Sarah Paine

And the Russians are appalled.

They are not consulted, and yet they have a friendship treaty that obligates them to provide, to join a war under certain circumstances.

And the Russians are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there could be nuclear follow-up from this stuff.

So the Russians then ask the Chinese if it's okay if they have a combined naval base on China's shores, and China says, forget it.

And the Russians are thinking, okay, well then we're not gonna give you any of the plans for the atomic weapon, and it all devolves.

So there's no love lost on either side.

And then what exacerbates these tensions is the Vietnam War, where China wants influence over a neighbor, Vietnam, that is pretty typical,

But Russia wants influence over Vietnam to do a pincer on China, which China doesn't like at all.

Meanwhile, both of them want to prove their revolutionary credentials by aiding the Vietnamese, North Vietnamese.

So Russia's aid needs to come by train over China, lest the United States sink at the good stuff if it goes by sea.

So the Chinese...

feel obliged to let it go through, but they're just hassling the Russians the whole time through.

They take it apart, tear it apart, say it was from China, and the Russians are just apoplectic.

So their relations are getting worse and worse and worse, and the squabbling is just incessant.

So it's not surprising that the Sino-Soviet border war of 1969 breaks out during the Vietnam War.

And while all this is going on, this is one of the river islands, the Amur River forms much of their border, and this is one of the islands there, and there's much fighting over it.

And the Russians come to us, the Americans, and say, is it okay if we nuke these people?

And the United States says, no, there's no way it's okay to nuke these people.

And Mao figures it out, the one that wants to nuke you, that's the primary adversary.

So prior to that moment,