Newt Gingrich and Bing West on America’s Debt, China, and the Danger of Losing the Next War
America has won countless battles over the last six decades, but Marine combat veteran and military historian Bing West argues that the nation has repeatedly failed to translate battlefield success into victory. Drawing on his experiences in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, West believes the problem goes far beyond military strategy. He warns that the same assumptions that contributed to those failures are now colliding with a far more dangerous challenge: a rapidly growing national debt, a military built around increasingly vulnerable legacy systems, and a China determined to reshape the balance of power in the Pacific.
On this episode of Newt’s World, Newt Gingrich talks with West about his new book, Cat Five: The 2033 War, and the scenario he believes American leaders can no longer afford to ignore. Their conversation explores why the United States must rethink the way it prepares for war, how autonomous technology is changing the battlefield, why Taiwan could become the decisive test of American power, and what the next president may have to do to confront the country’s worsening fiscal crisis. West’s warning is stark, but his message is ultimately about leadership: America still has time to change course if its leaders are willing to recognize the danger and act.
Listen to their conversation below, or scroll down for an edited transcript.
Edited Transcript
This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Newt Gingrich
I’m really pleased to welcome my guest, Bing West.
Bing is a Marine combat veteran, historian, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense. He fought with infantry units in Vietnam and later served as an adviser to American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His books on those wars, including The Village, No True Glory, and The Wrong War, are taught at military academies and praised for their realism and insight.
He’s joining me to discuss his new book, Cat Five: The 2033 War. Drawing on six decades of experience in battle and government, Bing argues that America’s leaders won battles in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan but ultimately lost the wars.
He believes that same hubris is now setting the stage for a category five hurricane economically and militarily as our national debt and China’s ambitions converge by the year 2033.
What do you mean by this notion of convergence?
Bing West
I started writing this book because I kept asking myself why, when I was in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we were winning the battles, but when I went to the White House or the top of the Pentagon, I saw leaders who were not really focused on winning.
There’s an inherent belief that America is so strong and powerful that if the other side simply understands our strength, they’ll stop fighting us. Therefore, we don’t have to fight with all our might.
If you’re on the battlefield and you don’t fight with all your might, you’re dead.
At the same time, we have accumulated enormous debt. By around 2033, the cost of servicing that debt could consume an extraordinary share of federal revenue while entitlement spending continues to grow.
That leaves less money for the Pentagon, infrastructure, and investment unless we continue borrowing enormous amounts every year.
Eventually, investors could demand substantially higher returns to hold American debt. At that point, the entire system comes under tremendous pressure.
And that is when China has an opportunity to move against us.
That’s what worries me. It’s arithmetic.
Newt Gingrich
Let’s say I agree with you. When I was Speaker, we balanced the budget for four straight years.
What would you have us do?
Bing West
There are really two issues: the debt and the military.
On the military side, we are making a huge mistake. The services want to continue investing in what I would describe as the equivalent of the horse cavalry. They want massive legacy systems, including ships that will remain with us for the rest of this century.
Those are enormous targets.
Autonomous warfare is much cheaper. Ukraine has demonstrated how dramatically drones and other technologies can change warfare.
Our military services must radically change because the money is not going to be there indefinitely. Yet they are starting down procurement paths built around legacy systems.
We can change that. But we have to decide to do it.
Newt Gingrich
I’ve been trying to change that since 1981, when I helped found the Military Reform Caucus.
But I want to go back to something else.
My dad spent 26 years in the infantry, so I’m really an Army brat. But I have enormous respect for the Marines.
What do you think makes the Marine Corps so unique?
Bing West
The Marine Corps focuses first and foremost on the idea that every Marine is a rifleman.
That means thinking in terms of defeating the enemy. The rifle symbolizes the idea that when you go into combat, you go with complete resolve to win.
As long as Marines remain focused on that, they will be dangerous to anyone who comes up against them.
If you go into war, you have to be prepared to win it.
We’ve forgotten that.
Newt Gingrich
You were in Vietnam at the cutting edge of the battle. You ultimately went back to Iraq and spent significant time with American forces there and in Afghanistan.
To what extent do you think we learned lessons from Vietnam?
Bing West
Not only did we fail to learn some lessons, we unlearned them.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, we expected soldiers and Marines to become nation builders as well as warriors. A corporal doesn’t know how to build a nation.
We distracted ourselves from the basic mission.
The troop-to-task ratio also made no arithmetic sense. I would talk to platoon commanders responsible for numerous villages they might visit only once every week or two for a few hours.
I had lived in a village in Vietnam for more than a year with one squad.
We got way out in front of our skis. We lost wars and seemed to learn very little from those losses.
Newt Gingrich
There’s a real human cost to this.
You dedicated your book to 33 people you actually served with who didn’t come home.
What does it feel like to know that we lost good people while losing these wars?
Bing West
I spent years on battlefields in Vietnam and then years going back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan.
When I sat down to write this book, I realized that since 1966, across three wars, I had known 33 different people who died.
I had eaten with them, gone on patrol with them, laughed with them, and gotten to know them.
That made me angry because they had the resolve to do their jobs.
If you don’t have the courage and determination to finish the job, you shouldn’t start it.
That is why I wrote down the names of those 33 people who never came home.
Newt Gingrich
You coined a term in the book, the “Jupiter Complex,” which I think describes a lot of what went wrong.
There’s a belief that America has such enormous power that we don’t necessarily have to use it decisively.
How does that affect us today?
Bing West
When you lose wars and seemingly nothing happens afterward, you begin to think you don’t need such a large military.
Meanwhile, China is growing more powerful.
Yet we continue operating with this assumption that because we’re America and we’re the strongest power, eventually everyone else will understand and behave accordingly.
History has repeatedly shown us that when an enemy is determined and you are not, the enemy can win.
The same mindset applies to our debt.
We know we cannot continue indefinitely on the fiscal path we’re on, but we behave as though we can.
Newt Gingrich
In the book, you create an understandable intersection of a three-tiered threat: the military, the debt, and China.
How do those three become a mutually reinforcing danger?
Bing West
You start with the debt.
Then you reduce military resources.
Then comes the third hurricane: China.
Xi Jinping is determined to establish himself as one of the greatest leaders in Chinese history. A central part of that legacy would be bringing Taiwan under Beijing’s control.
Taiwan is extraordinarily important to the global semiconductor industry.
If China gains control of Taiwan, it dramatically changes economics, trade, and the balance of power.
Xi could wait until America is consumed by debt problems and political conflict and then quarantine Taiwan, challenging an American president to respond.
Under current conditions, fighting for Taiwan could cost thousands of American lives.
That is where these forces begin to converge.
Newt Gingrich
And Taiwan isn’t important only because of semiconductors.
Its location has enormous strategic implications for the Pacific.
Bing West
Exactly.
If China controlled Taiwan, it would gain tremendous leverage over critical Pacific shipping routes.
Then Japan, South Korea, and other countries would have to reconsider their strategic positions.
China could increasingly determine the rules of the road in the Pacific.
At that point, the United States would no longer occupy the same position as the dominant superpower in the region.
That is why losing Taiwan would be such an enormous strategic change.
Newt Gingrich
I’ve been arguing that to understand the dangers we face, Sun Tzu may actually be more useful than Clausewitz.
Sun Tzu emphasizes espionage, corruption, psychological warfare, and shaping the battlefield long before the actual fighting begins.
It seems to me that Xi Jinping understands that very well.
Bing West
I don’t think there’s any doubt.
During the Cold War, there was a broad consensus that the Soviet Union was our adversary. President Reagan understood that ultimately this was a clash between two fundamentally different systems: freedom and oppression.
We’ve lost some of that clarity with China.
People talk as though we can simply divide the world and become friendly adversaries.
Meanwhile, China is thinking far beyond the battlefield.
The idea of gradually shaping your enemy encompasses economics, technology, information, and society.
They understand that.
We need to understand it too.
Newt Gingrich
Despite all these challenges, I tend to be an optimist. I figure somehow we’ll work our way out of it.
You end your book with the story of your Uncle Wally at Guadalcanal and his squad holding the line against a Japanese attack.
Why did you choose to end there?
Bing West
When my Uncle Wally and Uncle Tommy came home from the battlefields, they would talk about what happened.
Their attitude was elementary: We have each other. We’re going to hold right here.
That was cultural.
I ended the book that way because I believe the next president is going to have to approach our debt with that same sense of determination.
We’ve had presidents declare wars on major national problems. The next president may have to say, “I have a war on our debt.”
That president will have to communicate directly with the American people and explain why changes are necessary.
We’re all in this together.
Just as my uncle and a few other Americans had to hold the line at Guadalcanal, we have to decide whether our next president will have that kind of courage.
Newt Gingrich
It’s January 2029. The new president is about to be sworn in.
You get the chance to say one thing to that president.
What would you say?
Bing West
I would say: Mr. President, if you do not make our debt and the forces causing it the fundamental focus of your presidency, we could decline dramatically as a nation.
Then I would tell the president to bring in the best financial minds available, understand the problem, and go directly to the American people.
Explain the situation.
Explain what has to change.
And lead.
Newt Gingrich
Given everything you’ve laid out in this book and your experience over 60 years, are you optimistic, or do you think we’re in the kind of trouble that could be fatal?
Bing West
There are people inside the Pentagon who genuinely want dramatic change.
They have looked at the traditional procurement system and recognized that it has to change.
They want an autonomous future for our forces rather than continuing to invest primarily in the equivalent of the horse cavalry.
There is going to be a major fight over whether the Defense Department really shifts in that direction.
I can’t predict the outcome.
But when you ask where my hope comes from, it comes from knowing there is a group of people who genuinely want to change us.
Newt Gingrich
As always, talking with you is an education.
I want to thank you for your service to the country, in uniform and out, and for bringing the same passion, honesty, and toughness to these questions.
Your new book, Cat Five: The 2033 War, is available now wherever books are sold. I think it is a very important book about America’s future.
Bing, thank you for joining me.
About the Guest
Bing West is a Marine combat veteran, military historian, author, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense. He served with infantry units during the Vietnam War and later accompanied American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. His books include The Village, No True Glory, The Wrong War, and Cat Five: The 2033 War. His work draws on more than six decades of experience studying American warfare, military leadership, and national security.
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