Washington Wednesday: The strategy of America’s enemies

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 13th of March, 2024. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Washington Wednesday.

On Monday, the Senate Intelligence Committee held its annual hearing on Worldwide Threats Assessment.

Leaders in the Intelligence Community briefed lawmakers and then discussed threats both typical and emerging, everything from authoritarian states to artificial intelligence, narcotics, and even climate change.

But as Committee Vice Chair Senator Marco Rubio observed:

MARCO RUBIO: The goals that Russia has, the goals that Iran has, the goals that North Korea has, the goals that the Chinese have, may be different goals. But one of the real developments that threaten the security of our country, is that they are increasingly partnering with one another. Not a NATO Alliance, not the sort of formal alliance that’s written out. But they are increasingly partnering with each other.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about these threats is Bradley Bowman. He’s the Director of the Center for Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He previously served as a Senate military advisor.

EICHER: Bradley, good morning.

BRADLEY BOWMAN: Good morning to you. Thanks for the opportunity to join you, I really appreciate it.

EICHER: Well, to begin, what did the Intelligence Community say are the top threats the U.S. faces from Russia in 2024?

BOWMAN: They had several things to say about Russia. Some good news and some bad news. Let me, let me start with the good news. According to our the intelligence community following Putin’s February 2022 massive reinvasion of Ukraine, Russia suffered more than 300,000 casualties. That’s more losses for Russia anytime since World War Two. And of course, we’re witnessing the largest invasion in Europe since World War Two. They have extra, suffered extraordinary losses, not just of people, but also equipment. We’re talking about thousands of pieces of tanks and armored personnel carriers, significant losses of aircraft and ships. And Putin, as the intelligence community said, failed to achieve his initial objective, which was essentially the subjugation or extermination of the sovereign nation state of Ukraine. He failed. The bad news is, is that, that we’ve basically kind of settled into a situation in Ukraine that really plays to Russia’s advantages in terms of attritional artillery warfare that kind of runs out the clock. Because, as our intelligence professionals have said, Putin really believes that time is on his side. If he can just grind down Ukraine, he believes that eventually, especially United States, but also Europe, will lack the will or the ability to stand with Ukraine. But no doubt his military has been weakened, and that’s going to make him more reliant on counter-space capabilities, you know, the ability to target our satellites. It’s also going to make him more reliant on his nuclear program, his nuclear weapons. We see him doing nuclear saber rattling periodically, and it’s also pushed him more into the arms of Beijing.

REICHARD: Well, speaking of Beijing, what dangers is the U.S. facing from China?

BOWMAN: The number one threat the United States confronts, hands down, is the People’s Republic of China, because of their hostile ideology. Yes, they’re having some economic trouble, but an economy roughly the size of our own, and the most significant armament—the Indo-Pacific commander told me in a podcast a few weeks ago—the most significant militarization effort we’ve seen since World War Two where in many cases, China’s capabilities are as good as ours or are approaching ours. And they’re focusing their modernization effort on targeting U.S. forces, so that we could not come to the help of Taiwan, should they try to extinguish freedom in Taiwan. So what’s going to ultimately help Xi Jinping decide whether he wants to try to accomplish his objectives, his political objectives in Taiwan with military force? It’s going to be a number of things. It’s going to be his assessment of Taiwan’s military capabilities, America’s military capabilities, and his assessment of whether we have the political will to come to Taiwan’s help. So if we don’t even have the political will to give Ukraine 2.7% of what we’ve given Pentagon over the same time period in weapons, then why would Xi Jinping think we’re gonna send thousands of Americans to fight and potentially die in the Taiwan Strait? Just quickly on China focus, in addition to military modernization effort, significant cyber effort, significant counter-space capabilities, the ability to hit our satellites, and they’re increasingly learning from the Russians in terms of disinformation information warfare, increasingly powered by AI. So we’re going to, I suspect we’re going to see China doing more and more within our domestic politics and within our country to try to divide Americans and weaken us.

EICHER: Ok, on to the Middle East. We’ve talked a lot on this program about Iran’s proxies…groups like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. What threats does the U.S. face directly from Iran?

BOWMAN: You know, it’s a great question. You know, Iran is continuing to pursue its decades long strategy of asymmetrical proxy terrorism, where they try to attack us and our allies, while displacing the consequences and counter punches onto others, usually Arabs. And they’ve continued that with their support for Hamas, and Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis. Um, you know, so how they attack us directly, well, they kill—you know, Iran-backed groups killed three American service members in Jordan a few weeks ago. We saw more than 165 attacks since mid-October, till about a few weeks ago. 165 attacks by Iran-backed terrorists on U.S. forces, with only 11 or 12 responses. Anyone who’s been on the playground knows that’s a formula for more of the same. So they’re directly trying to kill Americans in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. And they’re directly trying to kill Americans in the Red Sea using their proxies, the Houthis, providing them with weapons to do it, training, money to do it, and literally targeting information to do it. So they’re trying to push us out of the Middle East so they can more effectively export terrorism and support their terror proxies and exterminate the State of Israel.

REICHARD: One country you haven’t mentioned yet is North Korea. Recently, a top U.S. military official in South Korea said the danger has shifted from North Korea developing nuclear weapons, to North Korea using nuclear weapons to take over its neighbor to the south. North Korea has been a threat for a long time, but it seems like all these other threats have distracted mainstream attention in the U.S.

What do you make of today’s threats from North Korea?

BOWMAN: Yeah, North Korea is, your listeners need to know and be reminded that they have nuclear weapons, and they have intercontinental ballistic missiles. North Korea has the means to hit the, the United States with a intercontinental ballistic missile. So they’re a threat to South Korea, they’re a threat to Japan, and they’re a threat to the U.S. homeland. And frankly, for years now, because of underinvestment in missile defense, we’ve been playing catch up on that. And once again, we see North Korea taking steps to send artillery to Russia for use in Ukraine, just like Iran has provided drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. So just underscoring yet again, our adversaries understand the value of partners and we should too.

EICHER: Well another issue that came up during Monday’s hearing was U.S. border policy…lawmakers on both sides argued about the scale of the problem and how it relates to national security. So what are adversaries like Iran, Russia, and China doing to exploit that vulnerability?

BOWMAN: I would just highlight that according to the Intelligence Community Worldwide Threat Assessment, they continue to try to develop surrogate networks inside the United States. And by the way, when you consider our porous border, and you consider what Hezbollah is doing in Latin America, the border goes very quickly from a domestic issue to a national security issue when you consider what China, Russia, and Iran all are doing south of our border. It’s difficult to say that we’re a secure nation state if we can’t decide who comes into our country. Iran, Russia and China know that and they’re going to take full advantage of and I would just end with this. Each of them see opportunities to try to weaken and divide Americans, particularly in the context of our elections. All of them have done this in the past. All of them continue to do that, and we should expect that to increase over the next few months as we approach our elections, because they understand that core source of power, to use a military term, the “center of gravity” for the United States, is our constitutional order, and the peaceful transfer of power. And if they can convince Americans that not China, Russia, or Iran are our adversaries, but our fellow citizens are our adversaries, then they can weaken us, and that gives them more opportunity to further their aggression abroad without America getting in the way.

REICHARD: Wrapping up here…any other takeaways from the hearing?

BOWMAN: I would just highlight for your listeners that the United States is spending near post World War Two lows on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product and federal spending, so we can afford to spend what we’re spending on defense. And as I tried to argue, not deterring aggression is far costlier when you consider when America has gone to war. But you know, just to drive the point home, I would use this metaphor. It’s a bit like having your neighbor experiencing a home invasion. And the question is, do you want to pass a baseball bat over the back fence? And by passing a baseball bat over the back fence, you’re helping your neighbor defend their home, you’re imposing costs on the home invader, and hopefully defeating the home invader or bruising him so badly that he reconsiders his line of work. And if the home invader is as successful in attacking your neighbor, [it] is going to increase the chances that are going to invade your home next. So I for one say we should pass that baseball bat over the back fence to Ukraine. We should pass that baseball bat over the back fence to Israel. And if we don’t, you’re gonna have a much bigger problem in in Asia with Taiwan, which is going to be a lot more expensive than a few baseball bats.

REICHARD: Bradley Bowman is Director of the Center for Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Thanks so much.

BOWMAN: Thank you very much.

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