The Urgency of Admitting Failure: Team B, CFIUS Reform, and Confronting Communist Ideology. Jim Fanell and Brad Thayer emphasize that the initial step toward addressing the crisis requires the US system to admit strategic failure. Fanell notes this is extremely difficult due to institutional bias, stressing that admitting a problem is necessary to receive treatment. The comprehensive threat from Communist China necessitates a "whole-of-government, whole-of-society" approach requiring US leadership to stop "threat deflation." Thayer discusses the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and recommends moving it from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Defense. More drastically, Thayer advocates for beginning to discuss seriously the need to cut off trade and investment in toto with the PRC. To improve intelligence analysis, the authors call for creating an independent and dynamic "Team B" to look at the PRC, similar to the original Team B established during the Cold War. The core response must involve identifying the CCP as the enemy and understanding communist ideology to grasp the permanence of the existential threat.
