Vladimir Putin is laughing at the Biden administration: Charlie Hurt
Fox News contributor tells Laura Ingraham that Vladimir Putin is sitting back laughing at the Biden administration.
As Russia enters week three of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many are already calling this the Second Cold War. Others are saying the first never ended.
But what we are seeing today is entirely different: a new war for a new era, and one that is unlikely to end anytime soon.
Much like we never imagined hijackers flying planes into buildings in New York, or that the Taliban could seize Kabul in a week, most people never imagined that a major world power would embark on the largest invasion since World War II to take over a sovereign nation just because its autocratic leader felt like it.
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However this ends, we cannot make the mistake – again – of believing that Putin will stop here. We’re witnessing the first days of a new world order, and as Lincoln once said, "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew."
What lies ahead is not another Cold War nor, we all hope, a wide-scale hot war – a full-blown World War III. Instead, it’s what might best be termed a Warm War, and we need to be better prepared to fight it.
The Warm War includes elements of Cold War brinkmanship like we’ve seen between Putin and the West over the past several months; it includes elements of hot war like we see now in Ukraine; and it includes large-scale cyber attacks, mass dis-information campaigns, and an ungoverned future of weapons enabled by artificial intelligence – all of which fall somewhere in between.
This Warm War is more dangerous than the Cold War because it is less black and white. It has the same worst consequence of a nuclear holocaust, yet the lines are less clear, so the chances of miscalculation are higher. And the daily impact on our lives is more substantial. Even at the height of the Cold War, we never imagined Russia intervening in a U.S. election by spreading lies directly to American voters.
Unlike the Cold War, at its core this is not a battle of economic systems. By most measures, every country in the world today is a capitalist country aside from North Korea. Some are more directed by the state (China) or undermined by corruption (Russia), but nobody holds out hope for genuine Soviet-style communism or Leninist socialism.
This is not a battle of economics but of governance: democracy versus autocracy. It’s the rule of law versus tyrants.
No, this is not a battle of economics but of governance: democracy versus autocracy. It’s the rule of law versus tyrants. These are the battle lines between NATO and Russia, between America and China.
Autocracy, paired with a deep fear of democracy itself, is what brings Russia and China together. Two countries with vastly different economies and cultures have found common ground in common enemies: America and freedom.
And the autocrats are winning – or at least they have been gaining over the past decade. Not only have Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin dramatically consolidated domestic control and entrenched their tyrannical systems of governance, but they are aggressively exporting authoritarianism in what has already become a global struggle.
In the 20th century, America committed fervently to spreading freedom and democracy. Everything from development in Africa, to Radio Free Europe, to a misbegotten war in Vietnam, was part of spreading democracy and stopping communism. Nobody questioned America’s fundamental commitment.
Today, they do. Our credibility is waning. Isolationists on both the right and the left, with the political division these same extremists stoke at home, have caused the United States to turn inward and withdraw from the world.
In our global absence, China and Russia have extended their horizons, recognizing that America’s greatest strength has always been our allies. Through a complex set of exports from Chinese surveillance technology to Russian mercenaries, Xi and Putin are working hard to pull them away.
The question, therefore, is what is our response? It must involve not only a new set of tactics and technologies to keep the American people safe at home and the West safe for democracy, but also a new grand strategy.
Let’s admit this: NATO is united, but our current posture has not stopped Putin yet. We have to re-evaluate our fundamental strategy for deterrence. More troops and tanks in Poland won’t change NATO’s efficacy any more than increasing defense spending on the same old things we already have. Neither is thinking anew.
We don’t currently have a strategy because, high off our Cold War victory, too many of us were content resting on our laurels. But we can’t beat Chinese robotic drones if we don’t develop better ones. We can’t beat Russian dis-information if we simply sit back and hope the truth will prevail. (It may eventually, but the autocrats will eat our lunch first.)
This is the most important work in national security today, and our new grand strategy should rest on three principles: military supremacy for a new era of warfare; new arms control treaties so that we and our allies set the rules of the road; and new alliances to counter a new generation of adversaries.
And while containment was enough for the Cold War, the Warm War requires more active measures. For too long, we’ve only played defense as Xi and Putin work to undermine the post-World War II order. It’s time for us to undermine them.
Cyber attacks must be met not just with defense but with offensive cyber deterrence. It’s time for a new Geneva Convention on the use of AI-enabled weapons consistent with our values because, if the Chinese set the rules, the robots will kill indiscriminately, and we will lose a future war.
Likewise, while we are wise to strengthen traditional alliances like NATO in the face of Russian aggression, NATO doesn’t do much to confront China in the Pacific or stop them from hacking our technology innovators in the private sector. New alliances should no longer be constrained by location on a map in our global, tech-enabled world.
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Winning will take both the government and the private sector working together, and it ultimately comes down to a test of values. Our fundamental values are what unite us with our allies around the globe: liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. These values are truly our greatest strength because they are universally human.
But values alone can’t win this struggle. It’s time for America to lead, and it’s critical for humanity that we win.
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