The surprise release and success of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence (AI) program has many implications for industry and the national security of the U.S. and Wall Street. Many Americans were taken aback by DeepSeek’s release. U.S. media wonder if this is a Sputnik Moment for the U.S. that will compel a response akin to Eisenhower’s.
As the Eisenhower administration launched a crash program to invest in education, science, industry, and national security after the October 1957 launch of the first Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite, so too is the Trump administration doing the same to ensure U.S. dominance in AI. AI should be thought of as the vanguard of the new “commanding heights” of technology and military might and so a robust response is needed. But this issue is also salient because it illuminates the fundamental principles of great power competition.
First, great power politics is fiercely competitive. The cause of intense competition is historically most often the intent of the enemy: it takes only one side to start a war, whether it is hot or cold. By their own admission, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is at war with the U.S. and has been since it came to power in 1949. For most of this time, it has been political warfare rather than kinetic war. In 2019, the CCP declared a “people’s war” against the U.S., which in the Communist argot is a call to redouble focus and effort to prepare for war against the U.S.
The enemy’s intent must be understood and never discounted or minimized. The CCP’s enmity towards the U.S. drives and sustains the CCP through the PRC’s economic ups and downs. Therefore, every realm is one of deep and lasting competition, as it was during the Cold War with the Soviets. In every facet of world politics, from the military to the number of Olympic gold medals won, the competition between the Soviet Union and the U.S. was an intense life-or-death struggle. Fortunately, it remained cold. Only occasionally, such as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, did our forces clash. In Korea, Soviet and East German pilots fought American and Allied airmen under the guise of Chinese volunteer pilots. In Vietnam, it was widely understood that the Soviets operated the SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites that killed and wounded so many Americans, while others became prisoners of war.
Thus, the scope and intense nature of the competition in the Cold War with the Soviet Union should be expected in the current Cold War with the PRC. Every realm is a zone of intense competition, from space and lunar exploration to nuclear capabilities. The PRC has been consistently waging political warfare against the U.S. and, at times, kinetic warfare. Americans understand warfare as only kinetic. In contrast, Communists view warfare as primarily political. So, it is often difficult for Americans to understand the enemy’s intent because the PRC has been successful at waging political warfare, which includes concealing its ambitions and capturing America’s elite. The result was the U.S. elite, including the U.S. national security community, practiced threat deflation—the consistent underestimation of the PRC threat. While the Intelligence Community (IC) was tasked with understanding the enemy’s intent and avoiding surprises like DeepSeek, the IC failed in large part due to the culture in the U.S. of threat deflation that has characterized U.S.-PRC relations since 1979.
Second, hard power is the coin of the realm. At the end of the day, the PRC is an existential threat to the U.S. because of its intentions and its hard power capabilities. Its capabilities have grown year after year because the West allowed the PRC into its economic ecosystem, training its students and allowing it to thrive while technology and knowledge were transferred by legal and illegal means. The PRC’s hard power capabilities are formidable and becoming even more potent. It is now an existential threat and consequently, the CCP should never be underestimated. Its nuclear, conventional, and cyber capabilities now make it the most potent threat the country has encountered.
Third, relative power is key. Principally what matters most are not the absolute numbers a great power poses but how a great power’s hard power capabilities stand in relation to other great powers. This relative power is empowered by the PRC’s intent to defeat the U.S. That stark fact mattered far less when it was weak, but because the U.S. welcomed the PRC into the Western economic ecosystem, the PRC became stronger very quickly. Consequently, the relative power gap between the PRC and the U.S. has closed, and the PRC is even pulling ahead in some areas. That is a remarkable historical development in global politics, as it is to the great detriment of U.S. national security. Pulling back our forces from East Asia would be an example of such a strategic mistake.
Leaders who follow the principles of great power politics will not threat deflate but will instead be able to recognize and meet the dangers they face. These are principles, enshrined in history, that guide statesmen as they navigate dangerous waters and permit the clear identification of threats. The principles of great power politics allow Americans to understand why the PRC is the center of gravity of the threats faced by the U.S. Other threats, notably Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are significant but the PRC is orders of magnitude greater—it is existential. The logic of great power competition allows the U.S. to have a realistic understanding of the PRC threat. That realism compels the U.S. to address the PRC threat immediately and to be the principal focus of U.S. power.
In contrast, the lack of appreciation of the principles of great power politics leads to threat deflation and the dismissal of the threat due to the often willful inability to understand the intentions and nature of the enemy. Threat deflation is a deep and potentially fatal problem. Any step back or weakness shown by the U.S.—whether genuine or perceived—will only embolden the PRC. International politics is not a sport; there are no “time outs” or referees to ensure that the rules are followed. This is a Hobbesian, self-help world, and perforce it is zero-sum. Every win for the PRC is a loss for the U.S. and vice versa.
DeepSeek as a Sputnik Moment serves as a reminder that the PRC is a formidable and driven foe. Likewise, so was the discovery of 250-300 new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) silos in central and western China in 2021. Also were the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Rocket Force (PLARF) launch of a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) hypersonic glide vehicle in 2022, the Pentagon’s 2022 announcement that the PLA Navy was now the largest navy on the planet, and the PRC’s hacking of all the major U.S. telecom firms. As these examples show, the surprises the PRC has in store for the U.S., its allies, and partners are not only going to be technological but are certain to be in the military, cyber, and covert action realms too.
The U.S. response to the PRC needs to be grounded in the cold logic of great power political competition just as it was in the successful fight against the Soviet Union. During that Cold War, the U.S. learned that it was important to fight the Soviets everywhere. The U.S. could not permit Soviet aggression to occur without imposing a substantial cost on Moscow, but the center of gravity was the Soviet Union itself, specifically the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the rest of the Politburo. That was where the Cold War would be won, not in peripheral conflicts. Likewise, the PRC’s “Great Rejuvenation” is a global attempt at domination. It requires a worldwide, immediate, and sustained response to ensure America’s national security against this acute threat. This is not an “endless war,” but a necessary strategic response to deter a great power that is intent on America’s destruction.
Today, as the U.S. considers many threats, from Moscow to Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang, it is important to deter all but to recognize that the center of gravity is the CCP of the PRC. The result of this Cold War will be decided by the actions the U.S. takes against it. For the last 80 years, peace was maintained in the Pacific by a strong forward presence; this is the foundation of deterrence against the CCP. May we never forget these lessons that were paid in blood in the jungles of Guadalcanal and Leyte, on the shores of Tarawa, and on the sands of Iwo Jima.
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James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer are authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure. The views expressed are their own.
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