"I'm going to talk to you today about one of the  two great generations in modern Japanese history.  They are the Meiji generation,  named after the Meiji Emperor here.  That generation transformed Jap..."

"But if you think about China back in the  day before Japan trounced China in the   First Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese believed that  there was only one civilization, theirs naturally.  They believed..."

"For a while they thought it was communism. Maybe  they still do. So I'm going to ask a question,   why did the Asian balance of power change? Now, spoiler alert, I'll give the answer.  I'm going to sa..."

"to do and the analytical reasons for doing it. Okay, so I have a thesis which I'm going to   give to you in emails and written  work and lectures like this one.  You really help people if you explain ..."

"of Western civilization. This is what the Romans   figured out about institutions and laws, that  this is a way of really harnessing people,   and it's profoundly powerful. I'll go into all of that.  ..."

"So the Japanese, unlike China which fights war  after war with these Westerners trying to defeat   them militarily, and it's unsuccessful. The Japanese say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa,   whoa, we're going to a..."

"If you think about it, this  dichotomy is still with us.  There are a lot of fighters in the Middle East  and North Africa who are more than happy to   use state-of-the-art technology, but the last  t..."

"As a result of doing all of this, the Westerners  had no excuse left for having a treaty port system   because this mirrors what's going on in the West. So Britain, which is the precedent setter   in ..."

"The First Sino Japanese War, to  let you know what happened in it.  It's comprised of two pairs of key battles. There are other battles as well, but this   is a good way to understand it. The first ba..."

"So now my transition sentence,  I've done part number one.  Not only did Japan Westernize its institutions  in order to overturn the balance of power,   but it also mastered grand strategy and  integr..."

"window. Here's why. The Trans-Siberian Railway  in those days, it's not north of the Amur,   it's actually straight through Manchuria. This Chinese Eastern Railway, it's Russia's bid   for empire, try..."

"So if you look at it, Japan's window  of opportunity of getting its empire,   if that's what it thinks it wants… You've  got to have treaty vision in place.  You've got to isolate Russians,  make sure..."

"At the front, the Japanese were secreting  in all kinds of postcards for their Russian   recruits there, showing the great life of the  POW and rather posh Japanese accommodations,   as opposed to the..."

"The US military is really partial  to a Reagan-era acronym of DIME.  D is for diplomacy, I is for information,   M is for military, E is economics. It sounds like a bad cheerleading routine.   It's in..."

"So, I've talked about Japan's Westernization. I've talked about its mastery of grand strategy.  Now here's my third reason for how  they overturn the balance of power.  It has to do with pegging the c..."

"junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In those days that's the Chinese Eastern Railway.  I've only listed a couple of the major  battles, but basically it's going up the   railway system from Port A..."

"to send an army across that if there's  an army waiting for it on the other side.  The Russians also would have realized  that this Fenghuangshan Pass and Motien   Pass—Motien means literally "scratch..."

"get away with it. They win the battle but the  Russians have an organized retreat northward.  At the Battle of Shaho, which happens next  in October, the Japanese supply system almost   collapses but ..."

"They take it at the end of November  and within the week, they are now   sinking all of these battleships. They're gone within a few days.  The Russians give up at Port Arthur and the  3rd Army is up ..."

"have to have a way out of this thing. So it's in the Battle of Mukden that   Field Marshal Yamagata decides it's time  to call the American card at this moment.  He said, "Look, the enemy is never goi..."

"Two weeks later, Nicholas II decides to send his  Baltic Fleet, named for the Baltic where it is,   all the way around to come and  relieve the siege at Port Arthur   in order to avenge all of this th..."

"The Japanese know because…Port Arthur falls  while this expedition is taking place.  So then the purpose of the  expedition is no longer there.  They should have taken a U-turn and gone home. But no, ..."

"The navy had been a product  of a bunch of aristocrats.  The one who ran it was a guy who was known  for, what was it, fast women and slow ships?  It did not work out well for them. While the negotiat..."

"what overturn the balance of power in Asia. Okay, but I promised you a counterargument.  What would a smart person  say who disagrees with me?  Here's a perfectly good counter argument. It's great you..."

"Also the Manchus who ran China, they're only 2% of  the population, were suffering from all kinds of   dynastic decline, which I will get into. China had reached its preindustrial   limits to growth. ..."

"The Chinese like to talk about these as being  rebellions or uprisings. Give me a break.   They're civil wars. A whole bunch of them  want to overthrow the dynasty in Beijing.  A whole other set of th..."

"Manchus are in real trouble themselves. They had ridden to power on these fabulous   cavalries and tremendous operational  success for a people who are only 2%   of the population that they dominate. ..."

"Then the Manchu banner forces that  are the Praetorian Guard of the   Manchus are also sampling the goods. Then you go, why are the last Qing   emperors incapable of producing  offspring or have hardl..."

"Russia has always tried to expand its territory. It is today the largest country on the planet.  Why they need more territory, nobody knows.  But that's what they're after. And these days   what they'..."

"railway. To save on construction costs, it's  more direct going straight across Manchuria.  Contain Japan, stake out its claim to  Manchuria. The Japanese get it. Well,   that was earlier in this lect..."

"Apparently, there were some royal favorites who  thought that they were going to get some lucrative   timber concessions on the Korean border. Okay, let's go into the logistics.  I've never heard ther..."

"For Russia, it's already the biggest country  on the planet and there's nothing really that   exciting out in Asia from their point of view. Maybe for Nicholas II, because he wants   to be a great tsa..."

"clearly can mobilize. Boy, is it doing well with  the loans and all sorts of things. It's using   these institutions. Whereas with Russia,  remember, it doesn't have a legislature.  The Tsar doesn't h..."

"one that goes on their side of the  boundaries not completed until World War I.  I want to double click on what part of the Meiji  reformations exactly helped Japan mobilize for  "

"I want to double click on what part of the Meiji  reformations exactly helped Japan mobilize for   this war. Okay, the population is literate.  You have institutions for having political say.  How exa..."

"Some of their generals, one of them  didn't know what a howitzer was.  One of the guys who's planning  stuff, he can't read maps.  The level of incompetence of having  royal favorites in your officer ..."

"One really interesting takeaway from this  lecture—and I'm curious if you agree with   this—is that when we think about this  period in history, we often think of   Japan as the rising power in Asia. ..."

"because you have the railways running and things. So Russia is a story of misinvestment. Look at it   today. If Putin had taken all of his oil money and  invested it in the transportation grid… Believ..."

"Let me take another different stab at your thesis. Go for it.  It's not Japan's strategic brilliance,  which mainly explains why they won the war,   but rather the fact that Russia could have kept  go..."

"Russia and the Tsar to reallocate  their efforts from the fight.  That's a good argument. He might be right. We'll  never get definitive answers because you'd have   to be in Nicholas II's brain. It's..."

"other people could be right. You may not know. To be clear, I don't want to put words in Kotkin’s   mouth so I'll just put them in my mouth. I won't blame him for any errors I make.  Another thing tha..."

"Even if you look at other battles like  Midway and Mukden, we'll have this   sort of annihilating battle where we will  expend our blood and just push them back.  I’m curious to get your  take on this..."

"When you run one successful war, quite often  you think it was easier than it actually was   and less risky than it actually was. This country does Gulf I where   the allies pay for the whole thing. N..."

"they're incompetent because their  institution building was inadequate."  Well in one generation, you can't do it all. Institutions take generations   to really sink roots. They did as much as they co..."

"It's incredible the number of people  who don't want to change their minds.  That's why I made a big to-do about giving the  argument-counterargument-rebuttal framework,   because it helps get you out..."

"Whereas in the First Sino-Japanese War,  Yamagata is thinking about doing regime   change and the government pulls him out  because it's, "Buddy, don't do that.  We're going to have all kinds of  fore..."

"the power to emulate. First of all, he's the   founding father of modern China. It's one of the few things that   the Taiwanese and the PRC agree on, that  he's the founding father of modern China   a..."

"that it's detonating Confucianism. What's it going to replace that with?  Sun Yat-sen is going to do  nationalism and work it that way.  I think that's the big answer, but you're  quite right that as ..."

"It seems very important to understand. It is, but there's another piece.  China is not really a  unified state in this period.  If you think about what people's  loyalties are, it's to province and pl..."

"But all of a sudden, these Western powers  come and then the Chinese very foolishly   fight in the treaty ports. What they should have done is said,   "Hey, come on in 25 miles and see how you like  i..."

"Today, in the US 50% of government  spending is done at the federal level,   50% is done at the state level. In China, it's 85% at the local   level, 15% at the national level. A big problem recently ..."

"They're thinking these people  are a bunch of nobodies.  Nicholas II had an unfortunate incident in Japan. Who knows whether this influenced him or not.  He does the royal tour  while his dad's still ..."

"of the brutality of World War II. You're thinking of that and thinking,   "If I say nice things about Japan,  I'm endorsing this other stuff."  No, they're two separate  topics, different generations...."

"The counterargument to this technology is that if  the value of the object is high, and if you're an   intervening power messing in somebody else's  country, it may not matter on the technology.  Or i..."

"Speaking of winning, after the war, as you  mentioned, Theodore Roosevelt mediates the   peace treaty between Russia and Japan, and  he wins the Nobel Peace Prize for this.  At least one president get..."

"You've got General Nogi who's  committing suicide over this.  The poem at the very beginning I showed you,  the Meiji Emperor also has this feeling of   sorrow. With wars you start losing. This is  Pu..."

"They're going to get stronger institutionally. What is it Churchill said something about allies?   "The only thing worse than working with  allies is trying to survive without them."  You're better of..."

"and also other people viewing it and going,  "This is what qualifies as American diplomacy?"   Those memories are long-term. It's unwise. Are you game for some audience questions?  Sure. Anonymous ask..."

"which allows everyone in the audience to take  a little piece of plastic called a credit card,   go to any country in the world, pretty  much—I wouldn't go to North Korea,   but most countries—and you..."

"emanates from China. Hubris. This is a human  condition, and the Chinese get a fatal case.  What I'm wondering about is whether this  country has got a fatal case right now.   "We know everything. We ..."

"I believe when WikiLeaks leaked a lot of  their memos and things and the New York   Times was reporting on it, what it revealed was  incredibly accurate reporting of whatever place   they were assigne..."

"Alright, next month we're doing a  podcast with you and Elon together.  Oh, Elon. Oh, lucky me.  That's a whole other thing.  Maybe we should save that for the next lecture. The different varieties of..."