Sarah Paine

So...

One of them is, in both cases, Japan's seeing a window of opportunity that I got to operate in this window and get it over with.

And it works out.

If you're doing that, that's a high-risk strategy to get away with it.

And so this is back to that they were just lucky argument.

Another thing is you can look at why certain wars turn out.

And another concept is a cooperative adversary.

What's a cooperative adversary?

It's not one that wants to cooperate with you, but it's one that doesn't play its cards remotely well.

And if you can think about

literally playing cards.

If you're playing a game with a little child, they're trying to win, right?

But they're a cooperative adversary because they just don't know how to play whatever the game is.

And you could argue that Nicholas II is a cooperative adversary, and that's required, and the United States is not remotely a cooperative adversary, and it goes really badly for Japan.

And then it's also, there's another piece, which is...

When you run one successful war, quite often you think it was easier than it actually was and less risky than it actually was.

Like this country does Gulf I, where the allies pay for the whole thing.

No Americans die, hardly at all.

Loads of Iraqis die.

They're out of Kuwait within days.