International Alliances and Power Dynamics

In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Britain used sea control, peripheral campaigns, and alliances to defeat Nazi Germany during WWII. She then applies this framework to today, arguing that Russia and China are similarly constrained by their geography, making them vulnerable in any conflict with maritime powers (like the U.S. and its allies).

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Timestamps

00:00:00 – How WW1 shaped WW2

00:15:10 – Hitler and Churchill’s battle to command the Atlantic

00:30:10 – Peripheral theaters leading up to Normandy

00:37:13 – The Eastern front

00:48:04 – Russia’s & China’s geographic prisons

01:00:28 – Hitler’s blunders & America’s industrial might

01:15:03 – Bismarck’s limited wars vs Hitler’s total war