Émile Zola revealed the stark power of laying the facts on the table in his attack on the French president and his government for the unjust conviction and imprisonment of French General Staff Officer Alfred Dreyfus due to false accusations of espionage anchored upon widespread antisemitism.
Gaffney’s work (NB: Gaffney is a friend and colleague at the Center for Security Policy) addresses both the threat and the needed response. He explains why the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) existential threat to the United States was ignored for many decades. He demonstrates that there’s increasing recognition of the danger, including of “unrestricted warfare,” the application of non-kinetic means of waging war against the United States, which is essential but insufficient—concrete measures must be taken against it. Thus, the book documents the crimes of the CCP against the United States and humanity so that readers will understand the all-encompassing nature of the threat and the critical steps of what must be done to defeat the CCP.
The first part of the analysis identifies nine specific charges against the CCP. It begins with the recognition that the Chinese regime is at war with the United States. This is “people’s war,” a form of ideological and political warfare to mobilize the regime and its adherents against the United States. While the CCP has been at war with America since it came to power in 1949, the CCP’s declaration in 2019 of “people’s war” compels the recognition that the regime is determined to defeat the United States and its allies.
Moreover, Gaffney’s analysis of “elite capture” is also critical for Americans to comprehend; that is, many of the American elite—in politics, business, finance, media, think tanks, and universities—are corrupted by the CCP so that Beijing has an enormous internal lobby in the domestic politics of the United States. For those captured to defend their pecuniary interest, they must defend the interests of the CCP.
The intertwining of the CCP’s interests and America’s captured elite is a fundamental problem that the U.S. Congress and the American people are only now comprehending and considering how to end. This keen analysis permits Americans to understand how the current cold war with the Chinese regime is unlike the one with the Soviet Union, where elite capture was far less of a problem as most Americans patriotically would have nothing to do with the Soviet Union and would shun those who did, such as Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum.
The second part of the study defines 20 detailed and focused actions to be implemented against the CCP to punish it for its crimes against the Chinese people, the United States, and the world and to defeat the CCP. These actions include understanding the threat of elite capture, investigating President Joe Biden and his subordinates, demanding the removal from office of compromised politicians and others in government, rebuilding and replenishing the U.S. military, disengaging from China economically, banning TikTok and similar apps, securing the U.S. electrical grid, and insisting on full reciprocity in the Sino–American relationship. For example, if China doesn’t let U.S. entities buy Chinese farmland, then Chinese entities, even if working through U.S. cutouts, shouldn’t be allowed to buy U.S. land.
Having identified the actions, the third part of the study explains how to accomplish these measures through actions that individual Americans can take to promote public awareness and engagement, as well as necessary actions by federal, state, and local governments.
This comprehensive, thoughtful, and strategic analysis provides an unparalleled tour of the horizon regarding the CCP’s “unrestricted warfare” campaign against the United States and how the CCP is assisted in this war by the American elite, businesses, and governments around the world—including on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. By identifying what individual Americans can do in response, Gaffney has produced a “how to” guide to assist Americans as they combat the threat.
Beyond its immediate contribution, the legacy of the study will be, first, that it provided American citizens with knowledge of the threat and what to do today to combat it.
Second, mutatis mutandis, the core of the book may be applied to other countries so that people in other states who are plagued with the same problems, which will be all of them with which the CCP interacts, may adopt similar steps. Gaffney is right to stress repeatedly that the CCP is a global problem and requires that all states respond. The United States must take the lead, but all other states can contribute.
Third, the study serves as a metric for readers to gauge what actions the United States is taking and what more needs to be done. No doubt, progress will be uneven, but the guideposts are provided.
Fourth, as the United States moves into the 2024 campaign season, American citizens will use the book to be motivated to support and hopefully participate in the campaigns of candidates who will fight the CCP and weigh their voting decisions at all levels, from local elections to the presidential one, in light of the CCP threat.
Gaffney has produced a remarkable book for all who seek to understand the scope of the threat and what must be urgently accomplished to defeat the malevolent force that is the CCP.
