Sarah Paine

China and Russia actually discovered each other late in their histories.

It was the early part of their last dynasties when the Russians were after fur.

very lucrative in those days, and that brings them out to the Pacific.

But their relations were only episodic until we get to the mid-19th century, which is where my story is going to begin.

So in the 18th century, China was strong, Russia was weak, but that one doesn't last very long.

And both empires followed the rules for continental empire.

And if you want to survive in a continental world, that's what both of them historically have been, you don't want to have two front wars because you have multiple neighbors, any one of them that can come in at any time.

And if they gang up on you, that's trouble.

So you take on one at a time.

Also, you don't want any great powers on the borders.

This is the fundamental problem with their relationship.

is because today's friend can be tomorrow's foe, and that is truly problematic.

So what do you do to solve that problem?

Well, you take on your neighbors sequentially, you set them up to fail, you destabilize the rising and just the failing, and you set up buffer zones in between, and you wait the opportune moment to pounce and absorb, and that is Vladimir Putin's game.

But if you play this game, you're surrounding yourself by failing states because you're either busy destabilizing them or ingesting them.

So the curious might ask, are Russia and China unlucky with all the very dysfunctional places that surround them, or are they complicit?

Also, there are no enduring alliances in this world because the neighbors figure it out that the hegemonic power offers nothing but trouble in the long term.

And there's also no counsel on when to stop expanding.

So both Russia and China are known for overextending, overdoing it.

And then that may help explain some of their periodic implosions over their long and bloody histories.