CrowdStrike Founder on Taiwan and "Cold War II"

By Ed D'Agostino | July 19, 2024

Several respected geopolitical analysts say the US is already in a Cold War with China. We’ve heard this from Pippa Malmgren here on Global Macro Update, and now Dmitri Alperovitch is echoing her stance, calling it “Cold War II,” with Taiwan at the epicenter.

Dmitri is a founder of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and the co-author of World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century.

It’s difficult to get Americans too riled up about Taiwan. Why should we care about an island 7,500 miles away? Dmitri has plenty of reasons, and he articulates Taiwan’s strategic importance to both China and the US in plain terms.

In our interview, Dmitri points to China’s belief in its right to global preeminence. He says China doesn’t want to be a US peer—it wants to “eclipse” it. But when China looks out from its shores, it sees a ring of US naval power constraining it, keeping it from dominating trade and geopolitical relations in and around the South China Sea. China cannot change that without full control of Taiwan and the deep waters off its eastern shore.

In the interview, you will also hear:

Why complete decoupling is impossible, and the better ways to manage our China risk.

The four essential technologies Dmitri believes will define progress in the 21st century.

How the US can help prevent tensions with China from escalating into a full-scale kinetic war.

Before you discount the risk of China invading Taiwan, I should note that Dmitri is one of the few analysts who accurately predicted when, why, and how Russia would invade Ukraine. He got it right—and he got it right early.

Watch my interview with Dmitri Alperovitch by clicking the image above.

A full transcript of our conversation is available here.

Thanks for reading and watching.

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