The Diary of a CEOWW3 Threat Expert: The WW3 Warning We Are Ignoring, The Only Way Out Is THIS! | Dr Sarah Paine
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
90 min read · 17,822 words- 0:00 – 2:01
Intro
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
We're potentially barreling our way into a world war, and it looks like World War III. And once wars start, it's really hard to stop them. But we have reckless people running some very large and important countries around the world, and they're all lying about it, and here's the problem with normalizing lies. The Soviet Union collapsed in large part because it was built on lies.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you might be one of the most knowledgeable people that I think I've ever spoken to on the subject of World War III, but I don't know what the [beep] going on. So-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
History's moving really fast. It's like the logjam's busted, and we don't know which way it's gonna go, and it's tremendously frightening. Putin decided to kick over the chessboard by invading Ukraine. Donald Trump decided to get into a recreational war in Iran, and this war has trashed the U.S. economy. It has blown the U.S. alliance system, but it also has the collateral damage of taking down the world's economy, and this is the problem with having these dark personalities running countries. Like Putin, he doesn't care how many people he kills. These people are historically unqualified.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But Trump has made a deal with Putin for diesel exports.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, this is disinformation. Russia has no capacity to export diesel in sufficient quantities to make any difference whatsoever. As usual, he's lying.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Trump's not gonna back out of Iran. It doesn't sound like Putin's gonna back out of Ukraine.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They're gonna go forever.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If we continue in the direction of travel we're on now, what does the future look like?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, you've got to prevent these things from breaking out because once they break out, then things are really over. So I can give you concepts. Here we go.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask you. Two months ago, 61% of the people that watched this channel weren't subscribed. We're now down to 58%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've made on this channel, if you like this channel, can you do me a small quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, the more we can invest in the guests and the production. Thank you, and enjoy this episode. [upbeat music]
- 2:01 – 6:53
How Did the World Get So Close to World War III?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Sarah Paine, you might be one of the most knowledgeable people that I think I've ever spoken to on the subjects we're going to speak about today, and they are subjects that I think are incredibly timely based on everything that's going on in the world. What I see is war over here, war over here, conflict over here, Putin invading this place. Trump's gone into Iran. What I see on the streets of Paris, where we were yesterday, is rioting, and I see disorder. Um, but I don't know where, what the first domino that fell that caused everything that we're seeing now, um, occurred or what the sort of background context is. So I'm going to ask you, where does this all start?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, history doesn't start. It's a long continuum. But I'll try on some concepts that might be helpful. The way countries used to organize themselves, and often they were empires, uh, was by land, was the currency of power. So the continentalist world is all about taking territory for others, right? And when you're doing that, you're burning wealth because you've watched it in all these places. Then later, an alternate possibility came. It originated from maritime powers, but ultimately it becomes a maritime world order to something different. Britain is a maritime power. But then you get to the Industrial Revolution, where suddenly you can compound wealth, and that's a game changer because it changes the currency of power, which formerly in that continental world I've just described, it's all about land. It's changing the currency of power to industry, commerce, and trade. That if you do those things, you get compounded wealth, and with that, you can buy your armies or do whatever, uh, you want. And then the maritime order is about compounding wealth from just having universal rules, like you've been traveling all over. Your little piece of plastic works everywhere, right? That's based on rules-based order. And then you've got a small company, and you operate in various countries. Um, no one's taking you down for your money that you're making, right? All your transactions are working across the world. This is the rules-based order. If it goes away, the billionaires who've been funneling their money into the continentalists, their world will disappear too. They will become casualties of it. And then when I think about what's important on this planet, it would be you, the young. Like, please tell me what is more important than the generations that follow. Just tell me, what is it? Nothing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you concerned about the next generation?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
We're potentially barreling our way into a world war. We have reckless people running some very large and important countries around the world, and as you've noticed, once wars start, easy to do that part. Really hard to end them. Why? Because whoever's losing doesn't want to lose, so they keep doubling down long after they've lost.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You made a comment there. You said you think we're sort of barreling towards a world war. People, you know, have probably said that every year for the la-- since World War II.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Ah, do you have negative and positive objectives here? Ah, yeah, here we go. Negative and positive objectives. So, a positive objective, you make something happen. Like, I don't know, I want to snatch Maduro and put him in a New York prison. We can verify that the guy's in a New York prison. You snatched him. That's a positive objective. A negative objective would be preventing something from happening. And how can you prove how many times a world war was avoided in the last whatever years? You can't. And it's also controversial, right, on deterrence because you can say, "Ah, I've invested in whatever it is, and this is to deter everybody." Then it's prove it. Well, you can't prove it. And yet, the example I use as a parent, if you have a little kid, a lot of it's negative objectives, preventing the little kid from getting run over. You hold their hand on the street. If you're living in New York, how many times in a day just walking up the street did you save that child's life because you were hanging onto their hand before they, you know, took off in front of ca- into traffic? So negative objectives are incredibly important. And since I'm on this topic, governments, I believe, are primarily about negative objectives, preventing disasters. So disaster number one would be, like, foreign invasion. But other things, preventing bridges from collapsing, we inspect them, preventing all kinds of malpractice across professions. We license people. Having everyone be illiterate, you have, you have education. And so governments don't actually get credit for what they do because on a normal day, it's normal. So you think, "Well, my government hasn't done anything for me lately." Untrue.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm. And that applies here to the idea that, you know, people have probably through history said that there was gonna be a war a lot.
- 6:53 – 9:07
Was the Iran War a Catastrophic Mistake?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And so is there particular writing on the wall at this moment in the time?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the writing on the wall?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, the Iran war is probably one of the most incompetent wars in human history.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Was that a mistake?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, yeah. Let's do some concepts of how to analyze that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
One is in a war, if you're doing it right, if you really must have a war, you put all the costs on the person you're fighting, and then you minimize costs yourself. Well, this war has trashed the U.S. economy. It has blown the U.S. alliance system. Yes, Iran is hurting without a doubt, but it has also has the collateral damage of taking down the world's economy. So this now transforms the United States to an annoyance to just about everyone's primary adversary for threatening their economies. That's breathtakingly incompetent.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What was the misunderstanding?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I'm not privy to the decision-making. So let's do another thing about assessment. This is when you do an assessment before you even do a war, you need to look at not just my strengths and if you're the, if you're Iran, your weaknesses, which clearly that was part of the assessment. We're strong, we figured all that out, but also your strengths and my weaknesses. Oh, and plus all the other people who might be interested, and clearly that was absent. Or the people who should have been saying, "Hey, the first thing they're gonna do is shut down Hormuz," weren't there, right? It's like a hot water bottle. If you cork that thing, it means anybody who lives there who doesn't have an alternate coastline cannot get things out by sea. Does that make sense?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Narrow seas in wartime, easy to shut down. Ukraine shut down the Black Sea. These places close down in wartime because between shore artillery and mines and other stuff, things don't move. So when the United States had its big base in, yeah, Bahrain, was-- that's where the big naval base is. Okay, how are we gonna get to the naval base? I don't think so. So then where are we gonna go? Oh, we're gonna have to go to Diego Garcia. That base would be two thousand five hundred miles away, and that little base is like in the middle of nowhere. That
- 9:07 – 15:41
Where the Trump Administration Went Wrong
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
would be a mess.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And this is why I asked the question about the misunderstanding, 'cause you'd think lots of smart people at the White House would have figured out-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
You're talking first Trump Administration when there was a guy named General Mattis around. We now have Major Pete, and Major Pete is really good at identifying, uh, Blacks and women and firing them. I mean, great, Pete. [laughs] That's-- And now they're doing testing on testosterone. I kid you not. And, uh, I don't know if you remember when you were an adolescent when testosterone's peaking if we think there's a correlation with that and your greatest reasoning powers. I don't know. All right, good luck with it, Major Pete. So these people are not... They're historically unqualified for a job. That makes them profoundly dangerous. They've undermined the futures of their own children, and they're undermining the prospects for the Republican Party, which they care about.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do you think they thought was going to happen?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
How do I know? I'll give you another thought about just generics, what I call type A and type B American hubris. Type A American hubris is all decisions in the world that matter, they happen in the United States. Okay, good luck with that one. And the second one, uh, type B American hubris, which applies to some of the tech, uh, bros, is just because you're really good at something doesn't make you really good at everything, and you need to have the humility to understand the limits of your expertise and when you need to listen to others. And another piece of it is listening to divergent opinions, so I can't find my blind spots, but maybe you can. And it's really important to talk across political divides, but this, what's going on now is just straight up yes men, and they've committed pivotal errors. They have permanently damaged U.S. national security.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's the first time in my life that I've heard of a U.S. president start talking about taking other people's countries. It's almost like Trump was talking about taking Venezuela-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a continentalist
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and taking-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Mr. Real-- He's a, he's a real estate guy. Yeah, he sees real estate.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He was saying he was gonna take Canada, uh, make it the fifty-first state, I think. And then he thought, I th-- that Iran would be a walk in the park, that he would behead the leader, the people would rise up. I mean, this is what they said.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, yeah. Um, what's fascinating if you study-- So there's another one I call half-court tennis. Half-court tennis, you're only looking if you're American, Team America, and you just, you cross at the net, and you aren't even looking at things, right? And let's talk about football, and I don't care whether it's American or European football. Works either way. That those who are real football enthusiasts, they know not only about the home team, but they know about all the teams, right, all the major ones. And you all, you know about the players too. This is a recreational sport. And then in foreign policy- You're not studying the other side? And I don't know if, um, you've seen Iran's Lego videos. Oh, you need to. On the plane trip back, you need to look at Iran's Lego videos.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, where they're taking the piss out of America.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They're, yeah, they're taking these little Lego characters. What they demonstrate is the Iranians have a deep understanding of Americans, whereas Americans don't know up from down on what's going on. Here's another maybe a concept that'll help. Situation or problem. In life, there are certain things that, as desirable as they are, are just not attainable, right? It'd be great if everyone on the planet was a mil- multimillionaire, right? It's not feasible. And if you're going after an unfeasible objective, you're gonna overextend yourself. It's gonna have a very bad ending to it. A problem is something that maybe you can solve. And the United States, the greatest generation understood that Soviet Union, lethal threat, we couldn't solve it, right? You try to solve that, and it'll be the nuclear end to all of us. And so then what you're into is managing it, and then you use various, uh, elements of national power. One of them was sanctions so that you're gonna depress Soviet growth. And then, unlike now, where we're tariffing everybody, crazy land, what you're trying to do is maximize the growth within your alliance system. So for those who behave, you wanna maximize their growth. Those who can't behave, you wanna minimize theirs so that over time, the relative threat diminishes over time. Does not solve it. And then you're also trying to get accurate information out, uh, not propaganda, but accurate information, hoping that an in generational change that maybe the other side reassesses, and if they don't, you're perfectly safe behind the castle walls, and you're handling this thing at affordable cost 'cause the sanctions are really costing them much more than you're costing you. A problem, if you can, if you can figure it out, by all means solve it, but we're trying to solve Iran. There are ninety million of them. All right, now to give you some data on how to understand this, 'cause I was trying to figure it out. Nazi Germany, and it had extended borders. It's not just what Germany is today. It's, uh, it probably includes Austria and other things. It had a population I think of about eighty million. Isn't Iran like ninety million? I think the occupation force, as best I can tell, and I'll defer to some World War II his- historian tells me I'm wrong, is about one and a half million was the occupation force after World War II just to occupy Germany. But that's not taking into account all the millions of people coming from Russia everywhere else. So when you're talking Iran equivalent size, it's not feasible, and, like, why would you wanna do it? They're a bunch of Iranians. Uh, you, you wanna contain the, the nuclear thing at affordable cost, and that was the, the Obama deal, right? That was all the permanent members of the, the, uh, UN Security Council signed on to that and the EU. They thought it was the best they could do. Had this really intrusive inspection system to get Iran to dial back its nuclear capabilities. Was it perfect? No, but it was feasible, and it mitigated the threat to make it bearable. Now, what's the lesson for Iran? What do you suppose the lesson is for everybody now? Called get a nuke, right? With these wars, it's like if you don't have one, you're toast. We have incentivized, uh, proliferation. Uh, Putin with his war initially and then us with this Iran thing. It's pr- it's profoundly self-defeating.
- 15:41 – 20:07
Putin's Biggest Mistake in the Russia-Ukraine War
- SBSteven Bartlett
You referred to it as a pivotal error-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which is another one of your, uh-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Okay. I'll-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... your concepts.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, I think that these concepts, the reason for doing it is you can use them for other things. All right. Pivotal error is once you've made it, the choices that you had before, they're a lot better than ones you have now, and you never get the old ones back. So you think about Vladimir Putin, his invasion of Ukraine, pivotal error. Russia is just, uh, has burned through its Cold War arsenal. Putin would've been do- much better when he did the easy walk in with his little green men into Crimea and Donbas of just sitting with that and slowly destabilizing Ukraine over a number of years, right? Instead, he has massively contributed to Ukrainian national identity. National identities often come out of wars. Um, in fact, Britain massively contributed to the development of the U.S. national identity during the American Revolution 'cause it was all these separate colonies that by the time that revolution was over had a much more cohesive sense of nation. And, um, all these n- uh, national institutions that grow up as a result of it, and you see Ukraine's doing that as, as well. So pivotal error, and then for us on the, the Iran war, we've lost our alliance system. Sure, someone else can reassess, and we'll try to restore stuff, but we will never be the trusted partner ever again. It's done.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said the post-World War II world is collapsing, and we are now going into a second Cold War that could end in nuclear war. What is, what is it that's collapsing, Sarah?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, isn't it the way, um, systems work is by norms, that we follow norms? And the way I think about it is like traffic. So most of us, whatever side of the road you're supposed to drive on in whatever country you're in, you do that, and then there's stoplights, and you do that, and I get it that people speed and all that stuff, but mostly people are following the, the rules of the road, and there aren't nearly enough. If p- everyone decided to just do whatever on a given day, there aren't enough policemen ever to enforce that. Uh, it would just be mayhem, right? So the rules-based order was always based on norms of following them, and the U.S. legal order was based on norms of everyone more or less following them
- SBSteven Bartlett
Give me an example of some of those norms
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh, when you lose an election to go, um, I, uh, congratulate the other side and, uh, I'll do better next time instead of, "Oh, no, they cheated." Now, the United States is pulling out of this order. The existential threat that this is posing has led to the most rapid institution building, uh, in Europe. It's incredibly fast
- SBSteven Bartlett
Institution building
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What does that mean?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
You've got, uh, the Baltic eight that are-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Who's that?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
So you got, um, Nordic countries, right? You got Finland, Sweden, Norway, and then Denmark. That makes four. And, uh, the, the Scandinavian countries, and then you get the Baltic, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and then Iceland's part of this as well. And so they've been o- organizing all sorts of security things together. There's remilitarization going on. Uh, there's also work on space ports all over the place. Britain has, since the '60s, has had space ports, so has Norway, Sweden. Britain's gonna build a new one up in the Shetland Islands, and it's 'cause you all are gonna be launching your own satellite system. And I think also you all are sick of our credit card payment systems. You're gonna do that locally. There's an app that's been put out. Apparently, if you're in Europe and you wanna buy stuff, your app will tell you immediately whether a product is American or not, so you don't have to buy that product. It's called the B word, boycott, which is happening to America right now as a result of doing all of this. And you've seen Prime Minister Carney of Canada traveling everywhere, organizing the middle powers. That'll be the new world order. It's unfolding, and the United States is, uh, it's, it's gone rogue. As America, it's, uh, we're on the right side of two world wars, made an incredibly positive contribution in many, many ways, and what we're doing now is so negative, and it's profoundly negative for the futures of our children.
- 20:07 – 21:12
Should America Stop Fighting Other Countries' Wars?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do you say to the people that say, "Sarah, we should stay out of these wars. We should stay out of the Ukraine situation."
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
All right. By all means, do not send combat troops all over the place, which is what we were doing in the Middle East. You position people like Ukraine to succeed. You don't have to send any troops there. But, uh, give them what they need to solve this. That is a cheap thing to do. The, uh, uncheap thing to do is blow our alliance system so now people are boycotting us. There are all kinds of industries in the United States that are being hurt by this from, uh, what is it? Kentucky bourbon makers have to shut down. Kid you not. 'Cause the Canadians won't buy our booze. And think about if you have a business, let's say Canada's only five or 10% of your business. Well, if they boycott you, that might be your profit margin, right? Canada's arranging to, uh, sell its energy to Europe and other places and trying to de-risk from us, and it's entirely our fault. We threaten them.
- 21:12 – 24:34
Why Americans Are Tired of Paying for Foreign Wars
- SBSteven Bartlett
People say that, you know, "We don't wanna, we don't wanna have to pay for someone else's war, Sarah. It's gonna-- we don't know how long it's gonna last. It's gonna cost so much money." What do you say to those people?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
It goes back to limited and unlimited objectives. An unlimited objective is regime change, and the most unlimited variant is genocide as well. So Hitler had both, right? And Putin has very unlimited variant because he wants to not only take over Ukraine, but he also wants to, uh, shoot up a good part of the government down to small children. That was, he was trying to execute the Zelensky family. What, what person does that sort of stuff? In addition, he wants to, uh, eliminate the purveyors of Ukrainian culture and kill them, and that's called genocide. So you can have a whole continuum, right? You can have the most limit, unlimited thing of genocide plus regime change, and you come a little bit over it, it's just regime change. And then the limited stuff is, "I only want half your country to," uh, all the way down to, "I don't know. I want you to be polite to me at football games," whatever it is. So this is where Russia comes in. I believe, and I could be wrong, and the key on being right or wrong is you should constantly reassess. Don't worry about being wrong. Uh, what you do when you realize you got it wrong is say, "I got new information, and here's why I think differently." But I believe that Russia has unlimited objectives, that Putin wants to restore the old Soviet empire. There are many problems with that. One of them is you think about Russia. Russia's been, uh, the backwater of Europe forever under the Tsars. Can you think of one Russian product that you have ever wanted to buy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, no comment.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Okay. And let me give you a little hint. Smirnoff's is a British company.
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs]
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Right? They don't even produce the vodka. So it's these unr- uh, these manufactured goods, no. It's just a basic primary goods. So it has a failing economic model. Then during the Cold War, it's exporting communism everywhere, setting back, uh, living standards everywhere. When you do that, it involves a lot of deaths because there, there are children who aren't getting v- vaccines, all kinds of things that are not happening when you're doing that. So that's what Russia's done. And now Putin thinks, uh, based on his sheer legacy of incompetence, that now he has the right to rule everyone else. What's really going on, he's a continentalist, and so he wants to steal everyone else's stuff, right. In the beginning of the Ukraine war, people were stealing washing machines. That would be a rather heavy item to steal. Like, who would do that? Someone without washing machines, right? And, uh, the Ukrainians don't wanna live that way. Why would they?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did he underestimate them?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, of course. That's typical. Uh, there's probably Russian type A hubris. The Russian soul, superior to all others, 'cause they can't figure out what they're superior on, so they're gonna come up with something that's abstract like their soul. Well, prove it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Zelensky told me that when the Russian soldiers rolled in He found that they had brought food for three to 10 days. So they thought the war would be over in three or 10 days.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And also that they brought uniforms to celebrate-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to do a victory parade because they thought the war was gonna be that easy.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what they were met with is Ukrainians, civilians throwing Molotov cocktails at their tanks.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Um, you look as if you have another
- 24:34 – 26:57
The Deadly Military Strategy of Death Ground
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
question.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No, it's just, it's just, it's interesting 'cause yeah, it's, again, we were just talking about underestimating Iran, but there is a hubris as well that's taken place with-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the Russians. They've underestimated the culture of the people. Death ground.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. If you have an unlimited objective, what you're doing is if I have an unlimited objective against you, I'm putting you on death ground. What does that mean? It means if you don't fight, I'm gonna just come kill you. And so your only alternative is to fight 'cause they're gonna just kill you. So if you have these unlimited objectives, expect one hell of a fight, and it can transform the most dysfunctional country into a lethal adversary as Hitler discovered with, uh, the Soviet Union back in the day. Stalin had shot a lot of his officer corps. He'd created a famine in Ukraine, which is a breadbasket, which is exactly what Putin is, has done to Ukraine now, and what the United States is undoubtedly doing to Iran. My understanding is the, uh, ayatollah who's gone was against having nukes. No one says who comes after him is against having nukes. If they're on death ground, as long as Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyau- Netanyahu are in power, what do you think they're gonna do? They're gonna cause trouble until those two people are out of power, right? And so people who wanna keep Netanyahu and Trump in power longer just understand it's gonna make Iran go on, uh, longer, and then I'm terrified that, uh, Trump will do something like drop a tactical nuke somewhere, and then things are really over. Uh, the United States will be forever this despicable country. The only country in the world that's ever, uh, dropped nukes on anyone, twice on Japan, and then we're gonna do a third on Iran.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think that's plausible, that-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I have no idea. If, if you had told me 10 years ago that where we're at is, was even remotely possible, I would say you're insane. What have you been smoking lately? The United States was gonna toss our alliances, tell Canada you're, you're our 51st state, and then tell Greenland, "PS, we're gonna take Gr- Greenland from you, and therefore behave yourselves." It... I would've thought that just ludicrous. Who would do that?
- 26:57 – 30:48
How Rising Gas Prices Could Affect Your Future
- SBSteven Bartlett
What do you say to people who are experiencing their gas prices go up at the pump? They're seeing costs rise because of this war-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and because of the energy shock that's taken place because of it, and they want, they want it to end. So they're saying, "Listen."
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Vote.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Vote.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
One-third of Americans voted for where we're at now. One-third voted for anything but this, and then one-third couldn't get off their couch. Get off your couch and vote because it matters for your children that in the United States, Americans need to start talking to each other. This only my party can win, crazy. A two-party state is absolutely necessary 'cause how do you see blind spots? Also, you will watch Trump. You want your gas ta- prices to go down? He's not gonna reassess on this war. He's just gonna keep on going. The way you reassess in democracies, since people are reluctant to say, "Gee, I got it wrong," and we all get it wrong, is you elect in the, the other party.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But if I just think about what's going on here in Europe, 'cause I'm thinking about a particular friend who's been doing some tweets recently.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and she's been tweeting that because the costs in the UK seem to be rising-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... petrol and-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... other things, we should just let r- this is what she said. She said we should just let Russia take the Ukraine, and then that'll mean that energy will be-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No
- SBSteven Bartlett
... stabilized.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I get it where she's coming from. I get it. But it's, uh, one of the wa- staples in war colleges is the enemy gets a vote, meaning they, the Russians are gonna come for you whether you like it or not.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do we know that?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
You don't know, right? You don't know, but I can look at Russian history. They're continentalists. They go forward, forward, forward, and then I think you've got some kind of map that shows what Transnistria and all those places.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, this one.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. All right. So if I can do it this way. So these are the places that Putin has taken. Well, this one's earlier, and, uh, this one comes to the end of the Cold War. This is his buddy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So he's basically taken Belarus, but-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh, yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... politically.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, he, yeah, that's right. And so, and he's taken all this stuff from Ukraine, but these places he took, uh, what is he? Putin comes to power in the Second Chechen War, and Russians like that. Uh, that's how he rises, and then in 2008, he goes after Georgia and helps these two places separate. But if you look at it, if you could draw a circle here, it's a continental... I don't know if you ever watched The Jetsons, the, uh, cartoon where you got a spaceship that's round. A continentalist is looking at their dashboard. It's, but it's 360 degrees around their little spaceship on all those borders, and you wanna extend outwards. So this is the, the plan A, and then after you get plan A, they keep on going. It's been this way for a long time, and for your friend, you'd be like, "Uh, what evidence do you have? Uh, show it to me that they're gonna stop. Show me that. What in their, in their history gives you that? I understand that you wish it to end." This is another tragedy. So we had the Cold War that ended on Western terms with Bush Senior, and Helmut Kohl did a masterful job at war termination, truly masterful on, on Western terms. And then we had the magical, this is when you were growing up, the magical inter-Cold War period where China and Russia turn inward, and the United States is more or less following the rules so that you don't have opposing sides funding opposing sides of insurgencies all over the world, and wars just torch wealth, right? Think about if Putin keeps any part of Ukraine, it's a glowing mess, right? It's been leveled. You're just destroying things.
- 30:48 – 37:26
Will Ukraine Seek Revenge Against Russia?
- SBSteven Bartlett
But they're gonna continue to fight as well, aren't they? This is what Zelensky told me. He said-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They're gonna go forever. Yeah, what'd he say?
- SBSteven Bartlett
He-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
He's the real person
- SBSteven Bartlett
... he said something to me which I found to be quite illuminating, and I don't think people consider. He said to me he had gone and found, just one example, a trench what the Russian soldiers had left where there was 500 tortured bodies in it.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, God.
- SBSteven Bartlett
These bodies were tied up-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, God
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, and they were of all ages. And he said it's, he kind of implied that it's very naive to think that the families of those people in those ditches are just gonna allow there to be a sudden stop to this, and that they're not gonna continue to want revenge. And Zelensky said to me, he said after seeing that, and he said it, he said, "I, I probably shouldn't say this," but he said that he wants revenge. He says, "If you see what I saw, you would want revenge, too."
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, the, the Russians are ... It's unspeakable what they've done. And most of my life, Germans wore the crown of infamy for what had happened in World War. W- Less so World War I, but it's World War II where they just, it's really ha- it takes heinous to a new level. Well, Vlad the Bad, he is now owns that crown for Russians going in, 'cause Germans have reformed their educational system, and there's no German now who has any responsibility for what happened back then, but there are lots of Russians who have responsibility for going on right now. And, oh, another piece of Russians, they go, "Oh, Soviet Union has nothing to do with us. That's, you know, we're Russians. That was the Soviet Union." Excuse me. Russia is what ran the Soviet Union. It's yours. You own it. And you think about, like, the y- the way French, French use the word France, it includes all five republics. It includes all the monarchies. It includes Napoleon and stuff. We all know it's France. It's just the Russians who are trying to say, "Oh, it's the Soviet Union. We had nothing to do with that." No, you had everything to do with that, and you're unrepentant. So for your friend, if you look at the long arc of Russian history, it's terrible. It used to be under the Romanov dynasty, at least they aspired to have connections with Western Europe, although I think Nicholas II said, "Well, you know, we're 200 years behind, so we're gonna do, do it our way." But once you get the communists, uh, they wanna overthrow the entire capitalist world order, and Putin hasn't changed. The continentalists are profoundly dangerous. What they wanna do is divide the world into spheres of influence, like the old empires of Eurasia, and so they're gonna be fighting on the edges of these spheres of influence about who gets what.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Who are the continentalists? Russia, China?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep, Russia, China. Uh, Donald Trump, he's claiming Canadian territory. He's claiming, uh, Greenland. He's, uh, kidnapped a head of state. Uh, I get it. The guy's reprehensible. I'm no fan of Maduro. I mean, look at the war. We've discussed all the problems from the war in Iran. You're talking about your friend in Britain who's being wrecked by the petrol prices. Okay, whose fault is that? Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Trump's.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. It is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Trump would say it was Biden's fault.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, everything's Biden's fault.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He, you know, he often, his favorite line is to say, "This war never would've happened if I was in power." That's what he says all the time.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, except he started this one. Uh, so, uh, uh, what's fascinating i- in having studied foreign policy forever, doesn't make me right about anything, but it's really rare, or, like, domestic policy as well, that you do a policy, whatever it is, put a new law in effect, and then there are consequences of it, but the consequences usually roll out, out, out over years. So it's hard to say, did this law exactly cause this outcome? It's hard to say. Not in this war.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which one?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh, the Iran War.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
It's just obvious. Every time you load up at the pump, you have a weekly reminder that Donald Trump's war has done a number on you. Uh, it's not Biden.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He would say we couldn't let Iran get nuclear weapons.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
It's much more likely now that they will get nuclear weapons doing what ... He's incentivized them to get nuclear weapons. Here's my, my thing about Donald Trump. Is he known for, for, um, providing accurate information? You know the answer to that question-
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs]
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... as do all of your viewers. And here's the problem with normalizing lies, which is what's going on in the United States. A, no one likes being lied to, right? If you're an insider trader, maybe you like it if you, you, you get your little truth and then you, everyone else is being lied to. All right. The Soviet Union was a society that collapsed in large part because it was built on lies. Here's how it worked. If you, since it's all run by a plan, this communist plan, so you're running your little ... Let's say they even had podcasts, and you decide however many cameras you need a, a new year and how many you got on stock or whatever you think your staff is. You're gonna exaggerate what you think you need because you aren't sure the plan's gonna give it to you, and you're gonna understate what you have, again, 'cause you're not sure you're gonna get things. So everyone's doing that across an economy. They're aggregating all that data. It's garbage. The further up the food chain you go, the more ludicrous the data is, but there in central Moscow, they're coming up with a plan that's gonna allocate things. They are grossly misallocating capital, labor, and they don't noti- notice that it's a disaster until it's metastasized, and it shatters the place. Another thing to give you, an economy doubles at different growth rates according to the following equation, the natural log of two over whatever that growth rate is. If your economy grows at 1% per annum, it'll double in 69, 70 years, something like that. If you, uh, grow at 3%, so it's a 2% differential, you'll double in 23 years. So if you do dumbassery, like tariff yourself, or you get into a war that's gonna send prices up and just mess things u- up, or if you're a little smarter and you sanction the other guy, so only the other guy is experiencing this, and you knock off 2% growth, instead of waiting 23 years to double, you're gonna wait 71. That's a long wait. So these are the things that people aren't considering of the cumulative effects of making the kind of errors that we're making. Also, the advantages of sanctions over wars. Sanctions don't solve problems, but you're shrinking the opposing piggy bank, and if you cooperate with allies, you're growing yourself. So it's a form of chemotherapy. You don't eliminate the tumor, but you try to shrink it back.
- 37:26 – 38:57
What Happens Next in Putin's Russia?
- SBSteven Bartlett
You have a PhD in Russian, is it history?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what does Russian history tell us is, and I guess geopolitical history generally, is likely to happen next as it relates to the Russian-Ukraine situation? And is it dependent on what other allies do? Or do you think there's already a pivotal error that's been made by Putin?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, it's, it's already done. He's just gonna go forward.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He's just gonna go forward?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
He's just gonna escalate and keep going forward, yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because he can't, can he? He can't go back. He doesn't strike, I mean, not that I know him-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, this is the problem with dictatorships. What's wonderful about elections, so they throw you out of o- office, but no one kills you. No one takes your bank accounts away. It really takes a lot of the, uh, uh, the white-knuckle event out of it. And in Russia, under Stalin, when he was busy shooting everybody, he dies, and, uh, eventually you get Khrushchev as his successor. That successor generation decided they wanted to, uh, make it so you didn't get killed when you left office, that they send you to your little dacha, or that's your summer house in Russia. Uh, Putin's problem is, this is the problem with dictators. For many of them, there's no off-ramp where they're alive, right? What happens to Putin when he, uh, he gets swapped out of power? If he just dies naturally, okay, then that happens to all of us. But he's arranged it so there is no retirement plan except something really ugly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why? How?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
A dictator? Well, how would you ever replace Putin in Russia?
- 38:57 – 41:05
What Would Happen if Putin Stepped Down?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Couldn't he just step down and go off to his mansion and chill out?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Probably not, because, uh, there will be people who will come kill him, o- on his immediate entourage. He's the whole protection racket that's running stuff.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is it possible for him to be overthrown by the Russian people?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It is possible? 'Cause it just seems like he's got such a tight grip on-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, well, that's the thing about dictatorships, is they seem eternal until the day they shatter, and then it's impossible to predict that they-
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do they shatter?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, the Romanov dynasty. Nicholas II, like Vlad the Bad, uh, decided to get into a recreational war that he didn't have to, which is the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. And why Russia... This is the whole thing about Russia. Why does Russia need more territory? It is the largest country on the planet, right? They have tons of resources. Their problem is they have no economic model to develop it, 'cause they refuse to go by the norms of having rules so people can start businesses, like a young person like you, who can start a business, and then when you start doing well, you can actually keep your money. That's not what happens in Russia. You'll get shaken down. So Nicholas S- Second does that war. He loses it, but then there's another concept, opportunity cost. So if you spend all of your money fighting that war, what are you not doing? You're not building a railway system here in the western part of Russia. So come World War I, Nicholas can't deploy his troops very well. He's got no way in for his allies to supply him, 'cause Russia's, this is Russia's stuff, uh, main ports for getting things by sea are here, the Baltic, or here, the Black Sea. Well, those things shut down in wartime, right? The, nothing goes through them. So if Nicholas hadn't done his dumbassery here and built railways, he might have had a different outcome. And why does he get overthrown? Because there are food riots in St. Petersburg. That was the capital in those days. Okay, better railways, you would have delivered the bread better. Also, you might have gotten food aid from other places. Uh, these opportunity costs are huge. Now, Vlad the Bad has done his magic here.
- 41:05 – 43:15
The Real Reason China Is Backing Russia
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Who's supporting him? Well, China is providing what's vital for him right now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why are they supporting Vladimir Putin? Why China?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Why not? Oh, God.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why don't they just stay out of it?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
From their point of view, they want the United States just out of everyone's business, and they also don't particularly like Russia either. So if Russia's gonna go weaken itself here, uh, China will benefit from this. China needs the resources. My graduate, uh, dissertation was a history of the Russo-Chinese border, and Russia took territory from the Chinese sphere of influence greater than all of U.S. east of Mississippi. It's all, uh, this stuff that was, uh, part of the Chinese sphere of influence. You wanna tell me the Chinese don't remember that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So China are supplying Russia with resources they need.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, to make missiles and things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They're charging them for that.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Of course.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They're making money from it.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, yeah, and-
- SBSteven Bartlett
But they're also weakening Russia, Russia
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, because they're, Russia has, has been sanctioned on its energy and other things, so China's getting all these things at much reduced prices, and they're driving a hard bargain. And the Russians in the past had all these nuclear weapons and other things to dissuade the Chinese from playing Mr. Tough Guy, except Vladimir Putin has squandered all of that. He can't even deal with Ukraine, let alone this. So they've done massive pivotal error. They're in real trouble. And then they're not even ha- they're not having kids, and so the, the long-term effects are getting better and, uh, worse and worse from them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Russia have the missiles just to flatten Ukraine, don't they?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I don't know the details. Uh-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Like, they have, like, nuclear weapons, don't they?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, they do. They do. Um, this is beyond my expertise. Uh, and, um, in order to have them, you have to maintain them, and the Russians are consummate liars. Who knows? Who knows? My understanding, uh, is that India and China have told Russia that would be a massive no-no if they do that. But when people get cornered, uh, then others have no influence over them, and when they're totally cornered. So I don't know the answer.
- 43:15 – 45:26
What Would It Take to End the War in Ukraine?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So it sounds like from speaking to Zelensky, he will not yield, uh, uh, an inch of Ukraine-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to Putin. And it sounds like Putin has to walk away looking like he got a victory of sorts for his people and for his power, and really for the message, you know, to some-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... of these other people that he, uh, sits on a border with and to NATO, I guess.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The two things can't be true, in my view.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No, that's the problem with, uh, unleashing unlimited wars. Uh, World War II, uh, yes, the Allies won, but obs- at obscene cost, right? Tens of millions of Russians died. Millions of others died. What is it supposed to be? Fifty-five million people died in that thing? You wanna do that over again? Really, these unlimited wars are ugly. It is not the way to handle things. It is far better to deploy your diplomats and lawyers to international institutions. Sure, the deal isn't perfect from what you wish you had gotten, but the wealth will compound if you have, uh, people your age to go start their businesses, have li- laws that allow them to do it instead of trying to poach everyone's stuff. That is the way to, to do things. So yeah, of course, Ukraine won't give up, and we should support Ukraine 'cause they're doing the heavy lifting for all of us. That's the answer to your friend. You wanna be fighting on the front lines? No. So help them. Now, morals matter in this world. They matter. Honesty matters. Civility matters. All these things matter. Oh, and there's another, uh, piece I think matters. What do governments do? Primary things. Protect your national security, that's number one. And protect your prosperity. Try to, uh, increase your prosperity. Those are two. So for your friend, what is gonna protect British national security? And that will involve Europe 'cause if Britain's alone, it's not gonna do well without Western Europe being, uh, healthy as well.
- 45:26 – 47:39
Why Europe's Economy Is Under Pressure
- SBSteven Bartlett
Has this s- somewhat fallen at an unfortunate time because Europe is not doing the best economically at the moment, and there are lots of sort of internal conflicts taking place. I mean, I was, I was in France yesterday.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
[laughs]
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I left my hotel, the streets are on fire.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, God.
- SBSteven Bartlett
At nighttime, there's balaclava people running into all the shops and smashing them to p- pieces. And, um, you know, then I think about the UK, you know, maybe not in a worse position, but I actually, I mean, I read a, just before I, I came out here to speak to you, I read a headline from The Sunday Times that reads, this is, uh, in today's newspaper, "Britain is going broke. It's just a matter of when. With three trillion debt and interest of 110 billion a year, the new chancellor has little room to maneuver," from Jessica Cooke. This is like the sentiment that, uh, that is quite, um, prevalent at the moment in Europe. So when you, you think about spending money-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... on another nation, uh, you know, this is probably why there's a lot of people that are against it.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
You know, I-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Europe feels weak.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. And here's the story for your generation, because I'm gonna age out of this mess, but you're gonna have to live with it. Think about the generation that's the end of World War II. Europe's leveled. [laughs] Everyone's indebted right after that war, and that generation, within 10 years, had set up the institutional architecture that held the peace in Europe for the next three generations. That is quite an achievement. And what's going on now is history's moving really fast. I mean, it's just-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... it's like the log jam's busted, and we don't know which way it's gonna go, and it's tremendously frightening. On the other hand, it is a tremendous opportunity to, uh, before the concrete sets again, for people to get moving. What is it? When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Get going.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And do what?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
And work on the next set of institutions that will help growth rates in Europe that have, uh, not been great, that need to be better. Probably part of that has to do with streamlining regulations, and then that's beyond my capabilities of, of understanding.
- 47:39 – 50:14
How the US Tax System Shapes America's Future
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Americans think all their problems are about immigrants coming across the border, right? And I'm all for having legal immigration. Why would you have... You know, people should have to follow rules, et cetera. Uh, you don't have to be cruel on how you expel them. You can do that humanely, um, being gratuitously mean, I don't see it. But, um, so people, um, well, as in Europe, identify that there's this problem that for the young, it's just hard to make it. What's going on here? And this feeling there are no opportunities, and it's just hopeless. Okay, that's probably a correct identification of problem. But in the United States, I suspect the answer is not immigrants, it's probably our tax code. So tax code is what sends money one way or the other. It's what's gonna make, uh, money available for spending things one way or the other. So in the United States, you've got A handful of people who've become, uh, billionaires real- li- literally over the last 15 years can't do that without the tax code. And then there's, I know another piece in the United States, you know about monopolies, right? You own all of a particular industry, and then you can set prices what you sell stuff at, at. But then there's monopsony, which means you hire such a large percentage of the workforce or in whatever particular area you're at, you dictate wages. Well, we got problems with wages in the United States that, uh, they've been driven downwards. Uh, and people are working, uh, 40-hour weeks and more than that, and they can't make ends meet. What's going on here? They're being underpaid, and then the money is just being funneled into a handful of families' coffers. I think in the United States, there are apparently, uh, 1,000 families that are worth a billion or better. It's not actually very many people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because the world is different now and there's a sort of digital assets, well, it's at least assets that you can move-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Mm-hmm
- SBSteven Bartlett
... digitally.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh-huh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, is it harder to cr- to use the tax code as a tool for, uh, fixing inequality?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I mean, you'd have to talk to a tax specialist, but the US tax code, uh-
- SBSteven Bartlett
That, that allows people to become hugely wealthy is, is an error would you say?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, th- this is where there's a missing podcast in the United States, which it would be someone actually reading the tax code and breaking it-
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs]
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... right, literally breaking it down into pieces and then talking, uh, the human connection of it all. And there's a, a lot of there there, but it hasn't been... I guess it would be too boring to read it, I think, actually. Uh, uh, there's a lot in there.
- 50:14 – 52:23
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- 52:23 – 55:44
Why the US Midterm Elections Could Change Everything
- SBSteven Bartlett
The midterms are coming up.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They are.
- SBSteven Bartlett
For people that don't know what the midterms are, which is probably most of the world-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Mm-hmm
- SBSteven Bartlett
... what is the significance of the midterms, and what is it?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, you're, um, electing a percentage, uh, of the US Senate and all of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives, each term is two years. Senators are six years, and the Senate seats are staggered, right? So you're, you're doing a selection of them, and then you're doing, uh, governors as well, and-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So let me repeat this back to you and tell me if I've got it right.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh-oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So essentially, in the midterms, right now Trump has power because he controls the House and the Senate-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in terms of there's more Republicans than Democrats.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
And the Supreme Court.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the Supreme Court. Um, but in the midterms, it's very likely that he will lose the Senate.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
That I don't know. There's much speculation that-
- SBSteven Bartlett
The polls suggest
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... the s- the polls were, were originally he might well lose the House, maybe the Senate, now it looks like both. But then, um, if he's gonna be sending ICE agents to all the polling stations and, uh, and then people are gonna w- w- walk away with the voting machines, he-
- SBSteven Bartlett
And he's offering people $5,000 if they vote for Republicans.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, this is called the end of the norms, and if Americans... It's, you're, it's gonna be a national IQ test for the United States on, on how they vote because every time they go to the pump, they know why the prices have gone up. What's sad is people, um, often identify with party. Parties come and go. The party, the Republi- Republican Party today isn't remotely what it was with Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan. It's a different party. It's all about one guy. And you should identify around what your goals are, and I recommend protect national security [laughs] , promote prosperity. You can look at this war and go, "It's wrecked both," and whether you like the guy or don't, it's his fault, and it's the fault of the party that has enabled him at every point. And Pete Hegseth, who's a major, right, is, it's not, it's an okay rank, but not to run the Pentagon. The Republican Party confirmed him. It was an act of supreme dereliction of duty of doing that. They could have demanded another General Mattis, and we might not be in Iran today
- SBSteven Bartlett
And if Trump loses or the Republicans lose the midterms, essentially what it means is they're gonna have to cooperate a lot with the Democrats because they-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No, they've, they're not gonna cooperate. They've made clear they're not cooperating with Democrats.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But to get things passed though.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
That would be bipartisan. They've rejected being bipartisan. The, the c- the old Republican Party, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But how do they get things passed then?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They won't.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But he, Trump has executive power, so he can still sign executive orders.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, and he, and, um, uh, this is another, um, thing about norms. He just does things, and, uh, changes facts on the ground. If it later turns out to be illegal, he's already done the thing, right? Like, there's this golf course in, uh, in, that he cares about in Washington. He's cut down all the legacy trees. I mean, imagine, what is it, Richmond Park in London, imagine someone goes in there and just levels all the 800-year-old trees. There's no walking that back. That's how he, that's what he does.
- 55:44 – 1:01:06
What's Happening to the Democratic Core?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does the West have an enemy? And if so, who is the enemy? 'Cause we often think, oh, it's China, oh, it's Russia, oh, it's-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Um, the, well, let's forget about the West. Let's talk about democratic core.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, what's democratic core?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
The democratic core in my books, uh, are the democracies, and so it's Western, it's through Central Europe. It would be, uh, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, uh, definitely Canada, the United States. Uh, no. I mean, w- we're threatening to invade Greenland. That does not make you the democratic core when you do that. You don't, uh, I mean, we're threatening to make Canada our 51st state. Who the hell does that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why do you think Trump is saying that?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I have no idea. I'm not a psychiatrist. Well, you follow his recent speeches. Can you follow them?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Well, I'm asking you because you've studied dictators.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I have studied a senile narcissist. The problem with, say, little Taiwan and China, it's like, why would... Look at Taiwan. It's like 1/250 the size of China. I mean, give me a break. It's a little teeny-tiny place. Why does China give a damn? They're a bunch of Taiwanese sitting there. Why would you care? It's because it's showing that you can have a vibrant democracy in a Han-- The preponderant ethnic group of China is the Han, and their, um, rather racist ideas were that, well, the democracy's not, and the Han are mutually exclusive. Well, the Taiwanese have proven that that's nonsense. And for these dictators, it's like, why not hold ele- a fair election, boys? Because they wouldn't be elected. That's why. If there were fair elections, Xi Jinping would no more be the head of China, nor would Vladimir Putin be the head of Russia, right? And they regard that as the existential threat. On the other hand, what is it the sorts of societies that produce massive wealth? The democracies. Why? Because we tolerate each other. We give each other legal protections. We allow people to start their businesses and keep the fruits of their, what they make from these businesses, whereas these other folks, if you think about when China became wealthy, it's when it joined the maritime rules-based order and when it was following the rules. Now, it hasn't done it yet. It can compete compounding wealth, but not if it's gonna be launching some wars. That'll be it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
China seems to stay out of wars.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
What do you mean? With Vietnam? It's been a while, but, um, uh, China is created over a succession of wars. Basically, the Qing dynasty falls in 1911, 1912, and then you have what's called the Warlord period, and where all the different, their provincial leaders are all duking it out with each other. And eventually, that coalesces into a bilateral communist nationalist fight, uh, circa 1927. So all that's going on in the background. And then you have the United States, in its infinite wisdom, the first America Firsters in 1930, uh, in response to the Great Depression, decide they're gonna put huge tariffs up, and the economists come to President Hoover and say, "Buddy, don't do it," because everyone else is gonna respond in kind, and he does it anyway. And then we're into a massive trade war, right? America puts up tariffs. What do you suppose everyone's gonna do? Put up their tariffs. And then you're tanking economies globally, and it deepens the Great Depression. So here's trade-dependent Japan going, "Now what? We always cooperated with these people. Now they've shut us off." So they decide in those days, the only solution is we need an empire large enough so that we can become self-sufficient, so they move into Na- Manchuria in 1931. So the reason why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor later on is 'cause the United States is sending aid to China, and the Japanese want us to stop, so they attack Pearl Harbor, which in those days, Hawaii's not a state, doesn't become a state until '59. It looks like it's a U.S. colony, and they thought we'd wise up and quit. But no, we doubled down and would come after Japan. So think about it. Massive warfare that's tearing China apart, starting right after 1911, 1912, continuing all the way through 1945. Then you have the Chinese Civil War. That does not end until 1949. And then you have all of Mao's political campaigns, anti-rightist. Well, you have, oh, you have the Korean War. That's the other one from '50 to '53, so that's another, uh, war. And Deng Xiaoping does his number on Vietnam, and that's, it's costly, and it's, it's short and quick. And before then, there's the '62 border war with India, where, uh, Chinese trounced India and turned India into a permanent enemy. That was a mistake. Then you have anti-rightist campaigns, cultural revolution, where Mao is churning things so that he remains in power. Oh, and while all that's going on, you have the Great Famine, which is created by his Great Leap Forward, keeps exporting food because that's where he gets his pocket change, and people are starving. So After that, you think the Chinese want any more wars? [laughs] Right? They're, they wanna chill out of this thing for a while. But basically, all those people who did all that fighting and might have a sense that maybe you don't wanna do any more of that, they're all dead.
- 1:01:06 – 1:04:25
What Happens to the World if Nothing Changes?
- SBSteven Bartlett
If we continue in the direction of travel we're on now, what does the future look like?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
It looks like World War III. I- back to the negative objectives. You've gotta prevent these things from breaking out because once they break out, look at Iran. Is Donald Trump gonna wanna back down? No. He's gonna wanna show that somehow he's won.
- SBSteven Bartlett
This is a, a chart showing how many nuclear warheads each country has. When you say that World War III could be next if we continue on this trajectory, my rebuttal is, but we now live in a nuclear-powered world where, where if any one of these players gets into a serious situation, they could basically wipe out life for everybody on planet Earth.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, but-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So does this keep us safe to some degree?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mutually assured destruction.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, Putin has already, uh, taken that little thing and flipped it over. When he, um, is threatening NATO countries, he has, um, been violating the airspace just in the last, last few days, sending drones into the territorial waters, I thought, of Bulgaria and Romania. You can correct me if I got that wrong, and they were shot down there. At some point, you're into Article 5 territory. The Europeans don't wanna do it because it is g- it'll be an ever-loving mess. But Putin-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Article 5 being NATO countries
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... Art- it's, uh, then, uh, you have to d- uh, you all go to war together.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's part of NATO's treaty to defend each other against-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was the strength of it is while the generation who remembered World War II, while they lived, they were really careful not to trigger that, and that's not true of who we've got now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If Putin invaded Poland, do you think World War III would begin?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You think so? And what would World War III look, look like? 'Cause my memories are all-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I, look-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... tanks and trenches, you know
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... I have no idea, but you can get on a nice computer program-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... and you can j- p- pick your mega tonnage of your nuclear weapon, and then you can put it over a city of your choice, and you can look at how many people die. It's obscene, and this is the problem with having these dark personalities running countries. Like Putin, he doesn't care how many people he kills. There's a problem when people like that reach those positions, right? We human beings have real trouble, uh, identifying dark personalities until they become Adolf Hitler and go, "Oh, whoops, there are concentration camps going on here." And I think it's 'cause most of us can't imagine wanting to inflict that kind of obscene pain on other people, but you can see the consequences of putting them in power. It's really ugly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Trump's not gonna back out of Iran. It, it doesn't sound like Putin's gonna back out of the Ukraine.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
There is a solution for the United States, is with the next Congress, impeach and convict him, and then just say, "Sweetheart, you're retired."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Someone else is gonna have to then step into his shoes.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, yeah. W- but this is the problem with the pivotal error. Whoever will do it, uh, will back out on really bad terms, and I think the Republicans want the Democrats to do that 'cause then you can go blame the Democrats and said, "No, it's your war." In fact, on wars, look for those who start them. Those are the ones you wanna blame, not for those who end them.
- 1:04:25 – 1:05:52
How Will History Remember Volodymyr Zelensky?
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do you think history's gonna remember Zelensky?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
He's a hero for all time. Oh, he's, he's... You met a great statesman. There are very few of them. He's one of them. Yeah, think of him. He could have left-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... Ukraine, right? Wasn't-
- SBSteven Bartlett
He told me Biden called, called him and offered him a ride.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. What was the famous, "I don't want a ride, I want..." What is it? W-
- SBSteven Bartlett
"I want am- ammunition."
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Um, he's also, um, a, a man who can really communicate, and I cannot believe that we're not supporting him. It is the most, one of the most clear-cut wars of aggression you can possibly imagine, and then the brutality with which the Russians are treating people, and you gotta ask yourself, "Who are these people doing these sorts of things?" There's something wrong with them, and you don't want them anywhere near the rest of Europe. And I get it. Um, it's really scary, but it's scary because of these people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The Russians.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. You need to, uh, get Ukraine totally on its feet and Russia to cease, uh, dropping, uh, ordnance on everybody and give them a massive timeout from the middle powers that Carney and friends are busy organizing even as we speak. They've done a lot of work in the last few years, and they'll do more.
- 1:05:52 – 1:10:30
Why the World May Be Turning Away From America
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think the world is pulling away from the United States? I mean, the-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... Europe and-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They're fleeing. So the United States takes good old Maduro. So what's everyone else doing? Well, when you have a heart attack like the United States can just take your leader away, what would you do? You're gonna counterbalance with China as the less lunatic option. So here's the United States wanting to proclaim this a, a U.S. preserve. Well, what we've done is guaranteed that, uh, these folks are gonna be incredibly welcoming.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Isn't that a real paradox of strength, that the minute you use it, you kinda lose it in a weird way almost?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because them, United States really flexing their, their power and threatening people and going into Iran and going into Venezuela has actually made everyone else feel less, less sa- safe, and-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, we've killed our power
- SBSteven Bartlett
... s- so they've gone and partnered with each other.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And actually, what do they call it? S- p- peace through strength or strength through peace where you just-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Probably strength through peace, but I don't know
- SBSteven Bartlett
... something like that, yeah, where you just-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I don't know
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you, you, everyone knows you're strong, so you don't ever have to really prove it, and that's kind of what keeps up the illusion
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
If you look at global wars, war and what they are is over the nature of the world order, of whether it's gonna be these continentalists ruled by dictators who, what if you lived in Russia, if someone wants your business and if they're connected, that's it. They take your business. It just, uh... Oh, and by the way, you're gonna be put on the front lines. You have no choice. It's just the way it goes. Or are we gonna, uh, keep going with de- democracies? And democracy is the only ones with really high per capita standards of living, right? Democracies are the ones that are really capable of generating wealth. It's been wonderful. And then there are many things that I find appalling, but as the United States is picking on immigrants, so they're worried about the one-off illegal who murders someone, and that's terrible, I get it, but I'm thinking about the tech billionaire immigrants who are now buying our elections. Elon Musk has put $160 million into the state of Texas. He's a dysfunctional South African. What right does he have to buy our elections? I used to live in Texas, and they have a saying, "Don't mess with Texas." Really? So you want Elon to be messing with you in this way. And then the other ones as well, uh, there are many of the tech billionaires, not all of them, but many of them are foreign-born. No problem with that. No problem coming to the United States. Every problem when you're trying to take down our democracy. And just so you pay, you're afraid of, uh, paying higher taxes. You're afraid of people regulating your media platforms so that, that, uh, there's some way to, uh, slow down on the lies that are going through. Americans are missing who and the dame- dangerous immigrants are. There are a handful of them, and they're trying to buy our elections right now. How dare they?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I mean, in recent weeks as well, America seemed to have turned against Zelensky and U- the Ukraine.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
America didn't. Donald Trump did.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Donald Trump has certainly.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, he's not America. He's himself. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, he's killed the U.S. legacy. Well, isn't he a guy who goes through serial bankruptcies and 'cause he's rich and has lawyers, he just leaves the, the trash behind him and he moves forward.
- SBSteven Bartlett
America did vote for him.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, I t- uh, a third of America voted for him, a third of America didn't, and the other third wouldn't get off the couch. Uh, they need to get off the couch. And reassessment, it's not a bad thing. It's sure Americans were correct that, uh, it's not working for Americans. Therefore, they wanted to, they voted for the guy who was gonna throw over the chessboard. Well, it turns out that was worse than the alternatives, right? And the thing is not to double down on, uh, that. Like for instance, if I buy a lousy pizza, I thought it looked really good, I'm not gonna go tell you it's a good pizza. I'll tell you it's really lousy. I bought it here. Don't ever touch it. Okay, you do something really consequential, like you vote for someone who gets into a war that's tanked the economy, and then you're, you're not gonna reassess? I mean, isn't life that as you live, you learn things? Like at your age, do you think you've learned everything you've gotta learn for the rest of your life? That, that everything that there is to know, that in your life you already know it right this moment?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Of course not.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Right. And it'd be like death in a way if this is it. And so presumably as you keep going, you'll go, "Oh, I used to think this, but now I think that."
- 1:10:30 – 1:13:40
Why People Unaffected by War Should Pay Attention
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you know what? I'm, I'm thirty-four years old now. I've just turned thirty-four. And I say that in part because when I sit here and I hear people like yourself who understand history better than I do tell me that there's a danger or a threat of World War III, there is part of me that has grown up with such privileged order that just can't imagine it.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Amen.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I can't imagine bombs flying over my head, and I, I've just never seen it before.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Would you like for President Zelensky's memories of the things he's had to look at?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, he told me.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, he started out like you. He hadn't seen any of this either, and then he doesn't have the pleasure of averting his eyes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is your message for people like me that have grown up in very sort of privileged Western lives, democratic societies, who are seeing all this stuff happen around the world now, and to some degree, I guess, we're at risk of turning a blind eye because we, we haven't, we don't know history that well, and our history is a short one, and it's an orderly one, and things happen, but they happen far away.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, I feel like starting on an apology, uh, that what my generation is leaving you is such a mess, and you're supposed to make it better for the people who come after. And not all, there are many who've made it better, but currently the United States is making it a lot worse. And I cannot tell you the sorrow I feel for the negative things that the United States is, uh, doing right now. Um, for young people is I urge you to read and to keep learning throughout your life, to talk to other people, talk across these silos that divide us and be, uh, s- polite to each other and, uh, vote. Get out there and vote. And it's your civic duty. It isn't that hard. You can arrange your day, so you can show up and vote.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you not think there's just so much going-- I don't know whether this was always the case through history, but for young people these days, in part because we're so connected to the Internet-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Mm-hmm
- SBSteven Bartlett
... we're seeing war over here in the Middle East. We're seeing war in Ukraine. We're seeing Iran. We're seeing this-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Your draft age
- SBSteven Bartlett
... terrific situation of, of Gaza. We're seeing this thing called AI coming in, and they're telling us we're gonna have no bloody jobs. You got global warming over here, and they're saying-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah
- SBSteven Bartlett
... everything's gonna flood or burn, and forest fires everywhere.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's a lot.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, it is a lot, but here's the flip Is when I meet people, and you've met many more people than I have with your job, there are many more wonderful people all over the world. The dark personality types are actually very few in number, and all the rest of us, if we all do what we can in our various spheres, because we all do different things, we will get through this. So I'm a retired professor. What little can I do? I can give you concepts. Ah, good one. Disinformation. That's what Putin does. Then when you believe it but don't know it's lies, you're spreading misinformation. So, uh, that's a problem.
- 1:13:40 – 1:16:49
The 3 Levels of Warfare That Shape Every Conflict
- SBSteven Bartlett
What other concepts haven't we covered that are pertinent?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, I know what we haven't covered. All right. So let's talk about tactical level, tactile. Anyway, the tact-
- SBSteven Bartlett
[laughs]
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
The tactical level of war would be I got a tank, it has certain capabilities, certain range. It's got certain armor, certain things can take it out. Oh, oh you... I love it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Got a little tank there, have you?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Guys in there. [laughs] Thanks. Okay. But then at the operational level, you're either gonna fight a battle or a succession of battles, which is called a campaign, and then you're gonna put together tank units and other different units, and you're gonna use, I don't know, have an information campaign, whatever. And it's probably to take that hill or do whatever. But then there's a level that really counts, which is this one, the strategic level. Like, why are you fighting in the first place? It's like, "Hey Donald, what are you doing in, in, uh, uh, Iran?" So at the strategic level, for politicians, it should be protecting our national security and promoting national prosperity. That's what it should be. And in the war in Iran, you're worried about non-proliferation, except that war is incentivizing pro- proliferation in the worst possible way, and it's doing it in an incredibly costly way. So here's the problem with the Republican Party. This war and the guy who's running it and his truly incompetent administration, they have enabled him to do all these things that have, by blowing our alliance system, that's the alliance system that would protect their children and their grandchildren. It's bad for them. So they're at the operation. So now if we're gonna apply this to politics, because we're not doing war, you can have tactics, which might be, oh, since you were talking to President Zelensky, so one tactic, which I've described before, is when Trump had him in that Oval Office evil interview where the two native English speakers, Trump and Vance, are going after Zelensky, who must have thought it was a routine photo op, and they're trying to humiliate him in public. You remember this. So that would be a tactic, right? Other tactics would be denying who, uh, who won the election. Joe Biden won the election. The evidence is in on that. All the rest of it's lies. At politics, operational level is gonna win the election. So that's where the Republicans are all focused, right here. They're going, "If we dump the orange guy, we won't get reelected." Maybe. In fact, if you dump the orange guy in first term, it would have been so much better for you, or better yet, don't support him in the second term, be so much better for you. You'd actually have a functioning Republican Party on your hands. Instead, you've killed the party and you've destroyed your children's futures. Who the hell does that? It's focusing on this operational level. So officers, they love focusing on the operational level. They wanna use this to kill a lot of people and go, "Ah, when I kill more of your guys than you kill my guys, must mean I won." Oh, really, Vietnam War? They took a multiple of our casualties. They won that thing. There's no South Vietnamese government left.
- 1:16:49 – 1:23:03
Is NATO Expansion Really Threatening Russia?
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know the people with this Ukraine-Russia situation that say, well, you know, NATO promised it wouldn't encroach on Russia's borders, and it came closer and closer and closer. So those people might say, well, you know-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They do say you're, you're, um, repeating, uh, Putin's propaganda points.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yes.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah, [laughs] I know, right? All right. Let's, let's do the history of all of this. First of all, the United States didn't go around and try and strong-arming everyone and say, "You must join NATO, you must join NATO." It was absolutely the opposite. These folks were stampeding to NATO's doors.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which folks?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Everybody who was in the Soviet bloc. So Germany used to be divided, but you have Poland and Czechoslovakia used to be one thing. But, um, Austria was neutral, but Hungary and then Yugoslavia was bigger. Anyway, all those pieces, Romania, uh, Bulgaria. At the end of the Cold War, all those people wanted NATO in the worst possible way. Why? Because they know Russia wants empire, and already what Russia's doing is they're bringing in all their cadres whom they trained during the war, and they're like Bulgarian communist expats, Romanians, uh, Hungarians, putting them in place, and then they're taking over the power ministries, which are the military, the Department of War, whatever it's called, because that determines whom you can shoot. In those places, it's the Interior Ministry. In our country, it would be the Justice Department, because that's who gets arrested, and you control the courts. And then the, if there's an information ministry in those days, uh, you want to control who has access to, to information. And then also they wanted agriculture, because when you're gonna, um, collectivize and decollectivize, that's gonna determine patronage possibilities. So our generals are writing back and going, "They're doing all this stuff, and we can't stop them." And so they do it throughout Eastern Europe. Uh, they wind up doing, uh, massive purges of people who had run for other parties, murdering loads of them, murdering many leaders. I'm not kidding. They're murdering people. They're putting people in jail forever. And then they say, "You have to do this communist thing." And so they're stuck with it. And then there are Germans who aren't too happy with it, and the Russians are beating them up in '53. And then you have, uh, Hungarians saying, "Look, we, we, we need to do some adjustments here because the communist thing isn't working." They're correct. Russians send tanks, and they shoot their head, head of state even though they promised they wouldn't. And the Russians have never atoned for what they did and never acknowledged all of this. And so now they've made up this story that you're purveying, that you get from others, that, oh, it's NATO expansion that did all of this. And I think I've given you serious facts to tell you why people living in these countries were terrified of Russians. Uh, they're brutal when they come in. They're incompetent. So I was living in the Soviet Union when it still was, '88, '89, so this is early Gorbachev, but the supply system's, uh, falling apart, and went into one of their grocery stores, and it had about a total of 77 items, and I think that compares to, I don't know, a candy rack as you're exiting some convenience store.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh-huh.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Right? If you went by the meat counters, the smell from the rotting meat just about knocked you down. You just avoided all of that. And then occasionally they would have items called Russia, yeah. Why do you need more territory?
- SBSteven Bartlett
[chuckles]
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Why can't you develop what you have? I mean, a great example is talk about a lousy piece of real estate. Let's look at the Scandinavian countries. They aren't whining, and look what they've done with their resources. They're these fabulous functioning states. Russia coulda done that instead of trying to steal things from others. So for your friend, the further back you stop these people, the safer you are. Also, why should Ukrainians become the slaves of their murderers? Why? Why? What, what's so privileged about you and Britain that you can just sort of go, "Oh, well, that's great. Who cares?" Morals matter, and this is where the norms matter. Honesty matters. I can be wrong. By all means, let me know that I'm wrong, and I'll try to square it away. But hear other people out. Keep doing what you're doing. Uh, you need to have accurate information from many points of view so that people can come to their own conclusions. What Americans have done is forgotten their core values, which are in a nasty t- uh, decora- document from your point of view, it's the Declaration of Independence. But in there, it talks about the rights of life, and it's not the, the right to take someone else's life, but preserve your own liberty, not the liberty for me to tell you what to do, but the liberty for me to make my own choices. And pursuit of happiness, not as you define it, but as I define
- 1:23:03 – 1:25:18
What Would a Trump-Putin Deal Mean for Ukraine?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It appears in the last week or two, because I think it was diesel prices in particular-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Ha
- SBSteven Bartlett
... have gone up at the pump to something like $6, Trump has made a deal with Putin for diesel exports, in part because of h- his war in Iran has caused this sort of global energ- energy shock.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, this is disinformation.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
The disinformation, Russia has no capacity to export diesel in sufficient quantities to make any difference whatsoever. The correlation for when diesel prices go up is with the Iran war. Once the Iran war hits, and it has to do with who produces what grades of oil there and what kind of f- refineries they have in order to refine diesel, 'cause refineries apparently are set up to produce certain grades of output. And yes, you can change a f- refinery to do a different grade output, but I believe you're talking millions of dollars and a num- a certain amount of time to redo your refinery. So the diesel stuff is absolutely Trump's war, his fault, and he's trying to blame Ukraine. It's despicable. As usual, he's lying. And so Americans, really, you want the liar-in-chief. How well has it worked for you? Really, I mean, are your grocery pri- prices, are they better, or are they worse? Are they better in the last two years, or have they gotten dramatically worse in the last two years? I think it's pretty obvious. I was at the supermarket recently, and oatmeal was, like, $10 for a little dumb package of it. It's mind-blowing, just mind-blowing. Thank you, Donald Trump. And then tariffing all this food imports from Mexico and Canada. Uh, I'm not making it up, right? I haven't been... I never used to be partisan, uh, but I'm looking at the Republican Party and thinking, "How can you do this? It's your children too." You're wrecking the United States, and you're doing it not temporarily, but you're doing it for as long as anyone who's alive at this moment and will remember it.
- 1:25:18 – 1:31:01
Can Ukraine Actually Defeat Russia?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can the Ukraine win against Russia?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Sure. It is winning right now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because it's able to defend itself.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Ukrainians have developed all these different kinds of drones, and I get it, Starlink's, uh, messing up with some of their interceptors, but they've been developing, uh, ballistic missiles that are gonna happen rapidly. And oh, the United States, um, by Musk doing the kill switch on Tar- Starlink has made it so no one's gonna be, serious is gonna be buying Starlink. India was thinking of it. It's like, "No. [laughs] Not if in the middle of the war you're gonna turn it off." And what is it? The shares for whatever the French alternate company is, it's gone way up in the last few days. You can check whether I got this right. But people are looking and going, "Okay, so Elon, maybe short-term gain, but long time loss on all of this." And then for U.S. Patriot missile systems, if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been president during the Biden administration when the second phase of the Ukraine war kicked off, he would've, um, ma- gotten that company to mass produce it and saying, "Look, y- you're not gonna ma- be making your money on unit cost. You're gonna be making it on the quantity."
- SBSteven Bartlett
But people are saying, you know, with Trump turning his back on Zelensky and Putin being in bed with China and President Xi there, Zelensky has no chance.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No. That's bull. Uh, no, he's, um, developing his own, uh, missile systems. Russia can't repla- It, it can't afford to replace all these refineries. It's based on Western tech.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The oil refineries.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Um, uh, I c- I can't remember what percentage of the refining capacity that Russia's down to. I don't know whether it's less than half now, slightly more than half. You can Google and get the data. And then, um, the Ukrainians have gone after Yandex and whatever their, their, their equivalent of Goog- uh, Google and, um, blowing away these things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Russia has lost up to 50% of its operating oil refinery capacity.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
That's why I was telling you I didn't know, 'cause it, it varies, right? They start fixing it, then another one gets hit. And, uh, Ukraine, and Ukraine's doing that on, uh, on its l- lonesome, no Starlink involved in that. It's 'cause it's over Russia, Russian territory, and they're developing stuff more rapidly. And who's be buying all these? 'Cause they're producing more than enough of some of these things. They're gonna be the go-to defense supplier 'cause our s- the stuff in the United States is way too expensive. And this Patriot stuff, uh, this is why it's just breathtakingly incompetent. The fact that we have a shortage of these interceptors and this, uh, fighting's been going on for N number of years. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, uh, started telling people how many tens of thousands of airplanes he wanted, and people thought he was nuts, and he got the businessmen around the table. "What do you need? You gonna make it happen?" It happened.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think if funding does dry up for Zelensky, external funding from Europe and from the United States-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
I don't think it will from Europe. Why? 'Cause Europe, um, Russia will be coming for the rest of Europe. It will be coming. They are on death ground too, with Putin's little model. If you think about how European attitudes on security changed on a dime because of the 2022 war, that hasn't changed. And I don't know what all... There, there's tremendous disinformation that good old Vlad the Bad is putting out to get people thinking that he's winning. He's not. He's wrecking his country. So I have no idea whether his, his little friends will, uh, put something special in his breakfast some mornings. Probably not. Uh, he's under enormous stress. At 74, I don't know. I wouldn't wanna be living with his stress levels. Wrong age for it. And, uh, alternatively, at what point do the young men at the front lines riot? At what point, uh, do they take their guns and just go after their commanders?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I mean, we saw that almost happen, didn't we, with, um-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Uh, Prigozhin.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Prigozhin, yeah.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yeah. Um, at what point does that happen? And also, when, when you think about these kids that are being sent to the front, they're only children. This is not Russia in Stalin's day, the pre-birth control Russia [laughs] . Right? They're, these are very special young men that are going to the front. They're the only ones. And there's also at what point that their mothers put their foot down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The economic cost of the war in Ukraine on Russia has been profound, shifting the nation's economy towards a high-risk war footing, where record defense spending consuming roughly 40% of the national budget boosts artificial GDP numbers-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... while draining funds from health, education, and civil infrastructure.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The heavy state spending, coupled with acute labor shortages caused by military mobilization and the emigration-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yes
- SBSteven Bartlett
... of hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Yep
- SBSteven Bartlett
... triggered persistent inflation and forced the Central Bank of Russia to hike interest rates above 20%. Simultaneously, Russia lost its lucrative European energy export market, saw 300 billion in central bank reserves frozen by Western sanctions, and faced severe domestic fuel sort- shortages following repeated long-range drone strikes to its oil refineries, which have caused oil refinery capacity to drop by up to 50%.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
So that's called winning a war? I don't think so.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They can't go on like that forever.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No, uh, they can't. So, uh, but as long as Vladimir Putin lives, he will keep doing it, and apparently his cronies there wanna go, are gonna go down with the ship. The off-ramp would be, um, uh, for the, the West under the table to offer them something like a safe page- passage out with however many billions they need in return for giving Vladimir Putin a retirement plan.
- 1:31:01 – 1:32:16
Who Is the Real Enemy in Today's Global Conflicts?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Who is our enemy?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
The continentalists.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So China and Russia?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
The United States. Donald Trump is what the future is. Yeah. I mean, uh, tell, uh, telling Canada we're gonna ta- take them over It's either a really bad joke, which I don't think it is, or it's actually where Donald Trump lives. And we have a Republican Party that hasn't thrown him out of office for doing that. So the democracy, what is it? It's, I think it's apocryphal, but it's a pretty good one of, of, uh, Churchill that, uh, democracy is the worst system of government except for all the alternatives, right? Because it's messy, and you're arguing all the time. And the people like Xi Jinping will think, "Oh, no, we're, we're, we're superior because we've got this orderly thing," except you guys double down on poor decisions, and you keep doing the same thing, and the longer you do it, the worse it gets. And the young in Chinese, China are not happy with the way things are. The much better thing is really multi-party system, accept the outcome of elections, try harder the next time, and, uh, uh, allow pe- have, um, try to keep developing fairer and fairer laws and rules.
- 1:32:16 – 1:32:50
Could Russia Ever Become a True Democracy?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is it possible for Russia to have a democratic leader, do you think, after Putin?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Not anytime soon. I think the stories that Russians today are actually for the war. I've never heard that there are a bunch of Russians who think that they shouldn't own Ukraine. I've never heard that there is a, there's a, uh, Russians who think that the costs of the war they don't like, and they don't want to lose children in Ukraine. But I've never heard any of, uh, that Russians think it's a bad idea to, uh, take Ukraine or that,
- 1:32:50 – 1:35:55
What Happens to Russia After Putin Dies?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what happens when Putin dies? What is the system in Russia? And is there an election, a democratic election? Is it-
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Give me a break. No, it's a free-for-all. Think about it. Well, how do you have a democratic election? Uh, you have all these institutions for how the votes are counted, and, uh, look at the United States. We're having trouble. We have these deeply embedded, uh, democratic institutions, and now we're wondering about who's gonna be fiddling around with the counting. So Russia's got none of, uh, that there. Putin's really good at doctoring his elections. So no, you're gonna have-- So he dies. All right, how to think about this. Think of him like a family tree. There's Vlad the Bad up top, or like, he's sort of like a mafia don. And then he has his consigliere underneath him, right? And then they've got their consigliere underneath him. And so there's this whole network. So when you, he dies, he's gone, and then it's which one of these guys, or is it someone from over here who's going to take over? And you know what? They don't know either.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Right? And it's a massive free-for-all. And now we got a lot of Russians with military training, which wasn't the case before. And whom are they gonna line up with?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So there might be a bit of a civil war internally?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Possible. Unknown. But what it means is profound instability for, and then it's a Humpty Dumpty situation. It takes a while to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. That's where I think in terms of these dictatorships, uh, depending how bad the shatter is, it'll take longer to put it together. But I'm gonna make up a number and say ten years. So the demo-democratic core should have a plan for when various dictators die. It's why you have a war plan. You just have them on the shelf so that when the unexpected event finally happens on the day you never knew, you've got at least some previous thinking, and then you have got something to start, like a first draft where you adjust it. But we ought to be thinking in these terms.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It could be worse, as in someone else could go in there that, that's even more awful.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, you could have loose nukes. That was, uh, uh, the, the fear at the breakup of the Soviet Union is all these loose nukes, and that was one of the reasons they were taken away from Ukraine. And Ukraine was willing to have it taken away because we promised to protect them, and we broke that promise. That's a problem because if you want to be a big boy on the block, if your promises mean noth-nothing, I mean, this is where, uh, Trump's having trouble with leverage over Ukraine. Since they know that he's, uh, he sold them out and he's always gonna sell them out, it's like it means he has no leverage over them. It's over. It was back to your comment about power, that, um, the best strategies, the ones that really work, are win-win, so that you get something out of it, I get something out of it, so of course we'll do it. And that's why the, uh, maritime order is strong. If it's a win-win, everyone plays well together. And you look at Europe, they've been, each country's been ponying up to help Ukraine, and one at a time, and then sometimes together.
- 1:35:55 – 1:41:41
The Global Crises We Can't Afford to Ignore
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the most important thing that's happening in the world at the moment that we haven't talked about, Dr. Sarah Paine?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Wars are negative sum. They destroy wealth incredibly rapidly. The only infinite game positive sum world order is a maritime. It's maritime because, what is it, ninety percent of the world's trade goes by these oceans. This is how you-- The wor-world's original network that reaches everything are these seas, right? A container ship will take twenty-one thousand containers, whereas a choo-choo train, I don't know, six hundred if you're l- containers if you're lucky. Yeah, this is the efficient way to get things around. As flawed as international institutions are, um, they are the feasible thing that avoid this. If you get into this, it's all over. So better to build institutions. And if you can't reform the UN to make it better, then you create a parallel institution, and then y-your government gradually says, "Hey, we're not, no longer doing the office in New York City. We're moving to whatever this new one is." All right, you care about Uyghurs? This is, uh, the Chinese practicing genocide. When Xi Jinping came to power in two thousand twelve, uh, by the next year, he was summoning his experts on the Soviet Union to say, "Well, what happened?" 'Cause the last thing the Communist Party of China wanted is to go the way of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And what they told him is that the Soviet Union had been organized on the basis of ethnicity, and what the Russians had always had a Russian who ran each of these places and the ministries and things within them, but then the number two would be the token number two, and then they would sponsor all kinds of dictionaries in the Uzbek language, and you could do your folk dances and your embroidery and all that stuff. And while the Soviet Union was holding it together, it looked great. But when it shattered, it meant it was really easy for it to shatter on these ethnic lines. And Xi Jinping, I suspect that explains his genocide of all the Muslims. And in the Uyghurs, what he's done is he's put the men into concentration camps, the children into what this country used to do to Native American children. It's terrible, putting them onto these schools where you're, you're creating, it's, it's cultural genocide. You're bringing them up to be like honorary white people. And so they're bringing up these kids to be honorary Han. And then the women, I don't know, white slavery, whatever it is, uh, 'cause China's got a shortage of women of childbearing age.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You've written so many fantastic books. I've got seven of them here. I'm gonna link everybody to your lectures, um, online, the full-length lectures online. So if you're listening right now, you can see a link below to Sarah's full-length lectures, all fourteen of them?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
No, there's seven. Well, there are other things that people have posted. It would be the Sarah Paine Lecture Series, and you can see the logos on top.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, yes. Seven.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
They have this kind of look to them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
And they start with zero, and then they go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then there's finale. So there are nine total.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What an interesting time to be someone who has your experience in education. How does that feel? I mean, you studied this your whole life, and now it's the topic of conversation.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Well, when I was a little younger than you, I thought I want to learn about Russia and China.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
It'll take me a long time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why did you care?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, because I'm born in fifty-seven. That's the year Sputnik went up. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sputnik being the rocket
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
... yeah, this, um, satellite where the Russians put a little dog who, uh, was on a one-way trip. [laughs] They sent Laika up there. And, uh, and the United States was terrified because this meant that the, the Russians could eventually have ballistic missiles coming after us, and we were behind on all that. And that's when, uh, the Cold War, so you could ar-argu-- You can pick your year when you think the height of the Cold War would be, but that might be one of them. So that's the year I'm born, and I grew up where everyone's talking about Russia being the evil empire and curious about that and growing up as a little kid during the Vietnam War and then, uh, watching that unfold poorly. And I thought, "Well, I wanna learn more about this."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Sarah Paine, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next, not knowing who they're leaving it for.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Oh, no.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the question left for you is, what makes you emotional?
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
What makes me emotional? Sorrow. Watching, sorrow watching other people suffering. Watching children suffering. Why should they? We have adults that are willing to allow tremendous numbers of children to suffer. Like, go back to the Republicans. You need to make it better for children, for the generations that follow. So you lose the next election. Do the right thing. It's past due. Don't support Cotton Ellis. And I'll say it o-over and over again. What is more important than the generations that follow? Nothing. So do something for them instead of grifting.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Sarah Paine, thank you so much.
- SPDr. Sarah Paine
Thank you for having me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
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