"Diversionary wars can happen, but they are not terribly common. It would be extremely unlikely for any government to initiate a major conflict because it wants to distract its people from domestic problems."
There is a country that you may have heard of called the "United States".
> Diversionary wars can happen, but they are not terribly common. It would be extremely unlikely for any government to initiate a major conflict because it wants to distract its people from domestic problems. For one thing, a major conflict would almost certainly exacerbate their country’s economic and social problems by putting the country under intense strain. Unless the war is a minor campaign against a much weaker state, there is no reason to assume that the war will be either quick or successful. In most cases, it is unlikely that starting a war would benefit the leadership or the regime. Even a successful minor war might not be very useful for the leadership because the stakes are so insignificant.
The counterpoint to this is that...this is more or less how things have played out with Russia and Ukraine. There was no rational reason for Putin to wage war on Ukraine. It's not totally clear what Putin's "reasoning" was, but it seems to have been some combination of (an attempted) political diversion and genuinely destructive beliefs about the relationship between Russia and Ukraine.
The analogy with China and Taiwan is fuzzy and imperfect, but it's not a totally insane comparison to make.
There are obvious distinctions between Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan, some of which point in both directions in terms of the "would China start a diversionary war" question. On the "yes" front, China views Taiwan as genuinely as part of China, similar to how some Russians view Ukraine as illegitimately independent. Also, despite the fact that an invasion was clearly a terrible idea, Russia ignored that evidence (or didn't care) and did it anyway. (Similarly, any clear-eyed observer could have predicted Iraq would be a bad idea for the U.S., and yet, we did it -- although this wasn't a political diversion, just a stupid and deadly whim of a President.) So states do go to war for bad reasons. We shouldn't assume China would never do this.
The biggest point in the "no" column, AFAICT, is the point you raise about China not having a recent history of having picked fights. Russia has had a history of picking fights, whether as political diversions or just out of perceived pride or power projection. Syria, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2014 (and arguably Chechnya) all preceded Ukraine in 2022. In this light, Russia seems like a genuinely more unstable player than China, and we can more reasonably assume China would be more cautious about starting a war.
I definitely agree that, regardless of what we think of the odds of China starting a war, the U.S. should proceed cautiously and try to reduce tensions were practical rather than inartfully or unintentionally stepping into a conflict that will likely have no winners.
"Diversionary wars can happen, but they are not terribly common. It would be extremely unlikely for any government to initiate a major conflict because it wants to distract its people from domestic problems."
There is a country that you may have heard of called the "United States".
“It’s almost as if they reached their conclusions about what they think the Chinese government is going to do first and then worked backwards.”
Too kind.
> Diversionary wars can happen, but they are not terribly common. It would be extremely unlikely for any government to initiate a major conflict because it wants to distract its people from domestic problems. For one thing, a major conflict would almost certainly exacerbate their country’s economic and social problems by putting the country under intense strain. Unless the war is a minor campaign against a much weaker state, there is no reason to assume that the war will be either quick or successful. In most cases, it is unlikely that starting a war would benefit the leadership or the regime. Even a successful minor war might not be very useful for the leadership because the stakes are so insignificant.
The counterpoint to this is that...this is more or less how things have played out with Russia and Ukraine. There was no rational reason for Putin to wage war on Ukraine. It's not totally clear what Putin's "reasoning" was, but it seems to have been some combination of (an attempted) political diversion and genuinely destructive beliefs about the relationship between Russia and Ukraine.
The analogy with China and Taiwan is fuzzy and imperfect, but it's not a totally insane comparison to make.
There are obvious distinctions between Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan, some of which point in both directions in terms of the "would China start a diversionary war" question. On the "yes" front, China views Taiwan as genuinely as part of China, similar to how some Russians view Ukraine as illegitimately independent. Also, despite the fact that an invasion was clearly a terrible idea, Russia ignored that evidence (or didn't care) and did it anyway. (Similarly, any clear-eyed observer could have predicted Iraq would be a bad idea for the U.S., and yet, we did it -- although this wasn't a political diversion, just a stupid and deadly whim of a President.) So states do go to war for bad reasons. We shouldn't assume China would never do this.
The biggest point in the "no" column, AFAICT, is the point you raise about China not having a recent history of having picked fights. Russia has had a history of picking fights, whether as political diversions or just out of perceived pride or power projection. Syria, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2014 (and arguably Chechnya) all preceded Ukraine in 2022. In this light, Russia seems like a genuinely more unstable player than China, and we can more reasonably assume China would be more cautious about starting a war.
I definitely agree that, regardless of what we think of the odds of China starting a war, the U.S. should proceed cautiously and try to reduce tensions were practical rather than inartfully or unintentionally stepping into a conflict that will likely have no winners.