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The Daily Signal

Victor Davis Hanson: America Won the First Cold War. Can We Win the Second?

The Daily Signal

The Daily Signal

News, Daily News, Politics, Government

4.81.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are we prepared for the Cold War we’re actually in? Communist China is deeply embedded in every facet of American life—our economy, academics, and cultural life. For that reason, Victor Davis Hanson warns that we are already in a Cold War against it.  The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons. But China, Hanson argues, presents a different kind of challenge—one rooted in infiltration, influence, and integration rather than isolation. Do Americans recognize the scope of the challenge we’re up against? And are we prepared to stand strong? Victor Davis Hanson answers all this and more on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “There's an insidious idea that China's not really an enemy because of the massive amount of money that has been invested there. And that means put the Chinese students, the Chinese residents, the foreign investment, and our history of empathy with China; it’s very, very hard to tell people that China is an existential enemy in the way that Russia was. And we all know that they played the DEI woke propaganda card. Especially we saw that with COVID. “Can you imagine if the Russians bought farmland next to us, high-security military bases? We would have never allowed that to happen. We would have never funded a Russian lab. So there are so many different ways that China has infiltrated the cultural, social, economic, political life, the military life of the United States, that they are much more insidious, much more powerful.” (0:00) Introduction (0:15) Comparing the Cold Wars: Russia vs. China (0:40) The Russian Cold War: Isolation and Espionage (2:14) China's Unique Position (3:20) The Cultural and Economic Infiltration by China (5:34) DEI Propaganda and COVID-19 (6:38) China's Strategic Infiltration and Conclusion 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Premier League is exciting.

0:04.0

It's exhilarating.

0:08.0

And sometimes it's...

0:11.0

So when you need something to help you ride the highest and loads of all that action,

0:17.0

grab a Coke to keep you in the game.

0:20.0

Time to refresh. Time for a Coke. Coca-Cola,

0:25.0

official partner of the Premier League.

0:43.7

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal.

0:52.9

I'd like to talk about our two Cold Wars, the one that we won against Russia and the one that we're de facto in against China.

0:54.7

They're very different.

1:02.2

And I would argue that the 45-year Cold War with Russia was much easier to win,

1:09.3

despite their 7,000 nukes than it will be with China for a variety of reasons that we should all be aware of.

1:14.5

Number one, Russia was kind of a pariah state.

1:17.8

It was isolated from the so-called free world.

1:22.8

Europe was, Europe and Asia and the United States had guardrails against it.

1:31.3

There were no students de facto from Russia in the United States, none. Statistically, almost none. There was no conduit for espionage or the expropriation of American scientific and engineering knowledge

1:40.0

out of our PhD programs, MBA programs, you name it.

1:45.2

There was very little espionage by students.

1:49.7

There was very few Russian nationals in the United States.

1:53.0

We just didn't let them in.

1:56.1

There was no American investor class in Russia.

1:59.9

We remember how controversial Arm and Hammer was.

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