Sarah Paine

And so...

Couldn't aid Russia in World War I. It falls for lack of arms.

And then the blockade that the Japanese did was really effective.

So to get aid in, you need railways and you need ports.

The Japanese had covered all that and they owned all the railway systems.

So the only way we could get stuff in is they're flying over the hump, the Himalayas.

Okay, so you're gonna fly in aviation fuel

plus the airplanes, and then you're going to try to bomb Japan from China.

Imagine flying in aviation fuel.

It's like a non-starter.

And I think the best argument you can make on that is that rather than getting Chiang Kai-shek to

do the Burma campaign, 43-44, and he was dead against it, is let him keep all that equipment, whatever you got over the hump, instead of sending it over to Burma, which is strategically irrelevant, turns out, in this war.

Let him keep everything, because when the Japanese try to do Ichigo, it's their biggest offense of the war, they're going,

right down through central China because the United States is cutting off so much of their maritime stuff.

They want to be able to have railways all the way through central China.

Anyway, Chiang Kai-shek gets wrecked in that.

Maybe if more of the equipment had been available to him, maybe

Maybe he would have been in better shape to then put on a better showing in the Civil War.

Also, not look to the Chinese people as like a serial loser.

And it's not his fault.