China’s vertiginous rise over the past three decades has finally dawned on the Washington DC foreign policy blob. The hopes and dreams of China’s reform-and-opening period have transitioned to the fear and loathing of the Xi era, triggering broad concerns about America’s standing in the world today and in the future. Are we falling behind China in economic performance, research, dynamism and talent? Are America’s best days behind it?
For Dmitri Alperovitch, the answer is an emphatic “no.” The co-founder and former CTO of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and the co-author of this year’s “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century,” Alperovitch believes that the United States already has all the qualities to extend Pax Americana for another century. In his view, there is far too much cynicism in DC these days, and not enough of the optimism for the future that he bears with him from years as an entrepreneur and as an immigrant from the former Soviet Union.
Alperovitch and host Danny Crichton discuss the qualities that America still has going for it, and how the media overemphasizes negative trends at the expense of a more holistic picture of America’s performance. We then talk about upgrading the Defense Department, the need for better procurement around emerging technologies, the advent of software complementing hardware on the battlefield, and the lessons we can learn from Ukraine’s experience fighting Russia.
