The War for the Individual
Why Counterintelligence Is Moral Strategy
The defining battle of the twenty-first century is not about territory, trade, or technological dominance. It is about the value of a single human life. At the core of the strategic conflict between the United States and the People’s Republic of China lies a civilizational rift between two moral worldviews. The United States stands for the idea that individuals possess inherent worth and dignity, and that liberty, equality, and self-determination are not privileges granted by governments, but rights endowed by nature. China, in contrast, advances a collectivist model in which the state is supreme, and the individual is meaningful only in relation to the whole.
This is not simply a contest of influence or power—it is an ideological war.
The Idea of America
When stripped of its partisan politics, institutional flaws, and economic systems, the United States remains, at its core, an idea: that freedom is a moral good, that human beings are equal in worth, and that the state exists to secure, not to define, those rights. This foundational belief undergirds centuries of political thought in the West, from Cicero to Locke to the U.S. Constitution, and continues to shape America’s international posture as a defender of human rights and democratic governance. Despite its many failures, Western civilization is distinguished by its willingness to confront injustice and reform itself in pursuit of a more perfect realization of its ideals.[i]
This commitment to moral transparency is rare on the global stage. In the West, wrongdoing is debated in public, documented by journalists, and sometimes prosecuted. In authoritarian systems like China’s, by contrast, systemic failures are repressed, whistleblowers are silenced, and truth is treated as a threat to order.[ii]
The Vision of the Middle Kingdom
The Chinese Communist Party’s geopolitical strategy cannot be separated from its ideological heritage. The “Middle Kingdom” worldview, which dates back to the imperial era, positions China not merely as a nation among nations, but as the cultural and political center of global civilization. The term implies a natural order in which surrounding societies pay tribute to China’s superior wisdom and leadership.[iii] In the modern CCP’s hands, this worldview has become a tool of legitimacy and expansion. One that seeks not to coexist with the liberal world order, but to replace it.
China’s authoritarian governance model rejects the universality of human rights. It emphasizes social harmony, economic development, and state stability over individual liberty. In this framework, rights are not inalienable. They are revocable, contingent on behavior, and subordinate to national goals. Surveillance, censorship, and forced assimilation of minority populations are not contradictions within this system; they are expressions of its logic.[iv]
If China’s political model supplants the liberal democratic order, the consequences will be profound: international human rights standards will weaken, global institutions will be reshaped around state sovereignty rather than individual dignity, and authoritarian influence will extend deeper into the economic, technological, and cultural realms.
Counterintelligence as Moral Strategy
In this context, counterintelligence must be understood not only as a security function but as a strategic and moral imperative. Its mission is to detect, deter, and defeat the full spectrum of foreign intelligence activities, including espionage, covert action, and malign influence. Against adversaries like China, these activities are not merely instrumental, they are ideological.
Chinese intelligence services do not just target state secrets. They infiltrate research institutions, fund academic partnerships, shape public discourse, and pressure diaspora communities through extralegal means. These activities are designed to distort Western values from within and to erode the moral legitimacy of liberal democracy itself.[v]
Counterintelligence professionals are often seen as guardians of classified material. But their real mission is larger: they are defenders of the republic’s moral foundation. They protect the institutions that enable transparency, dissent, and open discourse. They confront the quiet war being waged against the idea that individuals matter more than institutions, and that truth cannot be owned by the state.
Counterintelligence is the quiet service of liberty. Its enemy is not only espionage, but the erosion of morality clarity.
The Cold War We Are In
Too often, policymakers, academics, and journalists hesitate to describe the strategic struggle with China as a Cold War. The term evokes fears of escalation or draws criticism for oversimplifying the complexity of modern power competition. But words matter, and the refusal to acknowledge the character of this confrontation has consequences.
This is, in fact, a cold war, though not merely a geopolitical contest. It is an intelligence war being waged over the legitimacy of the Western moral order. It involves no Berlin Wall, but it divides the globe by principle. It pits a liberal democratic system that, despite its imperfections, elevates individual dignity, against an authoritarian model that demands conformity and punishes dissent. China’s use of cyber operations, economic coercion, academic infiltration, and disinformation campaigns amounts to a slow, deliberate erosion of Western ideological confidence.[vi]
As noted in the 2024 National Counterintelligence Strategy, adversaries like China have expanded their use of nontraditional collectors, including researchers, corporate partners, and social media assets, to shape perceptions and suppress opposition.[vii] These are not random incursions. They are manifestations of a coherent strategy to displace the United States as the global standard-bearer for liberty, equity, and the rule of law.
This conflict is not symmetrical. The United States plays by rules. China does not. The United States declassifies documents, funds open research, and allows criticism of its leaders. China censors history, imprisons whistleblowers, and punishes transparency. To treat both systems as morally equivalent is to deny the lived experiences of millions and the ideals that anchor Western civilization.
A Defense of the West Worth Fighting For
Western democracies do not claim perfection, but they do claim responsibility. The right to protest, the freedom to publish dissent, and the recognition of systemic injustice are testaments to a civilization that believes in progress and self-correction. The moral failure of any individual actor in the West does not invalidate the West’s ideals. If anything, our willingness to acknowledge failure reaffirms our commitment to human dignity.
Authoritarian systems, by contrast, justify their oppression as necessary. Individual pain is minimized in service to collective harmony. The Chinese Communist Party’s suppression of Uyghurs, censorship of speech, and persecution of religious and political minorities are not aberrations. They are features of a worldview that rejects the intrinsic worth of the individual^8.[viii]
The challenge of defending the West today is not just military or economic. It is philosophical. If the West loses to China in this contest, we do not simply lose markets or supply chains. We lose the moral foundation of international order. A world led by China will not champion the inalienable rights of man. It will redefine rights as tools of governance rather than limits on power.
If America is an idea, then counterintelligence is the immune system that protects that idea from ideological infection.
Counterintelligence in the twenty-first century must be elevated, not as a bureaucratic niche, but as a central pillar of national strategy. It must be seen not only as a means of protecting secrets but as a mechanism for defending sovereignty, credibility, and civilizational identity.
To confront this Cold War with clarity is not alarmism—it is realism. To fight it is not nationalism—it is moral responsibility.
[i] See Cicero’s De Re Publica and Locke’s Second Treatise of Government for foundational views on liberty as a natural right. For American application, see The Declaration of Independence (1776).
[ii] For example, Dr. Li Wenliang, who attempted to warn colleagues about COVID-19, was reprimanded by Chinese authorities and later died of the virus. His death became symbolic of state suppression of truth. See Chris Buckley and Austin Ramzy, “Chinese Doctor, Silenced After Warning of Outbreak, Dies From Coronavirus,” New York Times, February 6, 2020.
[iii] For a deeper explanation of the Middle Kingdom worldview and its modern application, see Howard French, Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power (New York: Knopf, 2017).
[iv] Human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including mass internment and forced labor, have been widely documented. See U.S. Department of State, 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet).
[v] See Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, 2023, which outlines malign influence operations by China in political, academic, and commercial spheres.
[vi] See U.S. Department of Justice, China Initiative Cases and Background, for examples of malign influence and academic espionage targeting U.S. institutions.
[vii] Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States of America 2024–2028, which emphasizes whole-of-society targeting and cross-domain influence operations.
[viii] Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Annual Report 2023, documents systematic violations of human rights and the erosion of individual freedoms under Xi Jinping’s regime.