Sarah Paine, a professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College and a leading military historian, discusses grand strategy, the differences between continental and maritime powers, why dictators repeatedly make the same fatal mistakes, and what history reveals about current conflicts in Ukraine and Taiwan.
She defines grand strategy as the integration of all instruments of national power (military, economic, diplomatic, informational) toward national objectives, and argues it is essential—countries that fail to coordinate these instruments, such as Japan in World War II, get into “deep, dark trouble.”
A central theme is the distinction between continental powers (Russia, China, Germany), which think in terms of territorial conquest and control, and maritime powers (Britain, the United States, Japan post-WWII), which prioritize commerce, international law, and naval strength. This framework shapes how each type of state perceives security, wealth, and power.
Grand Strategy and Why It Matters
Grand strategy is not just an ideal—it is a practical necessity for any state pursuing national objectives.
Japan in WWII is a cautionary example: the military dominated decision-making, assassinated civilian leaders who warned of unaffordable war, and failed to coordinate across instruments of power. The result was catastrophic overextension.
In contrast, the U.S. and Britain in WWII benefited from institutional coordination (e.g., the National Security Council, NATO) and from leaders who had lived through the horrors of WWI and were determined to avoid repeating its mistakes.
Democracies have an inherent advantage in grand strategy because they require leaders to hear counterarguments—either through elections or internal debate—whereas dictators double down on bad decisions without correction.
Eisenhower’s decision-making process is a model: he brought all relevant parties together, heard competing arguments, and synthesized them. Dictators like Hitler or Stalin lacked such feedback loops.
The Fatal Mistake: Overextension and “Death Ground”
A recurring pattern in history is that aggressors overextend by putting their enemies on “death ground”—a concept from Sun Tzu meaning a situation where the enemy has no choice but to fight because surrender means annihilation.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, it initially welcomed by some Ukrainians suffering under Stalin, but Nazi brutality quickly turned the entire population into a formidable enemy. The same dynamic is unfolding in Ukraine today under Russian invasion.
Japan’s invasion of China similarly forged Chinese national identity through shared suffering, just as Putin is now forging Ukrainian national identity.
Once a population is placed on death ground, even a militarily weaker opponent fights with extraordinary resolve, making conquest unsustainable.
Poland never accepted partition or genocide; its identity survived centuries of occupation. Similarly, Ukrainians today are unified against Russia in ways they were not before 2014.
Continental vs. Maritime Powers: Two Paradigms of Security
Continental powers equate security with territorial control. They maintain large standing armies, expand borders, and see neighboring states as threats or buffers.
Russia is the archetype: contiguous empire, historically threatened from the north and west, and focused on land borders. Its economy suffers because territorial conquest destroys wealth rather than creating it.
China also follows this paradigm despite its long coastline—its historical threats came from the north, and its strategic culture emphasizes land-based control.
Maritime powers equate security with commerce and rule-based international order. They invest in navies, trade networks, and international institutions.
Britain and the U.S. leveraged oceanic insulation to choose when and where to intervene, avoiding unnecessary wars and compounding wealth through trade.
Since the Industrial Revolution, the maritime model has been far more effective at generating sustained economic growth. Sanctions work not by forcing immediate policy change but by suppressing long-term growth—compare North and South Korea.
The post-WWII international order (UN, NATO, international law) is a maritime construction. It allows small states to thrive under rules that protect sovereignty, and it has enabled massive global prosperity.
This order is win-win: states join voluntarily, influence its evolution, and benefit from stability. It contrasts sharply with the zero-sum logic of continental empires.
Why Germany and Japan Lost WWII Despite Early Success
Hitler’s early successes (Blitzkrieg, Anschluss) were followed by hubris and overextension. He could have stopped after uniting German-speaking peoples (post-Anschluss, ~1938), but his genocidal ideology made further aggression inevitable.
Once he invaded Poland, Britain entered the war. Once he invaded the USSR, he created a two-front war he could not win.
His generals warned against these moves, but without institutional checks, his decisions went unchallenged.
Japan’s pivotal error was attacking Pearl Harbor while already overextended in China.
The U.S. embargo was seen as an existential threat, but the attack united the American public and brought a vastly superior industrial power into the war.
Japan’s military culture made surrender dishonorable, so soldiers fought to the death even when defeat was inevitable. Only the atomic bombs and Emperor Hirohito’s intervention broke the deadlock.
Both regimes continued fighting long after defeat was obvious because their leaders were on “career death ground”—they believed surrender meant execution or disgrace.
The populations were also fed propaganda that the enemy would massacre them, making surrender psychologically impossible even when militarily rational.
Why Some Occupations Succeed and Others Fail
The U.S. occupations of Japan and Germany succeeded because they rebuilt existing institutions from scratch.
Both countries had functioning bureaucracies, educated populations, and strong national identities. The U.S. provided a new constitution (MacArthur’s one-week draft for Japan), land reform, and universal suffrage, which permanently shifted the balance of power.
Post-war generations in both countries, horrified by the war their leaders had started, became “miracle generations” dedicated to peace and reconstruction.
In contrast, Iraq and Afghanistan lacked national identity, functioning institutions, or economic development.
These were not developed countries; building institutions from scratch in the midst of civil war, surrounded by hostile neighbors, was a fundamentally different task.
The locals did not do the bulk of the fighting or institution-building, making sustainable success unlikely.
The Danger of Pivotal Errors and the Case of Ukraine
History is shaped by pivotal errors—decisions from which there is no return to the status quo.
Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, and Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are all pivotal errors.
Putin was getting away with holding Crimea and the Donbass in 2014, but his 2022 escalation united NATO, forged Ukrainian national identity, and triggered devastating sanctions.
NATO expansion was not a provocation but a response to genuine security concerns of Eastern European states with long histories of Russian domination.
The people living in those countries desperately wanted to join NATO and the EU. Denying them membership to appease Russian imperialism would have been both morally wrong and strategically foolish.
The massive improvement in living standards in Eastern Europe since joining the maritime order speaks for itself.
The best strategy is to support Ukraine (where the locals are doing the fighting) while imposing long-term sanctions that depress Russian growth and isolate it from the global order.
The goal is not to march into Moscow but to ensure Russia faces consequences until it changes behavior—just as Germany and Japan were eventually reintegrated into the international community.
China, Taiwan, and the Risk of War
Xi Jinping has clearly stated his intention to take Taiwan, and history teaches that dictators’ public statements should be taken seriously (cf. Mein Kampf).
The CCP’s legitimacy now rests primarily on nationalism, having lost the moral rectitude card (due to corruption) and the economic growth card (due to slowing growth, demographics, and zero-COVID).
An invasion of Taiwan would be a pivotal error: it would level a prosperous democracy, trigger global sanctions, and permanently exclude China from the maritime trading order.
Taiwan’s success is built on land reform, education, and integration into the global economy—policies the KMT could only implement on Taiwan because they were freed from mainland landlord interests.
Taiwan’s per capita GDP far exceeds China’s, demonstrating that authoritarian development models are inferior to open, rules-based systems.
The U.S. should maintain strategic ambiguity to prevent either side from acting recklessly, but must prepare for the possibility of conflict.
The fundamental principle at stake is sovereignty: the idea that large states cannot destroy small ones simply because they are stronger. This principle underpins the entire post-WWII order.
Lessons for Technologists and Modern Strategists
Technology professionals should consider whether their innovations privilege dictatorships or democracies.
Surveillance technology, AI, and IT infrastructure can be used to control populations as easily as to empower them. China’s Belt and Road Initiative often comes with digital authoritarianism packages.
The West developed its technologies within the protective “castle walls” of the maritime order. If those walls are breached by authoritarian expansion, innovation itself is at risk.
Studying history requires linguistic skills, archival research, and openness to reassessing one’s assumptions.
Paine emphasizes reading sources in the original languages, living in the countries one studies, and constantly asking “what am I missing?”
Formal education in strategy (such as at the Naval War College) provides frameworks—like the continental/maritime distinction—that are invisible to self-taught historians.
The most important lesson: wars are easy to start and very hard to end. Every decision-maker should think deeply about the long-term consequences of their actions, because pivotal errors cannot be undone.
