02-08-2017, 05:03 PM
My main point is that there isn’t, today, a rational reason for China and Russia to engage in a land war, provided both sides maintain adequate conventional forces so as to make a war not a sure thing. You point out that history shows a huge number just such wars. You’re right of course. But this doesn’t address my rational actor argument. The Arabs conquered the Persian Empire and huge chunk of the Byzantine empire. This was hugely profitable for them. Not only that, but it forged an Arab through the use of the cultural innovation of jihad. The Mongols conquered China and then went on the build the largest land empire ever. These are objectives well worth fighting for.
Obviously not all the attempts by nomadic warriors were successful. But the potential for huge reward made such efforts rational. The only defense against such attempts by an agrarian state was scale: large disciplined armies, fortifications, organization etc.. When an agrarian polity had its shit together it had a reasonable chance of dealing with such threats. When it lost its shit, as happened every couple of hundred years (secular cycle) it became a lot more vulnerable.
My point is these wars are rational. They were pursued because they made sense to pursue. Polities governed by rational actors would engage in large-scale wars whenever it made sense, which was often.
In a world of nukes neither side can totally defeat or conquer the other. It is no longer clear that large-scale war makes sense. If this is true then then is less reason to believe China and Russia will decide to go at it, because what would they gain? Of course, this excludes irrational actors like the US or ISIS, which make their wars on a theological basis. But Russia and China do not strike me as such.
Obviously not all the attempts by nomadic warriors were successful. But the potential for huge reward made such efforts rational. The only defense against such attempts by an agrarian state was scale: large disciplined armies, fortifications, organization etc.. When an agrarian polity had its shit together it had a reasonable chance of dealing with such threats. When it lost its shit, as happened every couple of hundred years (secular cycle) it became a lot more vulnerable.
My point is these wars are rational. They were pursued because they made sense to pursue. Polities governed by rational actors would engage in large-scale wars whenever it made sense, which was often.
In a world of nukes neither side can totally defeat or conquer the other. It is no longer clear that large-scale war makes sense. If this is true then then is less reason to believe China and Russia will decide to go at it, because what would they gain? Of course, this excludes irrational actors like the US or ISIS, which make their wars on a theological basis. But Russia and China do not strike me as such.