New Cold Wars

How do you navigate an era where code, chips, and private satellites shape wars as much as tanks and treaties? This book argues you are entering overlapping “new Cold Wars” that look nothing like 1947–1991. One contest pits the U.S. and its allies against a disruptive, territorially aggressive Russia; another pits them against a systemic, technology-centered China. Both are accelerated by cyber operations, commercial space, and fragile supply chains. Intelligence can be dazzling—what officials called the “mother lode” on Putin’s invasion plans—but power still depends on political choices, industrial capacity, and alliance management.

Two-front competition, different logics

You need to hold two ideas at once. Russia is the revisionist land power using force, cyber disruption, and energy as a weapon (Crimea, Donbas, 2022 invasion, Nord Stream pressure). China is the long-game challenger seeking to dominate standards and supply chains (Made in China 2025, Huawei, Belt and Road, control of critical inputs). President Biden’s “inflection point” framing—democracy vs. autocracy—helps rally allies, but strategy must adapt to each foe’s distinct toolkit (Note: Think of Russia as immediate kinetic risk; China as systemic techno-economic rival).

Intelligence as spotlight, not steering wheel

Late 2021 brought a rare moment of clarity: signals intercepts, satellite imagery, cyber penetrations, and human sources converged to reveal Putin’s intent. Jake Sullivan, CIA Director Bill Burns, and Anne Neuberger turned that knowledge into a public-warning campaign—sanitized releases, commercial imagery (Maxar, Planet Labs), and allied briefings—aimed at denying Russia surprise. Burns also carried a private warning to Moscow. Yet the paradox stands: you can see the storm and still struggle to stop it. Policy must translate insight into calibrated action without burning sources or triggering escalation (compare to the Cuban Missile Crisis, where intelligence met decisive naval moves).

Cyber and commercial space rewrite opening moves

You now live in a world where a wiper attack can precede artillery. The same week missiles hit Ukraine, the GRU crippled Viasat modems; Microsoft and Google acted as first responders; U.S. Cyber Command “hunt-forward” teams helped harden Kyiv’s networks. Then Starlink became a lifeline—thousands of terminals kept command, logistics, and public messaging alive. But dependence on a private constellation also handed Elon Musk strategic leverage (he later limited service near Crimea to avoid escalation). The line between public and private strategy has blurred.

Chips and industrial policy as strategic ballast

The book shows that semiconductors are the new oil of power politics. Taiwan’s TSMC makes most of the world’s leading-edge chips; ASML in the Netherlands owns the crown-jewel lithography tools. U.S. responses—CHIPS Act subsidies, export controls on advanced tools and GPUs to China, and allied diplomacy with Prime Minister Mark Rutte—aim to build a “high fence around a small yard.” This is industrial policy as national defense (Note: echoes the Sputnik-to-NASA pivot; here it’s fabs, not rockets).

Hard lessons: misreading, credibility, and capacity

For two decades, Western leaders misread Putin—overvaluing economic ties (Nord Stream 2) and undervaluing deterrence after Crimea. The Kabul withdrawal then compounded doubts: chaotic evacuations, a mistaken drone strike, and the Abbey Gate tragedy eroded perceptions of U.S. resolve. In Ukraine, allied unity proved real but limited by production shortfalls—ammunition, tanks, air defenses—and by divergent endgames. General Mark Milley warned of stalemate; Ukraine demanded long-range fires; Washington and Berlin calibrated aid against escalation risks.

Core claim

To prevail in a tech-driven, multipolar era, you must fuse intelligence transparency, cyber resilience, private-sector partnerships, and industrial rebuilding—while managing alliance politics and escalation risks.

What you’ll learn

You’ll see how publicized intelligence shaped the run-up to war; how cyber and commercial space turned into first responders; how cheap drones, 3D printing, and algorithmic targeting defined a “wizard war”; why chips and export controls now sit at strategy’s core; how misjudgments of Putin (and engagement with China) forced doctrinal shifts; how Kabul’s collapse altered credibility; and how limits of unity, China–Russia alignment, hypersonics, and fraying arms control heighten escalation risks. The throughline is practical: strategy now lives at the intersection of data, industry, and diplomacy—and you need all three.

The book’s signature drama is what officials dubbed the “mother lode” on Russia’s invasion plan—intercepts, images, and human sources that painted a vivid picture of troop buildups in Belarus and detailed Kremlin intent. Jake Sullivan wrestled with a core question: If you know what’s coming, how do you use that knowledge without burning your best sources or triggering panic? The answer was a deliberate, controversial play—go public with curated intelligence to deny Russia surprise and rally allies.

From secrets to stagecraft

Sullivan’s team declassified imagery (Maxar, Planet Labs), timelines, and even plotted routes of an impending invasion. Journalists, scarred by pre-Iraq intelligence failures, demanded proof; the White House responded with fuller details, cross-agency vetting, and verifiable coordinates. The point wasn’t just to warn; it was to shape the information space so Russia couldn’t fabricate a pretext. This marked a cultural shift: intelligence moved from back rooms to front pages as a tool of preemption.

The Burns channel and the Sochi call

In parallel, CIA Director Bill Burns carried a letter from President Biden to Moscow. Putin, isolating during COVID, called Burns from Sochi. The message was clear: an invasion would unleash sanctions and a NATO response short of direct intervention. Putin wasn’t deterred. This juxtaposition—public warnings and private threats—illustrates the limits of even exquisite intelligence when a leader believes time and will are on his side (Note: Henry Kissinger’s realism haunts this moment—information can’t overcome hard interests).

The digital battlefield: flashlights, not firing solutions

Once the war began, an allied fusion cell—“the Pit”—integrated open-source feeds (YouTube, Telegram), commercial imagery, and classified intercepts into a single pane of glass. General Paul Nakasone described the flows as “eye-watering.” U.S. lawyers drew a hard line: hand Ukrainians a “flashlight” (where to look) but don’t pick targets. Tools from Palantir and others helped visualize patterns; the speed of OSINT sometimes outpaced classified channels. Yet information advantage alone didn’t break trench warfare—ammunition, engineering, and time still ruled outcomes.

Trust, tradecraft, and consequences

Publicizing intelligence restores credibility only if events validate warnings. After February 24, 2022, European skeptics acknowledged the U.S. had been right; that trust opened doors for sanctions coordination and arms transfers. But the risks were real: sources can dry up; adversaries learn collection patterns; and allies can grow dependent on U.S. feeds, complicating burden-sharing. The book’s lesson is sober: intelligence is a strategic instrument when paired with diplomacy, legal guardrails, and operational restraint—not a magic wand.

Practical takeaway

Treat intelligence like a scalpel: use it to frame choices, align allies, and preempt disinformation—while protecting sources and preserving freedom of action for when warnings go unheeded.

Names matter here: Sullivan as architect of declassification; Burns as quiet emissary; Antony Blinken pressing Sergey Lavrov; General Mark Milley calling Valery Gerasimov; Anne Neuberger linking tech firms like Microsoft and Google to the NSC. Their interplay shows how, in practice, you convert insight into policy—carefully, publicly, and with humility about what intelligence can and can’t do.

Before the first tank crossed a border, the war began with keystrokes. You watch two families of cyber threats play out: stealthy espionage (SolarWinds, the SVR’s supply-chain coup spotted when FireEye’s Kevin Mandia told NSA “someone stole our tools”) and disruptive strikes (NotPetya’s legacy, Whispergate, and the Viasat modem wipe that severed communications hours before Russia’s missiles flew). The takeaway: cyber is now a standard opening salvo designed to blind, confuse, and slow a defender at the critical moment.

Private first responders, public stakes

Microsoft’s Tom Burt, Google’s teams, and independent researchers often saw the intrusions first—then looped in governments. Anne Neuberger’s NSC shop functioned as a switchboard, marrying corporate telemetry with allied action. That public-private fusion is new at this scale (compare to the Cold War’s government-only posture). If you run infrastructure, you’re in geopolitics whether you like it or not; Colonial Pipeline’s DarkSide episode already proved it on U.S. soil.

Hunt-forward and prepositioned resilience

In December 2021 Marine Major Sharon Rollins led a Cyber National Mission Force team to Ukraine. They placed sensors, patched networks, and rehearsed incident response with local defenders. That quiet work mattered: when GRU operators struck, Ukrainians had playbooks and partners on the line. Think of hunt-forward as inoculation—detect early, practice together, and shrink the attacker’s window of advantage.

Commercial space becomes command-and-control

When Viasat went dark, SpaceX’s Starlink stepped in. Mykhailo Fedorov called it “the blood” of Ukraine’s communication system. Thousands of low-Earth-orbit satellites gave commanders and civilians a resilient backbone. The Pentagon took notes and launched “Starshield” explorations to adapt commercial capability for secure military use. Yet the same dependence created governance headaches (see below) and underscored how a single company can alter a battlefield.

Limits and escalation management

Cyber effects are potent but not omnipotent. As kinetic combat intensified, Russia’s electronic warfare jammed drones and GPS, HIMARS faced episodic disruption, and both sides adapted. Cyber campaigns don’t replace logistics or artillery; they amplify or degrade them. That interplay raises escalation questions too: should the U.S. answer a cyberattack on satellites with cyber, sanctions, or kinetic force? The book suggests layered deterrence—law enforcement, sanctions, and, where needed, quiet offensive action—while hardening critical infrastructure with minimum cybersecurity standards.

Your to-do list

Build incident-response muscle memory with government partners; segment networks; assume satellite ground links are targets; and plan for rapid switchovers to alternative comms like LEO constellations.

The broader lesson is simple: in modern crises, your “front line” is digital and orbital. Prepare accordingly—before the first shot.

If you picture weapon innovation as billion-dollar prototypes, Ukraine will reset your expectations. The country’s “wizard war,” to borrow David Ignatius’s phrase, runs on $350 kamikaze drones, 3D-printed artillery parts, and rapid software tweaks delivered from garages to trenches. Scarcity sparked creativity: teenagers soldered Chinese components into munitions; small factories like Wayne Pak’s tried to double output; coders fused Telegram tips with commercial imagery to cue strikes. It’s agile, bottom-up warfare at national scale.

From garage to front line

The production model looks like a startup ecosystem. Units test variants in days, not months; failures cost hundreds of dollars, not millions. A few drones will always be jammed or shot down, but enough get through to knock out artillery, trucks, and even damage tanks. This is the same logic that allowed Ukrainians to harry the Russian Black Sea Fleet and complicate logistics far from the front (Note: echoes WWII’s “Wizard War” of radar and codebreaking, but now democratized).

3D printing and repair-in-place

Rear-area workshops printed spares overnight, cutting weeks from repair cycles. That kept tubes firing and vehicles moving. Western militaries had piloted additive manufacturing in labs; Ukraine operationalized it under fire. The tactical effect is endurance: fewer systems languish in depots; more return to the line quickly.

The cat-and-mouse with EW

Russia adapted, fielding better jammers, antidrone rifles, and layered air defenses. Iran and China fed components and drones into the theater. Eric Schmidt warned that keeping pace could require tens of thousands of drones per month—a scale problem that blurs into industrial policy. Ukraine’s answer has been decentralization, diversified suppliers, and constant software updates to defeat known jamming profiles.

What this means for you

If you build defense capabilities, plan for swarms, attrition, and rapid iteration. Value pipelines over platforms: middleware to handle targeting data, manufacturing networks that can surge, and contracting that rewards speed and learning. If you’re a policymaker, fund small-lot experimentation and remove procurement friction that kills battlefield innovation. The big insight: in an age of mass sensors and cheap effectors, volume and velocity often beat exquisite perfection.

Bottom line

The side that iterates faster—and integrates those iterations with intelligence and logistics—shifts the battlefield economics in its favor.

The struggle for technological primacy runs through a silicon bottleneck. TSMC in Taiwan produces the vast majority of leading-edge chips; ASML in the Netherlands makes the only extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. That concentration turns economic shock into strategic peril: a blockade of Taiwan, a cyberattack on a fab, or export-pressure on ASML could ripple through AI, weapons, and industry worldwide. The book argues bluntly: chips are ammunition for modern economies.

The U.S. pivot: invest and deny

Washington moved on two tracks. First, the CHIPS Act pumped tens of billions into domestic fabs (Intel in Arizona, TSMC’s overseas hedging), workforce development, and R&D. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo framed it as national security, not corporate welfare. Second, the U.S. tightened export controls on advanced GPUs and manufacturing tools to slow China’s climb. The mantra became a “high fence around a small yard”—protect the crown jewels while letting noncritical trade continue.

Allied choreography

Export denial works only if allies align. Quiet talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte resulted in tighter ASML licensing. Japan and others coordinated tool restrictions. These moves test alliance politics: multinational firms (Nvidia, ASML) want market access; governments want resilience. Success depends on convincing partners that short-term revenue losses prevent long-term strategic dependency (Note: echoes Cold War CoCom controls, updated for a globalized, private-sector-led economy).

The Taiwan question

TSMC is a “Silicon Shield” and a vulnerability. Its fabs enable global prosperity; they also tempt coercion. Diversifying production to the U.S. and allies buys insurance but takes years and costs dearly. Meanwhile, China’s push—state funds exceeding $200 billion, poaching engineers, and sprinting on mature-node volume—seeks to erode U.S. leverage from below.

What to watch

• TSMC’s build-out timelines and workforce bottlenecks outside Taiwan.
• ASML’s enforcement of tool restrictions and any Chinese breakthroughs on homegrown lithography.
• Export-control leakage via third countries and gray-market brokers.

Strategic trade-off

If you overreach on controls, you validate Beijing’s containment narrative and spur autarky; if you underreach, you forfeit the edge in AI and weapons systems. Calibrated, coalition-based tech statecraft is the only real path.

For years, Western capitals treated Putin as a transactional actor restrained by markets and mutual energy needs. This book shows that was wishful thinking. From the 2007 Munich speech to the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion, Putin broadcast his aims. Yet responses—limited sanctions, Nord Stream 2 approvals, and energy dependence—often signaled weakness more than resolve. You see how strategic complacency accumulates cost.

NATO’s expansion and Russian grievance

NATO enlargement protected new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, but it also fed nationalist narratives in Moscow. George Kennan warned that expansion could inflame Russian revanchism. Leaders like Bill Clinton pressed ahead, betting integration would lock in peace. The mismatch—Western intent vs. Russian perception—didn’t cause Putin’s aggression, but it gave him a grievance he skillfully exploited (Note: understanding grievance isn’t excusing aggression; it’s calibrating deterrence).

Energy as a weapon

Germany’s push for Nord Stream 2 after Crimea epitomized a blind spot: treating a strategic pipeline as mere commerce. The bet that “Russia is a reliable supplier” ignored how pipelines rewrite leverage. When war came, Europe scrambled to diversify gas and absorb price shocks—pain that could have been mitigated years earlier with firmer policy and investment.

Rebuilding credible deterrence

Deterrence is a package: military posture, economic resilience, and political unity. In 2022–23, NATO began to recover the mix—forward deployments, integrated air defenses, sanctions, and arms transfers to Ukraine. But credibility requires consistency: no more “seven-year itch” surprises (Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine) met by rhetoric alone. It also requires reconciling public goals (“Ukraine will win”) with resources (ammunition production, training, long-range fires).

The China overlay

Biden’s team had to relearn Russia while pivoting to China. That twin focus means NATO armor in Europe and export controls in Asia; HIMARS for Kyiv and the CHIPS Act for Phoenix. You can’t apply one playbook to both fronts. The practical lesson: don’t let economic convenience (cheap gas, cheap manufacturing) dictate security posture. Build diversified energy and supply chains now, or subsidize your adversary’s leverage later.

Takeaway

Deterrence only works when threats are credible and costs are bearable. That means hardening energy systems, aligning allies, and matching promises to production lines.

The Kabul withdrawal is the book’s moral and strategic gut punch. After a twenty-year war, the U.S. and allies exited in scenes of chaos: civilians clinging to planes, an overwhelmed Special Immigrant Visa pipeline, and a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 150 Afghans. The final U.S. soldier to depart, Major General Chris Donahue, left behind uncounted partners and unfinished paperwork. For adversaries and allies, images mattered as much as facts.

How it unraveled

The Trump-era deal set a hard deadline. Biden decided to end the war but faced intelligence and Pentagon warnings about Afghan forces’ fragility without U.S. enablers. The overnight abandonment of Bagram, President Ghani’s flight, and the Taliban’s rapid advance created an evacuation emergency at a single, vulnerable airfield. Warnings from diplomats went unheeded; decision cycles lagged reality. The Pentagon’s inspector general later called the withdrawal “miserable.”

A tragic emblem: the mistaken strike

In the evacuation’s frenzy, analysts misidentified a white sedan as an ISIS-K threat. A drone strike killed an aid worker, two adults, and seven children. Officials initially called it “righteous,” even as CIA spotters reported children seconds before impact. Only after The New York Times’ visual investigations did the Pentagon reverse itself. The episode captures fog-of-war compounded by political pressure and compressed timelines.

Strategic price tag

Adversaries like Russia and China framed the exit as proof of U.S. unreliability. Allies questioned American staying power. While ending a failing mission has its own strategic logic, execution costs were high: trust eroded; partners doubted U.S. will to absorb pain for long-term goals. The Kabul debacle cast a shadow over early 2022—precisely when Washington needed credibility to deter Putin and reassure Taiwan.

Lessons you can use

• Plan withdrawals like invasions: logistics-first, with multiple nodes (not just one airport) and redundant comms.
• Accelerate partner processing and documentation months earlier; build surge capacity into visa systems.
• Design targeting rules that slow lethal action when civilian-risk intelligence is ambiguous during evacuations.

Bottom line

Leaving a war is as consequential as entering one. Strategic clarity, tempo, and accountability are nonnegotiable—or you pay in lives and credibility.

Unity against aggression is real—but uneven. Frontline states like Poland and the Baltics push for maximalist aims and rapid deliveries; Germany and France emphasize negotiation and managing attrition. The U.S. walks a middle line, sending HIMARS, Patriots, and eventually ATACMS while calibrating escalation. Beneath the optics, a harsher arithmetic rules: Ukraine consumed years of Stinger and Javelin output in months, Leopard tanks needed refurbishment, and Western ammo lines strained. Ends and means often misaligned.

The China–Russia “no limits” axis

At the Beijing Olympics in 2022, Xi and Putin announced a partnership “without limits.” It’s not a formal alliance, but it’s consequential: China can drip dual-use tech, drones, and machine tools to Russia; Russia provides energy, weapons designs, and a diversion for U.S. focus. Add China’s nuclear expansion—hundreds of new silos near Yumen and Hami—and you get a tripolar deterrence problem that complicates arms control and crisis signaling (Note: a shift from Mao’s minimum deterrent).

Hypersonics and the new Sputnik anxiety

General Mark Milley called China’s 2021 hypersonic-glide test “very close” to a Sputnik moment. General John Hyten and scientist Mark Lewis warned the U.S. had underinvested while China ran hundreds of tests. Hypersonics fly inside the atmosphere, maneuver unpredictably, and compress decision times—eroding the comfort of Cold War-era missile warning. The AUKUS submarine pact with Australia and the U.K. was partly a response, though it created friction with France by scuttling a major deal.

Managing escalation when guardrails fray

Putin’s nuclear rhetoric (“all available means”) and Russia’s occupation of Zaporizhzhia’s nuclear plant tested red lines. New START verification is suspended; AI and cyber intrusions shorten warning and confuse attribution. When stabilizers erode, missteps loom larger. The book’s prescription is unglamorous but urgent: rebuild technical talks on nuclear safety and AI decision aids; invest in early-warning modernization; pre-commit communication channels even with rivals.

Allies as tech coalitions

Alliances now pool fabs, code, and satellites, not just brigades. The Quad, AUKUS, and EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council marshal export controls, supply-chain mapping, and R&D. Yet politics intrudes—industrial subsidies spark competition; domestic debates slow deliveries; and elections can swing commitments. Success depends on sustained funding, harmonized rules, and transparent endgames.

Key message

Strategy must match resources and timelines. Promise less and deliver more—on ammunition, air defense, and industrial ramp—while reopening guardrails that keep crises from spiraling.