We Win They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War
By Matthew Kroenig & Dan Negrea
(Republic Book Publishers, 220 pages, $25)
In January 1977, Richard V. Allen, who would eventually become President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, visited then former Governor of California Ronald Reagan at his home in Los Angeles. During their four-hour conversation, Reagan revealed to Allen what he believed should be America’s stance for dealing with the Soviets: “Dick, my idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic.… It is this: We win and they lose.”
[T]he authors argue that Presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan shared the same ideals on foreign policy.
While his words may have appeared simplistic then, Reagan’s statement would soon become the crux of American foreign policy in the 1980s once he won the presidency. That thinking, almost like a slogan in retrospect, would define his presidency and secure America’s victory over the Soviet Union by the end of the decade.
Thirty-three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, America and the free world once again finds itself facing a new kind of Cold War, this time against the Chinese Communist Party. And yet, despite America’s status as the world’s superpower, U.S. leadership has lacked a clear strategy for how to effectively deal with China and deter its expansionist authoritarianism, pushing the world closer to global confrontation.
One may even wonder if the very spirit that won us the first Cold War is lost. Is there even any hope of a strategy for America to win this new Cold War? For Matthew Kroenig, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and Dan Negrea, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center, there is a strategy.
In their latest work, We Win They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War, Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negrea apply their longtime expertise into a comprehensive strategy that can help America win the “New Cold War” against China. That is quite an ambition. Nonetheless, these two scholars have laid out a strategy in this book.
Before revealing their proposed strategy, Kroenig and Negrea start off by asking an essential question, namely: Why does U.S. foreign policy exist and what exactly is its purpose? It’s a fundamental question but also one of fundamental importance. Unlike the adage about Las Vegas, “what happens overseas does not stay overseas.”
Of course, going into this question, we all realize that the United States is already involved in global affairs, or as Kroenig and Negrea put it, “We live in an interconnected world.” Thus, the answer as to why America has a foreign policy is implicitly revealed by Kroenig and Negrea: “This global interconnectedness is why the United States needs a foreign policy. The United States government needs to be engaged overseas to secure the interests of the American people.”
Even with that question answered, the deeper question still remains: what’s the purpose of U.S. foreign policy? Kroenig and Negrea explain that the core of U.S. foreign policy is in America’s founding documents. The Declaration of Independence states that that all Americans have the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and the purpose of our government, as found in the Preamble of the Constitution, is to “provide for the common defense [security], promote the general welfare [prosperity], and secure the blessings of liberty [freedom].”
As Kroenig and Negrea state, “These values articulated in America’s founding documents mirror the three primary goals of U.S. foreign policy as spelled out in countless national security strategies over the years: the security, freedom, and prosperity of the American people.”
These purposes go back to our literal beginning as a republic. And they continue to this day. Indeed, readers of this book will be surprised that when it comes to foreign policy there is wide agreement between Republicans and Democrats. “There has been a rough bipartisan consensus on the above interests for U.S. foreign policy,” say Kroenig and Negrea.
The real divide on foreign policy, they argue, is over what interests “to prioritize and how to pursue them.” This divide is where Kroenig and Negrea expose readers to the clash between the conservative and the progressive approaches to foreign policy.
For conservatives, “U.S. foreign policy is to advance American interests and protect the American people in an inherently dangerous world.” Progressives, on the other hand, “see U.S. foreign policy as a tool to advance the enlightenment project.”
In a detailed analysis of each side, Kroenig and Negrea dive deeper into the conservative and the progressive worldviews, examining their views on the sources of international conflicts, the value of American power, the role of international organizations, and the very moral differences that distinguish them.
That brings us to Democrat President Joe Biden.
Biden’s reliance on the progressive approach and lack of a clear strategy has led America and the Free World closer to kinetic confrontation. When it comes to China, write Kroenig and Negrea, Biden has caused a dangerous “say-do gap;” that is, the ratio between rhetoric and actual action taken.
This Biden approach has allowed for the CCP to build-up China’s military, develop unfair economic advantages, manipulate international organizations, and press further acts of aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. When examining China’s actions following the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the handling of U.S. support and uncertainty in the Russo-Ukraine war, and his misguided response to Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons, it’s quite clear that Biden’s progressive approach has failed.
But what should be done going forward?
Despite the gloomy reality that has been brought on by the Biden administration’s failures, the key to winning the new Cold War against China lies within the very principles that won America the first Cold War. It is here that the authors unveil their proposed strategy, which they call “the Trump-Reagan Fusion.”
Despite present negative conceptions regarding Donald Trump’s supposed isolationism, the authors argue that Presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan shared the same ideals on foreign policy. Both believed in the that if peace is to be achieved, it must be from a position of strength rather than appeasement; that is, “peace through strength,” as Reagan called it.
During their presidencies, Trump and Reagan held that free trade is the key to prosperity, and both desired to avoid protectionist measures. But they also believed that if certain nations engage in malicious or unfair trade practices, then measures should be sought out to penalize those nations.
Moreover, while Trump and Reagan recognized America’s military and economic strength, they also understood that within America’s core values lies a power that exploits the very weaknesses that lay within collectivist and authoritarian regimes, such as the former Soviet Union and China. Kroenig and Negrea essentially synthesize Reagan’s “we win and they lose” mentality with Trump’s “America First” policies.
The Cold War With China
The case made by Kroenig and Negrea is further strengthened by their comprehensive analysis of the present threat posed by China. “Under dictator-for-life Xi Jinping,” state Kroenig and Negrea, “the CCP has become more threatening in the use of its economic, diplomatic, and military power to challenge U.S. interests.”
They point to China’s efforts to build-up its conventional forces and nuclear arsenal, its manipulation of international institutions like the World Health Organization and the United Nations, its use of espionage and state control to create unfair trading practices, and its infiltration into America’s own backyard via corporate, educational, and cultural institutions.
In all of this and more, the threat that China poses is exponential. “If China succeeds,” write the authors, “the consequences would be devastating for the security and well-being of all Americans.”
While China clearly poses the most serious threat to the United States, confronting the allies of China is equally essential in stopping Beijing. The CCP’s reliance on its strategic partnerships with Russia, North Korea, and Iran — a new Axis of Evil — presents serious challenges to counter its global influence.
Beyond making their case as to how America can deal with China and win the New Cold War, Kroenig and Negrea attempt to formulate a consensus on foreign policy amongst conservatives within the Republican Party. Despite today’s divisions, they seek to identify “common principles, worldviews, and policy approaches that bring conservative foreign policy thinkers together under one tent.”
Their Trump-Reagan Fusion approach seeks a conservative consensus regarding international institutions, U.S. climate and energy policy, and border security.
We Win They Lose provides a straightforward and impressive case for a conservative approach to foreign policy that can turn the tide in the New Cold War. America may be in a state of malaise, but the road to victory is as clear to us today as it once was for Reagan; indeed, it’s as simple as “we win and they lose.”
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