Americans lack the resilience needed for economic war against authoritarians | Mark Montgomery

The Axis of Aggressors, made up of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, have become experts at waging hybrid warfare against the West. With numerous means at their disposal, one particularly important is the economic leverage that they wield. Does the West have the means to counteract it? And is it willing to use it?

“Spending a lot of time in Ukraine, I’ve come to realize what societal resilience is. I see none of that societal resilience in the United States. So I suspect, as an authoritarian state, China has more societal resilience than the United States,” retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, Senior Director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and co-author of Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran & North Korea, told TVP World. “So I don’t think we want to get into a tit for tat in economic warfare that hurts the American economy. I mean, we have these nasty things called elections.”

“President XI wins all elections by 100% of the vote. So he doesn’t really have to worry about that to the same degree in China,” Montgomery said, adding that having an effective tool to counteract Beijing’s economic leverage is not enough – what is also required is the willingness to use it. “I just think there’s less likelihood of the U.S. using a sustained economic deprivation that affects the world economy eventually as a weapon of war against China.”

Join TVP World’s Ashim Kumar and his guest as they explore what tools of economic leverage each of the Axis of Aggressors’ members have at their disposal, how the U.S. pulling its military capabilities from Europe weakens deterrence against Russia, and what alternatives to lack of interceptor missiles can the West offer Ukraine immediately.

Chapters:
00:00 The emergence of an Axis of Aggressors: China, Russia, Iran & North Korea
02:52 Transactional cooperation & strategic benefits
04:23 Western alliances & the need for deterrence
08:13 China’s cyber & economic warfare capabilities
12:51 Ukraine’s air defense gap & a longer-term military solution

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