Sarah Paine: belief

Transcript context

…The larger thing I'm trying to get at is this. In the immediate term, it seems like the thing that mattered in World War II was the fact that the United States was outproducing all the Axis combined in planes and munitions and tanks. Who is in a comparable position today? You'd say it's China. Over the long run, perhaps we can cobble together a coalition which over many generations reduces China's growth or ability to compete. But I'm not even confident that the coalition would center around the United States rather than around China. Not today. No one's centering around us right now because we're not playing nicely with allies right now. Rather, I think you will find that there are many countries that are eager to follow the Chinese model for development. They have cheaper labor now, places like Vietnam. India has also been doing all sorts of things. My impression with India is that one of India's problems is that it needs better infrastructure. There are investments going on in that. There are many other people in the world who are interested in making money. They've watched how China did it. You can emulate that. If China is foolish enough to do Taiwan, these will be the long term ramifications. It's a mistake. As annoying as other countries are, it's better to just argue with them at international institutions. China has a big presence at these international institutions and should be able to get others to go along with however it wants to change rules. Do it that way. If they're going to do it the Putin way, you can look at it, it's negative sum and they will get a timeout from the global order. Ever since the Industrial Revolution introduced compounded economic growth, this continental solution is a mistake. It is much better to forget about invading territory, allow the free traffic of people, trade, goods, ideas, and then we'll all grow together. On the general framework of how continental powers should act and how maritime powers should act. I wonder if it's worth even designating the optimal strategy based on your geography. To the extent that you think positive sum trade is better than invading and doing bloody wars, that's true regardless of whether we have a maritime or continental situation.…

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