Webinar | Putting America on a War Footing: How Do We Get There from Here?

President Trump’s laudable effort to end the Chinese Communist Party’s predatory trade practices and the aggressive retaliatory measures Beijing has taken in response have intensified the prospects for a CCP escalation about which the Committee on the Present Danger: China has long warned – a shooting war that might be initiated in the near future and may not be confined to the Western Pacific.

Regrettably, despite the alarm the CPDC has repeatedly sounded since its founding six years ago, little has been done to increase our national resilience in the face of various threat vectors created by the Chinese Communists’ decades of “unrestricted warfare” against America. Among them are: acute supply-chain dependencies on China for medicines, rare earth minerals, electronic devices, fertilizers, etc.; the presence of large numbers of Chinese students, researchers, businessmen and even military personnel inside the United States; PRC technology and cyber-penetrations in our electric grid and other infrastructure; and China’s “old friends” in every sector of society, including Wall Street, academia, Hollywood and politics at all levels of our government.

Clearly, there is an urgent need for actions that will mitigate the risks inherent in such vulnerabilities. That is especially true insofar as the CCP has already begun to exploit them, notably by restricting medicines and rare earths from being exported to the United States.

This CPDC webinar examines the imperative of putting the United States on a war footing and what will be required to accomplish that task forthwith.

Moderator:

- Frank Gaffney, President, Institute for the American Future; Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China

Panelists:

- Charles “Sam” Faddis, Former Career Clandestine Service Officer, Central Intelligence Agency; Army veteran; author, “Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA”; editor, AndMagazine on Substack
• Topic: “August 1941 2.0? If the CCP’s Has an ‘Operation Z’ in Store for Us, What Will It Entail?”

- Rosemary Gibson, Co-author, “China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine;” Senior Advisor at the Hastings Institute
• Topic: “Reducing Our Critical Dependency on Chinese Supply Chains: China Rx, a Case Study”

- Dr. Karen Siegemund, PhD, Founder and President, The American Freedom Alliance; Founding Member, The Sovereignty Coalition
• Topic: “Correcting Chinese Penetration of and Influence Operations Inside American Schools”

- Lieutenant Colonel Guermantes “G-Man” Lailari, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former USAF Foreign Area Officer; former Fellow, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan; currently a Visiting Researcher at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research (Taiwan)
• Topic: “Rapid Capacity-building for America’s Pacific Allies: Maximizing Their Deterrent and, if Necessary, War-fighting Impact”

- Trevor Loudon, Senior Fellow, Institute for the American Future; filmmaker; essayist; podcaster; and author, “Enemies Within” and “Comrade Prime Minister: Anthony Albanese’s 40-Year Alliance with Australian Communism”
• Topic: “Rolling Up and Otherwise Neutralizing the CCP’s ‘Old Friends’ Here: Applying the Counter-Mafia Playbook”

- Colonel John Mills, U.S. Army (Ret.), Veteran Special Operator; former senior official responsible for Cybersecurity Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense; former member, the National Security Council staff and detailed to the Department of Homeland Security; host, “The National Security Hour”; author, “War Against the Deep State”
• Topic: “Contending with the CCP’s Cyber ‘Typhoons’ and Other Military Threats”

- Todd Bensman, Author, “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History“ and “America’s Covert Border War: The Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration”
• Topic: “Assessing and Neutralizing the Apparent PLA Presence Inside the U.S.: ‘Crowdsourcing’ Situational Awareness”

- Dave Walsh, Former senior executive, Westinghouse; former President and CEO, Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas; Managing Director, Takotagroup LLC
• Topic: “Protecting the Energy Sector: Mitigating Grid and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities”

- Brian Kennedy, Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China; President, American Strategy Group; former President, Claremont Institute; author, “Communist China’s War Inside America”
• Topic: “Protecting America: Deploying the Golden Dome and a Call to Action”