Sarah Paine

The Russians took everything they could.

We have not yet presented an account for this list of stolen territory, all the territory I've shown you.

We want it back.

Russians, jaw drops, panic.

And the Chinese then are much more aggressive.

about what they consider to be their territorial rights.

And there is a border war over territories, and in particular, this one island, Jambower-Demanski Island in the Amur River.

All right, here's how riverine borders work, international ones.

Under international law, the border is the Thalweg, which is the center of the main channel of whatever the river is.

And Russia had followed that with its European borders.

Not with China.

It claimed both banks of the Amur.

Well, the Chinese are fed up with that, and they take Jambau Island.

And the Russians are furious, and they come to the United States, and they say, "'Would it be okay if we nuked these people?'

And we're like, no.

So then the Russians scratch their head and they come back and they go, okay, would it be okay if we use conventional weapons to blow up their nuclear stuff?

And we go, no, still not okay.

And Mao gets it.

The one that wants to nuke you is your primary adversary.

So there's a reshuffling of the primary adversaries so that formerly the United States was a primary adversary of both China and Russia.