Dmitri Alperovitch on the New Cold War with China

Cybersecurity maven Dmitri Alperovitch made big splashes by predicting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and uncovering a Russian hack of the DNC. He’s now worrying about Xi Jinping’s evident war preparations. (Metis Strategy photo)

In December 2021, Dmitri Alperovitch famously predicted that Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine—two months before he actually did. A veteran cybersecurity maven who co-founded CrowdStrike, the firm that uncovered the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee,  Alperovitch has now expanded his horizons, warning in a new book, World on the Brink, that China’s Xi Jinping is “likely” to invade Taiwan—and may do so as early as four years from now.  It’s a war that he acknowledges could provoke a full scale military confrontation with the United States—a conflict that in some senses has already begun in what Alperovitch describes as a new Cold War. In an interview with SpyTalk, Alperovitch explained his reasoning as well as the nature of the China threat– including evidence of recent cyber espionage attacks by a Chinese military hacking group known as Volt Typhoon that may be more alarming than anybody realized. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation. 

Spytalk: So you start out the book with this nightmare scenario of a full blown Chinese invasion of Taiwan—gunships, guided missile destroyers, kamikaze drones as part of a meticulously coordinated attack on the island. Tell us why you think this is where things are headed? 

Alperovitch:  As you know, Michael, I was one of the first geopolitical analysts to have predicted that Putin was going to invade Ukraine months before it happened. And the reasons that I believe drove Putin to invade Ukraine—that convinced me back then that this war was almost inevitable—are exactly the same reasons that are playing out in the Indo Pacific  and which are driving Xi Jinping to want to conquer Taiwan in his lifetime. Both of these authoritarian leaders are in their early 70s, looking at the twilight of their careers, looking at their legacies, looking at their longevity and power and their own mortality. And when you look at Putin, what drove him, I believe, is a distorted view of history. He did not believe that Ukraine was a nation. He believed it belonged to Russia. He thought it was Russia’s destiny and his  personal destiny to bring it back, at least into Russia’s sphere of influence, if not under full occupation. The same thing you’re seeing in the Indo Pacific. Xi of course believes that Taiwan is not a state.  It’s also a destiny of the Chinese Communist Party to take Taiwan because of course it is unfinished business since the end of that civil war in 1949, when Mao defeated Chiang Kai Shek, but didn’t fully defeat him, because he fled with 2 million nationals to Taiwan. So taking [Taiwan]  has enormous symbolism for the Chinese Communist Party to really finish off that civil war and finally complete what Xi himself calls “a rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Spytalk:  But all this has been the case for decades now. What’s bringing this to the crisis level now that you’re suggesting it is?

Alperovitch: Well, in the case of both men, they’re also driven by ego and they want to be the ones to do it. And it’s not an accident that Putin invaded Ukraine when he did because he was looking at it again at the twilight of his career, 25 years in power, looking at how long he may stay in power, how long he may live and wanting to have that accomplishment in the history books, given to him and no one else. The same thing is how it’s playing out in China. Xi is very explicit that this problem of Taiwan cannot be a transition to future generations. He says this on multiple occasions. Well, again, Xi is 70. In 2027, he is up for another election as the leader of the Communist Party, and he’s very likely to win that election for another five year term that will end in 2032, when he’ll be 79. So I think in his mind, that window of likely 2028 to 2032 is going to be the opportunity for him to accomplish this long desired task…as the leader who will go into the history books, as the leader that is greater than Mao. So that is why I believe the next four to eight years are going to be very, very dangerous.

Spytalk: So as you point out in the book, in the past when American presidents were asked about the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, they have said that we would “help” Taiwan to defend herself. But President Biden has gone beyond that: When asked in 2022, whether the United States would defend Taiwan, he flatly said, “Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.” Are we committed to a full scale war with China in the event of an invasion of Taiwan?

Alperovitch: We do not have a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. We do not have the legal commitment. And every time Biden says something like this—and he’s done it now four times—the White  House staff points out that the policy that we call strategic ambiguity—essentially, we are not acknowledging or denying that we will come to Taiwan’s defense—remains in place. But there’s no question that the president is inherently changing that policy, if not officially, but certainly [it is being] transmitted to Beijing, transmitted to Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, that he wants to defend Taiwan.

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