Sarah Paine – How Hitler almost starved Britain

In this lecture, 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). 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-ww2 * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-hitler-almost-starved-britain-sarah-paine/id1516093381?i=1000725163932 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6qx346vBRykbtlaINo1LB7?si=dbbcca18accf46e0 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * Labelbox partners with researchers to scope, generate, and deliver the data that frontier models need, no matter the domain. Whether that’s multi-turn audio, action data for robotics, advanced STEM problem sets, or even novel RL environments, Labelbox delivers high-quality data, fast. Learn more at https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh * Warp is the best interface I’ve found for coding with agents. It makes building custom tools easy: Warp’s UI helps you understand agent behavior and its in-line text editor is great for making tweaks. You can try Warp for free, or, for a limited time, use code DWARKESH to get Warp’s Pro Plan for only $5. Go to https://warp.dev/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – How WW1 shaped WW2 00:16:00 – Hitler and Churchill’s battle to command the Atlantic 00:31:00 – Peripheral theaters leading up to Normandy 00:38:03 – The Eastern front 00:48:53 – Russia’s & China’s geographic prisons 01:01:21 – Hitler’s blunders & America’s industrial might 01:15:53 – Bismarck’s limited wars vs Hitler’s total war