Sarah Paine — The war for India (lecture & interview)

How the rivalry between China and India reshaped Asia forever. I’m thrilled to launch a trilogy of episodes: a lecture series by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College, each followed by a deep Q&A. In this first episode, Prof Paine talks about key decisions by Khrushchev, Mao, Nehru, Bhutto, & Lyndon Johnson that shaped the whole dynamic of South Asia today. This is followed by a Q&A with me. Come for the spy bases, shoestring nukes, and insight about how great power politics impacts every region. Huge thanks to Substack for hosting this!

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒
* Transcript: https://open.substack.com/pub/....dwarkesh/p/sarah-pai
* Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/3RFuS7b
* Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episo....de/6beCTbPFOXKXNYPAs

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒
* Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. The Air Force, Army, Defense Innovation Unit, and Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office all trust Scale to equip their teams with AI-ready data and the technology to build powerful applications. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities. If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to https://scale.com/dwarkesh

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𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐇'𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐒
* "The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949"
https://www.amazon.com/Wars-As....ia-1911-1949-S-Paine

* "The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War"
https://www.amazon.com/Japanes....e-Empire-Strategy-Re

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
00:00:00 - Lecture intro
00:02:43 - Mao at war, 1949-51
00:06:12 - Pactomania and Sino-Soviet conflicts
00:15:14 - The Sino-Indian War
00:20:32 - Soviet peace in India-Pakistan
00:22:32 - US Aid and Alliances
00:26:46 - The difference with WWII
00:30:41 - The geopolitical map in 1904
00:35:42 - The US alienates Indira Gandhi
00:43:30 - Instruments of US power
00:54:13 - Carrier battle groups
01:03:13 - Q&A begins
01:05:03 - The appeal of the USSR
01:10:08 - The last communist premier
01:16:14 - India and China’s lost opportunity
01:32:51 - Soviet proxies in foreign politics
01:58:36 - Bismark’s cunning
02:03:37 - Training US officers
02:07:35 - Cruelty in Russian history