Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with Nick Mulder and Lars Schönander.
Picking the narrative up in 1935, get real in this episode:
- Why the Great Depression, counterintuitively, made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism;
- The difference between autarky and autarchy;
- Whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology;
- Nick’s definition of “temporal claustrophobia,” and what it has to do with Japan ultimately siding with the Axis;
- Parallels between the “ABCD circle” (America, Britain, China, Dutch East Indies) and the semiconductor export controls today;
- Why having an empire was a liability for Britain;
- What sanctions had to do with the Czechoslovaks — even with a larger army — falling to the Nazis;
- How the blockades of WWI differed from WWII;
- And what lessons pro-decouplers should learn from this history of sanctions.
Nick’s book recommendations:
Nick’s excellent book: https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Weapon-Rise-Sanctions-Modern/dp/0300259360
Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mdvyIqrs4
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