Sarah Paine

And then the Nazis interpret their alliance with the Japanese broadly to declare war on the United States.

So when that happens, you have a regional war that had already been going on over Poland in Europe, and this other war that had been going on since 31 in Asia, they unify into a global

Mao understood that he was dealing with three layers of warfare, nested wars, that he was fighting a civil war against the nationalists within a regional war against Japan.

And then after Pearl Harbor, there's gonna be a global war that'll eventually morph into a global cold war.

Most of his writings are written before Pearl Harbor.

So he's gonna focus on the first two layers of what's going on here.

So, after World War II is over, Mao goes after the Nationalists full bore, and the Japanese have already very much weakened the Nationalists, and Mao wins the Civil War.

Okay, these are the wars.

Now, I promised you a simple framework.

Here's the simple framework.

Simple framework should have three to five things, because that's all about any of us could really handle on short notice.

And so I got four here, and I'm gonna use Clausewitz's definition of great leadership to analyze Mao.

According to Clausewitz, in a general, two qualities are indispensable.

First is an intellect.

that even in the darkest hour, and Mao had many of those, retained some glimmering of inner light, which leads to truth.

And second, the courage to follow that faint light wherever it may lead.

The first of these qualities is described by the French term, coup d'oeil.

Coup is a glance.

Oye is an eye.

Taking in a situation with a glance of an eye.