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Founder of consultancy FACE, Velina is a geopolitical strategist who guides businesses and organizations to anticipate the outcomes of global conflicts, shifting alliances, and cutting-edge technologies on the global stage.
In a conversation around the world, Tyler and Velina start with the Balkans, then move to Russia, China, North Korea and finally return to Putin’s interest in the Baltics. She gives her views on whether the Balkan Wars still matter today, the future of Bulgarian nationalism, predicting which Eastern European countries will remain closer to Russia , why China will not attack Taiwan, Putin’s next move after Ukraine, where nuclear weapons are most important. likely to be used next, how it obtains information, its unique approach to scenario planning, and more.
Here is an excerpt on a subject of great importance:
COWEN: We may return to Bulgaria, but let me ask a few questions about the world at large. Why do you think China will not attack Taiwan? They claim it as their own and, no doubt, in five to ten years they will be able to neutralize our submarine advantage of the United States with underwater drones and surveillance of OUR underwater presence. At this point, why don’t they just head to Taiwan and try to take it over?
TCHAKAROVA: Well, I understand that there is a lot of analysis coming out now, particularly from military experts, not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world, pointing out this realistic scenario that we could see a a military attack by China against Taiwan no later than 2027. And why 2027? Because this year is expected to be the year that China will be able to catch up with the United States militarily.
I do not share this assessment. I just don’t see why China should take such a big risk to achieve something that they can achieve much more intelligently and efficiently. What do I mean by that? I call this approach “death by a thousand cuts.” This would mean that China could spend a little more time on slow but steady political, social, economic and societal penetration into Taiwan. We could say that this is the old Soviet textbook. This could be done in a more subtle way, using plausible deniability.
Taiwan remains the most prosperous democracy in the Indo-Pacific region. This also means that it is vulnerable to this type of penetration, where one can practically use agents provocateurs on the ground. You can buy many institutional or individual players. You can start this whole process of subversion over a longer period of time, but that might bring greater successes than risking military intervention, which doesn’t even give you, I would say, a 50-50 chance of success.
Taiwan’s terrain, if we compare it to the most sophisticated war currently taking place, is much more difficult. You have a very, very limited window of attack. In the case of Taiwan, this window of opportunity is probably limited to only two times of the year, which, of course, is also known to everyone in the region. This means in particular the defense of Taiwan. You have a window of opportunity in April and then October, so you can’t attack at any time of the year.
This is a sophisticated military attack that cannot be carried out on the entire island. Even though China is catching up militarily at present, I think the mindset of China’s leaders – the way they actually pursue their strategy – belies such a risky endeavor, again because that time is on China’s side. China only needs to actually prepare this amount of minor actions over a longer period. At least that’s what I would do as a strategist, which would promise a much better percentage of success than, as I said, an adventurous military attack.
Now we can say that in circumstances unforeseen by political leaders – think of a situation in which political stability in China is shaken, where the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, is sort of backed into a corner and takes, let’s say , a very negative position. ad hoc decision on the matter because of certain circles of hawks, military hawks. Of course, we also have this possibility. This could be a black swan event, something that happened in China, and that led him to make this decision in order to distract from internal issues.
Foreign policy adventures always garner public support. This is not 100% to be ruled out, but in my scenario I would emphasize, as I explained, this death by a thousand cuts approach rather than a military attack on Taiwan.
COWEN: Are we now in a world where the laws of war are fundamentally obsolete?
It bears repeating that foreign policy issues are by far the most important issues. And here Vélina on Twitter.
