Aug 22, 2024 · 55m · american-optimist
He Predicted Putin's Invasion. Now He Predicts When China Will Invade Taiwan. · Joe Lonsdale
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Host Joe Lonsdale interviews cybersecurity expert and geopolitical strategist Dmitri Alperovitch on the 'American Optimist' podcast to analyze the intensifying Cold War II between the United States and China. Alperovitch details Chinese cyber threats, potential invasion scenarios for Taiwan between 2028 and 2032, semiconductor policy flaws, and key strategic advantages the US must leverage to maintain global leadership.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Joe holds 17.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Joe as informed peer 4.0 Guest teaching 4.7 Guest disagreement 1.2 Joe pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is Joe, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 18:10 Distinguishing Western censorship from CCP state coercion
Alperovitch directly rejects Lonsdale's premise linking Western left-wing institutional censorship to CCP influence, redirecting to concrete examples of Chinese economic bullying.
Hardest push from Joe ▶ 23:28 Challenging Putin's 300-year-old territorial logicLonsdale pushes back on Putin's geographical buffer obsession given modern nuclear deterrence, prompting Alperovitch to defend his thesis with military geography.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 47:11 Breakdown of dual-use semiconductor export loopholesAlperovitch systematically explains how Chinese firms bypassed advanced chip restrictions using DUV equipment and TSMC's 2019 proven techniques, highlighting foundational chip market risks.
Joe holds their own ▶ 37:26 Citing autonomous naval defense startupsLonsdale cites specific startup developments, like Saronic's autonomous vessels, to argue the US defense innovation timeline is accelerating faster than anticipated.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Joe as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Joe pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introducing Guest Dmitri Alperovitch | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Lonsdale introduces Alperovitch with high praise and asks about his background growing up as the son of a Russian nuclear physicist. The exchange is warm and welcoming with zero friction. | |
| Founding CrowdStrike and Addressing the IT Outage | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Lonsdale compares his own founder experience to Alperovitch's before asking about the recent global CrowdStrike IT outage. Alperovitch clarifies the high-level root cause while maintaining he has been away from the company for years. | |
| Chinese Cyber Espionage and the Volt Typhoon Threat | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alperovitch educates Lonsdale on the Volt Typhoon threat targeting underfunded municipal utilities rather than IP theft. Lonsdale suggests government funding and state governor involvement to fix the issue. | |
| The Cold War II Thesis and Chinese State Control | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Alperovitch delivers a comprehensive breakdown of his Cold War II thesis and Xi Jinping's commitment to Marxist-Leninism. When Lonsdale attempts to draw parallels between CCP state control and Western left-wing censorship, Alperovitch clarifies that China's focus is direct economic retaliation and speech control concerning its core interests. | |
| Predicting Putin's Ukraine Invasion: Lessons for Taiwan | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Alperovitch explains his five drivers behind Putin's Ukraine invasion and applies them to Taiwan. When Lonsdale questions Putin's historical territorial mindset in an era of nuclear deterrence, Alperovitch points out the offensive and power-projection realities illustrated by the Wagner mutiny. | |
| Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan in 2028 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 2 | Alperovitch details the immense military challenge of invading Taiwan, citing 1944 Operation Causeway and terrain constraints. When Lonsdale suggests pre-mining the Taipei port, Alperovitch schools him on the economic dilemma of shutting down one's own critical infrastructure during peacetime exercises. | |
| China's Internal Vulnerabilities and Conflict Timelines | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Alperovitch argues China is weaker due to demographic collapse and explains why 2028 is the realistic invasion window. Lonsdale challenges whether demographic decline matters given productivity gains and highlights rising US defense-tech momentum. | |
| America's Five Core Strategic Advantages: The Five 'I's | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Alperovitch outlines America's five structural advantages (the Five Is), which Lonsdale enthusiastically validates using his venture capital background and portfolio company examples. | |
| Semiconductor Strategy and Export Control Loopholes | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Alperovitch delivers an in-depth schooling on semiconductor manufacturing, explaining how export controls failed by allowing dual-use DUV lithography tools and ignoring foundational chips. Lonsdale agrees and encourages policy advocacy. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Alperovitch: Legacy Antivirus Firms Were Incapable of Innovation, Prompting CrowdStrike
“I was actually at one of those McAfee and we realized well, at McAfee that these companies were just incapable of innovation. They were born in the 19 eighties you know got very successful, but also stagnated and there was no innovation. They became public com…”
Alperovitch explains the mechanism behind CrowdStrike's massive Windows global outage
“Essentially a faulty update got released. Unfortunately to
The entire population of their customers and a huge percentage of them got impacted, and it went into a perpetual blue screen mode on Windows, where basically it crashes the system, you reboot, it cra…”
Chinese cyber group Volt Typhoon breaches US utilities for conflict disruption
“What's different now, and particularly from China, is in the last couple of years, you had the emergence of this new threat vector that is called Volt Typhoon, which is the Chinese military breaking into organizations, but instead of stealing trade secrets, in…”
Alperovitch: US Municipal Utilities Lack Security Personnel and Cybersecurity Budgets
“Like your typical municipal utility is not going to even have a security person maybe an IT person if you're lucky. Not gonna have a budget for a lot of security technologies. So it's ironic that these are the critical infrastructures that we depend the most f…”
U.S. intelligence projects China will reach 1,500 nuclear warheads by mid-2030s
“For many decades now, since they acquired nuclear warheads, they've been stable at about 300. And lately, since about four or five years ago, they started to massively build up both the warheads themselves, as well as the missile silos to launch them. And they…”
FBI assesses Chinese espionage now surpasses Cold War KGB levels
“The FBI believes that there is more Chinese espionage against this country, both cyber and traditional, than ever during the first Cold War with KGB trying to infiltrate our country, right?”
Taiwan conflict would cost global economy $10 trillion and cause depression
“Immediately, right off the bat, the estimates are that you would lose 10 trillion dollars of value in the global economy if there's a conflict over Taiwan. Global depression on levels we haven't seen since the 19 thirties.”
Amphibious beach invasion of Taiwan is practically impossible due to terrain
“When you get to the island, you realize that this beach invasion that everyone talks about is basically not doable. The beach beaches are very small. As I mentioned, the waters next to them are very shallow. More importantly, they can be completely far control…”
China would need one million troops to successfully occupy Taiwan
“That gives them a huge platform to bring in the massive number of troops that you need to invade this place, Probably at least 600,000 minimum, probably closer to a million realistically to occupy this island of twenty four million people.”
U.S. will instruct Taiwan not to fire first during a Chinese invasion
“And Taiwan can't fire first. In fact, we will tell them that you can't fire first on the Chinese because you don't want to be the one that will quote unquote provoke the war.”
Alperovitch: China is losing at least one million people annually
“They're already losing at least a million people a year, and that's only going to accelerate throughout the century.”
Xi Jinping's primary window to invade Taiwan is 2028 to 2032
“And if he wants it to be accomplished on his own watch, I think that's going to be the window in his mind, at least 28 through 32. And beyond that, I think, you know, I don't think he's penciled the date certain in the calendar. It's going to be conditions dep…”
Alperovitch: All top-tier AI models are built in the US
“It's not an accident that all the major AI models that are any good are built in this country, nowhere else. Not, not in China, not even in France. Mistral is, is, is a great company, but they're not ChatGPT, they're not Claude, they're not Gemini.”
Alperovitch: Xi Jinping is the best thing that ever happened to America
“I think Xi Jinping has been the best thing that's ever happened to America because he has effectively destroyed the Chinese economy. He has clamped down on innovation. He, through his diplomatic efforts through this wolf warrior diplomacy, alienated so many co…”
Alperovitch: Semiconductor equipment is manufactured in only three countries
“All of the equipment that you need to manufacture these chips, whether it's foundational or advanced, is basically built in three places. It's built in America, It's built in Netherlands, the company, SML that many have heard about and in Japan”
Only three of the 150 chips in an iPhone are advanced nodes
“Even if you look at your iPhone, there's about 150, 160 chips in that iPhone. Only three of them are advanced. Your processor, your memory, and the baseband from Qualcomm. That talks to the cell tower. Everything else, GPS, screen, power management, battery, a…”
TSMC is considering completely exiting the foundational legacy chip business
“TSMC now that manufactures both advanced and foundational chips is considering getting out of the foundational chips business entirely because U.S. Government is creating this nice monopoly for them in advance.”
Alperovitch: US leads China in AI and space, but loses badly in green energy
“Well, so on those three, we're winning in the on those four technologies, we're winning the first three. We're losing badly in energy across the board, right? They're dominating batteries. They're now dominating AVs. They're dominating wind and solar and nucle…”