The Cipher Brief interviewed a number of national security experts on the sidelines of this year’s Munich Security Conference. Here are key takeaways from Dmitri Alperovitch, Executive Chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator and Principal Member of the Cyber Initiatives Group.
Our interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Watch our interview on The Cipher Brief’s digital channel.
The Cipher Brief: As this conference kicked off, the world heard from Russian officials that opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison which came as a shock to his wife, who is also there in Munich. What else are people talking about at this year’s gathering?
Alperovitch: You’re absolutely right. We learned about his untimely demise, unfortunately, in a Russian Arctic penal colony just as the conference was opening. So, as you can imagine, that has been dominating almost all of the hallway conversations and even discussions at the very sessions.
Beyond that, there are obviously a lot of things on the agenda. China remains a very big topic. I’ve been coming to this conference for many, many years now, well over a decade, and this is the first time that I’m seeing real concerns expressed by Europeans and frankly, other nations here at in Munich about dependence on China and we’re seeing a strong pushback on some of the Chinese officials that are represented here. I’ve not seen that before, and that’s a huge shift.
The Cipher Brief: Can you break that shift down for us a little bit? What have Chinese officials been saying that hasn’t been well received there?
Alperovitch: I was in a session where one of the members from China was going back in despite sort of the rapprochement that we’re in right now with very, very aggressive wolf warrior diplomacy-style accusations against various countries that were represented in the room, including some of the global south countries, which was quite surprising. It was fascinating to watch everyone come to their defense, the Europeans, the Japanese, even the Australians, and that’s something that I don’t think you would’ve seen in prior years.
The Cipher Brief: The United States has a big cyber presence there this year. How much of the agenda is focused on cyber? And I’m going to guess that one of the biggest issues is how AI is impacting it.
Alperovitch: Yeah, AI is present in almost every conversation. I was just in a nuclear and proliferation session, and AI was probably half of the conversation even in a session that’s sort of focused on a traditional national security topic that’s been around for well over 70, 80 years now. And cyber is absolutely present.
You have a phenomenal group of national security officials from the FBI director to the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Rob Silvers, who of course, has the Cyber Safety Review Board at the Department of Homeland Security, and a number of others represented here, talking about the threats of cyber, talking about the need to cooperate.
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The Cipher Brief: What about the impact of US elections? Is that making its way into these conversations?
Alperovitch: No doubt. And the conversation around the 2% defense spending goal is literally everywhere. I can tell you that one of the things that former President Trump did achieve is that the pressure that he has put on the Europeans, both when he was in office, and even now with his rhetoric, is working. And all of the discussions are not about, ‘do we get to 2% or not’, it is ‘how do we get there’?
And a complete agreement amongst all the parties, including the Germans, that they absolutely have to get to that level at a minimum. And I’m starting to hear discussions like, ‘Well, if you’re going to get to 2%, if you’re going to increase your defense budget to that threshold, what are you going to actually spend it on?’ Because that, to me, is actually an even more important conversation than the number itself.
The Cipher Brief: I’m assuming that Ukraine is also probably another top issue, particularly what it means for Europe if Russia ends up prevailing in Ukraine. How are you hearing people talk about Ukraine in the future of Ukraine in Munich?
Alperovitch: I’ve been spending a lot of my time actually on this issue. I’ve been trying to explain to people what I think should be the strategy for victory in Ukraine, because that has been one of the things that has been lacking both from the Ukrainian side and the Western world in terms of explaining to the public, how do we actually get to the outcome that we all desire to have? Which is a free and independent Ukraine that is secure in its borders. And we’ve not heard that from the United States, we’ve not heard that from Europe, or you’ve not even heard it from Kyiv since this war began.
I’ve been trying to contribute to that conversation and offer my own thoughts on where we might be going because I believe this is a long-term war of attrition, and we have to prepare our societies that there is not going to be a quick victory here and that the support for Ukraine will have to continue on for some time if you do not want the front line to collapse and really, the city of Kyiv itself and much of Ukraine to be put into mortal risk yet again.
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The Cipher Brief: Are you sensing from European leaders that if the U.S. fails to pass an aid package to Ukraine, they’re willing to shore up whatever gap may exist there? It would be a substantial gap.
Alperovitch: No. In fact, Chancellor Schultz actually said if the U.S. does not pass the state package, that Ukraine will lose. That’s actually a very realistic assessment because the reality is that the Europeans do not have the industrial-base capacity to compensate for both the quantity as well as specific weapons that we’re providing to Ukraine and won’t have that for many years, even if they start building it now. So, there is no substitute for U.S. aid if you want to avoid a collapse of Ukrainian front lines.
The Cipher Brief: Any wild-card issues for you in the halls of Munich?
Alperovitch: I want to come back to China because I can tell you, I was here last year talking about the importance of understanding this global competition that we have with China. I believe, as a writer in my upcoming book, World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century, that we are in Cold War II. Roman numeral II. It’s not 2.0, it’s not a continuation of the first one. It’s a different conflict.
But as I’ve been talking to people here over the years, even as recently as last year, I was getting enormous pushback that this can’t be a Cold War. We don’t want a Cold War. There is much less of that today. I think people are appreciating that this is a major challenge. And frankly, I think it’s been helpful on the trade stuff that the Chinese are about to invade Europe. Not invade with troops, not invade with their military, but invade it with cheap EVs, cheap electric vehicles. And of course, the automotive industry is essential to Europe, essential to Germany, essential to France, and the threat that that presents to their economic stability is immense.
That more than anything has helped turn some of the attitudes about China here at the Munich Security Conference. I think other things are certainly helpful as well, but I think that’s been a big contributor. And you hear it from the tone of the discussions, particularly with the Germans here at the conference.
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The Cipher Brief: Do you believe that we might be on the brink of an economic war with China?
Alperovitch: I actually think that the economic war has been going on for well over two decades with intellectual property theft that I’ve been deeply involved in investigating from China. And of course, they’re very active in the human space as well, stealing intellectual property, stealing trade secrets, undermining U.S. companies, and their position in the global economy and other western companies as well, not exclusive to the United States.
The question is, are we in a much broader Cold War? And I argue that we are. If you look at the arms race, including the nuclear arms race, frankly, that we’re involved in right now with the Chinese building up their nuclear arsenal, going to about a thousand warheads by the end of the decade – that’s something that certainly resonates to the echoes of the first Cold War, Cold War I, as I call it. But there are so many aspects of that competition.
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