Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is a summary of the episode:
The founder of FACE consulting, Velina is a political strategist who guides businesses and organizations to anticipate the effects of global conflicts, changing alliances, and technology that bleeds into the world.
In a global conversation, Tyler and Velina start in the Balkans and head to Russia, China, North Korea, and finally circle back to Putin’s interest in the Baltic states. He gives him a take on whether the Balkan wars are still important today, the future of Bulgarian nationalism, what predicts which Eastern European countries will remain close to Russia, why China will not attack Taiwan, Putin’s next step after Ukraine, where the nuclear weapon is the most powerful. what might be used next, how to extract intel, his unique way of planning the situation, and more.
Here is one excerpt from a very important story:
COWEN: Maybe we’ll go back to Bulgaria, but let me try some questions about the wider world. Why do you think China will not attack Taiwan? They claim it is theirs, and no doubt, in five to ten years, they will be able to reduce our US submarine profits with underwater drones and surveillance our the presence of submarines. At that point, why wouldn’t they just go over to Taiwan and try to take it over?
TCHAKAROVA: Well, I understand that there is a lot of analysis coming out right now, especially on behalf of military experts, not only in the United States but in other parts of the world, that point to this reality that we may see. a military attack by China on Taiwan before 2027. And why 2027? Because it is expected to be the year when China will be able to hold a war with the United States.
I do not share this review. I just don’t see why China would have to take such a big risk to achieve something that it can achieve in a much smarter and more efficient way. What do I mean by that? I call this method “death by a thousand cuts.” That would mean that China could spend a long time making slow but steady political, social, economic, and social inroads into Taiwan. We could argue that it is the old Soviet playbook. It can be done in a subtle way, using plausible deniability.
Taiwan remains the most successful democracy in the Indo-Pacific. That means that, again, it is vulnerable to this type of penetration, where you can use agent provocateurs on the ground. You can buy multiple players for the center or individually. You can start doing all this reform process in a long time, but it can bring more success than risking military intervention, which does not give you, I would say, even a 50–50 chance of success.
The situation in Taiwan, if we compare it to the most complex war going on right now, is very difficult. You have a very limited window of attack. In the case of Taiwan, this window of opportunity is probably limited to only two times a year, which, of course, is known to everyone in the region. That means mainly protecting Taiwan. You have an opportunity in April and then in October, so you can’t attack at any time of the year.
A complex military attack that cannot be carried out on the whole island. Even though China is waging war right now, I think that the view of these Chinese leaders – the way the Chinese leadership conducts strategy – is against this dangerous effort, and because time is on China’s side. China only needs to fix this sum of small actions in the long run. At least, this is what I would actually do as a strategist, which would promise a much better percentage of success than, as I said, a wavering military attack.
Now, we can argue that under the unexpected circumstances of political leadership – think of a situation where political stability in China is shaken, when the leader of China, Xi Jinping, is somehow cornered to take more, let’s say, an advertisement. a hoc decision on this issue because of certain hawk circles, war hawks. Yes, we have this opportunity again. It could be a black swan event, something that happened in China, and this makes him take this decision to draw attention to internal problems.
Foreign policy initiatives always gather public support. It’s not 100 percent to be ruled out, but in my case, I can actually point, as I explained, to this method of death-by-a-thousand instead of a military attack on Taiwan.
COWEN: Are we now in a world where the laws of war are obsolete?
It is worth repeating that foreign policy issues are very important issues. And here is Velina on Twitter.
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