GEOPOLITICS, LESSONS FROM THE COLD WAR, AND THE WAY FORWARD

This session will start with the geopolitical cards dealt to the United States, Russia, and China. While the United States and its partners and allies are attempting to maintain a maritime global order to foster trade, China and Russia are great continental powers increasingly fixated on dominating territory. These differences have precipitated a Second Cold War. The second section will examine how the democracies won the First Cold War without fighting a hot war by turning to the conclusions of those on both sides who oversaw its end. The final section will suggest some possible ways forward based on the geopolitical hand that the United States holds, the potential strategies that such a hand can support, and the strategies that proved most fruitful the last time around.

SPEAKER: SARAH PAINE

William S. Sims University Professor, U.S. Naval War College

Sarah C. M. Paine is William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy in the Strategy & Policy Department of the U.S. Naval War College. Nine years of research in Australia, China, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan form the basis for her publications: The Japanese Empire (Cambridge, 2017); Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 (Cambridge, 2012, Gelber prize longlist; Leopold Prize and PROSE award for European & World History), The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 (Cambridge, 2003), and Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier (M. E. Sharpe, 1996, Jelavich prize). She has also written: Nation Building, State Building, and Economic Development (edited, M.E. Sharpe, 2010); Modern China: Continuity and Change 1644 to the Present, 2nd ed. (co-author with Bruce A. Elleman, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); and five naval books: Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-Strategies 1805-2005, Naval Coalition Warfare: From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theaters of Naval Warfare, Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009, and Navies and Soft Power: Historical Case Studies of Naval Power and the Nonuse of Military Force (all co-edited with Bruce A. Elleman, Routledge, 2006-11; Naval War College Press 2014-15). Most recently she co-edited with Andrea J. Dew and Marc A. Genest, From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution (Georgetown University Press, 2019). Her degrees include: BA Latin American Studies, Harvard University; MIA Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs; certificates from both the East Asian and Russian Institutes; MA Russian, Middlebury College; and PhD history, Columbia University. She is currently working on a history of the Cold War from 1917-1991, and three edited books on fleets in being, sanctions, and World War II Pacific.