The United States should work to quickly to end the Russia-Ukraine war so it can finally focus on its main global threat, the Chinese Communist Party, according to Keith Kellogg, the former national security advisor to the vice president of the United States.
In an on-stage interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on March 4, Kellogg told Jan Jekielek, senior editor at The Epoch Times and host of American Thought Leaders, that the war in Ukraine can’t be drawn out much longer before it becomes an endless conflict that “you'll never be able to put it back in the box.”
“I would give Putin a choice. If I was the president, I‘d say you should pick up the phone, which President Biden has not done. You pick up the phone and call Putin and say, ’You got an option ... You’re going to lose your army in Ukraine or you’re going to take it home,'” Kellogg said.
“There’s nothing wrong with taking a strategic adversary, like the Russians off the stage, because then, for the first time in 21 years, we can focus on the predominant threat facing the United States. And that’s China.”
Kellogg emphasized that the United States should do everything it can in Ukraine to provide assistance in standing up against the Russian army and negotiating with Russia’s leadership.
“When I was over in Ukraine and spent over two weeks there with them, Ukrainians don’t want any Americans. They don’t want anybody there. They want the equipment to fight the Russians. And they’ve got the Russians on the back heels“ Kellogg said. ”And I think that’s good, because I think we’ve taken a strategic adversary off the stage.”
Jekielek point to China’s engagement in unconventional warfare, including psychological and financial warfare. He questioned Kellogg as to whether the U.S. military is moving fast enough to understand that a war is being fought without shots being fired.
Kellogg stressed that everyone has to understand that “risk is a province of war.”
According to the general, the current administration doesn’t seem inclined to take on risk, and this could be a problem in supporting those who stand up to our enemies abroad.
The general said that he is most concerned with the President Joe Biden’s “lack of presidential decision-making ... The concern I’ve got is they don’t have the adults in the room.”
Kellogg said that no one should count out or bet against the American military despite his awareness that the military might have some “issues,” including the possibility that it is detrimentally woke.
He emphasized that the military’s job is to fight and deter enemies, and he’s not sure that is the current focus of the military.
Regarding China, Kellogg thinks the threat from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is huge for America. He cited China’s leader Xi Jinping’s comments about the East and West being “irreconcilable.” China is trying to have complete influence over the area and has been very aggressive in acquiring it, Kellogg added.
Kellogg said that under Trump, the United States looked at “decoupling” as a way of moving away from having so many businesses in China. He noted that the $350 billion trade deficit between the United States and China means America has, in reality, funded China’s government and military.
“We need to decouple and move away from that,” Kellogg said.
In recent weeks, the Biden administration has warned China against supplying military aid to Russia for the Ukraine war. The leaders of China and Russia plan to meet in the coming months, suggesting the two nations may be drawing even closer as a result of Russia’s increased isolation from the Western world triggered by its invasion of Ukraine.
