As Winston Churchill said, democracy remains “the worst form of government—except for all the others that have been tried.”

As Russia shows, a superpower that never achieves the global dominance it believes it deserves is a dangerous one, capable of unleashing an aggressive clandestine foreign policy. Decline increases risk-taking.

“The acid test for any two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping? That’s the bad one!”

Whether it is regime change, degrading alliances, or discrediting targets, covert actions are only effective when they supplement diplomacy and statecraft.

The application of history does have limits when it comes to informing the present. Just as it is frequently a mistake to claim something is “unprecedented,” it is equally mistaken to think there is nothing new under this century’s rising red sun.

History, as Churchill noted, is a guide for the present and what may lie ahead. Applied history is most usefully understood as history that informs the present—a

Western powers can be in a Cold War irrespective of whether they seek one and before they recognize it.

the Chinese government has integrated “national security”—a slippery term—and commerce. Through legislation passed since 2014, all Chinese citizens and companies are required, when requested, to collaborate in collecting intelligence. In effect, this has produced a whole-of-society espionage effort. The Chinese technology giant Huawei, the largest

China employs a “whole of society” approach to espionage, using both its intelligence services, as well as purportedly private Chinese companies, Chinese nationals, and diaspora communities. China’s strategy is to overwhelm Western counterintelligence, if not through sophisticated espionage tradecraft, then by volume.