Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War

Al Regnery, a very successful publisher of Republic Books, just released a very important book for the 2024 political campaign season; We Win They Lose, Republican Foreign Policy & the new Cold War.

The authors Dr. Mathew Kronig (PhD University of California Berkeley) and Dan Negrea, a fellow Cornell MBA, have in USMC parlance proved they can “talk the talk”.

In their impressive government service they “walked the walk,” and earned the right through government positions that required their being accountable for concrete actions around the world to now successfully frame a way ahead for U..S Foreign Policy. The book honors and describes a continuum of previous success from President Reagan’s initiatives to the first Trump Administration and perhaps for another four years.

Mathew Kronig held positions in DOD and the intelligence community and is a Republican Commissioner on the bipartisan Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

Dan Negrea is a defector from Communist Romania and is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. He previously served at State as the special representative for commercial and business affairs, and also a member of Sec State’s Policy Planning Office.

The great strength of their analysis in presenting solid reasons for future success supported by historical examples in the never ending intellectual engagement between conservatives versus progressives is their ability to describe the progressive view of the world without being snide nor snarky. It is one of their great strengths.

In honoring ones opponents fairly, the authors capture progressive initiatives that are most often built on wishful good intentions that can go horribly wrong. Or as said a a famous debate years ago at Cornell, it is easy to define heaven it is the road map to get there that is hard. This book is a very serious work.

Over the course of their analysis they show intellectually with solid examples the fight in the most important battleground for humanity, global war and peace. The fact that they are not preachy on how a conservative vision does the most good becomes self-evident.

It is said a fundamental principle of excellent writing is to “show and not tell” and they accomplish this while writing what is known as an easy read and not a polemic.

This book is a throwback to earlier days of moral and intellectual war of ideas in print in which they treat opposing progressive views accurately and honorably but just wrong and failing without any vindictiveness.

As a two time President Reagan political appointee who lived through the magnificent Cold War victory against the Soviet Union, their narrative captures those historically important days. It was with such a direct strategic comment by Ronald Reagan; “We win they lose” against the “Sovs” as we called them that gives the authors their visionary title to successfully engage the PRC.

With the demise of the Soviet Empire the book focus on a US across the board engagement policy, military, economic and foreign policy, against the Peoples Republic of China  and just like President Reagan mobilizing allies against the “Sovs” President Trump also got so it so right early in Trump 1 by highlighting the  China threat in his first term.

There is an unofficial community of scholars, retired military and conservative previous executive department officials and Hill professional staff that are commonly called “The Blue Team.”

These men and women see the need to stand up to the PRC in all domains. Many of the Blue Team are now members of the Committee on Present Danger China.

A group of Washington policy advisers and former U.S. government officials including Steve Bannon have revived a cold war-era advocacy organization to take aim at China, which it called “an aggressive totalitarian foe.”

“As with the Soviet Union in the past, communist China represents an existential and ideological threat to the United States and to the idea of freedom – one that requires a new American consensus regarding the policies and priorities required to defeat this threat,” the committee’s announcement said.

The book has an extensive bibliography and note section that takes almost a third of the book. It is a ready desktop and personal library book that deserves being on all China watchers shelves.

The Honorable Ed Timperlake is a member of the Committee on Present Danger China.

 

 

As the Amazon description of the book reads:

In 1977, then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was discussing foreign affairs when he said, “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win, and they lose.” Three years later, Reagan was elected president; by the time he left office, the United States had won the First Cold War.

Today, a New Cold War has started, this time with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). While Beijing challenged the United States for many years, Washington only awoke to this reality in 2017 when President Donald J. Trump declared “great power competition” with China and Russia as the greatest threat facing the nation. We are in the early days of the New Cold War, and Washington is still struggling to define a clear China strategy.

Inspired by Trump and Reagan, this book proposes a straightforward goal for the struggle with China: we win, and they lose. Brilliant and engagingly written, this book provides a conservative foreign policy strategy—A Trump-Reagan fusion—for winning the New Cold War with China. We Win, They Lose explains why a conservative worldview is best suited for the coming confrontation with China and provides a comprehensive strategy for tackling every major foreign policy issue facing the United States, including: defense, trade, and values; Russia, Iran, and North Korea; allies and institutions; border security and immigration; energy and the environment, and more.

With this strategy in hand, the GOP and the United States can spring to action. It is time to win the New Cold War.