A new book recommends liberalizing U.S. immigration policy to admit more foreign-born scientists and engineers as part of a strategy to prepare for China’s rising power and compete with Chinese companies. The book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century, by Dmitri Alperovitch, details the steps the United States and its allies should take in the years ahead.
Among the questions Dmitri Alperovitch asks in his book: Who do you want to define the global order? And can the United States and its allies credibly deter China from attacking Taiwan? Alperovitch believes such a war would be an economic and humanitarian disaster. He says if America pursues the right policies, war is not inevitable.
Immigration Policy Recommendations
The book’s discussion of U.S. domestic policy sets it apart from other foreign policy books. Alperovitch argues that the best way for America to deter potential adversaries is to be strong at home. In the 21st century, domestic strength relies upon innovating and employing people capable of building those innovations.
In America, innovation and immigration policy cannot be separated. Alperovitch cites research from the National Foundation for American Policy showing that most billion-dollar startups, America’s most cutting-edge companies, have at least one immigrant founder.
Dmitri Alperovitch praises the ability of U.S. universities to attract talent from around the world. However, he understands the current U.S. immigration system often does not retain that talent due to an insufficient number of H-1B visas and employment-based green cards. About 75% of H-1B registrations are rejected each year for exceeding the annual limit. Many highly skilled individuals, particularly from India, wait 10 to 20 years (potentially longer) to become permanent residents. He believes anyone who earns a university education in a useful scientific field should be offered permanent residence if they pass all relevant security and background screenings.
“Another smart policy change would be to allow American companies that already employ foreign nationals overseas for critical research and development tasks to offer them green cards if they wish to move to the United States,” writes Alperovitch. He also favors allowing in more immigrants to foster greater economic growth and to fill jobs, such as welders, at semiconductor factories and other facilities.
An NFAP report concluded that admitting more foreign-born scientists and engineers “will be essential for the U.S. economy and American companies to compete with China and its companies.” The report noted, “Americans will benefit from the increased innovation, productivity and economic growth these immigrants and visa holders bring whether the United States pursues a policy of mutually beneficial economic ties with China or adopts a more confrontational posture.” (I authored the two NFAP studies.)
In the United States, 80% of the doctorate holders (Ph.D.’s) who perform research and development (R&D) as a major work activity in computer and information sciences and related fields are foreign-born.
Dmitri Alperovitch’s Immigrant Story
Alperovitch understands the U.S. immigration system through personal and business experience. He was born in Moscow and lived there into his teens. His parents came to America in 1990 as part of a “post-Chernobyl collaboration” among U.S. and Soviet nuclear scientists. Given his father’s nuclear expertise, the Soviet government did not let Alperovitch travel abroad with his parents. When his mother and father chose to stay in the United States, Dmitri lived with his grandparents in Moscow. In 1994, after the Soviet Union ended, he moved with his parents to Chattanooga, Tennessee. (I profiled Dmitri Alperovitch as an immigrant founder of a billion-dollar company.)
The joke told about Russian children who immigrate to the United States is they are just like American kids—except really good at math. After arriving in Tennessee, Alperovitch describes skipping “three grades of math classes.” He became bored and created his first company. He attended Georgia Tech, earned a master’s degree in a new field, “information security,” and became fascinated with geopolitics.
After working at a startup, he rose through the ranks at McAfee, and in 2011, he founded the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike with George Kurtz and Gregg Marston. Alperovitch served as chief technology officer and learned firsthand about business immigration. “Out of the initial launch team of nine people, three of my recruits were immigrants themselves,” he writes. “This country is still the place where people come to make a better life for themselves and for their children, as my parents did for me.”
Today, CrowdStrike has a market capitalization of $85 billion and employs over 7,900 people. After the company went public, Alperovitch left CrowdStrike to found the nonprofit policy organization Silverado Policy Accelerator. He writes that he wanted to “give back to the country that has given me these incredible opportunities.” Among other philanthropic activities, he donated money to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to establish the Alperovitch Institute of Cybersecurity Studies.
Immigration allows America to gain valuable insights from individuals who grew up in other countries. On December 21, 2021, two months before Russia invaded Ukraine, Alperovitch wrote in a much-cited Twitter thread that he was “convinced that [the] Kremlin has unfortunately made a decision to invade Ukraine later this winter.” He based his analysis on several factors, including his familiarity with societal feelings after the collapse of the Soviet Union (having lived through it) and Vladimir Putin, who he described as the type of bully he knew well growing up in Russia.
Examining the large gathering of Russian military forces along the border, he recalled—and believed Putin did as well—Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s famous advice: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the last one it should be fired.”
“As Putin did with Ukraine, Xi seeks to do with Taiwan,” writes Alperovitch. “I see a leader who—like Putin—has continued a decades-long upgrade to his nation’s military, views the target of his desire as an illegitimately independent territory, and sees it slipping culturally and politically further away from Beijing.” The book begins with a terrifying play-by-play describing a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Many of the book’s recommendations will require gaining the cooperation of several countries, particularly on military issues. Dmitri Alperovitch wrote World on the Brink to encourage U.S. policymakers to act, including fixing the U.S. legal immigration system.
