Sarah Paine

Does that primary enemy, is that an existential threat for them?

So if you've got countries that line up on same primary enemy, existential threat for all around, the most unlikely people will cooperate.

On the other hand, people who are very likely to cooperate, maybe like the fascists, they all shared this basic ideology, but if they don't have the same primary enemy and the same theater of interest, geographically the same theater, they may not cooperate very well at all.

So you can apply this to anything you want to apply to.

So, back to my game here.

If you're looking at the cards people have to play, the United States has lousy cards because we don't share primary enemies with anybody.

So it's a stalemate.

You help India, the Pakistanis hate you.

You help Pakistanis, the Indians hate you.

It's no win.

But if you look at India, India and Russia share a China problem.

That's good.

They can cooperate on that.

And then you have Pakistan and China.

They share an India problem.

They can make things happen over that.

So there are pasta cards for them to play and zero for the United States to play.

It's just the way it is.

So, the name of the game in strategy is to get the outcome that you want to have happen.

And it's like, how do you play this game of five-person, five-country cutthroat billiards to get remotely what you want out of it?