China doesn't seem like it wants to bail out its Russian sidekick in the West. I've noted that history seems to be rhyming a bit. China would court trouble if it went along with that and discovered it had a liability without limits rather than a useful vassal.
Russia was a junior partner to China, at best. Which was humiliating enough given the history of Soviet-Chinese relations.
But Russia had little choice but to play along and buy time.
A short and glorious Russian takeover of Ukraine might have been viewed as a key humiliation of the West and the fracturing of a frightened NATO. Which would enable Russia to pivot to Asia to face China.
But the reality of a bloody and expensive war against Ukraine that has united and expanded NATO foiled that brilliant plan.
I'm not sure what Russia does now--if it has a choice.
But China has choices. Does China learn from Germany's mistake with its little buddy Italy in World War II?
Consider that Italy was an over-hyped military power that was a useful diplomatic ally for Germany before World War II. The Pact of Steel, it was called.
Italy entered the war after Germany invaded France, in an effort to pounce on the corpse. That didn't work out. But at least it was harmless to Germany, which crushed France and the Low Countries, and drove Britain back to its islands.
Italy invaded Egypt but stalled out. The small British counteroffensive routed the Italians. Germany sent a small force to bolster the Italians in an arguably wise and fairly cheap effort. But as the Allies pushed the German-Italian forces back and American and British forces invaded Northwest Africa, the Germans belatedly pushed large forces into Tunisia just in time to be captured in an enclave cut off by Allied air power.
Italy invaded Greece to demonstrate Italy's prowess and watched its armies get defeated and pushed back into Albania. Eventually that required Germany to conquer Yugoslavia and Greece, requiring large garrisons to hold against partisans and potential Allied invasion.
And Germany had to bolster Italy's defense of the Italian peninsula against Allied invasion, eventually having to take over complete responsibility once Italy defected to the Allied side. One can argue the Allies tied down more of its own troops there than Germany had to deploy. But the Allies had sufficient troops for the Western front, too.
And you can hardly argue that Germany wouldn't have been better off if Italy had simply remained neutral for the entire war, protecting Germany's southern flank at little cost. Germany could have trained Italians and provided some military technology to keep Italy a target that looked too strong to take on to get at Germany.
That's what China faces now, although with geographic distance to change the dynamics.
Yes, Russia plunged into Ukraine. Perhaps thinking this would diminish the shiny new superpower glow that China has been casting, and give Russia some protective glory, too. Russia is back, baby!
But Russia wrecked its propaganda-enhanced image by actually testing that military against Ukraine.
Russia is stuck in the west even if it defeats Ukraine against a revitalized and alarmed NATO rather than having a meek and de-fanged NATO flinching every time Russia waved its nukes at the West.
And so Russia cannot easily pivot to face China. A China that now knows Russia is too weak to stand in China's way. And which needs China so much more after burning its bridges to the West.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
