THE WAR NO ONE THINKS COULD HAPPEN

While everyone is focused on conflict in the Middle East, with Syria, Iran and Israel as the expected next area of war, the China/Japan conflict has the potential to explode. New leadership in both countries do not want to lose face. There are factions within the U.S. military and government that believe we should put China in their place before they grow more powerful. War is always a function of economic realities. As Japan comes apart at the seams, the U.S. debt grows, and China overbuilds, the potential for war increases. Fourth Turnings always end with a major conflict. Don’t believe it can’t happen. No one expected a Civil War with 600,000 deaths in 1858. No one expected a World War with 65 million deaths in 1935.

Caught in a bind that threatens an Asian war nobody  wants

THIS is how wars usually start: with a steadily escalating stand-off over  something intrinsically worthless.  So don’t be too surprised if the US and  Japan go to war with China next year over the uninhabited rocks that Japan calls  the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu islands.  And don’t assume the war would  be contained and short.

Of course we should all hope that common sense prevails.

It seems almost laughably unthinkable that the world’s three richest  countries – two of them nuclear-armed – would go to war over something so  trivial.  But that is to confuse what starts a war with what causes it.   The  Greek historian Thucydides first explained the difference almost 2500 years ago.  He wrote that the catastrophic Peloponnesian War  started from a spat between  Athens and one of Sparta’s allies over a relatively insignificant dispute.  But  what caused the war was something much graver: the growing wealth and power of  Athens, and the fear this caused in Sparta.

The analogy with Asia today is uncomfortably close and not at all reassuring.  No one in 431BC really wanted a war, but when Athens threatened one of Sparta’s  allies over a disputed colony, the Spartans felt they had to intervene.  They  feared that to step back in the face of Athens’ growing power would fatally  compromise Sparta’s position in the Greek world, and concede supremacy to  Athens.

The Senkakus issue is likewise a symptom of tensions whose cause lies  elsewhere, in China’s growing challenge to America’s long-standing leadership in  Asia, and America’s response.  In the past few years China has become both  markedly stronger and notably more assertive.  America has countered with the  strategic pivot to Asia.  Now, China is pushing back against President Barack  Obama’s pivot by targeting Japan in the Senkakus.

The Japanese themselves genuinely fear that China will become even more  overbearing as its strength grows, and they depend on America to protect them.   But they also worry whether they can rely on Washington as China becomes more  formidable.  China’s ratcheting pressure over the Senkakus strikes at both these  anxieties.

The push and shove over the islands has been escalating for months.  Just  before Japan’s recent election, China flew surveillance aircraft over the  islands for the first time, and since the election both sides have reiterated  their tough talk.

Where will it end?  The risk is that, without a clear circuit-breaker, the  escalation will continue until at some point shots are exchanged, and a spiral  to war begins that no one can stop.   Neither side could win such a war, and it  would be devastating not just for them but for the rest of us.

No one wants this, but the crisis will not stop by itself.  One side or  other, or both, will have to take positive steps to break the cycle of action  and reaction.   This will be  difficult, because any concession by either side  would so easily be seen as a backdown, with huge domestic political costs  and   international implications.

It would therefore need real political strength and skill, which is in short  supply all round – especially in Tokyo and Beijing, which both have new and  untested leaders.  And each side apparently hopes that they will not have to  face this test, because they expect the other side will back down first.

Beijing apparently believes that if it keeps pushing, Washington will  persuade Tokyo to make concessions over the disputed islands in order to avoid  being dragged into a war with China, which would be a big win for them.  Tokyo  on the other hand fervently hopes that, faced with firm US support for Japan,  China will have no choice but to back down.

And in Washington, too, most people seem to think  China will back off.  They  argue that China needs America more than America needs China, and that Beijing  will back down rather than risk a break with the US which would devastate  China’s economy.

Unfortunately, the Chinese seem to see things differently.  They believe   America will not risk a break with China because America’s economy would suffer  so much.

These mutual misconceptions carry the seeds of a terrible miscalculation, as  each side underestimates how much is at stake for the other. For Japan, bowing  to Chinese pressure would feel like acknowledging China’s right to push them  around, and accepting that America can’t help them.  For Washington, not  supporting Tokyo would not only fatally damage the alliance with Japan,  it  would amount to an acknowledgment America is no longer Asia’s leading power, and  that the ”pivot” is just posturing. And for Beijing, a backdown would mean  that instead of proving its growing power, its foray into the Senkakus would  simply have demonstrated America’s continued primacy.  So for all of them, the  largest issues of power and status are at stake.  These are exactly the kind of  issues that great powers have often gone to war over.

So how do we all get out of this bind?  Perhaps creative diplomacy can find a  face-saving formula that defuses the situation by allowing each side to claim  that it has given way less than the other.  That would be wonderful. But it  would still leave the deeper causes of the problem – China’s growing power and  the need to find a peaceful way to accommodate it – unresolved.  That remains  the greatest challenge.

Hugh White is professor of strategic studies at ANU and a visiting  fellow at the Lowy Institute.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/caught-in-a-bind-that-threatens-an-asian-war-nobody-wants-20121225-2bv38.html#ixzz2GHQkrshR