Sarah Paine

That year, Mao just moves.

And he is roaring down south, and he's about to get the Yangtze River.

And Stalin's like, hey, buddy.

Take a break at the Yangtze.

Don't exhaust yourself.

And Mao ignores it.

Because whereas Stalin might have wanted to keep nationalist rump states south of the Yangtze River, yielding a divided China in keeping with weakening your neighbor, Mao is not remotely interested in that.

And here's my 10th example, which is the Korean War.

If you look at the Korean War, the first year is a war of movement.

There's up and down, up and down the peninsula.

It's unbelievable how much movement there is.

But then it stalemates for the last two years.

And you think, well, what's going on?

Why don't they settle the war sooner?

Because both sides are taking incredible losses.

Well, here's how it goes.

Once China intervenes in the Korean War, and once they halt various offensives to start peace talks, the Chinese do incredible tunnel work, and probably the North Koreans as well, and build an incredible tunnel system.

So it means the South Koreans and the UN forces are never gonna get anywhere near the Soviet border ever again.

And from that moment on, Stalin thinks he's got a low-risk, high-reward strategy where he's going to weaken the United States and delay the rise of China.

So what's not to love about fighting to the last Chinese in Korea?