Sarah Paine: belief

Transcript context

…So Japan cannot claim credit for the fact that there were these long-standing issues in Russia which almost brought down the government in 1905. This was a lucky break that they got which forced Russia and the Tsar to reallocate their efforts from the fight. That's a good argument. He might be right. We'll never get definitive answers because you'd have to be in Nicholas II's brain. It's an autocracy. What he decides matters. I dare say if he had been Peter the Great, the guy who tortured his only son to death and suffered numerous setbacks, I doubt that he would have had any problems dealing with rioting Russians. He would have figured out who are loyal units and then just blown away whatever's getting in his way. He would have done his next battle and then when he won that battle the Russian Revolution would have gone away because they would have gone, “See we did it. We got these people.” So Kotkin's argument is a very good one. But to me, Nicholas II’s incompetent leadership is the bigger thing. Then you're arguing about how important the rebellion is and how deep rooted it is and you'll never know. Kotkin could be absolutely right. One of the reasons I gave the counterargument is to get used to understanding ambiguity and appreciating that other people could be right. You may not know. To be clear, I don't want to put words in Kotkin’s mouth so I'll just put them in my mouth. I won't blame him for any errors I make. Another thing that is super interesting in this period is that it potentially helps explain why Japan thought that Pearl Harbor might work. Superficially these two situations seem similar. In both cases you begin with this imminent threat that an adversary of yours is going to gain massive military leverage over you. In the 1904 war with Russia, it’s the fact that the Trans-Siberian Railway would be finished. In World War II, it's the worry that after Japan invades French Indochina, America would do an oil embargo on Japan, giving them one to two years of oil runway before their entire empires collapses and grinds to halt without oil. There's this worry that they have to act now, otherwise they're about to lose their leverage. Then there's this initial surprise attack, of Port Arthur in 1904, and then obviously Pearl Harbor. Even if you look at other battles like Midway and Mukden, we'll have this sort of annihilating battle where we will expend our blood and just push them back. I’m curious to get your take on this interpretation.…

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