from China and increase the security of devices sold in the United States. Washington could also pursue an industrial policy agreement with other G-7 members to guarantee transparency and develop shared standards for subsidies to ensure that multinational companies do not play allied governments against one another.

A sectoral trade strategy would also allow the United States to think more creatively about the kinds of commitments it seeks from partner countries. Beyond such traditional measures as lower tariffs and standardized customs processes, an agreement aimed at a particular sector could encompass expedited permitting for major projects, such as mining and manufacturing infrastructure. It could also provide access to U.S. financing tools—such as the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and even Defense Production Act funding—that could support the development of key manufacturing and other infrastructure.

With a sectoral approach, the United States could link trade priorities more directly to national security strategy. For example, as part of an agreement on industrial policy with close allies, Washington could offer expedited U.S. government approvals—such as from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the interagency body that reviews investments for national security risks—to companies based in those countries that are seeking to invest in sensitive areas of the U.S. economy. It could also refrain from imposing export controls on sectors that are covered in a trade deal, a move that would signal to companies and entrepreneurs that national security tools will not impair cross-border business ties.

In contrast to the old model of global trade, which did little to promote the clean energy transition, U.S. trade policy also has to address climate change. And since China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, generating twice the quantity the United States does, any climate-oriented trade policy must address China. There are several ways to do this. The EU is already moving forward with a carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will use tariffs to protect lower-carbon, but higher-cost, European producers from carbon-intensive foreign competitors, including China. The United States should join with partners in Europe and elsewhere to develop a polluter import fee on greenhouse-gas-producing goods to ensure that domestic efforts to reduce emissions do not simply result in offshoring to China and other countries that have laxer emissions rules. Indeed, climate-focused trade policies can give China economic incentives to decarbonize even if geopolitical tensions make it otherwise reluctant to do so.

Although sectoral trade deals should be the main emphasis of U.S. policy, Washington is also under pressure from allies to revive the languishing World Trade Organization. In recent years the United States has downplayed the WTO and blocked the appointment of judges to its appellate body—effectively gutting its ability to issue  binding decisions on global trade. This approach reflects the widespread view in Washington that the WTO suffers from conceptual problems at its core: WTO rules, for example, were designed to require member countries to generally treat one another equally for trade purposes, meaning that the U.S. should treat China no differently than it treats allies such as Germany. This approach reflects the optimism of the early post–Cold War era, when policymakers envisioned a new global economic order, but it makes little sense in an era of geopolitical rivalry. Moreover, the Biden administration’s subsidies for semiconductors and clean energy technologies may well violate WTO rules, although to date, the United States has persuaded its allies to refrain from bringing a legal challenge against them.

For the WTO to remain relevant, its other members will have to agree on new mechanisms that allow it to respond to geopolitical tensions and the now pressing need for green industrial policies. One option is to update the text of WTO rules to allow greater flexibility for national industrial policy and to encourage amicable dispute resolution. Another option—potentially more realistic given that rule changes require unanimous agreement from WTO members—is for the G-7 countries to reach an informal agreement that forbids them from using the WTO to challenge certain policies or requires them to appoint judges committed to more flexible interpretations of the existing WTO rules.

SECURITY WITHOUT FIREWALLS

In adopting a sectoral approach to trade, U.S. policymakers need to give special attention to the Internet and the cross-border flows of technology it enables. From the earliest years of the Internet, the United States has generally resisted regulating it, under the assumption that the digital economy would develop faster without government interference and that government institutions are poorly equipped to keep up with the latest innovations. Indeed, for much of the past quarter century, the relative lack of rules and restrictions spurred rapid advances, allowing U.S. tech companies to establish dominant global positions.

In recent years, however, national security concerns have pushed Washington and its allies to reevaluate this hands-off approach. China and Russia have erected national firewalls to the Internet and used government access to devices, network infrastructure, and cameras to surveil tens of millions of citizens in real time. China is also actively exporting its Internet surveillance technology, with companies that build network infrastructure, such as Huawei and ZTE, continuing to win bids around the world even as the United States pressures countries to avoid them. And Chinese and Russian hacks have continued to target Western firms and Western governments.

Washington has responded to these threats in several ways. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has stepped up its vetting of proposed foreign purchases of U.S. companies, considering whether the buyer might get access to U.S. data. In some cases, CFIUS may require a U.S. company acquired by a foreign one to store its data and information on computers in the United States and to avoid sharing them with its new owner. Banning or otherwise restricting TikTok continues to be a topic of lively debate in state capitals and Congress. Representatives have proposed placing new limits on the export of U.S. data to China, measures that should be adopted but that must be carefully tailored to address security risks without disrupting legitimate business. The EU, India, and an assortment of countries, meanwhile, are adopting data localization requirements of their own. Whether imposed by the U.S. government or its counterparts in other countries, these restrictions reinforce the fragmentation of the Internet, even among close allies.

To counter this trend, the United States and like-minded countries should develop a new approach to Internet governance. The United States and the EU took a step in this direction in 2022, when they, along with several dozen other countries, endorsed the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, a joint statement underscoring the need for a collective response to data security risks. The declaration envisioned the creation of a common approach to address online threats, regulate cross-border data flows, ensure that members rely on trusted network infrastructure and avoid technology that poses national security risks, and enforce unfettered access to the Internet itself. The United States and its partners should work to translate that vision into a meaningful set of commitments.

Similar regulations are needed for technologies that have broader security implications and that have become flash points in Washington’s competition with Beijing. These include many technologies that could transform the global economy over the next decade: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing technologies, and 3D printing. For now, these technologies are dominated by a small group of advanced industrial countries—and China. Most high-end semiconductors, for example, are made in Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Among Western countries, artificial intelligence research is centered in the United States, with France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom also having important research centers. These countries also control much of the computing power needed to effectively train advanced AI systems. China and the United States currently have the lead in quantum computing, with Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and the EU also in the game.

To harness the convergence of interests among these countries, the United States should form a new critical technologies club that would both support the development of these products and regulate their export to China. The United States has long promoted and participated in multilateral export-control regimes, going back to efforts after World War II to limit exports of dual-use goods—products that have potential military as well as civilian applications—to Soviet bloc countries. But a club devoted to regulating advanced technologies could expand these kinds of controls to other areas to ensure that the West remains ahead of China not only in the military domain but also in crucial areas of economic innovation.

DOLLARS, NOT DEBTS

A better approach to containing China and its influence in the world cannot be based on sectoral trade deals and export controls alone.To bring developing countries closer into alignment with the West, the United States also needs to find more ways to provide economic and infrastructure support to its partners. New forms of international financing will be especially important, not only for driving the clean energy transition and promoting sustainable development but also for offering countries a more attractive alternative to partnering with China.

Starting in 2019 and 2020, as the Trump administration highlighted the risks of China’s global lending policies, many governments and analysts began giving more scrutiny to the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s vast infrastructure financing program. Beijing’s opaque lending practices and “debt trap” diplomacy have often left borrowing countries in thrall to China. Nonetheless, the Chinese government has been able to use the Belt and Road Initiative to promote its geopolitical interests because the program has often served legitimate financing needs. Those needs will be even greater in the coming clean energy transition. A high-level expert report prepared for the UN’s 2022 climate conference, COP27, found that developing countries need at least $1 trillion a year to finance the costs of adapting to climate change; a 2023 UN report found that these countries face a $4 trillion financing gap to meet sustainable development goals. The reality is that if the United States and its allies do not meet these needs, China will.

Over the past year, Washington has responded to the financing problem by pushing the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other multilateral institutions to expand their lending capabilities and create new tools to address climate change. But Washington must appropriate enough funds—a step only the U.S. Congress can take—to ensure that the World Bank and IMF reforms are successful, and it needs to overhaul its bilateral investment and development tools. To better compete with Beijing, Washington should make more creative use of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank, which promote U.S. private sector investment in the developing world. For example, the government could direct these programs to offer concessional lending—loans offered on more favorable terms than prevailing market rates—so they can close deals more quickly in foreign countries.

Washington can also provide more capital to partners and allies by expanding the use of sovereign loan guarantees. By offering a U.S. government backstop to entities that loan money to a foreign government, sovereign loan guarantees unlock additional financial resources for emerging or fragile economies. In recent decades, however, the United States has used them sparingly: since the 1990s, it has offered them to only seven countries, with the most recent guarantee—to Ukraine—issued in 2022. But because global interest rates have risen over the past year and are poised to stay high, sovereign loan guarantees offer an attractive way to provide direct financing to partner governments.

Finally, the United States needs to prepare for an emerging global financial order in which the dollar remains dominant but Washington’s ability to leverage that dominance is waning. Much of the focus of U.S. economic policymakers has rightly been on the positive side of the international agenda—how capital can be deployed to meet global needs and opportunities. But successive administrations have grown increasingly effective at weaponizing U.S. control of the global financial system, whether by disrupting trade with Iran and North Korea in response to their nuclear programs or by using sanctions to put intense financial pressure on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In recent years, China, Russia, and a number of developing countries have identified Washington’s weaponization of the dollar as a threat and worked to establish alternative reserve currencies. From a macroeconomic perspective, these efforts have largely failed, but the goal of these rivals is not actually to supplant the dollar as the dominant unit of exchange. Instead, they have a narrower and more achievable objective: developing a non-dollar-denominated payments network that would allow them to continue basic trade and financial activities should they lose access to the dollar. What these countries seek, in other words, is not a new dominant currency, but a viable one that could be used for their trade as needed.

Measured against that goal, these efforts show some signs of success. Already, Russia’s experience following the 2022 sanctions shows that a country with sufficient financial clout can maintain both internal stability and international financial ties with China, India, and other countries across the developing world, even when most of its major banks have been kicked off Western financial networks. Beijing is creating an alternative payment system for its energy imports and global exports in case it becomes the target of Western sanctions.

Over the long term, the United States is unlikely to prevent the emergence of these rival networks. But it can actively reinforce the dollar’s position in global trade and finance and slow the rise of alternatives. In 2022, for example, the United States was able to curtail Russia’s attempt to expand its cross-border Mir electronic payment system to Turkey and other countries by warning of sanctions against non-Russian banks that connected to it. These threats have not stopped Russian trade, but they have ensured that more of it remains potentially subject to U.S. sanctions.

A SHARPER EDGE

As Washington embarks on what could be years of geopolitical competition with Beijing, Americans have reasons to be optimistic. This is not because the United States is likely to “win” the competition the way it won the Cold War with the dramatic collapse of the Berlin Wall, at least on any time horizon relevant to U.S. policymakers. Indeed, the next decade seems likely to offer neither victory nor defeat since the odds of China fundamentally changing its geopolitical course, at least while its current government remains in power, are minimal. Yet the United States is well positioned to maintain its edge in leading economic domains. China’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and erratic crackdown on its business sector have sapped Chinese economic confidence and encouraged talented technologists and entrepreneurs to relocate abroad.

Although Xi’s government will undoubtedly tap the wealth created by the hard work of the Chinese people, and China will continue to use its economic strength to make alliances abroad, many analysts now suggest that China’s growth will be substantially slower in the years to come than it has been over the past three decades. Closed societies also tend to be less conducive to innovation, and in view of Beijing’s efforts to insulate itself from the outside world, China may find its pace of technological advances slowing as well. U.S. companies, meanwhile, have opened a lead in AI, and American universities continue to attract talented students from around the globe, a vital source of innovation that U.S. policymakers should do more to encourage. And smart domestic investments and macroeconomic policies have given the United States the strongest post-COVID economic recovery of any major developed nation.

To position itself for success in the long term, however, the United States will need to develop a more effective economic strategy toward its close allies and other partners across the globe. New and better economic tools and more targeted international trade and finance policies can prevent Beijing from displacing the U.S.-led international order and help Washington adapt to geopolitical rivalry in a multi-aligned world. Even if they cannot force Beijing to change, U.S. policymakers can ensure that Washington maintains its economic and technological advantage and draws a larger share of the world its way. In doing so, they can further the interests of the United States and those of its partners, regardless of the choices China makes.

Preparing for a Long War With China

BY ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, JR.

January/February 2024Published on December 12, 2023

• ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, JR., is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He is the author of The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fates of Great Powers.
  

Over the past decade, the prospect of Chinese military aggression in the Indo-Pacific has moved from the realm of the hypothetical to the war rooms of U.S. defense planners. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has significantly accelerated his country’s military buildup, now in its third decade. At the same time, China has become increasingly assertive across a wide swath of the Pacific, advancing its expansionist maritime claims and encroaching on the waters of key U.S. allies and important security partners, including Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Xi has asserted, with growing frequency, that Taiwan must be reunited with China, and he has refused to renounce the use of force to achieve that end. With the United States distracted by major wars in Europe and the Middle East, some in Washington fear that Beijing may see an opportunity to realize some of these revisionist ambitions by launching a military operation before the West can react.

With Taiwan as the assumed flash point, U.S. strategists have offered several theories about how such an attack might play out. First is a “fait accompli” conquest of Taiwan by China, in which the People’s Liberation Army employs missiles and airstrikes against Taiwanese and nearby U.S. forces while jamming signals and communications and using cyberattacks to fracture their ability to coordinate the island’s defenses. If successful, these and other supporting actions could enable Chinese forces to quickly seize control. A second path envisions a U.S.-led coalition beating back China’s initial assault on the island. This rosy scenario finds the coalition employing mines, antiship cruise missiles, submarines, and underwater drones to deny the PLA control of the surrounding waters, which China would need in order to mount a successful invasion. Meanwhile, coalition air and missile defense forces would prevent China from providing the air cover needed to support the PLA’s assault, and electronic warfare and cyber-forces would frustrate the PLA’s efforts to control communications in and around the battlefield. In a best-case outcome, these strong defenses would cause China to cease its attack and seek peace.

Given that both China and the United States possess nuclear arsenals, however, many strategists are concerned about a third, more catastrophic outcome. They see a direct war between the two great powers leading to uncontrolled escalation. In this version of events, following an initial attack or outbreak of armed conflict, one or both belligerents would seek to gain a decisive advantage or prevent a severe setback by using major or overwhelming force. Even if this move were conventional, it could provoke the adversary to employ nuclear weapons, thereby triggering Armageddon. Each of these scenarios is plausible and should be taken seriously by U.S. policymakers.

Yet there is also a very different possibility, one that is not merely plausible but perhaps likely: a protracted conventional war between China and a U.S.-led coalition. Although such a conflict would be less devastating than nuclear war, it could exact enormous costs on both sides. It also could play out over a very wide geographic expanse and involve kinds of warfare with which the belligerents have little experience. For the United States and its democratic allies and partners, a long war with China would likely pose the decisive military test of our time.

BATTLES WITHOUT BOMBS

A military confrontation between China and the United States would be the first great-power war since World War II and the first ever between two great nuclear powers. Given the concentration of economic might and cutting-edge technological prowess in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—all three advanced democracies that are either close allies or partners of the United States—such a war would be fought for very high stakes. Once the fighting had started, it would likely be very difficult for either side to back down. Yet it is far from clear that the conflict would lead to nuclear escalation.

As was the case with the Soviet Union and the United States in the late twentieth century, both China and the United States possess the ability to destroy the other as a functioning society in a matter of hours. But they can do so only by running a high risk of incurring their own destruction by provoking a nuclear counterattack, or second strike. This condition is known as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD. During the Cold War, the fear of setting off a general nuclear exchange provided Moscow and Washington with a strong incentive to avoid any direct military confrontation.

Of course, Beijing’s nuclear balance of power with Washington is significantly different from that of Moscow during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union achieved a rough parity in forces. China’s nuclear arsenal is a fraction of the size of the United States’, although Beijing is pursuing a dramatic expansion with the goal of matching the U.S. strategic arsenal within the next decade. Nevertheless, even now the Chinese arsenal is large enough that if China were attacked, it would have sufficient nuclear forces left to execute a retaliatory strike on the United States—thus bringing about MAD.

Yet there is strong ground for thinking that a U.S.-Chinese war would not go nuclear. In more than seven decades of conflicts since World War II, including many involving at least one nuclear power, nuclear weapons have been notable chiefly for their absence. During the Cold War, for example, the two nuclear superpowers engaged in proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that remained conventional—despite incurring high human and military costs on both sides. Even in wars in which only one side possessed nuclear weapons, that side refrained from exploiting its advantage. The United States fought bloody and protracted wars in Korea and Vietnam and yet abstained from playing its nuclear trump card. Similarly, Israel refrained from employing nuclear weapons against Egypt or Syria, even in the darkest hours of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The same has been true thus far of Russia in its war with Ukraine, even though that conflict is now approaching the end of a second year of fierce fighting and has already exacted from Russia an enormous price in blood and treasure.

This nuclear restraint should not be surprising. During the Cold War, the possibility of a nonnuclear conflict played a significant part in strategic planning on both sides. Thus, U.S. and Soviet thinking addressed not only the threat of nuclear escalation but also the prospect of a prolonged conventional war. To prepare for that kind of war—and thus dissuade the other side from believing it could win such a conflict—each superpower stockpiled large quantities of surplus military equipment as well as key raw materials. The United States maintained an aircraft “boneyard” and maritime “mothball fleet”—large reserves of retired planes and ships that could be mobilized and brought into service as needed. For their part, the Soviets amassed enormous quantities of spare munitions, along with thousands of tanks, planes, air defense systems, and other weapons to support extended combat operations. A working assumption of these preparations on both sides was that a war could unfold over an extended period without necessarily triggering Armageddon.

In the event of armed conflict between China and a U.S.-led coalition, a similar dynamic could play out again: both sides would have a strong interest in avoiding uncontrolled escalation and could seek ways to fight by other means. Simply put, the logic of mutually assured destruction would not end at the onset of hostilities but could deter the use of nuclear weapons during the war. Given this reality, it is crucial to understand what a twenty-first-century great-power conflict might look like and how it might evolve.

REASONS TO FIGHT

There are many ways that a war between China and the United States could start. Given China’s ambition to dominate the Indo-Pacific, such a war would very likely involve the so-called first island chain, the long arc of Pacific archipelagoes extending from the Kuril Islands north of Japan, down the Ryukyu Islands, through Taiwan, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia. As many in Washington have argued, Taiwan is the most obvious target, given the island’s strategic location between Japan and the Philippines, its key role in the global economy, and its status as the principal object of Beijing’s expansionist aims. China’s military has been increasingly active in the Taiwan Strait, and the PLA has massed its greatest concentration of forces across from the island. In the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, the United States would be compelled to defend the island or risk having key neutral countries and even allies drift toward an accommodation with Beijing.

Yet the Taiwan Strait is not the only place a war could begin. China has continued its incursions into Japan’s airspace and its provocative actions in the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and Vietnam, raising the possibility of a war-provoking incident. Moreover, tensions between North Korea and South Korea remain high. If fighting broke out on the Korean Peninsula, the United States might dispatch reinforcements there, causing Beijing to see an opportunity to settle scores at other points along the first island chain.

Or a war with China could start in South Asia. Over the past decade, China has clashed with India along their shared border on several occasions. Despite lacking a formal alliance with the United States, India is a member of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), the security grouping that also includes Australia, Japan, and the United States and that has stepped up joint military cooperation over the past few years. If India were to become the victim of more significant Chinese aggression, Washington would have a strong interest in defending a major military power and partner that is also the world’s largest democracy.

In short, if war breaks out in any of these places, it could draw China and the United States into direct armed conflict. And if that happens, it would be unlikely to end quickly. Take the case of Taiwan. Although it is possible that China could either achieve a rapid conquest before the United States could respond or be stopped cold by a U.S.-led coalition, these outcomes are hardly assured. As Russia discovered in Ukraine in 2022, rapid subjugation, even of an ostensibly weaker power, can be harder than it looks.

But even if Washington and its partners are able to prevent the PLA from seizing Taiwan through a fait accompli, Beijing still might be unwilling to accept defeat. And like the United States, it would possess the means to continue fighting. Given the high stakes, neither side can be counted on to throw in the towel, even if it suffers severe initial reverses. And at that point, the course of events would be determined not only by the intentions of the two great powers themselves but also by the responses of other countries in the region.

In contrast to the Cold War, in which the two superpowers were each supported by rigid alliances—the U.S.-led NATO and the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact—the current situation in the Indo-Pacific is a geopolitical jumble. China has no formal alliances, although it enjoys close relationships with North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia. For its part, the United States has a set of bilateral alliances and partnerships in the region based on hub-and-spoke relationships, with Washington as the hub and Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand forming the spokes. Yet unlike the members of NATO, which are obligated to view an attack on one as an attack on all, these Asian allies have no shared defense commitment.

In the event of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, then, the responses of U.S. partners in the region are less than certain. It is reasonable to assume that Australia and Japan would join the United States in coming to the victim’s defense, given their close alliance with the United States, their ability to project significant military power abroad, and strong interest in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific community of nations. But other powerful countries could influence the war’s character—arguably, the two most important being India (on the side of the United States) and Russia (on the side of China). Just as the local Asian and European wars in the late 1930s expanded to become a global war, so might a war with China overlap with the war in Ukraine or a conflict in South Asia or fighting in the Middle East.

What happens in the early stages of the war could also determine the constellation of powers on each side. The party that is judged to be the aggressor could alienate fence sitters that view the war from a moral perspective. States with more of a realpolitik view, on the other hand, might ally themselves with whichever side achieves early success (as Italy did in World War II), or they may decide against joining their natural partners should those partners suffer significant setbacks. Following Ukraine’s successful initial defense against Russia’s invasion in the spring of 2022, many countries in the West, including historically neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden, rallied to Kyiv’s support. Similarly, if China were unable to quickly secure its objectives, traditionally neutral countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam might join efforts to resist Beijing’s aggression. 

RESTRAINING ORDERS

Once a war has broken out, both China and the United States would have to confront the dangers posed by their nuclear arsenals. As in peacetime, the two sides would retain a strong interest in avoiding catastrophic escalation. Even so, in the heat of war, such a possibility cannot be eliminated. Both would confront the challenge of finding the sweet spot in which they could employ force to gain an advantage without causing total war. Consequently, leaders of both great powers would need to exercise a high degree of self-control.

To keep the war limited, both Washington and Beijing would need to recognize each other’s redlines—specific actions viewed as escalatory and that could trigger counterescalations. Efforts toward this end can be enhanced if both sides can clearly and credibly communicate what their redlines are and the consequences that would be incurred for crossing them. Even here, problems will arise, as the dynamics of war may alter these thresholds. For example, if the PLA proves effective at using conventionally armed ballistic missiles to attack U.S. air bases in the region, Washington could decide to strike Chinese missile sites, even at the risk of hitting nuclear-armed PLA missiles kept at the same location. Moreover, individual coalition members will likely have their own, unique redlines. Consider a situation in which PLA air and sea attacks on major Japanese ports threaten to collapse Japan’s economy or cut off its food supplies. Under these circumstances, Tokyo may be far more willing to escalate the war than its coalition partners. If Japan has the means to escalate, it could do so unilaterally. If it lacks them and Washington refuses to escalate on its behalf, Tokyo might decide to seek a separate peace with Beijing. To avoid this predicament, the coalition could pre-position air and missile defenses, as well as countermine forces, at Japanese ports, and Japan could stockpile crucial imported goods, such as food and fuel.

Nevertheless, previous wars suggest that belligerents have often been able to limit their warfighting methods to prevent unnecessary escalation. Following China’s intervention in the Korean War, for example, U.S. forces had the capability to conduct airstrikes across the border in Manchuria, which served as a staging ground for Chinese forces threatening to overwhelm U.S. troops on the peninsula. But U.S. President Harry Truman turned down requests to attack these targets in order to avoid triggering a wider war with the Soviet Union. Similarly, in Vietnam, U.S. leaders declared North Vietnam’s main port of Haiphong off-limits to U.S. forces, despite its strategic importance. As was the case with Korea, it was feared such attacks could spark a wider conflict with China or the Soviet Union. In both cases, this restraint was maintained even amid wars that cost tens of thousands of American lives.

Given the potential for uncontainable nuclear escalation, it is not unreasonable to assume that both China and the United States would err on the side of caution when considering how and where to intensify military operations. But the imperative on both sides to avoid nuclear escalation would not only create parameters for the objectives sought and the means employed to achieve them. It would also set the stage for a conflict that could likely be prolonged since both sides would have very significant resources to draw on to keep fighting. In this way, the war’s containment in one respect would also facilitate its broadening in others.

A WAR OF WILLS

What strategy might a U.S.-led coalition pursue in a limited but extended war with China? Broadly speaking, there are three general strategies of war: annihilation, attrition, and exhaustion. They can be pursued individually or in combination. An annihilation strategy emphasizes using a single event or a rapid series of actions to collapse an enemy’s ability or will to fight, such as occurred with Germany’s six-week blitzkrieg campaign against France in 1940. By contrast, an attrition strategy seeks to reduce an enemy’s war-making potential by wearing down its military forces over an extended period to the point that they can no longer mount an effective resistance. This was the primary strategy the Allies employed against the Axis powers in World War II. An exhaustion strategy, finally, seeks to deplete the enemy’s forces indirectly, such as by denying it access to vital resources through blockades, degrading key transportation infrastructure, or destroying key industrial facilities. A classic example of this was the U.S. Civil War.

Early in that conflict, both the Union North and the Confederate South hoped that a strategy of annihilation would succeed, such as by winning a decisive battle or seizing the enemy’s capital. These hopes proved ill founded, and over time the Confederacy adopted an exhaustion strategy, hoping to extend the war to the point that its adversary’s will to persevere would run out, despite the Union’s far greater military power. In turn, relying on its advantages in manpower, industrial might, and military capabilities, the North combined an attrition strategy with an exhaustion one. It sought to reduce the Confederacy’s armies directly through attrition by persistent military battles and indirectly by blockading Confederate ports and destroying the South’s arsenals and transportation infrastructure. In this way, the Union deprived the Confederacy of the resources and recruits needed to offset its combat losses while convincing Southerners that they could not achieve their goal of secession.

In a war between China and the United States, the strategy of annihilation carries unsustainable risks. Because both sides have nuclear weapons, an annihilation strategy based on an overwhelming military attack to destroy the enemy’s ability to resist could easily become a mutual suicide pact. That risk would also hobble efforts by either side to pursue an attrition strategy, which could similarly lead to nuclear escalation. Both belligerents would thus have an incentive to pursue strategies of exhaustion, supported when possible by attrition, to erode the enemy’s means and, perhaps more important, its will to continue fighting. Such an approach would seek to inflict maximum pressure and damage on the enemy without risking escalation to total war.

In shaping these strategies, China and the United States would need to consider carefully where they choose to fight. For example, to avoid crossing redlines, the two sides might accord each other’s homelands (including their respective airspaces) limited sanctuary status. Instead, they might seek horizontal, or geographic, escalation. Thus, the conflict could spread to areas beyond the first island chain or South Asia to locations where both China and the United States could project military power, such as in the Horn of Africa and the South Pacific. The war would also likely migrate to those domains that are less likely to pose immediate escalation risks. Warfighting in domains associated with the global commons, for example, might be considered fair game by both sides. These could include maritime operations (including on the sea’s surface, under the sea, and on the seabed), as well as war in space and cyberspace. Both sides might also wage war more aggressively on and above the territories of minor powers allied with China or the United States, such as the Philippines and Taiwan.

In the war’s early phases, military targets might well have priority for both sides as the PLA attempts to win a quick victory while the U.S. coalition focuses on mounting a successful defense. If so, economic targets like commercial ports, cargo ships, and undersea oil and gas infrastructure would initially be accorded lower priority. As the war becomes protracted, however, each side would increasingly seek to exhaust the other’s war-making potential through economic and information warfare. Actions toward this end might involve blockades of enemy ports and commerce-raiding operations against an enemy’s cargo ships and undersea infrastructure. One side could impose information blockades on the other by cutting undersea data cables and interrupting satellite communications, or it could use cyberattacks to destroy or corrupt data central to the effective operation of the adversary’s critical infrastructure.

Another way the belligerents could keep the war limited would be to restrict the means of attack used. Attacks whose effects are relatively easy to reverse may be less escalatory than those that inflict permanent damage. For example, employing high-powered jammers that can block and unblock satellite signals as desired could be preferable to a missile strike that destroys a satellite ground control station located on the territory of a major belligerent power. By offering the prospect of a relatively rapid restoration of lost service, such attacks might prove effective at undermining the enemy’s will to continue the war. The same might be said of seabed operations that shut down offshore oil and gas pumping stations rather than physically destroying them or naval operations that seize and intern enemy cargo ships rather than sinking them. To the extent such actions are feasible, they can preserve key enemy assets as hostages that can be used as bargaining chips in negotiating a favorable end to the war.

Bringing the conflict to a close would be an important challenge in its own right. With the prospect of a decisive military victory out of reach for either side, such a war could last several years or more, winding down only when both sides choose the path of negotiation over the risk of annihilation, an uncomfortable peace over what would have become a prohibitively costly and seemingly endless war.

TORTOISES, NOT HARES

To prevail in a war with China, then, the United States and its coalition partners will need to have a strategy not only for denying Beijing a quick victory but also for sustaining their own defenses in a long war. At present, the first goal remains a formidable task. The United States and its allies—let alone prospective partners such as India, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam—appear to lack a coherent approach to deterring or defeating a Chinese attack. If China seizes key islands along the first island chain, it would be exceedingly difficult for the United States and its partners to retake them at anything approaching an acceptable cost. And if China is successful, it may propose an immediate cease-fire as a means of consolidating its gains. To some members of a U.S.-led coalition, such an offer might appear an attractive alternative to a costly fight that carries the risk of catastrophic escalation.

Still, Washington and its potential partners have the means and, at least for now, the time to improve their readiness. The United States should give priority to negotiating agreements to position more U.S. forces and war stocks along the first island chain, while allies and partners along the chain enhance their defenses. In the interim, U.S. capabilities that can be employed quickly, such as space-based systems, long-range bombers, and cyber weapons, can help fill the gap.

But U.S. strategists will also need to plan for what happens next, since preventing a Chinese fait accompli may serve only as the entry fee to a far more protracted great-power war. And unlike the initial aggression, that confrontation could broaden across a wide area and spill over into many other spheres, including the global economy, space, and cyberspace. Although there is no model for how such a war might play out, Cold War strategic thinking shows that it is possible to address the general question of a great-power conflict that extends horizontally and involves a variety of warfighting domains.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. military developed an integrated set of operational concepts, or war plans, to respond to a conventional Soviet invasion of Western Europe. One, called AirLand Battle, envisioned the army and air force defeating successive “waves” of enemy forces advancing out of the Soviet Union through Eastern Europe. In this scenario, the U.S. Army would seek to block the Soviet frontline forces while a combination of U.S. air and ground-based forces—combat aircraft, missiles, and rocket artillery—would attack the second and third waves advancing toward NATO’s borders. Simultaneously, the U.S. Navy would employ attack submarines to advance beyond the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom maritime gaps to protect allied shipping moving across the Atlantic from Soviet submarines. And U.S. aircraft carriers would deploy to the North Atlantic with their combat air wings to defeat Soviet strike aircraft. To preclude the Soviets from using Norway as a forward staging ground, the U.S. Marine Corps also prepared to deploy quickly to that country and secure its airfields.

These concepts were based on a careful and systematic study of Soviet capabilities and strategy, including war plans, force dispositions, operational concepts, and expected rate of mobilization. Not only did these concepts guide U.S. and allied military thinking and planning; they also helped establish a clear defense program and budget priorities. The principal purpose of these efforts, however, was to convince Moscow that there was no attractive path it could pursue to wage a successful war of aggression against the Western democracies. Yet nothing like these plans exists today with respect to China.

To develop a comparable set of war concepts for a great-power conflict with China, the United States should start by examining a range of plausible scenarios for Chinese aggression. These scenarios—which should include various flash points on the first island chain and beyond, not just those pertaining to Taiwan—could form the basis for evaluating and refining promising defense plans through war games, simulations, and field exercises. But U.S. strategists will also need to account for the enormous resources that will be needed to sustain the war if it extends over many months. As Russia’s war in Ukraine has revealed, the United States and its allies lack the capacity to surge the production of munitions. The same holds true regarding the production capacity for major military systems, such as tanks, planes, ships, and artillery. To address this critical vulnerability, Washington and its prospective coalition partners must revitalize their industrial bases to be able to provide the systems and munitions needed to sustain a war as long as necessary.

A protracted war would also likely incur high costs in global trade, transportation and energy infrastructure, and communications networks, and put extraordinary strain on human populations in many parts of the world. Even if the two sides avoided nuclear catastrophe, and even if the homelands of the United States and its major coalition partners were left partially untouched, the scale and scope of destruction would likely far exceed anything the American people and those of its allies have experienced. Moreover, the Chinese might hold significant advantages in this respect: with China’s very large population, authoritarian leadership, and historic tolerance for enduring hardship and suffering enormous casualties—the capacity to “eat bitterness,” as they call it—its population might be better equipped to persevere through a long war. Under these circumstances, the coalition’s ability to sustain popular support for the war effort, along with a willingness to sacrifice, would be crucial to its success. Leaders in Washington and allied capitals will need to convince their publics of the need to augment their defenses and to sustain them in peace and war until China abandons its hegemonic agenda.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF DETERRENCE

To paraphrase German Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, wars can take one of three paths and usually elect to take the fourth. In the case of China, it is difficult to predict with any precision how, when, and where a war might begin or the path it will take once it does. Yet there are many reasons to think that such a conflict could remain limited and last much longer than has been generally assumed.

If that is the case, then the United States and its allies must begin to think through the implications of a great-power war that, while remaining below the threshold of nuclear escalation, could last for many months or years, incurring far-reaching costs on their economies, infrastructure, and citizens’ well-being. And they must convince Beijing that they have the resources and the staying power to prevail in this long war. If they do not, China may conclude that the opportunities afforded by using military force to pursue its interests in the Asia-Pacific outweigh the risks.

Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition

BY WILLIAM J. BURNS

January 30, 2024

• WILLIAM J. BURNS is Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
  

For as long as countries have kept secrets from one another, they have tried to steal them from one another. Espionage has been and will remain an integral part of statecraft, even as its techniques continually evolve. America’s first spies spent the Revolutionary War using ciphers, clandestine courier networks, and invisible ink to correspond with each other and their foreign allies. In World War II, the emerging field of signals intelligence helped uncover Japanese war plans. During the early Cold War, the United States’ intelligence capabilities literally went into the stratosphere, with the advent of the U-2 and other high-altitude spy planes that could photograph Soviet military installations with impressive clarity.

The simple stars etched on the memorial wall at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, honor the 140 agency officers who gave their lives serving their country. The memorial offers an enduring reminder of countless acts of courage. Yet those instances of heroism and the CIA’s many quiet successes remain far less well known to the American public than the mistakes that have sometimes marred the agency’s history. The defining test for intelligence has always been to anticipate and help policymakers navigate profound shifts in the international landscape—the plastic moments that come along only a few times each century.

As President Joe Biden has reiterated, the United States faces one of those rare moments today, as consequential as the dawn of the Cold War or the post-9/11 period. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism pose daunting geopolitical challenges in a world of intense strategic competition in which the United States no longer enjoys uncontested primacy and in which existential climate threats are mounting. Complicating matters further is a revolution in technology even more sweeping than the Industrial Revolution or the beginning of the nuclear age. From microchips to artificial intelligence to quantum computing, emerging technologies are transforming the world, including the profession of intelligence. In many ways, these developments make the CIA’s job harder than ever, giving adversaries powerful new tools to confuse us, evade us, and spy on us.

And yet as much as the world is changing, espionage remains an interplay between humans and technology. There will continue to be secrets that only humans can collect and clandestine operations that only humans can conduct. Technological advances, particularly in signals intelligence, have not made such human operations irrelevant, as some have predicted, but have instead revolutionized their practice. To be an effective twenty-first-century intelligence service, the CIA must blend a mastery of emerging technologies with the people-to-people skills and individual daring that have always been at the heart of our profession. That means equipping operations officers with the tools and tradecraft to conduct espionage in a world of constant technological surveillance—and equipping analysts with sophisticated artificial intelligence models that can digest mammoth amounts of open-source and clandestinely acquired information so that they can make their best human judgments.

At the same time, what the CIA does with the intelligence it gathers is also changing. “Strategic declassification,” the intentional public disclosure of certain secrets to undercut rivals and rally allies, has become an even more powerful tool for policymakers. Using it doesn’t mean recklessly jeopardizing the sources or methods used to collect the intelligence, but it does mean judiciously resisting the reflexive urge to keep everything classified. The U.S. intelligence community is also learning the increasing value of intelligence diplomacy, gaining a new understanding of how its efforts to bolster allies and counter foes can support policymakers.

This is a time of historic challenges for the CIA and the entire intelligence profession, with geopolitical and technological shifts posing as big a test as we’ve ever faced. Success will depend on blending traditional human intelligence with emerging technologies in creative ways. It will require, in other words, adapting to a world where the only safe prediction about change is that it will accelerate.

PUTIN UNBOUND

The post–Cold War era came to a definitive end the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. I have spent much of the past two decades trying to understand the combustible combination of grievance, ambition, and insecurity that Russian President Vladimir Putin embodies. One thing I have learned is that it is always a mistake to underestimate his fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices. Without that control, he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a great power or for him to be a great Russian leader. That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, from its one-dimensional economy to its inflated military prowess to its corrupt political system. Putin’s invasion has also prompted breathtaking determination and resolve from the Ukrainian people. I have seen their courage firsthand on frequent wartime trips to Ukraine, punctuated by Russian air raids and vivid images of Ukrainian battlefield tenacity and ingenuity.

Putin’s war has already been a failure for Russia on many levels. His original goal of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved foolish and illusory. His military has suffered immense damage. At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out. All this is a direct result of Ukrainian soldiers’ valor and skill, backed up by Western support. Meanwhile, Russia’s economy is suffering long-term setbacks, and the country is sealing its fate as China’s economic vassal. Putin’s overblown ambitions have backfired in another way, too: they have prompted NATO to grow larger and stronger.

Although Putin’s repressive grip does not seem likely to weaken anytime soon, his war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his power at home. The short-lived mutiny launched last June by the mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a glimpse at some of the dysfunction lurking behind Putin’s carefully polished image of control. For a leader who painstakingly crafted a reputation as the arbiter of order, Putin looked detached and indecisive as Prigozhin’s ragtag mutineers made their way up the road to Moscow. For many in the Russian elite, the question was not so much whether the emperor had no clothes as why he was taking so long to get dressed. The ultimate apostle of payback, Putin eventually settled his score with Prigozhin, who was killed in a suspicious plane crash two months to the day after starting his rebellion. But Prigozhin’s biting critique of the lies and military misjudgments at the core of Putin’s war, and of the corruption at the heart of the Russian political system, will not soon disappear.

This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine, a test of staying power whose consequences will go well beyond the country’s heroic struggle to sustain its freedom and independence. As Putin regenerates Russia’s defense production—with critical components from China, as well as weaponry and munitions from Iran and North Korea—he continues to bet that time is on his side, that he can grind down Ukraine and wear down its Western supporters. Ukraine’s challenge is to puncture Putin’s arrogance and demonstrate the high cost for Russia of continued conflict, not just by making progress on the frontlines but also by launching deeper strikes behind them and making steady gains in the Black Sea. In this environment, Putin might engage again in nuclear saber-rattling, and it would be foolish to dismiss escalatory risks entirely. But it would be equally foolish to be unnecessarily intimidated by them.

The key to success lies in preserving Western aid for Ukraine. At less than five percent of the U.S. defense budget, it is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry. Keeping the arms flowing will put Ukraine in a stronger position if an opportunity for serious negotiations emerges. It offers a chance to ensure a long-term win for Ukraine and a strategic loss for Russia; Ukraine could safeguard its sovereignty and rebuild, while Russia would be left to deal with the enduring costs of Putin’s folly. For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions.

XI’S POWER PLAY

No one is watching U.S. support for Ukraine more closely than Chinese leaders. China remains the only U.S. rival with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so. The country’s economic transformation over the past five decades has been extraordinary. It is one for which the Chinese people deserve great credit and one that the rest of the world has broadly supported in the belief that a prosperous China is a global good. The issue is not China’s rise in itself but the threatening actions that increasingly accompany it. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has begun his third presidential term with more power than any of his predecessors since Mao Zedong. Rather than use that power to reinforce and revitalize the international system that enabled China’s transformation, Xi is seeking to rewrite it. In the intelligence profession, we study carefully what leaders say. But we pay even more attention to what they do. Xi’s growing repression at home and his aggressiveness abroad, from his “no limits” partnership with Putin to his threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, are impossible to ignore.

So, too, however, is the impact of Western solidarity on Xi’s calculus about the risks of using force against Taiwan, which elected a new president, Lai Ching-te, in January. For Xi, a man inclined to see the United States as a fading power, American leadership on Ukraine has surely come as a surprise. The United States’ willingness to inflict and absorb economic pain to counter Putin’s aggression—and its ability to rally its allies to do the same—powerfully contradicted Beijing’s belief that America was in terminal decline. Closer to Chinese shores, the resilience of the American network of allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific has had a sobering effect on Beijing’s thinking. One of the surest ways to rekindle Chinese perceptions of American fecklessness and stoke Chinese aggressiveness would be to abandon support for Ukraine. Continued material backing for Ukraine doesn’t come at the expense of Taiwan; it sends an important message of U.S. resolve that helps Taiwan.

Competition with China is taking place against the backdrop of thick economic interdependence and commercial ties between it and the United States. Such connections have served the two countries and the rest of the world remarkably well, but they have also created critical vulnerabilities and serious risks for American security and prosperity. The COVID-19 pandemic made clear to every government the danger of being dependent on any one country for life-saving medical supplies, just as Russia’s war in Ukraine has made clear to Europe the risks of being dependent on one country for energy. In today’s world, no country wants to find itself at the mercy of a single supplier of critical minerals and technologies—especially if that supplier is intent on weaponizing those dependencies. As American policymakers have argued, the best answer is to sensibly “de-risk” and diversify—securing the United States’ supply chains, protecting its technological edge, and investing in its industrial capacity.

In this volatile, divided world, the weight of the “hedging middle” is growing. Democracies and autocracies, developed economies and developing ones, and countries across the global South are increasingly intent on diversifying their relationships to maximize their options. They see little benefit and plenty of risk in sticking to monogamous geopolitical relationships with either the United States or China. More countries are likely to be attracted to an “open” geopolitical relationship status (or at least an “it’s complicated” one), following the United States’ lead on some issues while cultivating relations with China. And if past is precedent, Washington ought to be attentive to rivalries between the growing number of middle powers, which have historically helped spark collisions between major ones.

A FAMILIAR ENTANGLEMENT

The crisis precipitated by Hamas’s butchery in Israel on October 7, 2023, is a painful reminder of the complexity of the choices that the Middle East continues to pose for the United States. Competition with China will remain Washington’s highest priority, but that doesn’t mean it can evade other challenges. It means only that the United States has to navigate with care and discipline, avoid overreach, and use its influence wisely.

I have spent much of the last four decades working in and on the Middle East, and I have rarely seen it more tangled or explosive. Winding down the intense Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip, meeting the deep humanitarian needs of suffering Palestinian civilians, freeing hostages, preventing the spread of conflict to other fronts in the region, and shaping a workable approach for the “day after” in Gaza are all incredibly difficult problems. So is resurrecting hope for a durable peace that ensures Israel’s security as well as Palestinian statehood and takes advantage of historic opportunities for normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Hard as it may be to imagine those possibilities amid the current crisis, it is even harder to imagine getting out of the crisis without pursuing them seriously.

Key to Israel’s—and the region’s—security is dealing with Iran. The Iranian regime has been emboldened by the crisis and seems ready to fight to its last regional proxy, all while expanding its nuclear program and enabling Russian aggression. In the months after October 7, the Houthis, the Yemeni rebel group allied with Iran, began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, and the risks of escalation on other fronts persist.

The United States is not exclusively responsible for resolving any of the Middle East’s vexing problems. But none of them can be managed, let alone solved, without active U.S. leadership.

SPIES LIKE US

Geopolitical competition and uncertainty—not to mention shared challenges such as climate change and unprecedented technological advances such as artificial intelligence—make for a fiendishly complicated international landscape. The imperative for the CIA is to transform its approach to intelligence to keep pace with this rapidly transforming world. The CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community—led by Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence—are working hard to meet this moment with the urgency and creativity it requires. 

This new landscape presents particular challenges for an organization focused on human intelligence. In a world in which the United States’ principal rivals—China and Russia—are led by personalistic autocrats operating within small and insular circles of advisers, gaining insight into leaders’ intentions is both more important and more difficult than ever.

Just as 9/11 ushered in a new era for the CIA, so did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m deeply proud of the work that the CIA and our intelligence partners have done to assist the president and senior U.S. policymakers—and especially the Ukrainians themselves—to thwart Putin. Together, we provided early and accurate warning of the coming invasion. That knowledge also enabled the president to decide to send me to Moscow to warn Putin and his advisers in November 2021 about the consequences of the attack we knew they were planning. Convinced that their window for dominating Ukraine was closing and that the upcoming winter offered a favorable opportunity, they were unmoved and unapologetic—badly overestimating their own position and underestimating Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve.

Good intelligence has since helped the president mobilize and sustain a strong coalition of countries in support of Ukraine. It has also helped Ukraine defend itself with remarkable bravery and perseverance. The president has also made creative use of strategic declassification. Before the invasion, the administration, along with the British government, exposed Russian plans for “false flag” operations that were designed to pin blame on Ukrainians and provide a pretext for Russian military action. These and subsequent disclosures have denied Putin the false narratives that I have watched him so often weaponize in the past. They have put him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on the back foot. And they have bolstered both Ukraine and the coalition supporting it.

Meanwhile, disaffection with the war is continuing to gnaw away at the Russian leadership and the Russian people, beneath the thick surface of state propaganda and repression. That undercurrent of disaffection is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA. We’re not letting it go to waste.

While Russia may pose the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat, and over the past two years, the CIA has been reorganizing itself to reflect that priority. We have started by acknowledging an organizational fact I learned long ago: priorities aren’t real unless budgets reflect them. Accordingly, the CIA has committed substantially more resources toward China-related intelligence collection, operations, and analysis around the world—more than doubling the percentage of our overall budget focused on China over just the last two years. We’re hiring and training more Mandarin speakers while stepping up efforts across the world to compete with China, from Latin America to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.

The CIA has a dozen or so “mission centers,” issue-specific groups that bring together officers from across the agencies’ various directorates. In 2021, we set up a new mission center focused exclusively on China. The only single-country mission center, it provides a central mechanism for coordinating work on China, a job that extends today to every corner of the CIA. And we’re also quietly strengthening intelligence channels to our counterparts in Beijing, an important means of helping policymakers avoid unnecessary misunderstandings and inadvertent collisions between the United States and China.

Even as China and Russia consume much of the CIA’s attention, the agency can’t afford to neglect other challenges, from counterterrorism to regional instability. The successful U.S. strike in Afghanistan in July 2022 against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of al Qaeda, demonstrated that the CIA remains sharply focused on—and retains significant capabilities to combat—terrorist threats. The CIA is also devoting substantial resources to help fight the invasion of fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. And familiar regional challenges loom, not just in places long considered strategically important, such as North Korea and the South China Sea, but also in parts of the world whose geopolitical significance will only grow in the years ahead, such as Latin America and Africa. 

SMARTER SPIES

Meanwhile, we’re transforming our approach to emerging technology. The CIA has been working to blend high-tech tools with age-old techniques for collecting intelligence from individuals—human intelligence, or HUMINT. Technology is, of course, making many aspects of spycraft harder than ever. In an era of smart cities, with video cameras on every street and facial recognition technology increasingly ubiquitous, spying has become much harder. For a CIA officer working overseas in a hostile country, meeting sources who are risking their own safety to offer valuable information, constant surveillance poses an acute threat. But the same technology that sometimes works against the CIA—whether it’s the mining of big data to expose patterns in the agency’s activities or massive camera networks that can track an operative’s every move—can also be made to work for it and against others. The CIA is racing against its rivals to put emerging technologies to use. The agency has appointed its first chief technology officer. And it has established another new mission center focused on building better partnerships with the private sector, where American innovation offers a significant competitive advantage.

The CIA’s in-house scientific and technological talent remains superb. The agency has developed warehouses’ worth of spy gadgetry over the years, my favorite being the Cold War camera designed to look and hover like a dragonfly. The revolution in artificial intelligence, and the avalanche of open-source information alongside what we collect clandestinely, creates historic new opportunities for the CIA’s analysts. We’re developing new AI tools to help digest all that material faster and more efficiently, freeing officers to focus on what they do best: providing reasoned judgments and insights on what matters most to policymakers and what means most for American interests. AI won’t replace human analysts, but it is already empowering them.

Another priority in this new era is to deepen the CIA’s unmatched network of intelligence partnerships around the world, an asset the United States’ lonelier rivals currently lack. The CIA’s ability to benefit from its partners—from their collection, their expertise, their perspectives, and their capacity to operate more easily in many places than the agency can—is critical to its success. Just as diplomacy depends on revitalizing these old and new partnerships, so does intelligence. At its core, the intelligence profession is about human interactions, and there is no substitute for direct contact to strengthen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest adversaries, and cultivate everyone in between. In more than 50 overseas trips in nearly three years as director, I’ve run the gamut of those relationships.

Sometimes, it’s more convenient for intelligence officers to deal with historic enemies in situations in which diplomatic contact might connote formal recognition. That’s why the president sent me to Kabul in late August of 2021 to engage with the Taliban leadership just before the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Sometimes, the CIA’s relationships in complicated parts of the world can offer practical possibilities, as in the ongoing negotiations with Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and Hamas over a humanitarian cease-fire and the release of hostages from Gaza. Sometimes, such ties can provide discreet ballast in relationships full of political ups and downs. And sometimes, intelligence diplomacy can encourage a convergence of interests and quietly support the efforts of U.S. diplomats and policymakers.

IN THE SHADOWS

Every day, as I read through cables from stations around the world, travel to foreign capitals, or speak with colleagues at headquarters, I’m reminded of the skill and courage of CIA officers, as well as the unrelenting challenges they face. They are doing hard jobs in hard places. Especially since 9/11, they have been operating at an incredibly fast tempo. Indeed, taking care of the CIA’s mission in this new and daunting era depends on taking care of our people. That’s why the CIA has strengthened its medical resources at headquarters and in the field; improved programs for families, remote workers, and two-career couples; and explored more flexible career paths, especially for technologists, so that officers can move into the private sector and later return to the agency.

We’ve streamlined our recruiting process for new officers. It now takes a quarter of the time it took two years ago to move from application to final offer and security clearance. These improvements have contributed to a surge of interest in the CIA. In 2023, we had more applicants than in any year since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We’re also working hard to diversify our workforce, reaching historic highs in 2023 in terms of the number of women and minority officers hired, as well as the number promoted into the agency’s most senior ranks.

By necessity, CIA officers operate in the shadows, usually out of sight and out of mind; the risks they take and the sacrifices they make are rarely well understood. At a moment when trust in the United States’ public institutions is often in short supply, the CIA remains a resolutely apolitical institution, bound by the oath I and everyone else at the agency have taken to defend the Constitution and by our obligations under the law.

CIA officers are also bound together by a sense of community, and by a deep, shared commitment to public service at this crucial moment in American history. They know the truth in the advice I got many years ago from my father, who had a distinguished military career. As I was wrestling with what to do with my professional life, he sent me a handwritten note: “Nothing can make you prouder than to serve your country with honor.” That helped launch me into a long and fortunate career in government, first in the Foreign Service and now at the CIA. I’ve never regretted the choice I made. I take enormous pride in serving with thousands of other CIA officers who feel the same about theirs—and are rising to the challenge of a new era.