June 22, 1941, became the day Adolf Hitler executed the military operation he had dreamed of for more than eight years,

the campaign to destroy Bolshevism and turn Eastern Europe into a German colony.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 345, Operation Barbarossa.

All the way back in episode one, I identified ten great powers in the world of the early 20th century.

After the First World War, I struck two of them off the list,

Austria, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire.

That leaves eight.

In the world of 1941, one of the eight, France, is defeated and occupied.

Two others, Germany and Italy, are allied as the Axis.

So that leaves us with six, let's call them, power blocks.

In 1941, people are still used to the idea that the Royal Navy is the world's indisputable

master of the seas, and that Britannia rules the waves.

Why does Britannia rule the waves?

Because Britain is the center of a global empire, the pieces of which can only communicate

and trade over the seas. By 1941, the United

States Navy has reached something like parity with the Royal Navy, but this doesn't matter much because

the U.S. and the U.K. see eye to eye on most international issues and have been maintaining cordial relations for going on a century now.

The U.S. and the U.K. have an implicit naval alliance

in support of free access to the world's oceans

for the purposes of trade.

The fact that Britannia rules the waves, or maybe we should say Britannia and Colombia jointly rule the waves,

has important economic consequences for the other four power blocks.

...