The Geopolitics and History of Continental and Maritime Power - S.C.M. Paine
What this covers
S.C.M. Paine Strategy & Policy Department, U.S. Naval War College The Geopolitics and History of Continental and Maritime Power: China, Russia, Britain, the United States and Japan
Discussant: Danny Orbach, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Wed, June 9, 2021, 16:30-18:00 Israel time (GMT+3)
Part of the Departmental Seminar series for Spring 2021
Source description (no synthesized summary yet).
Payne argues that geographic position fundamentally determines whether states pursue continental (land-based, territorial) or maritime (ocean-based, commerce-focused) grand strategies, and this distinction explains different foreign policies, alliance systems, and historical outcomes across great powers.
- Continental powers prioritize defense against multiple land neighbors through territorial expansion and exclusive zones; maritime powers prioritize access to global markets and commerce through naval dominance and alliances
- The industrial revolution shifted the basis of power from land to commerce, making exterior maritime lines of communication more valuable than interior continental lines, destabilizing traditional continental empires
- Maritime powers create positive-sum trading systems with international institutions; continental powers pursue zero-sum territorial conquest, leading to different wealth outcomes and strategic stability
This asset isn't compiled yet
You're seeing its claims, ranked. Compile it to build the argument threads, weight them, and check each claim against your library — the full view.
Maritime powers maintain stability through sanctions, embargoes, and containment rather than military conquest, which works by shaving 1-2 percentage points off a rogue state's annual economic growth—invisible in any given year but producing compounding effects that create massive wealth gaps over decades (as seen between North and South Korea).
“why and we all know about compounded growth it's great right um but there's also the compounded growth that fails to happen this is the invisible stuff is that if you just shave off a percentage or two of growth on a particular country because you sanction them they still get goods in but there it's more expensive that has fabulous compounding effects just take a look at the difference between north and south korea today and you can kind of get the the idea”
The continental world of warring spheres of influence is 'negative sum' because in territorial warfare, goods get damaged in the fighting—whatever the loser's loss is becomes damaged goods, making the winner's win a partial loss; the maritime world by contrast enables 'positive sum' transactions where trade makes both parties better off, trade requires trust (you won't ruin your customer or they won't return), and international law facilitates trade by minimizing transaction costs; maritime powers focus on trade and markets rather than territorial confiscation, avoiding the 'headache' of running other people's businesses
“the continental world of warring spheres of influence and um subverting your neighbors is negative some why because if you're fighting about territory the goods get damaged in the fighting...the maritime world is all about positive some transactions that once you get the industrial revolution in and more people on board with international law then you can do trade where the last thing you want to do is ruin your customer...it's got to be a win-win or there's no such thing as a customer”
The Suez Canal's construction reduced transportation costs by sea dramatically compared to overland routes, making oceanic trade the dominant shipping mode and obsoleting the Silk Road economic model—when Egypt blockaded the Suez in 1967 for eight years, shipping companies responded by building larger container ships and routing around Africa, further marginalizing inland trade routes.
“here's another piece of the industrial revolution which is the suez canal and this just wrecks the um the silk road that it's gonna it's just so much cheaper to bring in goods by sea than it is on these inland areas and it just changes how money's to be made money's not to be made by uh leading camels through afghanistan and i'm going to fast forward 100 years to things near you in the six day war uh my understanding is egypt didn't want israel using the suez canal so they put in black ships that's in 67 well they don't clear out the black ships i believe until 1975 that's a long time to close the suez canal so they the egyptians do it for military reasons but let's look at the strategic effects prior to this war uh 90 of the of the world ships are these small things less than 50 000 dead weight tons well and after while the the the canal is closed the shipping companies get wise and they start building these big much bigger ships and ever built before”
The post-WWII institutional settlement—the UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, NATO, EU, and regional security arrangements—was built by the World War II generation specifically to prevent another great depression and global war, creating a maritime-based rules-based order dependent on maintaining peace and allowing trade.
“the insurance system of this maritime world order is alliances and institutions the world war one generation were incredible here they as young people they fought world war one and then they came home to start their families in a great depression and then they were became the strategic leaders of world war ii and they built a really good series of international institutions to hold the peace president truman in the united states was able to do it despite a really vicious partisan atmosphere with joseph mccarthy doing his witch hunt against communists too bad he couldn't figure out who the communists were but that's a different problem but while truman was president he supported the creation of the u.n the imf the international bank for reconstruction and development the pre pre-predecessor institutions of the world trade is world trade organization and the eu the nato uh the um organization for american states”
Nicholas Spykeman observed that U.S. security depends on sea power because the only way Eurasian powers can threaten the U.S. is by sea, and conversely, the only way the U.S. can project power onto Eurasia is by sea—making allied bases on the Eurasian Rimland essential to American security strategy.
“and he says look at the world the influence of the united states can be brought to bear on europe in the fire and far east only by means of the sea and that's the only way eurasia can get to us it's by sea and this isn't true this is true in spite of the growing importance of air power because the preponderant element of transport is still by sea as it is in our own day so he tells americans that u.s security is a function of sea power and that sanctuary at home is a function of this maritime see”
The Industrial Revolution transformed the basis of international power from land (which produced commodities and provided conscripts) to commerce and industry, making countries that industrialize richer and more powerful than those that do not—compounding effects mean the gap between industrialized and non-industrialized countries becomes unbridgeable over time.
“while napoleon was in action there was a industrial revolution that was occurring in britain so it doesn't get to the continent until the wars settle down and it's been gradually making its way around the world ever since it's based on technological and institutional stage changes in its early stages it was based on steam power industry textiles insurance and banking later stages railways telegraph steamships mass markets armaments general staffs those sorts of things and it up ends the world because it produces compounded economic growth that previously the currency of international power and wealth had been a function of land right land produced the commodities that you could sell and it's from uh rural areas that you're going to get your peasant conscripts to field mass armies well once you get the industrial revolution the money needs to be made from commerce trade industry it's a very different world”
The largest modern ultra-large crude tankers have capacity of 250,000 deadweight tons, while the largest container ships carry over 21,000 containers—dwarfing the capacity of rail transport (which cannot exceed roughly 600 containers per train) and making land-based routes like China's Belt and Road Initiative economically uncompetitive for cargo movement.
“here's here's the data prior to 1960 average tanker sizes were 20 000 deadweight tons today the smallest ultra large crude tankers are a quarter of a million dead weight tons if you want to use a belt road thing i guess you'd have to be shipping down pillows or something but the largest train you're going to get through is going to have about 600 containers and even if i'm off slightly there's no way it's going to come close to the largest container ship which is over 21 000 containers”
The historical precedent from Latin American responses to U.S. infrastructure lending shows that countries will eventually nationalize infrastructure assets rather than continue making payments, making China's Belt and Road model vulnerable to the same dynamics.
“i remember back i'm old enough to remember uh when the latin americans got sick of the united states with a variety of infrastructure and other things that we wanted to keep making money on at the same rates they said no you're not it's nationalized good luck with it try occupying all of south america and see how that goes for you”
Payne argues that the key to maritime order success is 'the transportation and then the willingness of people to cooperate with each other instead of killing each other'—transportation makes trade possible, but cooperation is a choice: 'we can make money if we stop picking on each other'—cultural acceptance (different utensils, foods, customs) is irrelevant: 'you eat with chopsticks i can deal with that i don't like chopsticks i'm doing forks who cares'
“i think it's the transportation and then the willingness of people to cooperate with each other instead of killing each other is another key of understanding we can make money if we stop picking on each other and it's okay you eat with chopsticks i can deal with that i don't like chopsticks i'm doing forks who cares”
Britain's island location allowed it to avoid maintaining large standing armies (unlike continental powers), giving it relative prosperity to invest in commerce and a large navy, creating a virtuous cycle where time worked in Britain's favor during the Napoleonic Wars—while continental powers exhausted themselves in land warfare.
“the british had this wonderful island location so while their neighbors all have to maintain large standing armies britain alone doesn't have to do that and it has relative prosperity so it can focus on making money from trade it's got to have a big navy and that that big navy is going to ensure that it drowns invading armies at sea it's going to use its naval dominance to make sure no one gets to britain but if everybody in europe is busy destroying wealth at a clip trying to kill each other and britain is off making money with these colonies and other things time joins britain's side it can't it gets richer and richer while other people aren't”
Japan was a model developing country in the 19th and 20th centuries, rising from isolation to become one of the Group of Seven richest industrialized democracies, yet ended World War II with class A war criminals on trial—a paradox explained by Japan's misunderstanding of its own geopolitical position.
“japan was the model developing country in the 19th century and in the 20th century and now japan sits among the group of seven of the the richest industrialized democracy so what on earth happened uh back in the day when the british were doing their little gumbo dunk diplomacy number in china the united states did likewise to japan when commodore matthew perry u.s navy started bombarding the japanese coastline”
A questioner addresses command of the commons in oceanic and spatial contexts: in the oceans, 'no one ever commands the oceans the way you can command territory because your ship's only at a place for a few moments and then it moves on'; this distinction (command of the commons vs. denial of the commons) applies to oceans as commons, air as commons (for flying), space as commons, and cyber as commons, creating conceptual continuity across different domains
“you can think of command of the commons or denial of the commons and actually no one ever commands the oceans the way you can command territory because your ship's only at a place for a few moments and then it moves on...you can look at the oceans as commons the air for flying planes as commons space as commons and then you can look at cybers commons”
The United States occupies a curious geopolitical position: acting initially as a typical continental power (invading Canada twice, proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine), but preferring checkbook diplomacy over military conquest, purchasing territory (Louisiana, Alaska) when financially feasible while using large armies only when diplomatic purchases failed.
“the united states acted like a typical continental power uh we invaded canada twice in 1775 in 1812 the british won those things and then when president monroe is in office he proclaims the monroe doctrine which is a classic continental power spheres of influence stay away from my neighborhood kind of doctrine of course the united states couldn't enforce it never mind it was a nice thought monroe uh negotiates with the british and spanish empires to straighten borders in the north and get florida in the south but unlike a typical continental power the united states preferred checkbook diplomacy to the mast army approach so when napoleon bonaparte was short of cash that's when the louisiana purchase is made when alexander ii of russia is short of cast that's that's when the united states buys uh alaska”
When Commodore Matthew Perry bombarded Japan's coast with his black ships in the 19th century, Japan responded not merely by seeking modernization (importing technology) but by pursuing full westernization—reforming civil and military institutions, education, judiciary, finance, and politics—which culminated in the Meiji Restoration and a new constitution, positioning Japan to renegotiate unequal treaties with Britain within ten days.
“the japanese went a step further and said you've got to do westernization as well as much as you can't stand these people you've got to westernize a whole series of civil and military institutions and here's what they did as they looked around the world they decided that japan to protect its national security had to become an empire”
Alfred Thayer Mahan identified six prerequisites for a maritime power: a protective moat (natural security), a dense internal transport grid, reliable egress by sea, a commerce-driven economy, a dense coastal population producing and trading goods, and stable government institutions that promote commerce and fund navies.
“he is emphasizing maritime power and what kind of a country you need to be to have a maritime foreign policy which i'll get into and he said there are three six prerequisites you have a moat basically some kind of a security so that your immediate neighbor doesn't come in and just walk across the border and attack you secondly you need a dense internal transport grid you got to get the goods out in peace time you need reliable egress by sea to get the navy out in wartime you have a commerce driven economy you have you've got to have a dense coastal population to be creating all the goods and getting them out to people and then you need stable government institutions that are going to promote commerce and buy a big navy”
Among the world's great powers, only three nations can defend themselves primarily by sea rather than by land: the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan—a distinction that defines whether a power is maritime or continental and determines its optimal grand strategy.
“this man vice admiral sato tessa toro was one of the most famous important japanese naval theorists he was a president of their naval war college and his book a published book of lectures uh made him really well read in his own country he said look among the powers in the world there are only three that can defend themselves primarily with navy so the uk the us and japan this is a very profound observation”
India's historic non-alignment and wariness of Western involvement is being overturned by China's aggression—China's 1962 invasion of India, border provocations, and missile deployments are driving India into the Quad alliance with the U.S., Japan, and Australia despite India's historical preference for independence.
“india which is this non-aligned country that was really sick of the west right it's colonized sick of a bunch of white people essentially telling them what to do uh like the russians because the russians were decent to them and china is creating uh turning india into an ally of the united states it's not what the united states is doing it's what china's doing”
Cold War conflicts were often fought in the 'inner marginal crescent' (the unstable regions between blocs) rather than directly between superpowers; the peace was 'held for mostly the industrialized countries' while 'much of the fighting is then elsewhere,' suggesting that maritime order institutions held inter-bloc peace at the cost of proxies fighting in peripheral regions
“not all of them uh and much of the fighting is then elsewhere all right but this maritime world is invisible took me 15 years at the war college to to see it has to do with negative objectives...if you look at all the wars of the cold war not all of them but many of them were fought on this inner marginal crescent that the piece was held for mostly the industrialized countries not all of them uh and much of the fighting is then elsewhere”
Hugo Grotius founded international law on the principle that all nations have the right to free navigation and sea trade in the oceanic commons—a concept essential to maritime commercial power and directly opposed to continental power attempts to close off near seas and control trade.
“here you have the founding father of international law hugo gaucho grocious of the dutch republic and he writes in mario libero on free the free seas every nation is free to travel every other nation uh to every other nation and to trade with it are you going to get there by sea and in his law of war and peace he is citing a roman jurist saying to all men belong the use of the sea and then he cites a byzantine recodification of europe of roman law by natural law the following are common to everyone the air flowing water to the sea and in consequence the seashore”
Malcolm McLean's containerization innovation reduced shipping costs from nearly six dollars per ton to less than 20 cents per ton, and standardized container sizes allowed goods to move seamlessly by truck, rail, and sea—this transportation revolution is ongoing and continues to reduce relative to the value of goods shipped.
“this man malcolm mclean he ran a trucking company and he had the idea he was going to load these trucks minus the chassis what we call containers both on decks and below decks on ships and when he does this he reduces loading costs from nearly six dollars a ton to less than 20 cents and very shortly thereafter these container sizes are standardized globally to go one if by truck two if by railcar and thousands if by sea and the cost of transport have just plummeted over the course of this 20th century”
The D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, exemplifies sea power meeting land power, and the fact that most people in the modern West exist as free peoples is fundamentally a result of the success of this maritime-enabled amphibious operation
“here you have seed power meeting land power on june 6 1944 with uh the d-day invasions that made it the fact that most that we're all here has to do with these guys one”
The transportation revolution (containerization, massive tankers, maritime infrastructure) has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, with acceleration particularly evident after the Cold War's end (the growth line 'starts going vertical'). However, the problem for Putin is that this growth is concentrated in countries 'vested in the rules-based maritime order,' not countries vested in extortion, meaning that rejecting maritime order rules makes a nation uncompetitive in accumulating wealth and power
“this transportation revolution has been a miracle for the world it has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and you look at it it just takes off after the end of the cold war that's when the line starts going vertical...the problem for mr putin is that this growth is taking place in countries that are vested in the rules-based maritime order not in countries that are vested in extortion”
Payne notes that the concepts and frameworks she teaches (command/denial of commons, death ground, maritime/continental strategy, etc.) are 'over simplifications but' they help analysts manage overwhelming data through ancient Greek principles of 'analysis (taking it apart) and synthesis (putting it back together)'—these mental models are analytical tools to prevent being 'overwhelmed with it'
“yes they're over simplifications but the alternative is we look at every piece of data and everything and we're overwhelmed with it and the greek sk ancient greece gave us all analysis and synthesis analysis taking it apart synthesis putting it back together again so that's what some of these concepts i've tried to share with you today are about”
China originated from the Yellow River valley and expanded through cycles of consolidation and warfare, displacing or absorbing competing ethnic groups (Zungar, Tibetan, Mongol) through systematized conquest—a pattern of territorial expansion via genocide or cultural absorption that remains embedded in contemporary Chinese statecraft.
“the han originated from the yellow river valley and they spread and they are spread and they built walls and they contorted built more walls they spread some more if i can only make this advance they spread they shrank they spread uh contorted consolidated and a lot of consolidation before the conquest of others this map is the han version of the yuan dynasty the yen are not han their mongols this is disguising the fact that uh the han were subjugated people here's the real map the mongols spread over the course of the 13th century from the east of lake baikal going in concentric rings over the eurasian plain”
The industrial revolution was 'horrific for traditional societies' because countries that had secure territorial strategies suddenly found them obsolete; countries across the world 'still haven't gotten over' this transformation, exemplified by ISIS's revulsion at the modern order; 19th century China was 'appalled by this incoming maritime event' and 'remains profoundly ambivalent about international law and institutions' as a result of the trauma of colonial imposition and loss of territorial security
“it is horrific for traditional societies if you look at the world today and who's rich who's not who's powerful who's not it has to do with who's more industrialized...countries that had perfectly good security paradigms suddenly they don't work anymore an incredibly traumatic event uh that countries across the world still haven't gotten over for instance isis or whatever it's left was left with it uh utterly reviles this sort of world”
Halford Mackinder's 'Heartland' theory identifies the Russian Empire as the citadel of land power, insulated by mountains, deserts, frozen seas, and dead-end rivers that preclude sea access, giving it advantages in strategic defense-in-depth and self-sufficiency, but forcing maritime powers to project power through bases, colonies, and alliances on the Eurasian periphery (the 'Rimland').
“he looks and he goes this is the citadel of land power on the great mainland of the world it is the greatest natural fortress in the world insulated as it is by mountains deserts frozen or narrow seas and rivers that are dead ending into area places that are really difficult to access by seeing wartime and he said this place is impervious to sea power and if you look at it this heartland is insulated not by the sea but from the sea from these formidable geographic barriers however it has an advantage for um russia in that russia has the possibility for defense in-depth strategic retreat that used in napoleonic wars in world war ii and also self-sufficiency but if the maritime world wants to get at this place they can only do it from the shoreline”
The Athenian Empire, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and Dutch maritime republics all exemplify rimland empires focused on trade and commerce rather than territorial consolidation, operating on different logic than consolidated continental empires.
“in the 19th century the atlantic was a busy place it was the center of the world economy these are the wealth producing rimlands that's that mckinder and others and spikemen are talking about and it's a different world it begins in the west anyway i think with the ancient greeks but someone can correct me but you have the athenian empire it's one of these rimland empires all about making money from trade it's very different from the consolidated empires of russia and china here's the roman empire same idea remlands and think about mediterranean the derivation of the word meta middle terranian land so it's the sea in the middle of the lands think about china center kingdom it's the kingdom centered among the kingdom one piece of terminology emphasizes the centrality of the seas the other the centrality the land byzantine empire another rimland empire and then noah for a long time no one controls the complete rimland anymore”
China's 1996 ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) committed it to recognizing 12 nautical miles of foreign maritime rights, yet China claims 200 nautical miles in the East and South China Seas—a direct treaty violation that reflects continental power logic attempting to impose territorial control on maritime commons.
“in 1996 china signed it ratified the u.n law a convention on the law of the sea unclose and by the rules of unclose everyone gets freedom of navigation within 12 nautical miles of everybody else well china says no no no it's 200 nautical miles even though it's signed a treaty that says 12. well in the east and south china sea these numbers matter”
China is taking over strategically important ports globally (Gwadar in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Piraeus in Greece, others in Malaysia) through the Belt and Road Initiative, partly in response to understanding the importance of maritime power and attempting to mitigate the Singapore chokepoint vulnerability.
“i think the the chinese are very aware of the the maritime importance and consequently they are taking over ports like in guadalajara in pakistan building ports in malaysia to counter the choke point in singapore and uh entering europe with uh perease and uh and a multiple of other ports that they're moving into um and so i think they're very aware of the importance of uh of the maritime plus building up their navy”
The presence of China's aggressive territorial claims (200 nautical miles in South China Sea, missile bases aimed at Japan) creates strategic clarity for Japan: Japan is inherently threatened by China regardless of Japanese intentions, making Japan a reliable member of the anti-China coalition.
“japan is inherently threatened by china because china's got all these missile bases aimed at japan when's the last time you thought japan was going to invade anybody i mean really why do you need lots of missiles on japan where are they going to go exactly and then you got australia and you got us and you got india uh china wants to cause problems that's bad news for china”
Vietnam's behavior exemplifies why maritime order works: Vietnam 'immediately told everybody' about new COVID variants it discovered, enabling global response, while China maintains lockdown secrecy about COVID origins, variants, and mortality rates; this difference demonstrates that transparency and cooperation (maritime order principles) enable better collective responses to problems, while information control (continental power logic) creates problems
“vietnam has got some new variant coming around everyone knows about it because they immediately told everybody right so that we can figure out what on earth to do whereas the china has been on a lockdown they won't explain where it came from uh what on earth they knew about it and they aren't talking about it now about mortality rates”
Russia expanded eastward to the Pacific coast following lucrative fur trade routes, using provincial boundaries and military governorships as instruments of integrating conquered territories—a strategy similar to China's use of changing provinces and military regions to homogenize and neutralize incorporated populations.
“moscow russia expands from muscovy and then it takes out the neighboring principalities and there's a very lucrative fur trade that gets them all the way out to the pacific coast so they're like the mongols in reverse they're going east to west but when russians run into counter-availing population centers that's how far they got this is a provincial map of the russian empire it shows you all the provinces they call gubernia a governorates”
Turkey under Erdoğan exhibits a mixed grand strategy combining continental and maritime characteristics: it has significant land territory but also controls critical maritime passages (Straits), and its strategic struggles involve both land power and sea lane domination—an example of a country that does not fit neatly into the continental/maritime binary.
“some countries you can say choose a mixed strategy i'm thinking about turkey um erdogan's turkey has a lot of characteristic which you define according to your criteria as a typical behavior of a land empire and turkey of course controls a very important mass of land but it's also a very it's also a very important maritime power and a much of its struggles is over dominance on sea lanes and natural resources in the sea”
Globally, the majority of wealth is concentrated within a few hundred kilometers of the sea, making maritime geography a prerequisite for participating in the global economy—inland regions and landlocked countries are structurally disadvantaged in the maritime trading system.
“i think it's the transportation and then the willingness of people to cooperate with each other instead of killing each other is another key of understanding we can make money if we stop picking on each other and it's okay you eat with chopsticks i can deal with that i don't like chopsticks i'm doing forks who cares so there is another question in the chat uh does the emerging new space race add some new nuances to continental maritime power and economy categorization it does i think what's interesting to look at this is just some concepts to toss your way um you can think of command of the commons or denial of the commons and actually no one ever commands the oceans the way you can command territory because your ship's only at a place for a few moments and then it moves on and who knows they're coming coming next but that's a an interesting thing that you can apply to commons of all varieties so you can look at the oceans as commons the air for flying planes as commons space as commons and then you can look at cybers commons and i know there's a counter argument for cyber it all goes through these transoceanic cables that's not common some company owns it for the user for the user it appears like a commons and i think it's conceptually interesting thinking about them in this way it's not all all the same and um yeah space i mean like we're gonna do we're gonna go climb planets uh who knows but yeah i think it's worth thinking about in terms of uh sharing these things ex uh not sharing these things but that you're very much on exterior lines when you're talking about using commons that is a a key discriminator over so more questions yeah wrote them hi uh thank you very much for this talk i was wondering if you had what is your take on the indo-pacific uh concept that everyone is talking about these days”
China's handling of COVID-19 demonstrates regime-protective behavior: suppressing information, refusing transparency about origins and mortality rates, and blocking international investigation—behavior consistent with authoritarian continental powers prioritizing regime survival over public health.
“vietnam has got some new variant coming around everyone knows about it because they immediately told everybody right so that we can figure out what on earth to do whereas the china has been on a lockdown they won't explain where it came from uh what on earth they knew about it and they aren't talking about it now about mortality rates i don't believe these variants are not hitting china”
Maritime power strategy depends on negative objectives (preventing things from happening) rather than positive objectives (making things happen), which makes maritime successes invisible—if the navy prevents trade destruction and territorial expansion, it appears nothing happened rather than a strategic victory occurring.
“this maritime world is invisible took me 15 years at the war college to to see it has to do with negative objectives why it's invisible i'll get there that the connell world is all about positive objectives positive objectives are making things happen so i'm going to take territory i take territory you see i get it a negative objective is about preventing something from happening so if you prevent something from happening who knows whether anything was even happening right oh you're taking credit for something no one even tried to do so this connell world's all about positive operational objectives of beating people up and destroying wealth at a rapid clip but it yields a really awful strategic objective of poverty you're just wrecking people it's a bad outcome the maritime world is actually a lot of it it's about negative objectives of preventing people from wrecking things”
World War II casualty data reveals a sharp divide between continental and maritime powers: continental powers (Germany, Soviet Union, China, Poland) suffered military deaths in the millions; maritime powers (Britain, United States) suffered far fewer. Adding civilian deaths amplifies this disparity, with continental powers losing millions more civilians than maritime powers—a reflection of fighting on home terrain.
“so you got 3.2 million dead germans one half million japanese one a third of a million italians but now let's look at the deaths of the allied land powers just military deaths so it's eight and a half million russians a million polls 1.3 million chinese a third of a million frenchmen oh and by the way france wasn't exactly in that war that long well add in britain in the united states and by some statistics you might disagree with these statistics but by some statistics britain and the united states take fewer military uh deaths than either italy or um france and if you add in civilian deaths the numbers become even more skewed they hardly budge from the maritime power but look what happens to germany 7 million dead russia 25 and a half million”
Despite the many problems caused by technological change, the net effect has been massively positive: 'the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is incredible' and 'the number of famines that go on in the world now it used to be endemic it's now rare'; population reduction (fewer children being born) will help address climate problems without requiring coercive measures; the core challenge is managing these changes well, not reversing them
“for all the problems and there are many of them uh the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is incredible um the number of famines that go on in the world now it used to be endemic it's now rare...people aren't having so many children and that may well change just by uh not having that many kids”
When Mahan's six prerequisites are applied to Russia and China today, both fail the test: both have numerous hostile neighbors, lack reliable sea egress, lack commerce-driven economies, lack dense coastal populations, and lack stable government institutions with transparent power transitions—making them structurally incapable of sustainable maritime strategies.
“if i take those prerequisites and i apply them to russia and china today i'm afraid not uh russia and china have more neighbors the two of them than any other countries on the planet and sadly for them most of those neighbors don't particularly like them uh russia's transportation grid is lamentable neither russia nor china has reliable egress by sea just geography means that they are a far more easier to blockade than any of the their likely adversaries are uh uh russia has never had a commerce driven economy and china under xi jinping is busy privileging the public sector and neither one of them has stable government institutions the litmus test for that one is regular and transparent transitions of power and dictator for life does not remotely qualify”
Japan's geopolitical error in pursuing the Second Sino-Japanese War and beyond was adopting a continental foreign policy from an island location—fighting for territorial conquest on the Asian mainland rather than investing in maritime dominance and global trade, which its island geography and sea-defensibility should have dictated.
“the third one the second sign of japanese war brings down the empire uh what happened short answer the japanese got the geopolitics wrong they are were pursuing a continental foreign policy from an island location big mistake”
Continental powers face a security paradox: multiple land neighbors create incentives to expand territorially to create buffer zones and security, but this expansion creates more enemies and instability, leading to cyclical overextension and periodic catastrophic imperial collapse, as seen in the histories of Russia and China.
“now there's a problem with this in the modern era because what you're doing is surrounding yourself with failing states and there are no enduring alliances in this world because the neighbors get it that the hegemonic power just means trouble in the long run also this theory of security offers no counsel on when to stop and there's a tendency for overextension which may well explain the catastrophic implosions that have periodically occurred over the long and bloody histories of russia and china”
Britain developed a coordinated grand strategy for 'elephant hunting' (defeating continental powers) involving six rules: (1) protect trade to fund everything; (2) blockade enemies' trade to weaken them; (3) arm and fund continental allies fighting the main front; (4) create peripheral theaters where sea power has advantage and force the enemy to divide forces; (5) avoid direct engagement with the enemy's main army until very late in the war; and (6) only engage the main army late when the enemy is exhausted.
“rule number one keep the home economy growing whatever you do protect trade because that's where your money comes from that's gonna pay for everything rule number two don't let the elephant forage you've got to close down your enemies trade and you blockade them so they are just stuck and then rule number three is you rent an elephant you go find the continental power most threatened by your enemy and you arm you fund you do everything you can think of for that beleaguered power fighting on the main front rule number five uh rule number four you figure out a peripheral theater that is more accessible to see power than land power that you know your continental adversary is going to fight to hold and the reason you do that it's not only you're going to force them to fight on divided attentions in multiple theaters you are also going to have an attrition rate that favors you versus the person you hate they're gonna lose more than you are”
Geographic position deals you a hand of cards in international relations: maritime powers face different constraints and opportunities than continental powers, creating distinct preferences for market-based versus territorial-based strategies and access-focused versus insulation-focused foreign policy.
“to sum up um there are geographic differences you're you're dealt a hand of cards in life and the discriminators between maritime and continental powers are the inability versus the ability to defend primarily at sea secondly a desire a focus on insulation from versus access to the world and thirdly a reliance on interior versus exterior lines of communication”
Alliances can bestow a collective maritime position on countries that are not inherently maritime by geography—a coalition of aligned countries coordinating diplomacy, military, and financial power creates a maritime power package denied to individual parts—explaining why China faces a countervailing alliance from Japan, India, Australia, and the U.S.
“there's a corollary to this which is alliances can bestow a collective maritime position and power package as all of us talk to each other and uh coordinate not only our soldiers and sailors but our diplomats our financiers our computer technicians etc and this creates this incredible power package to the whole that would be denied to the the parts”
The strategic advantage of maritime powers in war is discretion: a maritime power can choose whether to engage on the main front at all, while a continental power with a neighboring adversary has no choice. This gives maritime powers a critical advantage in timing and theater selection.
“no one in their right mind wants to fight on the home front mean front if there are alternatives if you're a continental power and your problem sits across your border you don't have choices but a mayor for a maritime poor uh power this is an incredible point of strategy it's whether you get involved at all and if you do what's the timing going to be for instance in the cold war maybe the answer is you never have to engage on the main front on the other hand if you win there there are certain advantages for instance the russians paid a really high price but stalin at the end of the world war ii wherever the red army was he kept those places”
Japan in the 1930s-1940s faced strategic choices between army and navy factions pursuing conflicting strategies (continental vs. maritime), and rather than choosing one, political weakness in civilian leadership led to implementation of both strategies simultaneously—causing Japanese military overextension and collapse.
“at least in the case of japan i wonder whether if you really look kind of with a big focus whether a country is actually choosing a strategy because if i'm looking at japan let's say the turn of the century in the thai show period i see a lot of squabbles between the army and the navy and i don't see this moment of choice for example i i this personally interpret the second world war not as choosing the army start army strategies over the navies but actually because of the political weakness of the political establishment in japan they choose to implement both strategies at once and that's why they implode”
China's port investments are problematic because they create treaty ports (99-year leases in Sri Lanka, etc.) that China historically hated when Western powers imposed them, and these ports create debt obligations that vulnerable countries cannot meet—creating a Ponzi scheme where China builds excess capacity in countries that lack economic growth to service the debt.
“the problem with their basing some of it is based on having treaty ports and as i last remember the chinese really hated treaty ports they thought that was outrageous that the west did to them so now they got a 99 year lease in sri lanka and whatever else they're doing these are treaty ports and um they've got a ponzi scheme basically they have way too much um capacity to build for construction because it's been necessary in china until recently so now the solution to that is to build everything for everybody else but to make that viable you got to charge a lot of money but the reason that infrastructure wasn't built in those places is often because there isn't much money to be made so now currently it looks okay except with code i don't think it's going to be remotely okay because everyone has taken such a massive hit and israel like the states is a rich country but most countries aren't like that the hit from covets got to be awful”
Payne responds that frameworks are 'by definition over simplifications but helpful,' and acknowledges the questioner's valid point that there was no single moment of choice for Japan; however, she argues that the maritime framework is valuable precisely for identifying 'negative objectives' (things countries should do but didn't), allowing historians to evaluate not just choices made but choices not made that should have been made
“frameworks by definition are over simplifications but i think they're helpful and you're quite right there isn't this moment when the japanese go okay i got choice a choice b which what's it going to be...the reason i give you the maritime framework is this is me inventing it...what are the choices they didn't make that they should have made and that helps you evaluate stuff”
Continental powers attempt to return to warring spheres of influence, breaking up maritime alliances and institutions—this is Putin's and Kim's explicit strategy, and they represent rogues that maritime powers must corral through coordinated sanctions and strategic containment.
“this maritime continental disagreement continues to the present and i have pictures here of two exemplars of these rogue states um they would be mr fit and misfit uh putin and kim in their native habitat and they want to get rid of international laws they want to bust our alliances they want to break up this maritime thing and return us to warring wealth reducing sears of influence”
China's one-party Communist rule is existentially dependent on Marxist economic theory, which justifies why the Communist Party should monopolize political power—if that theory is not believed, the rationale for one-party rule collapses, creating incentive for the regime to double down on repression rather than liberalize.
“china the communist party has these existential problems which bungling covet is not going to help in the remoteness so yeah the quad is really important and the trick is to try to get china not to fling if you think about uh some of the world war ii generation the states thought one of our key mistakes was not building up our navy to the washington treaty limits these are a bunch of naval limitation treaties that were in the 1920s the united states was busy doing the roaring 20s then we had the depression etc and the argument is if the united states had built a big enough navy it would have deterred japan from ever getting into manchuria because you have to cross the water to get there and that was a huge mistake um i would argue bungling the great depression was probably a bigger one but there are lessons that have been learned that's what the quad is about is about coordinating with each other so that china does not see continental power wants it to pick off people in detail one-on-one uh what you need to do is deliver up packages of allies saying no you need to rethink this don't do this it'll be bad for you for the chinese people the best thing possible is just keep trading with everybody oppa open up let people in let them out chill out hold elections just do what normal people do your party will eventually win if you wait long enough”
Pakistan's primary adversary is India, but Pakistan's economy is declining relative to India, and Pakistan should be trading with India rather than maintaining military competition—however, Pakistan's continental power position makes this adjustment difficult.
“go to india for years and years and years it was a no-brainer pakistan primary enemy of india and vice versa so for the united states that was a major league headache because pakistan and india was never a primary u.s adversary the united states wanted to be friends with both and of course if you're friends with one the other one hates you however once you get bangladesh so pakistan's not as big a problem because india they can't come at india from two actually very inconvenient directions since they weren't contiguous but once that goes away and china has already done the 1962 war which to my mind is a massive strategic blunder they use the cuban missile crisis where russia and the united states are totally preoccupied china comes on in and takes whatever it wants because it wants uh it basically wants a land route to go beat up on tibetans and people in xinjiang that's what their if you look at the highway systems up there that's what all that's about and i've got maps on that i can show you all that um but they make india which was very welcoming to the chinese the chinese um recognized tibet as a part of china they didn't have to do that but they did it to be friendly but once you do that under international law there's no going backwards and so then the chinese come and invade them so then uh india's been having a massive rethink about who is our primary adversary pakistan uh his economy is getting relatively smaller and smaller because they're doing this continental they should actually be trading with india that's what they really should be doing but that's not happening and china is now basically invading uh indian positions on the border instead of talking about it”
In continental power logic, armies exist primarily to protect the ruling regime through internal control, and secondarily to garrison the empire and prevent defections—only tertiarily are they oriented to external border defense, a fundamentally different military purpose from maritime powers whose armies are always designed for expeditionary 'away games' across the sea.
“in this world an army above all is for protecting the ruling regime so when you think people's liberation army it is the praetorian guard of the chinese communist power party its number one job is keep communists on the throne the second job of such armies is to garrison the empire don't allow any defections only thirdly is it at the extreme border offense defense whereas for maritime power armies are always just about to do what are called away games of go crossing a sea on some expedition and going after foreigners”
Sun Tzu's concept of 'death ground' describes a situation where a ruler has no escape route and must fight to the death—Putin and Xi Jinping are in death ground situations where retirement or loss of power means capture or execution, making their behavior more dangerous and less subject to rational deterrence.
“another piece of terminology that we use it comes from one translation of sunza it's done by the samuel griffith translation into english who talks about death ground death ground is when you're in this situation where you're a dead person and your only chance of surviving very unlikely though maybe is if you fight your way out of it and you can look at someone like vladimir putin putin there's no great retirement plan for that guy he needs to stay in place and just kill his way out of it and to stay there i suspect the same thing applies to xi jinping certainly applies to assad where's ant-man going to retire to some will come get him”
China faces a critical choice similar to Japan's in the early 20th century: Japan misread its geopolitical position and pursued continental expansion despite its maritime island geography, resulting in catastrophic failure; China is 'making some very portentious choices' and it is 'unclear whether china gets it right' either; Payne expresses hope that 'the chinese communist party doesn't end its day' like imperial Japan did, and expresses fear that if 'genocide is the answer' to how China deals with ethnic minorities, 'who knows where we're at'
“the great question is what china is going to do at the end of the day and they're in the they're in the position now making some very portentious choices like japan did back in the day...it's unclear whether china gets it either and uh one hopes that the chinese communist party doesn't end its day this way because somehow comes up with an answer that's a little better than this one but if genocide is the answer on how china is going to deal with neighbors then well who knows where we're at”
Regarding the relationship between China's Communist Party and People's Liberation Army: the commissar system (originated by Trotsky for Bolsheviks, adopted by China) pairs a military officer with a political commissar to ensure party control; the commissar reports to secret police if officers deviate, creating powerful party control mechanisms; with China's surveillance state monitoring 1.3 billion people (including children's school behavior to rate social credit), it is 'unclear' whether this control remains effective or has become too data-intensive to manage
“they took the commissar system which trotsky figured out for the bolsheviks...the commissar is the party guide to make sure that guy's doing the shooting does what he's told if not the party guy calls in the secret police...it's unclear with this big surveillance state in fact one of you is asking me a question about it things and this is where can you actually read 1.3 billion people's sets of data they've got these cameras everywhere watching everyone doing everything”
The technological revolution (AI, cyber power, battery technology, space commerce) represents acceleration and diversification of the Industrial Revolution's transformation, creating even faster change and more complex commons (cyber, space) that will require continued alliances and institutional coordination.
“you've described the um industrial revolution as a huge change and i wonder whether the technological revolution that we're now facing changes your analysis right because at least in the areas that i'm dealing with the entire discussion moves towards artificial intelligence cyber power and all of the relevant countries are part of this discussion those are great points and uh it'll be your generation and your children's generation who make these decisions i won't live long enough to see how it evolves but i when i look at the industrial revolution it triggers economic growth and what you're talking and and really rapid changes that prior to the industrial revolution basically the way you live the way your great great great great great whatever it is live is more or less the same and when i think of the changes well my father's life there were horses uh and they eventually the family got a car”