Sarah Paine

So if you abandon those places... Also, in the Cold War, there was a tremendous amount of economic growth across the world, and particularly in the Third World.

Why?

Because in the past...

If there's a civil war, whoever's losing either comes to us or comes to the Russians and says, help us.

So whoever it is helps, and then the other side feels obliged to help.

And then you're just destroying wealth ever more rapidly.

And the Cold War was anything but cold in the Third World.

Tens of millions of people died in these conflicts.

So when you end that, all of a sudden they can start compounding growth.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a problem with allowing someone, not countering someone who's going to impose communist systems all over the place.

And communist systems are really good at putting dictators into power in a civil war situation.

It's very effective.

That's how Mao gets into power.

And the problem is, okay, then they win the civil war, they're in power, they annihilate the opposition, but then it produces compounding poverty thereafter.

Right.

Well, I think you had a more optimistic generation, ironically optimistic.

The people who had survived World War II, there was a real generosity there.

I mean, American servicemen, uh, and women, but when I say servicemen, they were welcomed all over Europe and, uh, they were adored in Europe, right?

And, uh,