Sarah Paine

instead of isolating the adversary, they bring in a whole new slew of adversaries, right?

They're having trouble with China.

That's the second sign of Japanese war.

We get all excited when we're involved, but it starts in 1931, and their objective soon becomes an unlimited objective.

They eventually want to do regime change in China.

Whereas in the first Sino-Japanese War, Yamagata's thinking about doing regime change and the government pulls him out because it's, buddy, don't do that.

We're going to have all kinds of foreign powers intervening if you try.

And then in the Russo-Japanese War, they're not trying to do regime change in Russia.

But in the second Sino-Japanese War, they absolutely are trying to do regime change.

They get more and more frustrated.

Then their solution to that one is to attack all the colonial interest in Asia.

That's when Pearl Harbor happens.

And then they're bringing us, the British, and that brings the British Commonwealth.

So it's Australia and New Zealand that do significant fighting.

And then the Netherlands.

So it's a different event.

Russia has just a phenomenal illiteracy rate.

It's an empire, which I think gets in the way.

If you look at how many non-Russian people they're trying to dominate, it's like they're perennially overextended, right?

Because they're perennially occupying places that don't actually make them much money.