Coronavirus Response Is a Weapon in China’s Brand of War

When this week’s Group of Seven meeting fractured over U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s insistence that any joint statement include the phrase “Wuhan virus,” it was an easy moment for many commentators to decry American racism and claims of exceptionalism. Indeed, the Donald Trump administration has chosen an absurd hill to want to die on. But at least part of the motivation is understandable: The Chinese government, which horribly botched the response at the source of the coronavirus outbreak, is undertaking a full-court press to be seen as the international leader as Covid-19 has gone global, even pushing the conspiracy theory that it’s an “American disease” introduced by the U.S. Army.

The skirmish over the coronavirus is only the latest in a struggle between Washington and Beijing for the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. One person who’s been watching this “Cool War” closely is David Kilcullen, author of the recently published “The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West.” It’s a study of how China, and also Russia, are adopting nontraditional forms of warfare to counter the conventional military advantage of the U.S. and its allies. Kilcullen, a career infantry officer in the Australian Army, is best known in the U.S. as an influential adviser to U.S. Generals David Petraeus in Iraq and Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan. Having hung up his combat helmet, he wears a lot of hats: professor of international and political studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia, professor of practice in global security at Arizona State University and chief executive of Cordillera, a global research firm.