Carving up the world into spheres of influence will not produce peace, I argued not long ago. I ran across a good essay on how empires throw elbows in a low level war in between bigger explosions. So yeah, my point stands.
This is quite interesting in a realm beyond my routine interests:
Premodern empires often existed in a semi-permanent state of war with their neighbors: low-grade raiding and counterraiding by border troops, punctuated by occasional large-scale operations or truces. Although territory could and did change hands, there was far less chance of a catastrophic defeat or victory between powers of sufficient size.
Such was the state of affairs that existed between Byzantium and various Arab powers for over 300 years. From the time of the first Islamic conquests until the Byzantines finally pacified the border area in the 10th century, warfare predominantly consisted of raids on an occasionally enormous scale. The intensity of the fighting ebbed and flowed, punctuated by occasional truces, but any peace was only temporary; for the better part of those three centuries, war was the rule, not the exception. ...
The Arabs’ ultimate aim was nothing short of Constantinople itself.
Who enforces the sphere boundaries and makes sure sphere-holders don't expand? A global government? Are we committed to support the Russians and Chinese in suppressing dissent? Are we obliged to send refugees back to the camps that await them?
Or do we simply pretend unrest doesn't happen? Will we censor news from abroad so we aren't disturbed by a Prague Spring? Or a Tienanmen Square? Or tearing down the Berlin Wall? Or a Hong Kong Democracy Movement?
What prevents sphere holders from using sub-conventional war levels of aggression ("gray zone" or "hybrid war") to expand notwithstanding the war-ending deal? I mean, the Budapest Memorandum deal defined a border with Russia at Ukraine's border, no? Britain’s deal with China defined a temporary border of freedoms for Hong Kong. Neither autocratic regime wanted stability or peace with those narrow deals to divide up just part of the world into spheres of influence.
Isn't this kind of global deal a "frozen conflict" on a planetary scale that will periodically thaw out violently?
The initial author describes exactly my rejection of the stubborn notion that peace will follow from spheres of influence.
Face it, there is no easy way to escape the ugly burden of dealing with hostile and often evil enemies who seek our ultimate defeat.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!
NOTE: I recycled the image from my Substack essay cited.
