As of Thursday night, Israel retaliated with strikes against Iran following Iran’s initial attack on April 13. This interview took place on Monday afternoon.
Navigating the labyrinth of interconnected crises and man-made natural disasters is a full-time job for anyone brave enough to follow the news. As events continue to unfold at breakneck speed, it feels like we’re living in the shadow of global events that are not only definitive, but actively shaping the next decades of our lives in real-time. From the wars in Gaza and Ukraine to the AI arms race with China, or the volcano of misinformation shaping our post-truth reality, we are careening in the direction of something inevitable. And while many things can be true at once, perspective still matters — especially in times of such murky complexity.
Helping us navigate this complexity is former Virginia Governor and Senior Senator, Mark Warner, who we caught up with last week at his office in Washington DC. As Chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, he has a prescient eye for future threats percolating just over the horizon. With the Middle East on the brink and the potential for regional war looming, Warner laid out the current state-of-play, providing an inside perspective on what’s driving some of our most urgent global challenges.
Landon Shroder: Senator, nice to chat with you again. I know you must be very busy, so let’s hop right in. Last Saturday night, there was an unprecedented situation with Iran’s attack on Israel consisting of 170 drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles.
How is the situation unfolding from your perspective as Chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence?
Senator Warner: There are a couple of things: One, it was a remarkable display of Israeli capabilities that took down 99% of the incoming with help from the Jordanians, Saudis, British, and French. I think it was a good moment to show that Israel was not totally isolated. But remember, Israel struck the Iranian compound in Damascus. That’s what started this.
Landon Shroder: That was a bold decision given the war in Gaza.
Senator Warner: I agree with Biden on this one. Israel needs to take the win, particularly after how the war has been executed in Gaza. My fear is that the Israeli government may try to overreach on another attack — a tit-for-tat in the region is not good. Not only for Israel and Iran, but there are a lot of other nation states that need some breathing room to negotiate.
If we had had this conversation a week ago and you asked what kept me up at night, it would have been Ukraine; is our country going to stand by our commitments to Ukraine? If we walk away, no one would ever trust America again — rightfully so.
I had a call yesterday with the CIA director and a lot of our intel committee members, non-classified. The good news is many of the members — Democrat or Republican — were glad that Israel is able to defend itself. But we still need to make sure we get this right because of the linkages between the Iranians, Russians, and Chinese. There’s an interconnection here.
Landon Shroder: Now that we’re on this escalation ladder, do you feel there is a very real possibility for regional conflict?
Senator Warner: I think there is a very high chance. My hope is that the Israelis will choose a non-kinetic response when they decide to strike back. The ability for Israel to demonstrate some of the tools they have in the cyber domain would be good. However, I am concerned that some members within the Israeli government—not necessarily the Prime Minister, but some on the far right—have been looking for a reason to go to war with Iran for a long time. And I think that would be a huge miscalculation.
Landon Shroder: How genuine is the concern for miscalculation, right now?
Senator Warner: People have a right to be concerned. But what happened on Saturday night was an Iranian embarrassment and an Israeli victory.
Landon Shroder: Even so, 350 projectiles, including a drone swarm which has become a fixture of modern warfare seems like something not to be taken lightly.
Senator Warner: Iran has those capabilities, and they can throw more at Israel. Before the conflict in Gaza and in the immediate aftermath of October 7th, I think most of the Sunni Arab states were sympathetic to Israel. Today, that’s not the case, despite Jordanian and Saudi efforts to shoot down some of the drones and missiles.
I have been a pro-Israel guy, but to see how they have executed this war with 33,000 dead and counting…what kind of blew me away was the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet — their A team — are reporting they have only eliminated 40% of Hamas fighters and 40% of the tunnel network after 180 days of war. And at what loss to Palestinian lives?
Landon Shroder: Do you think we’re adequately prepared to deal with these kinds of complex challenges right now, the way we’re positioned internationally?
Senator Warner: It is complex. One of the things we saw when Trump was in office was the questioning of all our alliances. The one area he did do well in was the Abraham Accords (normalizing relations with Israel). But I think our alliances have never been stronger, look at NATO expanding with Sweden and Finland. America has strong allies at this point. The Israeli government, not so much.
Landon Shroder: The war in Gaza, for all the obvious reasons, has been quite emotive. But it seems like the Democratic Party is uniquely split between support for Israel and those opposed. How is that impacting our ability to shape policy in Congress?
Senator Warner: That is a great question. I don’t know the answer. I do know that I never expected this level of casualties — tunnel networks are difficult, especially when you have hostages — but the dropping of 2,000 pound bombs? Early on in the war, a refugee camp was bombed and hundreds of people were killed just to get one bad guy. So there’s not only push back from young Americans, but from people all over the world. I definitely think we need a ceasefire, but it also has to come with hostages [being held by Hamas].
Landon Shroder: I know we’ve covered a lot of ground already, but what’s the world looking like to you right now? It feels like we’re just bouncing from one crisis to another.
Senator Warner: It looks polarized, messy. I think the Russian invasion of Ukraine was one of the single most important geopolitical events of the last 50 years. And if we don’t stand strong there, it will be a historic mistake, rivaling the appeasement of Munich in the pre-WW2 era. China has their own set of demographic and economic issues, but they’ve not lessened their desires on Taiwan.
I think there’s a lot of countries in Africa, South America, and Asia that would be more than willing to partner with us and our allies. But we have to spend the time, energy, and effort there.
Landon Shroder: Following that up, for the past twenty years we were focused on things like counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency and worried about groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. But with the war in Ukraine, it seems like we’re back in the realm of great power competition between nations. How do we shape this new era of foreign policy?
Senator Warner: Some of these are the strategies we employed pre-1989. I’m not saying we’re back to the cold war or containment, but we do need to keep a realistic eye on Russia, which has never gotten over the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With China, the more trade the better. But what changed my views between 2012-2014 was the consolidation of power under President Xi, who decided that China did not need to play by the same set of rules. He decided that the Communist Party’s maintenance of power was more important than democracy or integration into the world economy. They then found Russia who still had a chip on its shoulder, an Iranian regime that had been isolated, and an extreme regime in North Korea — and they formed this new [geopolitical] axis.
I still think the biggest challenge of our time is technology competition with China. Russia was a military and ideological threat, but never an economic threat.
But I still like our odds and allies. Whether we like it or not, we’re still the essential nation and they have to be willing to count on us — we have to live our values. This is why there’s been so much pushback on some of the Israeli efforts. There are Palestinian Americans and so many Virginians of Muslim faith and the stories are heartbreaking.
Landon Shroder: Do you think we still have the innovation edge over China?
Senator Warner: Absolutely.
Landon Shroder: Last year, the National Scientific Board said that China is outpacing the US in terms of AI patents.
Senator Warner: When we were talking in 2020 there was a Taiwanese [scientist and investor] named Kai-Fu Lee. He believed that China had the most compute power, data, and scientists, and he predicted that China would win. But if you look at the top AI companies in the world, nine out of the top ten or eleven are American.
As someone involved in politics, obviously everyone is polarized, they feel like things are crummy.
Landon Shroder: There is this pervasive sense of cynicism nowadays. When you flip on the news, it feels like everything is trending for the worse. Can we overcome that?
Senator Warner: If you take a step back, no other country that has come out of Covid is performing better than America. We’ve had 40 straight months of job growth; unemployment is under 4%. The fastest growing business right now are women-owned, with businesses owned by Black women growing even faster. We are innovating. Even with the border being a mess, it’s a mess because we’re still the only country in the world where people will risk their lives to have a little of what we take for granted every day.
America’s secret sauce, in many ways, has been the fact that you can come here as a first generation [immigrant] and be American. I could move to France or Dubai tomorrow, but I would never be considered French or Emirati. This is why the anti-immigrant fervor that some politicians propagate is robbing us of our optimism.
Landon Shroder: You released a statement with Senator Rubio backing the TikTok ban. What’s the actual national security concern, since most people just use the app as it was intended?
Senator Warner: I hear you, but here’s the thing. TikTok has a lot of creativity; people make money off of social influence — I think that’s great. I don’t want to ban TikTok. I want the ownership to be transferred.
Landon Shroder: Ring-fenced from China?
Senator Warner: It can be a Brazilian or Canadian company; it doesn’t have to be an American company. Even if TikTok didn’t exist, should we allow a Chinese entity to freely collect data from 170 million Americans? And at the same time, have that same Chinese company propagate propaganda at a rate that is bigger than Fox News and MSNBC combined. You would say no way. That is the reality. American platforms have their problems as well, but when you have a third of young people getting most of their news from TikTok — that worries me.
In many ways, I believe we’re less secure about misinformation than we were four years ago. Now with AI tools, there is a storm of activities that can really manipulate [perceptions]. Because of our polarization, there’s a lot of Americans that don’t believe anybody anymore. Our adversaries know this is an opportunity to try and manipulate folks. So I do worry about things like voter manipulation and misinformation, especially this year and the damage it can cause.
Landon Shroder: Last question. Looking over the horizon, what should Virginians focus on? What should they be concerned about over the next five years?
Senator Warner: We have to maintain our levels of innovation. Artificial intelligence can greatly empower people, but it also scares the heck out of me. We should not repeat our approach to social media where we said, ‘all right, you guys go break things and we’ll figure out guard rules later.’ We never put those guard rules in place. We also need to maintain both a strong military and values-based approach to the rest of the world. I believe the rest of the world wants to do business with us, and we should take those opportunities.
But I do think, as Virginia becomes more diverse, we have to make sure everybody still gets a fair shot — it is the morally right thing to do. Right now, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we’re basically 19% African American, nine to 10% Hispanic, and about 7% Asian. If these folks aren’t getting the same opportunities I had, then the enterprise called Virginia will not be successful.
Landon Shroder: Are you optimistic about the trajectory we’re on as a Commonwealth?
Senator Warner: Yeah, I think we are. I’m still a big believer. If I can achieve one thing, it is to ensure there is equality of opportunity all around the state.
Landon Shroder: Senator, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. I know it is going to be a busy week.
Senator Warner: It was great. We didn’t get to as many topics as we did last time, but that was a lot.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Illustration by R. Anthony Harris @majormajor____
