“When we say war, the first thing Dave Stilwell thinks of is my F-16 with bombs, kinetics, killing people and breaking their things. … That’s not how the PRC thinks of war.”
I sit down with retired Brigadier General David Stilwell. From 2011 to 2013, he served as the defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and was appointed assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in 2019.
“We want this to be a cooperative relationship like we have with other countries. … But after 40 years, you have to assume that this plan isn’t working and we’re going to have to change direction. And so the relationship is defined by the lowest common denominator, and that’s the PRC approach, which, guess what, is a cold war. … It’s ideological, and in fact, is existential.”…