Brush Fire Wars

Global Conflict in Context

Sicario, Villeneuve, 2015

It’s the new year, which means it’s time for a deluge of annual articles and proclamations that this time the world is truly in flames. This is the year the clock will stop and the international order as we know it will collapse.

It is therefore worth looking at the conflicts and flashpoints in the world to give them proper context.

There is currently only one interstate conflict going on in the entire world—the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It’s not something I want to downplay, as it has seen Russian forces commit massacres for almost two years now.

I am however rather confused as to why people see this as some form of proof that liberalism is unraveling.

While some domestic audiences have grown more weary of supporting Ukraine—the American domestic audience in particular—support for Ukraine has continued.

Numerous defense procurement deals have now been signed between European States and the Ukrainian defense industry that will ensure long-term support. Commitment to continue aid packages from European countries has also not yet fallen off. Democratic leaders have been quite clear that they see Ukraine’s fight against Putin as critical.

The United States for all of our problems also looks increasingly likely to pull together at least one more meaningful aid package before the 2024 election that will provide critical aid to Ukraine.

More generally, I can’t tell what about this war is evidence of a worsening of liberalism. It seems rather difficult to make a case of how Moscow coming under bombardment after losing 300,000 soldiers in a floundering invasion is supposed to be a particularly impressive showing for autocracies.

Russia is now fighting—and slowly losing—a war on their own border. It’s not exactly a resounding case for liberalism coming apart at the frays.

It’s hardly the stuff of the 20th century when Stalinism was advancing into Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s armies marched into Paris, or Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan.

It is of course destructive and horrendous for the Ukrainian lives, and they deserve our full support until their victory. It has exacted an unimaginable toll on innocent people who simply wanted to live in peace in their own country,

But I think if you had told Truman that the greatest challenge to the international system would one day be Russian cities being subject to drone attacks—I suspect that he would take that as a fairly positive sign.

There is of course also the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. Israel’s war in Gaza has been deeply destructive and resulted in grievous loss of life among Palestinian civilians—but I also really fail to see how this is evidence of some broader collapse.

It isn’t as though this is the first round of fighting since the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the context of other wars fought between Israel and its neighbors, this war has been remarkably localized—no Syrian tank divisions are rolling through the Golan Heights. There’s no dogfighting over the Sinai, and nobody has attempted to seize the Suez.

There have of course been limited attacks emanating from militant groups aligned with Iran—except the Houthis—have all fallen well short of the violence that had been seen even 5 years ago during the Syrian Civil War.

As for the Houthis? Yes, they’re a disruptive threat to shipping in the region, but if the current interception rate of Arleigh Burkes is any indication, they’re hardly a threat to the global order.

I also suspect that given their continued attacks directed towards both military and civilians, they’ve got an increasingly short lifespan. One single restored F-5 is unlikely to secure Houthi air superiority over Yemen.

This turns me towards the last major threat to global stability, a potential Chinese military campaign to seize Taiwan by force.

While I won’t spend time going over why this won’t happen in the short term (they don’t have the sea lift capacity for one), this goes back to the same problem Russia has.

The ongoing strategic competition with China is not some globe-spanning campaign—but it is a competition taking place roughly 100 miles from China’s own shore.

The United States and our numerous allies are tasked with defending the independence of Taiwan, not the entirety of a continent, and certainly not the problem set America had in the Cold War.

We are not facing down the Soviet Union that once controlled a globe-spanning alliance structure that had ideological influence in every continent on Earth. I cannot bear repeating enough that China has exactly one treaty ally in North Korea.

It is also the sort of geopolitical problem that a president like Truman would have been deeply envious of.

I know I’ve pointed this out before as well, but I should make mention of it again here. China in a vacuum is a competitor, but the United States and our allies make up over 50% of global GDP and 60% of global military spending.

It isn’t some cut-and-dry thing where China is a juggernaut rising and conquering all that raises Xi’s ire. In fact, China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy has been largely counterproductive and has pushed East Asian States decisively toward the United States.

China’s aggressiveness has ensured that Beijing will be surrounded by a network of American allies committed to increasing their defense spending for the foreseeable future.

Xi is also still largely content to apply coercive pressure to Taiwan and surrounding nations, but there’s no sense that he is willing to engage in any activities that would trigger an actual conflict. I’m not even particularly convinced the CCP ever actually plans for a real invasion.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t take China’s rise seriously, but it is worth taking account of where they stand in terms of aggregated global power.

There are of course other endemic problems in the world. The Islamic State and Al Qaeda have been resurgent in the Sahel, and still maintain a presence in dozens of other countries. Mexico’s drug war has continued to rage with no sign of abating.

Azerbaijan continues to seek to dismantle Armenia and likely ethnically cleanse any new territories it seizes. Anti-junta forces in Myanmar continue to make progress in overthrowing their military dictatorship, and South Sudan is wracked by civil war and massacres.

This is far from even being an exhaustive list.

These are all deeply serious problems, and will in most cases take years to solve if they can even be solved at all. These types of problems also existed well before 2024. It’s not a new phenomenon in global politics for there to be wars and tensions.

There were ongoing conflicts for the entire period after 1945—none of which heralded the collapse of the international system. In Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Angola, Korea, or a dozen other places the world didn’t collapse in on itself. Why would it now?

The United States in the post-1991 period has secured a global international system that is so overwhelming in terms of power that we now believe that Russia's failure in a war on their own border is a sign of American collapse.

It’s important to keep perspective.